The Dead Ex(13)

Myrrh. Uplifts your mood and soothes anger.

Orange. Similar effect. Can also reduce anxiety.

And don’t forget chamomile.

‘Anger aromatherapy,’ my tutor called it.

But sometimes you need something else as well.

I started keeping a diary when we had a psychologist in residence. He said it would help us to write things down – and he was right. It’s an emotional release. I honestly think that letting it all out on paper has stopped me from seriously hurting someone physically.

But others might argue that I’ve done that already.

So if anyone does happen to pick this up and read it (which they shouldn’t), I’d just like it on record that I didn’t start off this way.

Believe it or not, I got into this mess to do some good.





5



Vicki


I can tell from the jolting motion that I’m moving.

A man in white is bending over me. Checking my pulse. Wrapping a band of elastic round my arm and pumping it up. That’s when it sinks in. I’m in an ambulance. It’s not the first time.

‘Vicki? Can you hear me? My name is Adam, and I’m a paramedic.’

His voice is urgent but steady. He is looking at me the way people usually do when this happens. As though I’m a bit odd. Mad. Soft in the head.

If someone has a heart attack or breaks a leg or does something normal, then it’s acceptable. But my stuff – well, it’s different. People can’t always get their heads round it. Not even paramedics. Besides, at this stage, there’s not much they can do apart from the usual checks. Heart rate. Oxygen levels. The basics.

‘What happened?’ I ask.

‘You were found under a bench.’

Really? It’s possible, I suppose. Your natural instinct when you feel it coming on (and not everyone does) is to find somewhere safe. In the past, I’ve been discovered under a children’s playground slide, a café table and a supermarket checkout desk. The last was by far the most embarrassing when I came round to a queue of faces, an hysterical cashier and wet pants. Incontinence doesn’t always happen. The small saving grace about today is that I feel dry right now.

‘Is there any family we should contact, Vicki?’

Dad. If only.

Mum. Long gone.

Patrick. No!

David. Does an ex-husband still count as family?

‘No one,’ I manage to say.

A sympathetic look flashes across the paramedic’s face. Then he speaks again as if he knows me personally. ‘What’s the last thing you remember, Vicki?’

I always struggle with this bit. Think, I tell myself. ‘Putting on my jacket,’ I manage finally. ‘Going out to get some bread before the shop closed. Looking at the sea.’

‘Did you feel odd before that?’

‘My ears began to hum and then I smelled burning rubber. It’s usually a sign; an over-firing of nerves, apparently.’

He nods. ‘So you’re one of the lucky ones that get an aura. At least that gives you some warning.’

I’m impressed. Clearly, contrary to my suspicions, this man knows his stuff. But lucky? I almost laugh. Still, at least I’m alive and allowed to walk freely. Not so very long ago, I might have been locked up. That’s what one consultant told me, as if he was trying to make me feel better. Now we know that 1 in 103 people will be formally diagnosed with epilepsy. About 1 in 26 will experience a seizure. In approximately 60 per cent of cases, the cause of epilepsy is not known. Staggeringly high when you think about it.

Death is by no means inevitable, but you increase the risk if you hit your head or have a seizure when you’re in the bath, pouring out hot liquid, crossing the road or doing – well, quite a lot actually. So I don’t swim, drive or cook on a naked flame. You never know when you go to bed if you are going to wake up or not.

The good news – for some of us – is that it can heighten brain function. There are even toddlers who can recite their two times table.

‘How long did it last for?’ I ask.

‘About a minute.’

Average, then. Most of my observers in the past have reckoned that my fits – which are technically known as seizures – can be anything from twenty seconds to three minutes.

‘How do you feel now?’

‘My head is hurting.’

I’m aware that there’s a cold compress on my forehead. My muscles are aching, and the inside of my right cheek tastes of blood where I must have bitten it.

‘Not surprising. There wasn’t much space under the bench when you were thrashing about.’

A memory surfaces. For Marjorie – Who Loved This Place. I’m barely able to keep my eyes open; it’s an effort to talk, but I have to keep going. My emotions are all over the place, though I realize this is normal.

‘How do you know what I was doing?’ I’m always intrigued by this bit. It’s weird going into a secret world and then not remembering what you did there. One girl, whom I read about on the net, sent a text to her boss to say she was going to be late when she started fitting but then couldn’t recall anything about it afterwards.

‘Luckily, the woman who saw you was a nurse and realized what was happening.’

That’s not always the case. Often people think you’re drunk, mad or having a heart attack (a Good Samaritan once tried to give me mouth-to-mouth, even though I was still breathing).