The Deepest Cut (19 page)

‘Yeah, he is, I saw him this morning.'

‘No he's not.'

‘Yeah he is.'

‘No, he really isn't. It's Anna today.'

‘Who's Anna?' Blake asked. He was fidgeting from foot to foot and he looked like he was going to cry.

‘The old nurse,' Josie turned to me. ‘She's the dragon one.'

‘No, it's Damian,' Blake said. ‘I'm gonna go and find him, and get him to come in, then you'll be wrong, and you'll have to say sorry.' He left the room.

‘You OK?' Josie asked me.

I shook my head.

‘You missed breakfast and group therapy,' she said. ‘David said he was letting you sleep as they said you'd been up all night after the thing with the cupboard last night.'

I didn't want her in my room. I wanted to be left alone but I knew she wasn't going anywhere, so I got up and walked out and away from her. My brain didn't want to think, or listen to anyone, or do anything at all. Staring at a wall or just sleeping were all I was capable of. I didn't want to see or speak to anyone.

I went to the rec room. There were people in there. Caitlin was shouting and Blake was running around, panicked, looking for Damian.

‘Come outside for a fag when we go down,' Josie said, appearing behind me.

I could feel the panic. The noises on the ward were ten times louder in my head than they should have been, amplified, but also muffled like I was under water.

‘Are you OK, Adam?' Someone said. I don't know who.

Everything went blurry, like my eyes wouldn't work, and my heart was racing, sweat was pouring down my forehead.

‘Blake, he's not in,' someone said and Blake started crying.

‘Blake, shut up,' that was Caitlin, I think.

I felt sick. Then I heard Jake's voice. I heard it. In among all the noises on the ward, in among all the shouting, crying, and laughing that was so loud, I heard him. I'd know it anywhere.

‘Adam'. That was all he said. Just my name. Like he was shouting it from a distance, calling me over.

I sat on a chair. There was a hand on my back but I don't know whose it was. I was shaking. The nausea was getting worse. I tried to breathe it away but it didn't work. I was sick on the floor, and Caitlin screamed, and people moved quickly then David was there. He held me up as he walked me back to my room, only stopping when I heaved again.

I couldn't see straight. I couldn't think straight. I didn't know what was happening to me, or how to make it stop.

David sat me on my bed, grabbed the chair, and sat opposite me. He was telling me to breathe, just to breathe slowly, but I couldn't.

‘I need a screen up, now,' he said to the nurse who'd followed us in. ‘And Caitlin, Josie, Blake, please leave us alone now.'

I looked up and all three of them were standing in the corridor looking in, really worried. I caught Josie's eye and she was about to cry, I could tell.

‘Now,' David said – and they went.

Then he turned back to me and was telling me to breathe slowly again, and showing me how he wanted me to do it.

‘It's OK,' he said, when I'd caught my breath.

The nurse handed me a cup of water and told me to sip slowly. David told her to leave the room, but to stay just outside in case he needed her. Then he made me lie down on my bed, but propped up by the pillows. We sat there for a while; until he was sure I'd calmed down.

I wanted to tell him that I'd heard Jake; I wanted to ask him what was wrong with me, and how to make it stop, but I couldn't. I felt weak and woozy; I was sort of drifting in and out of sleep while he sat and read through what I'd written down in my pad.

‘Are you feeling like this because the next thing that you've got to write about is the day it happened?' He said in a really soft voice.

I turned away from him because I didn't want to answer, and I was still feeling angry, because I was stuck in there with no way out.

‘Are you hungry?' he asked. ‘Do you want some toast to settle your stomach?'

I shook my head.

‘Adam, can you turn and look at me a moment?'

I moved my whole body round to face him.

‘What if I was to tell you that I already know what happened that night and what you did?'

My whole body tensed up.

‘It's OK,' he said. ‘What if I was to point out to you that Josie tells me she knows, yet all I see is her desperately wanting you to be her friend?'

I started shaking.

‘And what if I also point out that Polly knows, too? And she thinks the world of you Adam, she really does.'

I closed my eyes against him, against the world. What he'd said about Josie and Polly might have been true; but not only did I question their motives, it was also completely overridden by the fact that Debbie didn't want to know me. Not only that, it was one thing them being able to forgive me, but I knew I'd never be able to forgive myself.

David was looking at me with a strange expression, maybe pity, sympathy, or concern, or maybe all three rolled into one.

‘But the important thing is that I know, but I need to hear your interpretation of it. Only then can I help you get better, Adam.' He sat forward and put his hand on my shoulder. ‘I can make all of this stop – the nightmares, the panic, the trauma – but I need you to tell me what happened first.'

I wanted to speak then. It was like I wanted to pour it all out of my mouth quickly and furiously. It was like it had been sitting in my guts, festering, going mouldy and rancid, and at that moment, I wanted it out.

I tried to speak.

David sat up straight. ‘Can you?' He asked.

It wouldn't come out and I shook my head.

‘Do you trust me when I say I'm not going to let anything bad happen to you while you're here? You don't need to be afraid,' he said.

I thought back to how he'd been with me since I got here. If what he said was true, then maybe he didn't think I was scum of the earth for what I did. Or maybe he did and it was just his job to make me better. Maybe I was just another statistic. If he got me well and out again, maybe he'd get a bonus.

‘Have I let you down so far?' He asked. It scared me that he always seemed to know what I was thinking.

It had come back to the fact that I didn't have a lot of choice, and I guessed I could get as angry about that as I liked, or I could put my trust in this man in front of me, and get on with what he'd asked me to do. One was going to get me out of there. The other was a hopeless cause.

He handed me my pad and pen. ‘I'm going to stay right here while you do it. I'm not going anywhere. What I want you to do, if at any moment you don't feel safe, is to hand me back the pad and we'll stop, OK?'

I nodded. Then I started writing.

I woke up in my own bed for once. Polly wasn't with me. I'd asked her to go home, because I was so nervous about the fact we'd probably end up having sex if she stayed. I know it might sound ridiculous, but I didn't feel like I was ready to. Not yet. She'd said she was OK about it but it was still playing on my mind. Now she'd gone away for New Year's and it was going to torture me until she got back, I knew it.

‘What's the matter with you, grumpy shit?' My dad asked when I walked into the kitchen and put the kettle on.

I ignored him. I didn't want to talk to him.

‘What happened to that girl that was here last night then?' He asked, getting a Sterling out of his packet and lighting it. The ashtray next to him was overflowing already. I wondered how long he'd been up, and why he was even here, and not down the bookies or the pub.

‘She went home,' I said.

‘Did you fuck her?'

‘Dad … Jesus.'

‘I'll have a coffee if you're making one.'

I got another mug out of the cupboard.

‘So, what you up to tonight, then? You got a party to go to or anything?'

I turned around and leant on the counter while I waited for the kettle to boil. ‘Yeah, there's a party down The Shed, under eighteens.'

He laughed. ‘You going with Jake and Nath?'

‘Yep,' I said. The kettle clicked and I turned round to make the drinks.

‘He's not hanging around with that Danny anymore, then?'

‘How do you know about that?' I asked, as I got the milk out of the almost empty fridge.

‘Debbie rang me up and told me about it, said to keep an eye on things as she don't like the sound of him, said he'd got arrested or something?'

‘Yeah, he had weed on him.'

‘Are you doing drugs?' He stubbed his fag out in the overflowing ashtray and opened his paper.

‘No,' I said, putting his coffee down next to him.

‘Good,' he said, without looking up. ‘Cor, she's got nice tits.' He said pointing at the naked woman on page three.

‘Dad, please,' I said. I went to walk out the kitchen with my cup of tea.

‘Ads, hang up,' he said. He stood up and reached into his back pocket and pulled out a fiver. ‘Get some chips or something, cupboards are bare again.'

I took it off him. ‘Thanks,' I said.

‘Jackie and I are in tonight,' he said as I walked out of the room. That explained the fiver. Bribery. Stay out the way. Don't come home.

Not that I'd want to. Every time I saw that woman, I wanted to punch her in the face.

I went to the park via the chicken shop with the fiver Dad gave me. When I got there, Nathan and Jake were sitting on our bench.

‘Are you, my boys, ready for the New Year's Eve of all New Year's Eves?' I asked them.

They looked at each other, then Nathan looked at the floor, and Jake looked at me and shrugged.

‘What?'

‘I couldn't get the tickets,' Nathan said, still looking at the floor.

‘What? You're joking, why not?' I asked him.

‘My mum didn't leave me the cash,' he said. He got up and picked the football up. I sat down in his place.

‘What are we gonna do now?' I asked him.

‘We'll find something,' Jake said, but I could hear how upset he was. He was looking forward to going out on the pull. He'd decided he was over Kelly and ready to fall in love again, and tonight would be the night.

Nathan kept quiet. He sat down next to me, taking his phone out of his pocket as he did.

‘When did you get that smart-looking piece of flash?'

‘For Christmas, innit, but it only came this morning,' Nathan said.

‘What's that game?' Jake asked as something colourful flashed up on the screen.

‘Candy Crush,'

‘iPhone 5?' I asked him.

‘Oh yes,' Nathan said.

‘Show off.' Jake got up, and kicked the ball out from under Nathan's feet and picked it up.

‘You're just jealous 'cause your Nokia could build a house,' Nathan said. He leant in and took a handful of my chips. ‘You eating out again?'

‘Yeah, no food in the house at all.

‘We've told you before, you'll get fat eating that shit all day long,' Jake said.

‘Yeah, then Polly will ditch you for being a fat bloater.' Nathan laughed.

‘Never,' Jake said. He was smiling at me, a knowing smile, and it made me feel warm. He liked Polly a lot. He'd said she wasn't for him, but she was perfect for me, and he'd convinced himself that we'd be one of those couples who, in twenty years' time, have a nice house in the countryside with four kids, three dogs, two rabbits, and a goldfish. He said he'd be round every weekend with his supermodel girlfriend and their adopted baby, which they adopted because she didn't want to lose her figure. He'd painted this massive picture in his head and I'd told him he was mad, but actually, I loved it.

‘So how's Sarah, have you heard from her?' I asked Nathan. He'd been with us pretty much all week, apart from Christmas Day when his mum had dragged him back home for family stuff. I didn't think he'd have had the time to see her in among all of that. He definitely hadn't seen Danny, and that was the biggest relief on the planet.

‘Yeah, she's OK,' he said.

‘So you have heard from her,' I asked.

‘Yeah, a bit,' he said. He was being shifty; I could tell by the tone of his voice.

Jake stopped kicking the ball. ‘How's the sexy time going?' He asked.

Nathan laughed. ‘I'm not telling you anything,' he said.

‘What? You told us everything with Megan. You won't tell us anything about Sarah,' I said. ‘Why not?'

‘I don't want you opening your big traps later,' he said, and he stood up and put his hands in his pockets.

‘Later?' I asked.

‘Go on,' Jake said.

‘Yeah, I thought we might go to Danny's house party,' he said.

‘Danny's house party?' I asked. Jake's jaw was on the floor. I shook my head and he shrugged.

‘Is this why you didn't get the tickets for The Shed?' Jake asked. He was pissed off. I was pissed off, too. It made sense now.

‘You didn't get the tickets on purpose so we could go to Danny's.' I said.

‘No,' Nathan said in a properly snappy voice.

‘Don't get shitty, man,' Jake said.

‘I'm not.'

‘I thought you were done with him?' I asked.

Nathan shrugged.

‘So is this about Sarah being there, or is this about you not being able to stay away from Danny?' I asked.

‘You've not mentioned him for a week. How comes suddenly you're ditching our plans to go to his party?'