All in the Mind (24 page)

Yes, he reckoned Professor Sturrock had five kids. Lucky bastards, to have a father like that who would talk to them and guide them through life.

He still couldn’t sleep. He thought about getting up to read the American book again. There must be method in the Professor’s madness. He wondered about calling him. Professor Sturrock had given him his mobile number for emergencies. But then he thought about the big bedroom with Mr and Mrs Sturrock fast asleep in it. No, he couldn’t call. He’d have to get through this by himself. He rolled over again to check the time. It was 4.15. He was sure the dot between the 4 and the 15 was flashing more slowly than the last time he looked.

22

When Sturrock finally woke on Sunday morning, he knew he faced a struggle to get out of bed. He’d slept through Stella’s alarm clock, which she had set for 8 a.m. to give her plenty of time to prepare for the birthday lunch for Jack. It was now ten o’clock, and from downstairs he could hear the vacuum cleaner, and with it the message from Stella that she was up and about, and he was lying in bed doing nothing. Sleep had failed to alleviate his tiredness, or his irritability.

An odd dream from the night just gone came back to him. He’d been pruning a rose bush and a panther had sprung out at him. David’s influence again. David often dreamed of cats who turned violent, and had spoken recently about a dream in which a ginger cat had suddenly transformed itself into a panther. More often than he liked to admit, Professor Sturrock found details from his patients’ dreams entering his own. In the past few weeks it had been as if David’s dream-life had invaded his. He told himself that this was because he saw David on a Friday and he tended to dream more at weekends, when he slept a little longer. But he knew there were other reasons. Even within the dream, he was having to acknowledge that this was David’s influence and he was trying to fight off not merely the animal, but the influence.

He lay there for a few moments, trying to persuade himself the inertia would pass, and he would soon be leaping out of bed and facing the day with confidence. But even as he tried, he knew he would fail. There was no doubt. The events of yesterday had taken him into a plunge, and sleep had taken him lower. His mind was
filling
with more of the same negative thoughts he had endured all day yesterday, and the thoughts kept his head pinned to the pillow. His marriage; his son and his worries about whether he would be able to engage with him when he came to celebrate his birthday; his mother’s health and his selfishness about it; the patients he had to see next week, and all the problems they would bring; Tuesday’s funeral and the wretched eulogy he still hadn’t even started to write. He felt incapable of facing up to any of these challenges, and there was no one he could ask for help. He felt totally alone.

He found himself thinking of the time David Temple’s mother called him, in a terrible state, because David was so bad, so low, she was desperate. It was about ten months ago, and it had led to his one meeting with her, and his one visit to David’s home.

David had had an appointment that day but despite his mother’s efforts he had refused to leave the house, and she was sufficiently worried about his state of mind to call the hospital. She spoke to Phyllis, said that David was worse than she had ever seen him, and she was worried what would happen if he went another week without seeing the doctor. Fortunately Phyllis had the sense, despite her annoyance at the missed appointment, to put Mrs Temple through so she could speak to Professor Sturrock directly.

Mrs Temple was hugely apologetic both about David’s failure to keep the appointment, and for taking his time on the phone. She thanked him at length for all the help he gave to her son. ‘You’re like a lifeline to him sometimes,’ she said. Although she couldn’t say hand on heart that David’s condition had permanently improved in the months of treatment under Professor Sturrock, she had noted that he sometimes came back from his hospital visits with a little more energy. He also enjoyed most of the tasks Professor Sturrock set him, though he didn’t like her to read what he wrote. And it was clear to her that David had a respect for Professor Sturrock that she had never seen him have for any other man. He could be scathing about his work colleagues. He had refused to engage with the man from the community crisis team sent by Professor Sturrock after a previous
failure
to keep an appointment. ‘I have never heard him say a bad word about you, Professor. You are unique in that.’

Sturrock asked her what David was doing. She said he was sitting in a chair by the kitchen table. He had been sitting there all day. He had failed to go to work and when his line manager called to find out where he was, David wouldn’t take the phone. He was just staring at his knees. His eyes barely blinked. His limbs didn’t move. He was so still she wondered if he was even breathing.

‘It must be very worrying for you, Mrs Temple. It sounds like he’s at the bottom of one of his curves, doesn’t it?’

‘Well, yes, but usually when he’s there, there are flashes of anger, or looks of hurt or hatred at me, or something. There is nothing, Professor. I am looking at my own son, my own flesh and blood, and he looks more dead than alive.’

‘Have you asked him why he doesn’t want to see me?’

‘Yes, he just stares and moves his shoulders a tiny, tiny bit, not even a shrug, but I know I’m meant to see a shrug.’

‘Yes, that is quite normal. It means he wants to engage and answer, but he feels he can’t. I know it’s not easy to live with, but I promise you this is quite normal for someone like David. It happens to quite a lot of people.’

‘I just don’t know what to do though,’ she said, and beneath the words he could sense her struggle to hold back tears.

‘I assume he’s not with you at the moment.’

‘No. I think he would be cross if he knew I was calling you.’

‘You’ve done the right thing in calling. If you’re worried, I’m worried. I’m worried about you too. You sound under great strain.’

She let out a rather embarrassed laugh, which unlocked a tension that had been growing all day and she began to sob. She kept the phone to her ear the whole time, and the sobbing went on, so long and so hard it sounded like the insides of her chest were caving in.

‘It’s OK to cry,’ he said. ‘You just cry for as long as you like, and then I’ve got an idea.’

‘I can’t believe I’m crying down a phone, on to the shoulder of someone I’ve never met,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t worry. Sometimes these illnesses can be every bit as bad for the family as for the sufferer, so I do understand.’

Once she had recovered herself, he told her his idea – that she take the phone to David, and tell him Professor Sturrock was on the line, then put the phone to his ear. He said he would ask David if he would like him to come to see him at home tonight when he was finished at the hospital.

As he expected, though Mrs Temple held the phone close to his ear as instructed, David did not respond at all when he offered to visit him.

‘OK, David, well, you think about that and if you want me to come, just ask your mum to call me.’

When Mrs Temple came back on the line, he tried to reassure her.

‘It doesn’t seem to me that he’s a danger to himself. He hasn’t said anything for now, but he will think about it, and he may want to speak later. If he does, and he wants me to come, call me. Or if you want me to come, just say. I will be here till quite late.’

‘Will you tell your secretary I might call?’ she asked.

Sturrock laughed gently. He knew Phyllis could be fierce with patients and their families sometimes. ‘Why don’t you take my mobile number and I’ll keep it on? Just call if you think I should come.’

Two hours later, she did. She said David had just been sitting staring at her while she watched TV. She’d asked him every now and then if he was all right, and he’d just carried on staring, but then after a while he’d said something which sounded like, ‘Do you think he would come?’

She’d got up from her chair to turn off the TV, gone over to where he was sitting, knelt down with her hands on his knees, and seen a tiny hint of life in his eyes.

‘I said, “Would you like him to, love?” and he kind of nodded. It’s like he’s really, really trying to tell me something, like a massive effort going on and he’s in agony, but I’m sure he nodded, I’m sure of it.’ She paused. ‘So do you think you can come?’

Sturrock arrived just after 9 p.m. He was surprised by David’s
home
. He always developed an impression in his mind of his patients’ homes, and he had imagined David in a block of flats, graffiti on the communal staircase, a green door, one of ten, along a dank third-floor corridor. His mind’s eye had him in a very small and cramped bedroom leading off from the top of a mini staircase, opposite a bathroom with a leaking tap and a shower curtain that failed to hold in the water. But the house was not as he had imagined at all. David actually lived on the top two floors of a well-maintained, fairly modern red-brick house in a development near Pentonville prison. There was a thick blue carpet on the shared staircase up to the Temples’ door and signs of his mother’s Catholic faith everywhere. Jesus on a cross was the first thing he noticed going through the door, high on the wall to the left. A classic Jesus and Mary portrait hung over the fireplace in the kitchen where David was sitting. Little frames holding cards with lines from the Bible were dotted around the room.

He had also got Nora Temple wrong. When she had come up in his discussions with David, Sturrock saw a woman of medium height, very well built, with solid legs, a thick head of brown hair and a bossy manner. In reality, she was tiny, no more than five feet tall, with thin wrists and arms and a bony face beneath perfectly symmetrical jet-black hair. She looked at the end of her tether.

‘Thank you for coming, Professor. And sorry about earlier.’

‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘I know how hard it can be for the families of people who suffer like David.’

He picked up a chair and went to sit close to David.

‘Well then,’ he said, with a smile. ‘This isn’t so good, is it?’ David shook his head very slightly from side to side.

‘What have you been thinking about sitting here all day? Can you tell me?’

David exhaled a very long sigh, let his head fall backwards so that he was staring at the ceiling, and shook his head, more forcefully.

‘You can’t tell me, or you don’t really know what you’ve been thinking about?’

David’s head fell forward. ‘Dead,’ he said. ‘Been feeling dead.’

‘And what does that feel like, feeling dead?’

Sturrock knew the answer, having felt dead himself several times, though only once so dead that he had been in a state like David’s, but it was important to get David to open up.

‘What does dead feel like, David?’

‘Bad,’ said David, with just the tiniest hint of a laugh. Sturrock smiled back. It was like an in-joke. ‘Feels bad. Like nothing there. Nothing. Just dead. Can breathe, can hear, can see, can smell, but can’t feel. Nothing. Can’t feel anything. Nothing. Just dead.’

‘Like before, or worse?’

‘Dunno. Can’t remember before when it’s like this. It’s like this is all there is, all there has ever been, all there’s gonna be.’

‘But you have been here before, David. Many times. These feelings do pass.’

David nodded, but then his head slumped forward. He was exhausted. The effort of speech had sucked all the energy from him, and he was going to have to dig again before he could say any more.

‘Is he OK?’ asked Mrs Temple.

‘Yes, he’s OK. For someone in the state he is in, what he did in speaking just then was equivalent to running up stairs with a ton of bricks on his back. Big effort. Now he’ll be tired. But it’ll be OK.’

Mrs Temple made some tea and put out three slices of a lemon cake she had made, which went untouched.

By ten to ten, David was ready to talk some more.

‘It’s like there is a part of my mind that knows what I have to do, and the other part is stopping me. The first part is saying be nice, be good, get involved, because that’s what will make you happy, and it’ll make Mum happy. But the other part is saying you can’t do it, you shouldn’t do it, don’t do anything because it’s all bad anyway, and it won’t work, and you’ll make things worse, so just sit down and shut up, you useless little fucker.’

Mrs Temple put her hands up to her mouth as he swore, something he rarely did, and crossed herself.

‘It’s OK, Mrs Temple,’ said Sturrock. ‘It is important he expresses himself as he feels it.’ He turned back to David.

‘Did anyone ever tell you to sit down and shut up, David? Did anyone ever call you a useless little fucker?’

David was staring at his knees again, and shaking his head.

‘Is that no, nobody did? Or you can’t speak again?’

David shook his head, slowly. ‘It’s not about him, it’s about me.’

‘Not about who, David? Who is him?’

‘You know.’

‘So why do you think it is all about you?’

‘Because it is. Because I can’t seem to get anything right.’

Sturrock looked into his briefcase and rummaged around, eventually finding a rubber band. He took David’s hand in his, and slipped the rubber band over his wrist. David looked down at it, suspicious.

‘That’s your positive-thinking band,’ said Sturrock. ‘Every time you have a negative thought about yourself, I want you to flick the band against your wrist. I want you to try to force yourself to have a positive thought. If you’re thinking of something you feel you cannot do, flick the rubber band. But then try to think of something you can do.

‘There is a lot you can do, David. Just try to think a little bit positively. Can you do that for me, do you think?’

David nodded, then he slumped again, and as he stared at his knees, Sturrock took Mrs Temple through to the sitting room and asked her about David’s father.

‘He did hit me a few times, but I don’t think he ever hurt David. He wasn’t a good man, but I don’t think he did any of that.’

He asked how David had been when he realised his father had gone and wasn’t coming back.