Her Perfect Family(41)

It was decided that she should be given yet more general tests along with complete rest – a couple of weeks of ‘watch and wait’, living with her parents. The idea was that Ed should stay away and they would wait for the results of all the other tests and psychiatric assessments to try to introduce him for a third meeting to see if Laura’s behaviour around him changed.

But things spiralled further. Although Laura had no problem recognising both her parents, she suddenly became suspicious of the family home. She’d lived there from birth. A beautiful sprawling five-bedroom home with a huge attic room which had been Laura’s playroom once. When they were together in England, Laura had shared pictures and stories of the house. The attic had the most wonderful doll’s house. Every birthday her parents gave her more miniature furniture to dress it. Laura loved the doll’s house and she loved the family home.

But in their new nightmare, Laura woke up one day to announce to her parents that she wanted to be taken ‘home’.

Her parents thought she meant back to her marital home – the flat with Ed across Toronto. But she didn’t. She seemed no longer to recognise her parents’ house. Her beloved childhood home.

‘Why have you brought me here?’ she asked. ‘It’s not your house.’

In despair, her father decided to try an experiment. One of the doctors had already mentioned the rare condition Capgras Syndrome which was on the long list of possible conditions that could be afflicting Laura. But it was so rare as to be considered highly unlikely. Nevertheless Laura’s father, and Ed too, had done a lot of research. Laura’s father David had found one suggested theory that driving the patient back to the ‘right place’ or the ‘right person’ sometimes worked by tricking the brain to reset. So he drove Laura a few miles in circles, telling her that they were going home.

Sure enough, when they returned to their same house, she seemed at first to recognise it. But this only lasted about half an hour. When she moved into the kitchen to make a cup of coffee, she again suddenly protested that it was not the ‘right house’.

Why am I here? I need to go home.

David was now at a loss and tried desperately to reassure his daughter. He tried to show her familiar things. Look – here’s your favourite mug, Laura. Look at it.

But Laura picked up the mug and threw it at him. She then began to smash other things in the kitchen, crying uncontrollably.

Eventually, she barricaded herself in her bedroom, clearly terrified. The family doctor had to be called out with a sedative and when things did not improve, the decision was taken that Laura would need ‘hospital care’. As she wouldn’t agree to this, she would need, in effect, to be temporarily sectioned for her own safety. The process in Canada involved a ‘certificate of involuntary hospital admission’. But it all amounted to the same thing.

His beautiful wife Laura had been sectioned. The woman he had met, watching an extraordinary clock in Wells Cathedral, was the subject of the Mental Health Act.

That’s how they ended up in this private hospital. With the smart orange chairs. And the fancy specialist.

‘So what’s the diagnosis?’ Ed was struggling to sit still, Laura’s parents sitting together holding hands to his left. He glanced across to see that Laura’s mother was fighting tears.

‘It’s been weeks,’ Ed added. ‘You must surely have some idea by now. Some treatment plan.’

The specialist looked down at his notes. ‘Our priority at the moment is to ensure Laura is kept calm. And safe.’

‘Yes. But you can’t keep her sedated forever and she can’t live in the hospital. And she’s my wife, for heaven’s sake. My wife.’ Ed felt his voice crack as if facing up to the true horror of his situation for the first time.

‘These things can be very complex. And they can take time.’

‘What things? What is it precisely that you think this is? Could it be this Capgras Syndrome you mentioned previously? Is that what you really think?’

The specialist took in a deep breath. ‘It’s a possibility but I’m not an expert. I’ve been in touch with a colleague in Ontario who’s worked with Capgras Syndrome. He’s written a paper on it. I’ve asked him to see Laura when he’s next here.’

‘And when’s that?’

‘Next month.’

‘Next month.’ Ed stood up and marched to the window. He looked out at the garden – at some kind of pink-flowered bush alongside an oak bench in a walled courtyard. He stared for a moment at the blooms. He didn’t recognise the plant. He found himself longing for the pink camellias outside his flat back in London. Campion in the hedgerows on childhood holidays in Cornwall. The familiar. Familiar flowers. Their familiar flat back in England. All the familiar places where they had been so happy.

‘Maybe I should take Laura back to England. See what the doctors there can do.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Ed.’ It was Laura’s mother. ‘She can’t even be in the same room as you.’

And then suddenly it was too much. The alien pink blooms slowly blurring before his eyes, though it was a while before he realised why.

Suddenly he could feel a tennis racket in his hand. An ache deep, deep in his stomach. An awareness that the life he had known was over.

And just like that boy in the head teacher’s study, he could once more feel silent tears dripping from his chin on to his shirt.