A Note of Madness (21 page)

‘But why were you having to work so hard? You’re only eighteen! I blame the university – I blame that professor! That’s why I never wanted you to go to music college – those sort of places are just forcing houses!’

‘There’s no point blaming anyone,’ Dad said. ‘These things happen. As Flynn says, he’s just been working too hard and sleeping too little. At least he realizes it and is having a good rest now.’

‘I think the time has come to start you on a course of medication,’ Dr Stefan announced at the end of the following week.

Flynn gave him a look. ‘Anti-depressants don’t work.’

‘Anti-depressants are very successful at treating depression,’ Dr Stefan countered. ‘But I’m not sure that you’re just suffering from clinical depression, so I want to try you on something else. I think you would benefit from a mood stabilizer.’

‘What’s that?’

‘It does what its name suggests. Helps regulate your mood swings.’

‘So, I’m
not
depressed?’

‘Not all of the time, no. It would appear that you’re suffering from a form of bipolar disorder, Bipolar Two, which would account for your depression and many of your other symptoms.’

‘Bipolar
what
?’

‘Disorder. Commonly known as manic depression: fluctuations of mood, from severely depressed to, in your case, mildly manic. I could be wrong, but it looks that way to me.’ Dr Stefan sat back in his chair, cleaned his glasses and glanced out of the window as if they were having a conversation about the weather.

Flynn stared at him, jarred.

‘You seem to be rapid-cycling,’ Dr Stefan went on. ‘That means that your moods change very fast, within days, sometimes even hours. We’ll need to carry on with our therapy sessions. Medication is rarely the answer on
its own, but it should kick-start you into feeling better and we’ll take it from there. I’m going to start you on some lithium. It can make you feel slightly unwell to begin with, a bit drowsy and nauseous, but that should soon wear off. I’ll start you on a low dose and we’ll build it up slowly and see how you get on.’

Rami had been on the phone for the last twenty minutes. ‘Are you sure it’s necessary?’ he kept on asking.

Sprawled out on the sofa, arm behind his head, Flynn gazed at Chris Tarrant waving a cheque to his sweating contestant and tried to catch snippets of Rami’s conversation with Dr Stefan. The prescription lay on the kitchen table. He’d had to give Dr Stefan permission to discuss his condition with Rami and now Rami was going on about the benefits of sodium valproate versus carbamazipine versus lamotrigine . . . For some reason he seemed thrown by the lithium.

Rami finally got off the phone, came back in and sat down next to Flynn’s feet, running his hands through his hair in a gesture that Flynn had not seen since Rami’s days at medical school.

‘Which European city hosted the 1992 Olympic Games?’ Flynn asked him.

‘I dunno – Madrid?’ Rami gazed unseeingly at the television screen. ‘Well, Doctor Stefan seems pretty certain that lithium is the right drug for you, so perhaps you’d better give it a try—’

‘It can’t be Madrid, that’s not one of the options.’

‘I don’t know then, but Flynn, listen—’

‘It’s Barcelona, I’m sure it’s Barcelona. Oh no, the stupid woman’s going to go for Berlin.
It isn’t Berlin!
’

‘Flynn, just listen a minute, will you?’

Flynn’s smile faded. ‘I
am
listening, but it isn’t Berlin.’

‘Did Doctor Stefan mention possible side-effects?’

‘Yeah, feeling sick and feeling tired.’

‘Well hopefully it won’t be too bad but with all medication there are side-effects and the important thing is that you persevere. Doctor Stefan can always lower your dose if you’re feeling bad but you have to give the drugs a chance – this kind of thing can take several weeks, even months, to have an effect, so you’ll need to be patient.’

‘Why were you asking Doctor Stefan about those other medications? What’s wrong with lithium?’

Rami appeared to hesitate fractionally. ‘It’s – it’s a powerful drug. It can be difficult to get the dosage just right and you’ll need to go for regular blood tests to check the lithium levels in your blood. The therapeutic level is often precariously close to the toxic level and the side-effects can be pretty lousy to start with.’

‘What if it doesn’t work?’

‘Then he’ll try you on something else. There are other mood-stabilizers, not just lithium.’

‘What if the other stuff doesn’t work? What if nothing works?’ It was an effort to keep his voice steady.

‘There are lots of different medications out there.
Sometimes it’s a question of trial and error. You try one thing, then you try another. You lower the dose or increase the dose or you try different combinations. But lithium works for most people, Flynn. I’m hopeful it will for you.’

‘What if it’s not bipolar disorder? What if it’s something else? What if it isn’t an illness at all? What if it’s
just me
?’

‘Doctor Stefan knows what he’s talking about, Flynn. It fits. To be honest, bipolar was something that crossed my mind too.’

Flynn glared angrily at his brother. ‘That’s stupid. I’m never manic.’

A small smile touched Rami’s lips. ‘Not now you’re not. But you can get pretty hyped up. You’re just not aware of it. According to Harry, you stay up all night composing, you go running for miles and miles, you practise for days on end—’

‘That’s just energetic and inspired!’ Flynn protested.

‘Well, you’re more energetic and more inspired at times than most people. Put it that way.’

‘So I
am
mad.’

Rami seemed to hesitate for a moment, then his face broke into a smile and he ruffled his brother’s hair. ‘Mad as a hatter,’ he said. ‘Always have been.’

And so he started taking lithium, that warm evening in May, at his brother’s house in Watford, sitting on the edge of the bath with a tooth-glass in his hand, gazing
down at the white pill nestling in his palm. He was supposed to have been playing in a high-profile concert, was supposed to have been out celebrating with his friends, was supposed to be a student in London and out partying every night. But instead here he was, diagnosed with a mental illness, taking pills to try to regain his sanity, and normality, as he knew it, had disappeared.

Flynn watched the last blob of butter melt on his toast and steadied his head on his hand. He was aware of Rami and Sophie watching him covertly across the table but could not bring himself to take a bite or even think of an excuse to get out of the kitchen. Day five of the lithium diet and things had not got any better. His face had a heavy-lidded, puffy look of resigned exhaustion and the sight of food turned his stomach. He wanted nothing more than to crawl back into bed.

‘Just try and eat half of it,’ Rami was saying. ‘Half a slice of toast is not going to make you throw up.’

Flynn shook his head faintly, struggling to keep his eyes open.

‘When are you going back to see Doctor Stefan?’ Rami asked.

‘Dunno.’

‘What d’you mean, you don’t know? You must have made an appointment with him!’

Flynn rubbed his face. ‘Just leave me alone, Rami.’

‘Why don’t we all go for a walk?’ Sophie chipped in brightly. ‘It’s a beautiful day!’

He went to the park with them because he did not have anything better to do. The sun was high in the sky, filling the air with a bright, white light. It was supposed to be summer now and there were boys in shorts sailing boats on the lake, little girls in summer dresses pushing dollies in prams, and pregnant mums in flip-flops waddling after toddlers playing in the sand.

Sophie, holding Rami’s hand and swinging his arm exuberantly, suggested they have an ice cream. Rami resembled an American tourist in his khaki shorts and stripy T-shirt with his sunglasses hanging off his collar, carefree and smiling. Flynn could only think how he was spoiling their rare day off together and wished he could just disappear.

He felt cold despite his thick jumper and could not stop shivering. He was a mess: everything about his dishevelled, drugged, unhappy appearance was an embarrassment; he was a misfit and an eyesore in this whole happy-clappy scene. Rami and Sophie only wanted him to lighten up, smile occasionally, chat to them and try to act vaguely normal, tasks which seemed completely beyond his reach. An impenetrable fog seemed to encompass him, rendering even the simplest functions – standing, walking, looking, listening – unbearable. He craved the shelter of the car. Better still, the hideout of his bed – a bunker and a safe house against the harsh sun, the blue sky and the loud, bright-eyed people spilling out of everywhere, filling
the park with their tangible, boisterous happiness.

They sat down on a bench, watching the remote-controlled boats weaving around the ducks on the pond. ‘Shall I get you a hot drink to warm you up?’ Rami asked.

Flynn shook his head. His shivering had intensified, but he could not tell whether he was feeling cold or just frightened by the sight of all these people, all this life, reinforcing the aching emptiness he felt inside. Rami got up to get coffees for himself and Sophie while Flynn, elbows on knees, continued to stare at the sunlight dancing on the water, the little wavelets lapping against their concrete shore. He flinched at the touch of a hand on his back.

‘It
will
get better, you know,’ Sophie said.

He rubbed his cheek in embarrassment, jarred by her show of concern.

‘The first few days on a new drug are always horrid but the side-effects will have worn off by next week and then I’m sure you’ll begin to feel yourself again.’

Flynn forced a wry smile. ‘That’s hard to imagine.’

‘You’ll be back at uni in no time and it will be as if none of this had ever happened.’

Flynn continued to rub his face. He doubted that somehow.

‘I know Rami can be a bit of a pain sometimes,’ Sophie went on doggedly, ‘but he’s a good brother to have in a crisis. He’ll drag you to all the top doctors in the country until you feel better again. He won’t give up
till you’re back to your usual, cheerful self . . .’ A pause. ‘He adores you, Flynn.’

Two small boys were trying to fix a propeller on their motorboat with a piece of string. The younger one held it in place while the older one carefully tied the string into a single knot, his eyes narrowed in concentration. Flynn stared at them, biting his tongue against the threat of tears.

At the end of the week he went for a blood test. Rami drove him to the hospital and sat with him in the waiting room, because he was likely to get lost just walking down a corridor. They had to wait for nearly an hour. Rami read the paper. Flynn stared at the top right-hand corner of a black square of lino. When his name was called, Rami had to nudge him.

The nurse was talkative and irritating. She put the needle into his left arm but couldn’t get at the vein. She put the needle into his right arm with no success either. Then she made some joke about him not having any veins as she tried taking blood from the vein on the back of his hand. As the nurse inserted the needle, the dark red blood finally shot up the thin tube.

This sucks, Flynn thought. This really sucks.

‘HARRY CALLED AGAIN.’
Rami lowered his paper as Flynn walked through the door, dropping his rucksack to the floor and collapsing into the armchair. ‘That’s the third time this week,’ Rami added.

Flynn let his head fall back and rubbed a hand over his damp, burning face. ‘It’s boiling outside!’

‘You’ve been here almost a month. He’s going to think I’m keeping you hostage. Perhaps you should call him back.’

‘It’s too hot. I don’t like it here when it’s hot. England’s supposed to be a cold country.’

‘Shut up about the weather for a minute and listen to me. Are you going to call him back?’

Flynn sat up reluctantly and began untying his laces. ‘I don’t like speaking on the phone.’

‘Then go and see him. Jennah’s been trying to contact you too. Perhaps you should go back for a bit. Sounds like they’re missing you.’

Flynn’s eyes narrowed in annoyance. ‘Don’t be stupid.’

Rami sighed and folded his paper. ‘Flynn, it’s been
nearly a month. You’re only seeing Doctor Stefan once a week now. Don’t you think it’s time you tried going back to uni?’

Flynn felt his pulse quicken. ‘What?’

‘Don’t look at me like that. You know Sophie and I love having you here. And you can always come and stay whenever you want. But I can see you’re beginning to get bored. You have your own life – the Royal College, your music, your own flat, your friends . . . Don’t you miss all that?’

‘No.’

‘Are you worried things are going to go back to how they were before?’

‘No.’

‘Because they won’t, Flynn. You’re better now, you’re far more stable. You’re being treated for bipolar, you’re on medication, going to therapy. You don’t need to hide out here any more. I think you’re well enough to go back.’

Flynn stared at him hotly, trying to come up with a reply that would not brand him in the role of clinging younger sibling. There was a silence.

‘Are you worried about your friends’ reactions?’

Flynn flushed at his own transparency. ‘No.’

‘Harry and Jennah know about the bipolar, Flynn.’

‘What?’

Rami cleared his throat, looking slightly uncomfortable. ‘You know that they called several times asking to speak to you. They’ve been very concerned about you,
obviously. You were really unwell at that point, so I had to explain.’

‘You didn’t have to! You could have said I had glandular fever or – or
something
!’

‘I don’t think they would have bought that, not after the episode with the window. It’s better they know the truth.’

Flynn ran his hands through his hair distractedly, mind reeling. ‘Jesus, Rami! They’ll think I’m mad! They’ll think – they’ll think—’

‘They’ll think you’ve been ill, which you have,’ Rami said quietly. ‘It’ll be all right.’

They manoeuvred into an unlikely parking space, just metres from the front door, and sat in silence, engine still humming. ‘D’you want me to come in with you?’ Rami asked.