The weight of loss, p.14
The Weight of Loss, page 14
‘Are you alright?’
The man was clutching Marianne’s arm and she realised she had been in the process of slowly crumpling to the floor.
‘Oh sorry. Yes.’
‘You must be tired after the journey. This won’t take too long, don’t worry.’
She allowed herself to be hoisted up. She strained her eyes to see what was in front of them, but it was difficult as they were facing a black door and she was only vaguely certain of its existence. A woman opened it at the first knock and the sudden light made Marianne feel like she had materialised again.
‘Marianne, come in.’
The woman stared at the man who’d escorted Marianne. She had a broad face, the features large and evenly spaced. Right then, her expression was entirely neutral, and yet something about its stillness, its suspension, must have frightened the man. He nodded and was gone quickly.
Doctor Roberts’s office was stuffy and disorganised. There were no plants in here and Marianne found herself relieved by their absence. Instead, she saw books and files on overloaded shelves. The woman indicated a chair on the other side of her desk for Marianne. She then seated herself and looked at the screen of her computer.
‘I’m just going to ask you a few routine questions about your health and medical history. Nothing too serious. And then I’ll ask you a bit about yourself. Okay?’
She stared at Marianne and in the stillness of her face was a growing warmth. It lifted the tone of her voice.
‘Let me explain. You see, Nede is a health resort, but it’s also a clinic that makes assessments of its guests. Guests are also patients who need something more than relaxation. If you needed some time off work or a change of scene, you’d just book a flight to Santorini, right? Nede is entirely unique. It offers a kind of training to recalibrate your mind forever. I know Gail will have mentioned this already. It’s also important that I know about your mental health so that we can ensure you get the best out of this place. Referrals are only given to patients with serious psychological damage. But it’s the kind of damage that can be reversed.
‘You don’t have to answer all of these questions. But it will help you in the long run if you do give clear answers to the best of your knowledge. Down here, in the underground, I like to do a bit of light probing into what makes you you – excuse me for sounding crass. Up there, you’ll be able to relax and let go of all these neuroses that have such a tight hold over your consciousness. But here, I study the source. As I said, this is not an interrogation and I’m not going to force you to speak if you don’t want to.’
Marianne began to sweat. The hairs on her back were unpleasantly damp.
‘Right. First question,’ Doctor Roberts began. ‘What made you decide to come to Nede?’
‘My doctor offered me an invitation.’
Doctor Roberts smiled and her face instantly lost its light neutrality. The smile was sardonic and gave away the knowledge that she was being subtly derided.
‘And why did you accept the invitation?’
Marianne paused. ‘I wanted to escape things for a while.’
‘What things?’
‘My job. My boyfriend. My flat. Myself.’
On the last word, Roberts’s smile grew rigid.
‘Can you identify the source of that feeling? Any significant event that prompted the desire to escape?’
Marianne knew Doctor Hind must have passed on her history and wondered why she had to be asked directly.
‘Yes. My sister died. About seven months ago.’
‘How did she die?’
The question wasn’t tempered at all. It was naked and Marianne was glad of it.
‘She killed herself. She jumped off the platform on the underground at Victoria station,’ she said quickly.
The words did not sound like they belonged to her. It was a foreign statement, made strange again after so many months of avoiding having to state it. The words had fallen into disuse, but they came back with chilling ease, with the same surreal and biting clarity. Her heart was beating fast.
‘I understand that this is difficult to answer and you might not wish to. Why do you think that she felt the compulsion to do that?’ Roberts asked.
Marianne swallowed. Her throat was tightening.
‘She’d been very ill and – she couldn’t get her state of mind back.’
‘Could you tell me about her illness?’
‘She had cancer. Hairy cell leukaemia. She had a splenectomy and she got sepsis afterwards – she went into septic shock. She died for two minutes in the hospital and when she came round, she was…different.’
‘It’s a hugely traumatic experience and very few people manage to recover from it emotionally.’ The doctor’s voice was in a minor key now, carefully pitched. Too careful, Marianne thought. ‘Was she younger than you?’
‘Yes. Eighteen. She’d be nineteen now.’
Again, Marianne felt a tightness in her throat that forced the words back. She was afraid of being seen like this and, on impulse, she pressed her hands lightly against her face. She breathed through her skin, taking herself in so as not to let anything out, resting her little fingers in the corners of her eyes. Doctor Roberts was kind enough to wait for her to compose herself. She had begun to write notes, her silver ballpoint pen flashing across her desk, and seized the opportunity to get all these last details down while Marianne was silent. Marianne saw what she was doing through the gaps of her fingers.
Something about the momentum of Doctor Roberts’s pen, the way it travelled across the page, loosened Marianne’s tongue and she was compelled to speak again. She was anxious to unburden herself, to drag every dusty thought from memory. She lowered her hands.
‘I wasn’t very nice to anyone. Not really,’ she said. ‘Marie was always lovely and happy. You know how happy people draw you in, make you think you can adopt some of it yourself through close proximity? Being happy is an admirable quality – I think so. She was admired by everyone and there wasn’t one person who didn’t want her attention for themselves. I wanted it too. I wanted her to love me in the same way I loved her, which was impossible because I was so…’ Marianne felt a soreness in her throat then, the old trepidation. No self-pity! Stop it! She avoided the doctor’s eye. ‘Marie kept her distance from me for years. She didn’t deliberately – it wasn’t coldness that made her do it – she was just, I don’t know, independent. Didn’t need to rely on anyone. Didn’t read into anything too deeply. Didn’t even understand what distance was.
‘When she got sick, she changed. It’s like the cancer had gone from her body, but now it was in her head. We thought she was better, but she was worse in some sense.’ Her voice trembled. ‘I grew impatient with her. I couldn’t believe she was the same person. When she was in hospital and she died…’
Now Marianne felt like her words were congealing. They were merging together and losing their integrity, just as her thoughts were doing. She had stopped because she worried she couldn’t separate them anymore and the failure caused a crisis of faith, a desire to retreat from analysis and spare herself the shame. Doctor Roberts was still staring at her, though this time there was no doubt as to her sincerity, the solemn absorption of her face and the stillness of her body. This minor act of respect, so rare to come by, gave Marianne the impetus to finish.
‘Marie died twice,’ she said quietly. ‘The first time she died, she came back, but she seemed to take some of her death with her and carry it around. That sounds silly but it’s true. I looked at her and – I knew she’d seen something.’ A tear was growing in the corner of her eye, blurring the periphery of the room. ‘I think she couldn’t be fully here again because she’d been somewhere else and didn’t know how to talk about it. Or she could only snap at us. I couldn’t bear to be in the house anymore – it was suffocating. I didn’t like being around her.
‘I moved to London not long after that, when the opportunity was there. The guilt was awful, but I thought – I knew – I’d miss my moment otherwise. If I didn’t get out of there then, I’d lose the nerve. I invited Marie to come and stay with me for a few days but I must have tormented her. I was a big fat show-off, dangling everything I had in front of her nose. I was living with a man, I was earning my own money, I had friends who weren’t just her friends.’ Marianne cast a cautious eye towards the doctor’s face. ‘I’d always wanted her to be jealous of me. To feel like I used to feel. Lonely and left out. But I didn’t want to break her spirit! I had no idea what was going on in her head at the time.’ The tear broke free and fell on to the bone of her wrist. ‘I’d no idea. I still don’t.’
Marianne was still raring to go, sitting on the edge of her seat. She knew her face was wet but she had no interest in any more intermissions and ignored Doctor Roberts’s extended hand with the tissue box.
‘I’m here because I want to stop thinking about what happened,’ Marianne said. ‘I don’t want to go through it every day. There needs to be some sort of buffer at least. A space between us.’
She looked at Doctor Roberts. It occurred to her then that she may have been unwise in giving so much of herself away. The pity she had thought possible was dwindling in the doctor’s face and, on closer inspection, seemed to have been a mirage she’d conjured at will. Once the tension in her head gave way, the face that was staring back at her seemed less amenable than she had hoped, more remote than receptive. Where she had imagined compassion, there was an overriding tautness of perception, attention which was focused but neatly curtailed.
‘I want to thank you for giving me a very honest version of events,’ the doctor said finally. ‘It was a very brave thing to do. And I don’t wish to dwell on Marie’s story because we’re on the other side of it now. I’m going to ask some simpler questions.’ She paused and stared at Marianne with a gentler expression. ‘You must take your time to answer.’
Marianne nodded. Now that her sinuses were clear, she felt sharper. She took a tissue from the box that had been offered and balled it in her hand.
‘Were you prescribed medication from your doctor?’
‘Anti-depressants. Paroxetine.’
‘How many milligrams?’
‘Thirty.’
There was a pause and Marianne took courage.
‘When will I get my pills back?’
‘I’ll give them back to you at the end of the day. We had to check all medication on arrival.’
Doctor Roberts’s voice was a little artificially high in that moment. She was still writing, and when she met Marianne’s eye, she smiled.
‘It’s just protocol. Have you taken your pill for today?’
Marianne lied. ‘No.’
Doctor Roberts frowned. ‘In that case, I’ll see if we can speed up the process.’
Marianne was about to ask her what exactly this process was when the doctor tapped her pen sharply on the table.
‘Next question. Do you take any other drugs or medication?’
‘Only the contraceptive pill. But I stopped taking that about two weeks ago.’
‘Was this because you ended a relationship?’ Doctor Roberts asked bluntly, not looking up.
Marianne stared at the doctor with renewed distaste. It was strange how the woman oscillated between gentle emotional inquiry and clinical scrutiny within the space of a few seconds. Marianne wasn’t sure which demeanour was stage-managed and which was genuine. Her compassion had seemed credible. Perhaps all doctors behaved in this way, speaking in the manner of a concerned yet pragmatic senior figure whose private self has become subsumed over time, after so much practice, so many hours given over to the perfecting of this authority. But Marianne also felt that Doctor Roberts was keeping her private thoughts at a firm, isolated distance, watching Marianne from a secret part of her brain. That watchful part, the thought that wouldn’t translate itself, was what she feared the most.
‘I sort of ended a relationship but it’s not really – it’s still sort of – open,’ she said uncertainly. Thinking of Richard made her wince.
‘And was it a serious relationship?’ Doctor Roberts asked. Again, this time she settled for gentle inquiry.
‘Yes.’ Marianne heard her voice crack. ‘I don’t know, to be honest. I’m sorry, I don’t want to talk about that.’
Doctor Roberts gave her a stunned smile.
‘But you’re happy to speak about your sister?’
‘Yes,’ Marianne snapped. The heat flooded through her face. ‘I’m sorry, but it’s not relevant. My life with Richard isn’t relevant. It doesn’t need to be talked about. I can choose what to talk about!’
This outburst didn’t surprise the doctor. She merely nodded and ducked her head as though in respect to Marianne’s wishes.
‘Absolutely, as I said – you don’t have to discuss anything you don’t want to,’ she said quietly. ‘Do you smoke?’
‘No.’
‘How many units of alcohol do you consume in an average week?’
‘None.’
‘Do you have any physical disabilities?’
‘No.’
‘Aside from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, are there any other mental health difficulties we should know about?’
‘I don’t have post-traumatic stress disorder,’ Marianne said promptly.
‘Alright.’ Doctor Roberts wasn’t interested in an argument. ‘Any other disorders?’
‘No.’
‘Have you ever experienced memory loss or any cognitive difficulties?’
‘No.’
‘Good. Now, I’m going to ask you some philosophical questions,’ Doctor Roberts said. She’d reverted to a lighter tone, her energy replenished by some sort of progress Marianne wasn’t aware they’d made. ‘Don’t panic. If you don’t wish to answer, again, that’s fine. We like to know about the world views of our guests.’
Marianne glared at her. This tiptoeing around the edges of the conversation was becoming unbearable.
‘Do you believe in God?’
‘Am I in church?’
Doctor Roberts laughed and this time it was genuine.
‘I know, it’s a bold line of inquiry. You’re not under duress.’
‘I don’t believe in God.’
‘Have you ever had any spiritual or religious leanings?’
‘I don’t believe so.’
‘Do you believe in an afterlife?’
‘No.’
‘Do you believe in the inherently redemptive nature of human beings – what I mean by that is, our capacity for good?’
Marianne paused.
‘Most people are just selfish and only exist for themselves.’
‘Interesting that you say that.’
Doctor Roberts wrote something, smiling ironically, and Marianne grew weary again.
‘I’m just spouting things though. I might have a different opinion tomorrow,’ she said.
‘Understandable. But it’s always telling to see what people come up with first, on instinct.’
Was it instinct? Marianne didn’t feel well at all. She felt queasy, light-headed and horribly close to tears. For some reason, it felt vital she maintain a semblance of dignity in front of this woman. She had lost most of it earlier but she could claim it back.
‘What can you not tolerate in others?’
‘I don’t know. Self-absorption probably.’
‘And what can you not tolerate in yourself?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What is the quality you least like about yourself?’
Marianne hesitated. She wanted to say her inability to spot when she was being taken advantage of. She felt it now. She wasn’t safe.
‘I hate my apathy.’
‘And do you believe one day it will be gone?’
Marianne stared at the woman and relished the few seconds before she was obliged to answer. ‘No.’
‘Do you hope to have children?’
‘Probably not.’
‘Are you close to your family? Other than your sister, I mean.’
Marianne paused. ‘I – don’t know. I don’t have a big family.’
‘Your parents. Are you close to them?’
Marianne hesitated.
‘I love my parents but I’ve never understood them.’
‘Do you feel loved?’
‘By my parents?’
Doctor Roberts dipped her head solemnly. ‘By anybody.’
‘Perhaps I am, but it’s not enough.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘I mean that it’s not reason enough to continue,’ Marianne said unhappily. ‘Sometimes, it’s not enough.’
‘You don’t wish to continue?’
‘This interview or life?’
There was a small smirk on Doctor Roberts’s face, and suddenly Marianne felt the urge to slam her hand down on the desk between them. She realised there was nothing she could say or do that was extraordinary, unusual or perverse enough to shock the doctor. That woman was an authority on grief, on endless histrionics, the belief patients held that they were somehow exempt from responsibility and self-restraint because their pain was of a higher value.
She saw Marianne as the hypocrite that she was, someone who hadn’t lived long enough to understand the mathematics of pain. How long it took for grief to outlive itself. That time made a mockery of unrelenting pessimism. And there was a measure of dishonesty in defeat, especially if one’s life was not seriously compromised by anything. Marianne pitied herself but at the same time, she knew she was safe. She was unconsciously glad to be alive.
She knew deep down that the future was always something to invest in, regardless of its contents. Only Marie had reached that awesome limit of despair which Marianne flattered herself she knew about. It came from a depleted imagination, a failure to grasp the virtue of time. That tunnelled vision made her fearless of death because she couldn’t see the full extent of it. It was a horrible snap decision.
