A Note of Madness (23 page)

‘I’ll get the night bus—’

‘Don’t be daft. You can have the couch.’

‘OK. Thanks.’

Flynn went to make coffee in the kitchen.

‘Night, Flynn!’ Harry called from the hallway a moment later.

Jennah was sitting on the opened-out sofa bed in one of Harry’s oversized T-shirts when Flynn returned. He handed her a cup, glanced away from the unnerving expanse of leg and, after a moment’s hesitation, sat down on the piano stool.

There was a moment’s silence. ‘Flynn?’

‘Yes?’

‘I owe you an apology.’

He looked at her in surprise. ‘What for?’

‘I didn’t realize . . . Even though we talked and stuff, I didn’t realize you were feeling so bad . . . I didn’t even realize you were ill . . .’

Flynn shook his head quickly, embarrassed. ‘Oh, forget about all that—’

‘The night of the dinner party, I couldn’t stop crying,’ Jennah said. ‘I felt so guilty.’ There was an awkward silence. Then she gave a small smile. ‘Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to make girls cry?’

Flynn gave her a look. ‘No. Just not to get them pregnant.’

Jennah started laughing. Then she said, ‘I miss you, Flynn.’

He raised his eyebrows.

‘I mean I miss
you
, the non-depressed, non-silent you. I miss the way you get excited about crazy things and get all worked up about, I dunno, a piece of music. I miss how we were when we went on holiday, just mucking around and cracking each other up and laughing at Harry. Remember the time when Harry wanted to buy some stamps and we told him the word for stamps was
vache
and so he walked into the corner shop and asked the shopkeeper for a cow?’

Flynn started to laugh. ‘God, we were silly.’

‘But happy,’ Jennah said.

Flynn stopped laughing. ‘Yeah.’

‘I miss that,’ Jennah said.

‘Me too.’

‘How are you finding university?’ was the first question Dr Stefan asked on Friday.

Flynn gave an exaggerated shrug. ‘Fine. Nothing much happened this week. I managed to act fairly
normal
.’ He laughed. Dr Stefan did not. Flynn started to bite his thumbnail.

‘How does it feel to be back at your flat?’

He shrugged again. ‘OK.’

‘What about your music practice?’

‘It’s OK too.’

‘You’re going to have to do better than that.’

Flynn gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘Uni’s OK – we’ve only got revision lectures now and I’m managing to catch up. Professor Kaiser’s easing off on the practice because of exams.’

‘What about your friends?’ Dr Stefan asked.

‘What about them?’

Dr Stefan adopted an expression of weary patience. ‘How did you feel about seeing them again?’

Flynn pulled down the corners of his mouth. There was a silence. Dr Stefan watched him.

Flynn shrugged.

Dr Stefan continued to watch him. Flynn began to flounder. He glanced at Dr Stefan, then glanced away again.

‘It doesn’t have to be this difficult,’ Dr Stefan said quietly.

‘What do you want me to say? It was fine!’

‘Before you can begin to recover, Flynn, you need to feel,’ Dr Stefan said quietly. ‘By pushing your feelings aside, you’re denying yourself the very essence of who you are. You sit there and tell me about your week as if you are talking about somebody else. In an attempt to cope with your own life, you plunge from hyperactivity to depression without any idea of the feelings that have caused you to feel like this in the first place.’

There were children, children and whole families, strolling across the grass with babies in buggies or kids
on bikes. Flynn found himself watching them covertly, especially the children. There were two boys on bikes who couldn’t have been more than seven or eight. Perhaps they were brothers. They looked so happy. From this brief snapshot their childhood seemed idyllic and Flynn wondered whether he and Rami had appeared that happy at their age. Had they mucked about with bikes and footballs and sticks? Of course they had – Dad was always taking them to the local park and he remembered being given his first bike when he was three. They must have appeared as happy and as carefree as those boys, back then. So why did he watch these children play and feel such sadness? Was it because he was looking at something he’d once had – living in the moment, finding excitement in the little things, feeling safe and loved? Would he ever feel like that again? And why, if this had once all been his, had he turned into the miserable wreck that he was now?

It was almost inconceivable that there had been a time, only last summer, when he had gone backpacking across France and Italy with Harry and Jennah, sleeping on dodgy youth-hostel mattresses and crying with laughter at Harry’s deplorable French accent. There had been sunburned arms and blistered feet, endless maps, condom jokes, truth-or-dare on long train journeys, ganging up on Harry to try to embarrass him . . . Was I really there? he wondered. Could that really have been the same me?

He walked in the park in the evenings to catch that hour when day turns into night – black trees silhouetted against a turquoise sky, the blanket of cloud turning into soft pink fields and hills, illuminated by the dying sun. This was the only time he knew what heaven must look like; the only time he believed heaven existed and he wished he could be transported up there to walk across those fields of clouds, towards the sinking sun. The soft breeze smelled of summer, lifting his shirt and stroking his skin and wrapping itself around the trees. In the surrounding streets, he found himself glancing through windows at living rooms and kitchens, all looking so comfortable, so welcoming, so tidy, and he wished he could go in and be part of those houses, those lives, those families. It was not as if he didn’t have his own home to go to, his own family to care about, so it made no sense. But it was as if stepping into another house would mean he could be somebody else for a while, live another life and escape himself.

I would give anything to escape myself, Flynn thought, just for a day, just for a minute even. Just to know what it was like to think differently, to feel differently, and to not be me.

And the lithium continued to wear him down, slowing his fingers, his thoughts, his mind. Professor Kaiser tolerated his sluggish playing with some kind of bewildered horror, Harry got used to him as a permanent fixture on the couch and Rami called every week to check up on him. The crooks of his elbows were
bruised purple and yellow from the weekly blood tests. And despite what Dr Stefan had said, there didn’t seem to be any emotions to run away
from
any more; he felt nothing but a dull sort of apathy, a meaningless void, empty of both pleasure and despair.

‘I want to stop taking this,’ Flynn announced the following Friday morning. He had been rehearsing that one line all morning, preparing to deliver it in a firm yet reasonable tone. He glared at Dr Stefan, his jaw set, trying to gauge his reaction, ready to fire a counter-attack against any words of persuasion. But Dr Stefan adjusted his glasses, sat back and said nothing.

‘I feel sick all the time, I can’t think, I can’t read, I can’t even follow a TV programme. It’s like I’m retarded or something. And I’ll never,
ever
be able to play the piano again, so what’s the point? I may as well be crazy like before!’ He had vowed to stay calm but now his voice was rising and he forced himself to stop, breathing hard. Please, he wanted to say.
Please
tell me I don’t have to keep taking this.
Please
tell me there’s another way, an easier way for me to feel normal again.

‘I can’t make you take lithium,’ Dr Stefan replied in his deliberately slow way. ‘But I am going to ask you to, just till the end of the month. Then, if you’re still feeling tired, we’ll talk about lowering your dose back down again.’

‘Why?’ Flynn almost shouted. ‘It’s not working! I feel worse, not better! I look like a zombie!’

‘That’s how most people feel when they first take lithium,’ Dr Stefan answered calmly. ‘With any new drug, it takes the body time to adjust. But your body will adjust and, when it does, the side-effects will begin to wear off and the lithium will begin to take effect.’

‘How do you know? You said lithium didn’t work for some people. It’s not working for me!’

‘Till the end of the month,’ Dr Stefan said evenly. ‘If there’s no change by then, we’ll try cutting the dose.’

‘That’s another ten days! What do you care – you’re not the one taking it! That means I have to endure another ten days of hell, walking around like an idiot, bumping into things, forgetting the end of my sentences, feeling only half-alive! How am I supposed to believe this is going to work if it makes me feel like this? Why should I believe a word that you say?’

Dr Stefan smiled slightly. ‘Because, Flynn, this is the most animated I’ve ever seen you. I would venture to say that you’re beginning, just
beginning
to see the light at the end of the tunnel.’

Flynn narrowed his eyes in contempt. ‘Well if that’s the case, then, to quote Robert Lowell, it must be the light of the oncoming train.’

Dr Stefan threw his head back and roared with laughter.

Later that evening while he was watching
Coronation Street
, there was the sound of the key in the door. Voices in the hall. Flynn felt himself tense. Then Harry and
Jennah burst in, loud and merry from an evening spent in the pub.

‘Here’s square-eyes!’ Harry exclaimed.

Flynn sat up reluctantly.

‘How’s it going, couch potato?’ Jennah sat next to him and teasingly ruffled his hair. She pulled out a six-pack from a plastic bag. ‘Look, we decided if you wouldn’t come to the party, we’d have to bring the party to you!’

Flynn hunched forwards, elbows on his knees, and rubbed his eyes, unable to say anything for fear of sounding ungrateful. He wished they would just leave him alone with his TV programmes. They should have stayed at the pub in the company of others, having a good laugh, doing their own thing. He didn’t want their pity. He couldn’t stand this.

‘We’ve got a pizza in the fridge,’ Harry was saying. ‘I think I need some food to soak up the booze. Who’s hungry?’

Flynn stood up quickly. ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ he said. ‘I’ve – I’ve got revision to do.’

Jennah jumped up and blocked the door. ‘No way, it’s Friday night!’ she exclaimed. ‘Anyway, since when have you turned into a swot?’

Harry laughed.

Flynn backed away from them both and sank back down on the couch, defeated, too tired to protest. It was an effort to think. Getting out of the living room suddenly seemed impossible. All he knew was that he
could not be around people right now, could not think of a single thing to say, could not bear to have to smile and look happy and interested and understanding. Harry and Jennah were loud and exhausting . . . This whole room was exhausting. He just wanted his bed . . .

‘Wake up!’ Harry gave him a painful shove.

He started violently. ‘What?’

‘God, you really are in a trance!’ Harry exclaimed loudly. ‘I asked you if you wanted a beer!’

‘Yes – I mean no.’

Harry and Jennah started laughing together. Flynn tried to smile. And then put his hands to his face and burst into tears.

There was a long, shocked silence, heavy with embarrassment. Paralysed with shame and exhaustion, Flynn sat with his hands clamped over his face.

‘Oh, Flynn—’ Jennah breathed.

He could sense them looking at each other, not knowing what to do. He should just leave and put an end to their discomfort. But he couldn’t even move. Instead he just sat, sobbing foolishly into his hands.

‘Crikey.’ Harry’s voice now, cracked and awkward. ‘I said something stupid, didn’t I? I’m always putting my foot in it. Born with a foot in my mouth, my mum always says, but I didn’t mean to – um – oh, shit . . .’ Harry tailed off, lost for words. Harry was never lost for words.

Flynn felt Jennah sit down beside him and put her arm round him. ‘Hey, we were being stupid and thoughtless, we’re sorry,’ she said softly. ‘I’m sorry.’

Flynn found that he couldn’t stop crying. Now that he had started, he was crying about everything, everything that had happened from the moment Professor Kaiser had asked him to play in the concert, till now. It was all flooding through him – the hope, the elation, the despair and the sadness. The sadness, always the sadness . . . Would it ever leave? He held his breath to try to stop the tears, thought he would choke, and the sobs redoubled.

Jennah stroked his back. ‘It’s no big deal, Flynn, it’s OK. You’re just going through a really rough time at the moment.’

‘I’m telling you, it’s all these bloody essays, they’re enough to give anyone a nervous breakdown! I was practically crying myself last night . . .’ Harry’s voice tailed off awkwardly again.

‘Oh, listen to him.’ Jennah gave Flynn a squeeze, a smile in her voice. ‘At least by the end of the month we won’t have to hear Harry moan about another essay ever again! That’s something to look forward to, hey, Flynn?’

He dragged his sleeve across his face, nodding silently, struggling hard to stop the onslaught of tears.

‘Oi!’ Harry exclaimed in mock outrage.

‘In fact it might just be easier if we agreed to do all of Harry’s essays for him until the exams,’ Jennah went on. ‘At least that way we’d get some peace!’ She gave Flynn another squeeze. ‘What do you think? We could take turns. We’ll make him pay us, of course.’

He managed a smile, fists pressed against his eyelids, sniffing hard.

‘In pounds or sexual favours?’ Harry wanted to know.

‘Well I can’t be certain, Harry, but I should imagine Flynn would prefer the money.’

Flynn managed a brief laugh against his sleeve.

‘Hey, don’t knock what you haven’t experienced!’ Harry exclaimed.

‘There are some things in life which one would prefer not to,’ Jennah countered, her arm oddly comforting round Flynn’s shoulders, and they carried on with their ridiculous charade until he managed to stem the tears and pull himself together again. He felt absurdly grateful towards them both.

That night, he stopped taking his lithium.