Addition (19 page)

When I ask the professor about it, he says all medicines have side effects. Sometimes they are serious. Most of the time they are not. If side effects persist we can look at varying my medication, or I may need additional treatment. At any time please feel free to ask him or my pharmacist any questions. So that’s okay.

And Tesla isn’t here anymore. I mean I still have the photo next to my bed because they haven’t told me I have to throw it out. But now it’s a picture of a dead guy. With a funny moustache. I’ve never liked men with moustaches. There’s something missing that I can’t quite put my finger on. Not from the moustache. From my life. Perhaps I should get a flatmate. Normal people have flatmates. Although I’m pretty sure that after all the therapy Seamus and I will move in together and maybe we’ll get married. We’ll probably have a baby. So a flatmate isn’t such a great idea. I might need a dog. Dogs aren’t very hygienic, as I’ve recently learnt, liable to carry leptospirosis and rabies, but I believe you can train them to stick their little feet in a disinfectant bath before they come inside. You can also buy shoes for them. Dogs aren’t as clean as cats, which need to make sure they don’t smell because they hunt individually by stealth, not in a pack like dogs do. It wouldn’t do for dinner to smell them coming. Perhaps I need a goldfish.

Outside my kitchen window is a tree I’ve never noticed before. Its bark is a pale grey, and it’s covered in a greenish, crusty growth. Does this mean the tree is sick? Its leaves are a tired burgundy and they are so sparse. Every breeze seems to bring more down.

Lichen. It’s called lichen. Thank God.

I find myself sitting and staring out the window and I’m astonished to realise hours have passed. It’s the same when I watch television. Television used to irritate me, the way pleasant shop assistants and helpful waiters did. But now I can stare at it for hour without a thought popping into either of my heads. It’s so relaxing, like vodka injected into a vein. I understand why people do it, but I need a bigger set. My tiny portable hardly seems adequate. Now I want a plasma screen the size of a wall.

There are a lot of things I’ve never noticed before. I nod and smile at my neighbours when we pass in the hall and sometimes we chat about the weather. I’ve obviously always had neighbours, but I don’t recall ever noticing them before. They’re nice people: Len and Louise, a lovely couple with matching hairstyles and clothes, Craig and Deborah (he’s much taller than she is), and a sweet little old lady called Muriel. A group of Indian students who collectively offered to fix my computer any time. A career girl called Rose who looks like she stepped out of a fashion magazine.

Which reminds me. I must do something about the way I look. I’d never noticed before but now I seem so old. Fat. My clothes are like rags. Too-tight rags. Clothes are different now too. Why on earth do girls wear those sunglasses that make them look like flies? I want a pair. It’s been years since I bought any clothes, but recently I’ve somehow gained quite a bit of weight. I don’t know how—I still walk most days and unless I’m cooking for Seamus I just have cheese on toast for dinner. I am ravenous, though, all the time. I suppose I do snack a teeny weeny bit. All my clothes are suddenly too tight, so I take the bus to Chadstone and buy some new things. Luckily the lovely shop assistant helps me choose—she is so kind, she pulls out dress after dress and I try them all. I’m not sure my new clothes are right; as soon as I get home I can barely remember buying them. Imagine wide belts being back.

In our group therapy sessions lately we’ve been discussing going back to work. Francine wants me to tell the story of…what happened when I finished work. The Germphobics are fascinated. To them, being a teacher is one of the worst jobs imaginable because kids are little germ factories and being a teacher increases your chances of getting ringworm and nits. I loved being a teacher. I loved those little minds. Even when they were rebelling they were so full of fight.

Francine:
Sharing thoughts, feelings and experiences with others helps us all heal. Grace? How about sharing the story of your breakdown?

Brain One:
My breakdown? I don’t even drive anymore.

Brain Two:
She means Daniel Deluca.

Brain One:
Oh! Daniel Deluca. Sure. No problems. Easy peasy. I was on playground duty one morning. On roster. It was hot. There were no clouds. Kids were running around like crazy. Then I heard a scream.

Francine:
You’re doing very well, Grace. Go on.

I go on. It’s amazing. I hardly know the Germphobics or Francine, yet I can sit here in our plastic circle and tell them this story I’ve never even told Seamus. But these days so many of my memories seem like they happened to someone else or I saw them on television. So it’s easy to recount them, but hard to find the words to describe exactly what I want to say. I don’t want to sound ridiculous.

Brain One:
Anyway it seems so ridiculous now.

Francine:
Nothing is ridiculous. We are all here to help.

Brain One:
A little boy from grade two fell off the jungle gym head first and broke his nose. That’s all. His name was Daniel Deluca; that’s a name that’s hard to forget. For some reason it was upsetting— there was a lot of blood, but all teachers have seen blood before.

Gemma:
Blood? Did any of it touch you?

Brain One:
Yes. No. I don’t think so. Anyway the little bugger was screaming his lungs out so there can’t have been anything seriously wrong with him.

Daria:
How much blood? Did it get on your clothes?

Francine:
You’re doing very well Grace. Keep going.

Brain One:
I tried to keep going, but somehow moving became difficult. Impossible. Sitting down, even moving an arm, was too hard. Limbs like concrete. It was freaky. There was no choice but to stand there. Shock, probably.

Francine:
And what happened then?

Brain One:
Then one of the kids got another teacher—very stupid because everything would have been fine after a few more minutes.

Time to adjust, that’s all that was needed. But when Sharon Liddy the sports mistress arrived, this made things worse because having someone there meant there was no need to recover. Anyway if Sharon had not overreacted and had arranged a cup of tea and perhaps a chair everything would have been fine and I wouldn’t be here now.

Francine:
Did they call an ambulance?

Brain One:
They called an ambulance. Two, actually. One for Daniel Deluca. Paramedics should be trained better than to restrain a perfectly well woman. They had the very best of intentions, clearly, but a little time to recover was all that was required. The rest is a bit of a blur.

Gemma:
You didn’t get in the ambulance? God, they transport people with all kinds of infections in ambulances.

Daria:
I’d sooner get in a taxi.

Carla:
I have to go and wash my hands.

Francine:
‘A blur’ is not good enough, Grace. You need to try harder.

Brain One:
I tried harder when I got to the hospital. I must have seemed better because they let me go home.

Hospitals are more au fait with diagnosing actual problems as opposed to minor shock, so my release was no surprise. Getting home is hazy; perhaps I took a tram. I do remember feeling so tired I couldn’t do my night-time regime. I changed into my pyjamas and went straight to bed.

Francine:
Then the next morning things got worse?

Brain One:
The next morning things got worse. The alarm was set for 5.55 a.m. as usual, leaving five minutes to wake completely. Getting up time was exactly 6.00 a.m. That used to be quite important.

Brain Two:
Can we have a piece of cake?

Brain One:
Later.

Brain Two:
How much later? I’m starving.

Francine:
Continue please, Grace. What happened later?

Brain 1:
Later…I mean earlier…during the night there was a power failure…

Gary:
What are the chances of that?

Brain Two:
I used to know.

Brain One:
…a horrible coincidence after the events of the day before. So there was no alarm. Nothing. Only flashing zeros.

Francine:
So what did you do?

Brain One:
I did nothing. It is impossible to know when to get up when there is nothing to tell you. I lay still.

It wasn’t stressful at all. It was peaceful. The numbers had always been there since childhood, but up till then life had worked its way around them. This was when the numbers took over, finally and completely. It was a release.

Francine:
And then what happened?

Brain Two:
Is it later yet? They sell muffins in the cafeteria.

Brain One:
I’m peckish too. At least, by the time Jill came around to check on me, I hadn’t eaten for twenty-four hours. It took her a while because the school had to go through their records to find out who to ring when I didn’t show for work. It might have been late afternoon, by the light coming in the windows. I’d wet the bed a few times by then…

Gemma:
Wet? The bed?

Daria:
And you were lying in it?

This wasn’t as bad as it seemed. The sticky feeling seemed to bond flesh to sheet to mattress, which was important as getting up was out of the question. Also it was warm. There was no leaving the bed—not for Jill, despite her reasoning and pleading. Poor Jill received no reply at all. There was no getting up for the ambulance either. All they had to do was set the clock at 5.55 a.m., but of course they couldn’t know that. They had to rely on sedation because it’s hard to move an unwilling body, even for two big paramedics.

Francine:
They took you back to the hospital?

Brain Two:
Who died and put you in charge of the muffins anyway?

Brain One:
Please be quiet. I’m speaking.

Brain Two:
Well if Carla can wash her hands every two seconds I don’t know why I can’t nip down to the cafeteria for a muffin.

Francine:
And we’re listening, Grace. Would you feel better if we held hands?

Gemma:
No!

Carla:
If anyone touches me they’ll be sorry.

Brain Two:
Now? How about now?

Brain One:
Now, waking up in the hospital moved everything to another level because the rules suddenly became much stricter. I couldn’t control my daily routine at all and as the professor explained to me, the numbers had at least been something that I could control.

Somehow the skill of counting quietly was gone. There was no hiding it any more. I was compelled to recite the numbers out loud. And if they did something wrong at the hospital, like someone dealt 8 tiles instead of 7 when playing Scrabble or an orderly delivered the evening meal late, I have to admit I’d get a little upset. And yell. A little bit. Throw things. Occasionally.

Over the next few weeks, as we tell our stories, it becomes obvious that the Germphobics are getting better. Edith, our star pupil, still has trouble touching things but it’s not because of germs now. It’s because she shakes a bit. Daria and Gemma are much better too. It turns out they are sisters who haven’t spoken civilly for years. They were each suspicious that the other was only pretending to be obsessed, for a little sisterly fun. Soon Daria is going back to work as a podiatrist. Gemma still cries a bit during the sessions but now she’s able to sleep at night without wrapping the bed in plastic.

Carla hasn’t done so well. A few sessions later, Francine tells us she has dropped out. Francine says we shouldn’t let Carla’s disappearance disrupt our mental vision of a healthy and loving future. Gary is getting angrier as the sessions go on. He defends being a Germphobe on any level he can: intellectually, emotionally, even spiritually because germs are still God’s creatures and Francine has no business denying their importance. I feel sorry for him. No job, no girlfriend, lives by himself—an empty life really. No wonder he needs his germs to keep him company.

Then, a week later, Francine vanishes for a while. By the time she gets off the penicillin drip and is out of hospital, fully recovered from her gastro infection, Gary too is having second thoughts about his therapy. The rest of us wonder how long he’ll last.

Seamus and I are at my place watching television. I watch television all day by myself, and at night with Seamus. After the morning show there’s a cooking show featuring a hunky Greek-looking chef who seems very interested in talking to the cameraman. Next is some entertainment variety show, featuring stories about some starlet’s mansion and another starlet’s miracle inches-off Hollywood diet. Then various international soap operas (one featuring an evil twin who has been masquerading as his good brother and had fooled everyone, even his father, and another featuring an evil father who has been masquerading as his own good son to fool his evil brother) until a courtroom show, which is a kind of ritual humiliation of rednecks. Then another cooking show, this time with a bulbous chef who can’t stop tasting everything. Then a kind of ritual humiliation of fat people, complete with torture, which after a while I realise is a weight-loss show. Then a ritual humiliation of young, stupid, naked drunk people, aka a reality show. Then a ritual humiliation of greedy people, aka a quiz show. Then another soap opera.

Now we are watching two boys who were long-lost brothers discovering their supernatural powers, or something. The two brothers are handsome in that Hollywood way—even the compulsory ugly one is, should you ever meet him in the flesh, actually the handsomest person you would ever see in your life. The same way American movies always cast a stunningly beautiful girl to play an ugly girl, and then give her one eyebrow, fluffy hair and glasses. This supernatural-brothers show is one of Seamus’s favourites, but every night seems to be one of his favourites, so we sit most nights silently for hours watching that glowing box in the corner. Tonight I can’t really follow what’s happening because my two brains are yabbering away (something about which of them is more beautiful, the physical brain or the thinking brain), so I try to smirk when Seamus does and groan when Seamus does. I catch his eye, but it takes a while to organise for the brains to make me smile. It’s good to smile at him, though. Because sometimes when he catches my eye he looks a bit sad.