Fractured (21 page)

Anna cleared her throat. ‘She had a look at him. He’s fine, no problems.’

Tony put the tablets down and smiled. ‘I’m so pleased that you went. Things will get easier, I promise.’ He put his arms around
her from behind and kissed the back of her head. Her hand didn’t stop stirring the wooden spoon round and round in the pot.
Chunks of brown meat bobbed on the surface of the curry sauce then sank into the thick folds and disappeared.

He rested his chin on the top of her head and relaxed for the first time in weeks; things were going to be fine.

* * *

Anna took another tablet the next morning, but she didn’t feel better. By lunchtime, she felt much worse: she couldn’t keep
still,
every part of her body urged her to move, to scratch, to pace. She tried to lie down when Jack fell asleep in the afternoon,
but her legs itched and tingled. She couldn’t eat; she felt sick. It was unbearable.

Giving up on trying to nap, she typed the name of her medication into her computer and started to read about the terrible
side effects. These tablets weren’t going to help at all. Her hands shook as she picked up the box of pills from the kitchen
bench and stared at them. What good could they do? She felt worse now than before she started them. And Dr Fraser had told
her that the chemicals went into her breast milk – what were they doing to Jack? What about his brain?

She walked through to the bedroom, opened the drawer of her bedside table and put the box in there. She put a book on top
of them, closed the drawer and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

Monday, 5 October 2009

Anna pushed away her half-eaten cereal. The milk was too thick and warm; it tasted like it was about to go off. She stared
at the melamine plate and tried to ignore the other patients around her. Rachel wouldn’t let Anna eat her meals in her room
any more; she wanted her to socialise. But Anna had nothing to say to the other patients. Initially, she had convinced herself
that she was different, but now she stayed away because she knew that she was exactly like them.

She sipped her weak coffee, then grimaced. Caffeine was a drug that some people abused, Rachel said, so the nurses kept the
jar locked in their office and spooned out daily rations of a few granules of cheap, bitter, instant coffee floating in tepid
water. It wasn’t worth drinking.

She smelled Dr Morgan’s perfume wafting toward her, competing with the odour of burnt toast and rubbery sausages. She looked
around and saw that Dr Morgan had cut her hair: the ends looked sharp.

‘Hi, Anna. Are you finished eating?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Great. I wanted to have a chat with you. Is that all right?’

Anna was glad for an excuse to get away from the other patients. She took her plate and cup over to the tray near the sink,
then followed Dr Morgan towards one of the interview rooms off the main corridor. Her eyes darted around the room: she did
trust Dr Morgan, but she still always expected a policeman to be waiting for her. The room was empty.

Dr Morgan sat opposite her and smiled. ‘How are you?’

Anna shrugged.

‘How was breakfast?’

‘Not good.’

Dr Morgan gave a small laugh. ‘No, it’s not very good at all, is it? The nurses tell me you’re eating a bit better now, though.
What do you think your appetite’s like?’

‘It’s OK.’

‘Are you sleeping?’

‘Too much. I can’t keep my eyes open …’ As if to prove the point, she stifled a yawn.

‘I’m sorry about that, it’s a side effect of the medications.’

‘I don’t care.’ Anna looked at her, defiant. ‘I’d rather be sleeping.’

‘I can imagine.’

‘Can you? I’m sick of the sympathy.’ Her eyes stung but she blinked back the tears.

‘I’m sorry. That was insensitive of me. You’re right: I can’t imagine how you feel. Anna, what do you remember about when
you came into hospital?’

Always the same questions, and she gave the same answer. ‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing at all?’

She shook her head.

‘What’s the last thing you remember?’

‘I don’t know!’ Sometimes, at night, she could recall fragments of sounds, images that she knew must be memories of that day,
but she chased them away. She didn’t want to remember.

‘Do you know why you were at the cliffs?’

She didn’t want to talk about this; she’d rather talk about her physical symptoms, or her childhood, as they often did. Going
back to that day wasn’t going to help.

Dr Morgan spoke slowly. ‘Anna, when you came into hospital, you were psychotic – do you know what that means?’

‘Crazy.’ She knew what it meant; most of the patients in here were psychotic.

‘Well, I suppose some people might still say that, but when I say someone is psychotic, I mean that their thinking becomes
disorganised – they lose touch with reality. Some people believe things that aren’t true, others have unusual sensations like
hearing voices.’

She could hear what Dr Morgan was saying, could understand it, but couldn’t think of it as anything other than a lecture,
something from a book that had nothing to do with her.

‘Does any of that sound familiar to you? Does it sound like what you were experiencing?’

It was impossible to imagine herself – a sensible, married schoolteacher – being like that. ‘It’s like you’re talking about
a different person.’

‘I know it’s hard to hear. When you came into hospital, you could barely speak, and when you did, it didn’t make much sense.
You seemed scared, you thought you were in danger.’

She remembered the fear. But it wasn’t she who had been in danger. The fear she’d had was for Tony and Jack – her husband
and son. It wasn’t clear in her mind, but she had known that she was the dangerous one, and there was only one way to save
them. The memory faded and she recalled the terror of being held down by countless heavy hands, having a policeman at her
door, having no idea where she was. Those memories were clear, tangible, and she clutched at them. Her heart began to pound.
‘I
was
scared. I was locked up! How do you think you’d feel if you woke up in a place like this and no one told you what was going
on? Not even your family.’

Dr Morgan nodded in that way she did when she wanted to look sympathetic. ‘But knowing what you know now, can you understand
why Tony would find it difficult to talk to you?’

Always this, always skirting around the real issue. She glared at Dr Morgan. ‘Why can’t you say it? No one will even say his
name any more. I know Jack died, and I know that it was my fault!’ She rubbed her hands up and down her face. ‘That’s what
you wanted to hear, wasn’t it? That’s what the police wanted me to say. They didn’t
want to hear that I couldn’t remember, they wanted all the gory details, for me to tell them everything and make their job
easier.’

‘Anna, you don’t have to remember, or say anything. I’m not the police; I’m your doctor. I’m here to try to get you better.’
Dr Morgan sat back in the chair, crossing her legs. ‘It will take time – a long time – to come to terms with this. You may
never remember. It’s quite common not to be able to recall things that happened when you were psychotic, but trauma itself
can make us block out memories. Sometimes our minds do what they can to protect us.’

Anna bowed her head and folded her hands in her lap; she could say no more.

‘Let’s leave it there for today then. I just need to ask you one more thing before we finish. Do you have any thoughts at
the moment about hurting yourself?’

Dr Morgan asked her this every day. ‘No.’

‘Because it wouldn’t be unusual – in fact, I think it would be quite normal in your situation.’

But how many people had been in her situation? Really, were there studies on people
like her
? She bit her lip. ‘No, I don’t.’

She stood up and followed Dr Morgan back down the corridor. The nurses had locked her room, so she had no choice but to go
to the morning meditation class. Just before she entered the room, she paused and took in the patients lying on the floor.
They looked unkempt. They had bad skin, bad haircuts, their fingers were stained with nicotine. But more than that, even as
they lay stretched out on the floor, breathing deeply, they looked lonely. Lonely and sad.

She tiptoed in and lay down on the floor next to the nurse who was running the group. She tried to hold her body still, but
her chest heaved. Her mind couldn’t rest either. Pieces of thoughts and memories flew past her and she scrabbled to grasp
them, but she couldn’t. She didn’t have the strength.

* * *

Tony hesitated outside the doctors’ practice. It was on the fourth floor of a huge shiny shopping mall, opposite a gym. He
supposed
it was meant to make people think that going to see the doctor was just like buying a pair of shoes. He hadn’t expected that
the shopping centre would be this busy on a weekday morning: there were mums pushing prams everywhere. He couldn’t look at
them; they reminded him too much of Anna and Jack. Maybe he should have encouraged Anna to spend more time out of the house,
to walk around the shops, have a coffee with these other mums – maybe that would have helped. He cut off his train of thought:
what was the point of thinking about it? It was all too late now.

He pushed open the glass door. He walked up the stairs to the waiting room, then marched towards reception. Behind the desk,
one receptionist processed an elderly man’s payment; the other rummaged under the desk. He walked to her side of the counter.

‘I need to see Dr Fraser,’ he said over the top of her head.

She stood up straight. ‘Your name?’

‘Tony Patton.’

She pointed at her computer screen with a long nail sparkling with tiny stars. ‘What time was your appointment?’

‘I don’t have one.’

‘If you don’t have an appointment, you can’t see her. All of our doctors are fully booked. If it’s an emergency —’

‘Just tell her I’m here, and it’s about my wife.’ He turned around and pointed to the chairs in the waiting area. ‘I’m going
to sit here until she sees me. I’m not in a hurry. Just tell her I’m here.’

The receptionist started to argue, but he ignored her and sat in the chair nearest to the desk, so he had a good view of the
doors to the consulting rooms. He heard the receptionists mumbling to each other. He waited. He would wait as long as it took.
The more he had thought about it, the angrier he had become at Dr Fraser. He had done the right thing in insisting Anna see
the doctor; Anna had done the right thing by seeking help here. So why was Anna the one to blame when the doctor had told
her there was nothing wrong with her?

Ten minutes later, Dr Fraser came out of her room with a patient and walked over to reception. Her long string of brown beads
clacked and bounced on the desk. The receptionist raised her thin, over-plucked eyebrows and nodded at Tony as she whispered
to the doctor. The GP nodded, fixed a smile on her face then pulled her shoulders back. ‘Tony Patton?’

‘Yes.’ He stood up slowly, straightened his t-shirt and followed her into her room. He was going to stay calm.

Dr Fraser closed the door behind her, then pulled her chair out from behind the desk so that she sat between him and the door.
She smiled at him again, and gestured to a chair. ‘Please sit down. What can I do for you today?’

Tony heard the slight quiver in her voice and knew she was worried. He had been right to come here; she knew she’d done something
wrong.

He sat down. ‘I’m here about my wife, Anna Patton. Do you know who I mean?’

Dr Fraser’s eyes dropped. ‘Yes, of course, I heard. The hospital contacted me. Mr Patton, I’m so sorry about your loss, it
really is a tragedy.’

‘That’s one way of looking at it,’ he said evenly. He waited. Dr Fraser looked at him, waiting too. Tony knew he had the upper
hand here. ‘So, what I need to know is, what did Anna say to you when she was here?’

‘I’m so sorry but I can’t discuss that with you, I’m bound by doctor–patient confidentiality —’

‘Doctor–patient confidentiality? You’ve got to be joking. My wife is locked up in a mental ward after killing my baby, and
you can’t discuss her with me? She has to go to court and probably jail, it’s all over the papers and half of Sydney knows
about it, but you can’t tell me, her husband, what she said when she came here right before she did it?’ He realised it was
the first time he had said out loud that she had done it, that Anna had killed Jack.

Dr Fraser shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t. I can assure you, Mr Patton, that there was absolutely no indication that something
like this would happen. My notes will probably be subpoenaed by the court, but there is a process and I’m afraid I can’t tell
you the
details of that consultation. But I’m happy to hear what you’ve got to say, to talk to you about your experiences …’

He sat forward. She was so bloody patronising. ‘What
experiences
would you like me to talk about? Identifying my son’s body? Watching my wife being led away by police, or maybe seeing her
screaming, being held down and having a needle stabbed into her? You think I’m here to talk to you about that?’ His voice
shook and tears began to fall. He wiped his eyes; he didn’t want to look weak, he needed her to admit that she was partly
to blame. It wasn’t all Anna’s fault. He swallowed, composed himself, then pointed his finger at Dr Fraser. ‘Anna came to
see you for help. I knew there was something wrong – even she knew. You were meant to help her!’

Dr Fraser pushed her chair back slightly and held her hands out in front of her. ‘Please, Mr Patton, I need you to calm down.
I know how terrible and confusing this is for you, and I know that you must want answers.’ Her voice was trembling. ‘But I
can’t talk to you when you’re like this.’

Suddenly the phone on her desk rang. She kept her hands up in front of her. ‘I’m going to have to answer that.’ She slowly
moved her left hand towards the receiver.

He gripped the arms of his chair, trying to stop the shaking in his hands. He no longer knew if the trembling was from anger
or grief.

‘Yes,’ Dr Fraser said. ‘Thank you, I’ll be right out.’ She gently replaced the receiver and kept her voice soft. ‘I’m just
going to step out of the office for a second, OK?’

Tony knew that Dr Fraser had organised for the receptionist to call if she heard shouting, or after a few minutes to give
her an excuse to get away. What was he doing? He wasn’t trying to intimidate her, that wasn’t him. But he had such a rage
inside him at times, a sense of injustice, a need for someone to blame. He needed Dr Fraser to understand her role in this,
to understand what his family was going through.

He tried to talk without his voice faltering. ‘Are you frightened of me? I’m not here to …’ He shook his head, then looked
her straight in the eye. ‘Just imagine that fear you’re feeling now, but
multiplied a million times. Imagine how I felt when I couldn’t find them. Imagine how Jack felt when …’ He couldn’t breathe
properly; standing up he pointed his finger at her. ‘Anna asked for help and you gave her nothing.’

Before Dr Fraser could reply, he wrenched open the door. He didn’t care when it slammed into the wall, or that everyone in
the waiting room stared. He looked straight ahead and stormed out into the mall. He ran down the escalators, past a group
of chatting teenagers who didn’t seem to understand the concept of keeping to the left with their oversized bags of crap.
His face was burning and his eyes were wet, but he made it back to the car. He managed to unlock it and clamber inside, then
he pulled his arm back and slammed his fist into the windscreen. He yelled from the pain, then looked at the blood that seeped
from a cut between his knuckles. He shook his hand, and the throbbing intensified. The scary thing was that it felt good.
It was something real; there would be a bruise there later, something that he, and everyone else, could see. People could
understand physical pain; they knew what to say and do. But no one could understand the agony of his situation, and no one
could say or do anything to help.