Nearest Thing to Crazy (27 page)

‘Cass . . .’

‘What?’

‘I just meant she shouldn’t be using her valuable time. I mean, she’s a busy woman and I just feel really grateful to her for helping. If anything, she’s
over-
helpful. Not frightening. I don’t think she’s frightening. That’s silly talk. It’s just that I feel a bit concerned about how we repay her for all this. Obviously that’s why I bought her lunch yesterday, to say thank you, but it’s getting a bit embarrassing.’

‘Oh.’ I snapped my mouth shut, wishing I hadn’t said anything.

‘All this negative thinking, it’s not doing you any good, Cass. Come on, let’s take this next door and see how that fire’s getting on.’

We sat curled up on the sofa together until it was time for
Newsnight
and then I told Dan I’d see him upstairs. I think I had fallen asleep because I remember thinking it was odd when I felt him shake me, saying: ‘Here, drink this. Hot chocolate. It’ll help you sleep.’

CHAPTER

14

Dan was wrong about lots of things but right about the fact that I had to do something about my deepening depression. I was in danger of retreating far too much into myself and of isolating myself from everyone I cared about.

My introspection seemed to have infected the world around me, quarantining me from outside contact. Laura still hadn’t called me and I was tired of leaving messages which were sounding more and more frustrated. I could have kept on trying, but I didn’t want to have to listen to her excitement about bloody Ellie. I’d heard nothing from Amelia, and I didn’t want to call her either, because no doubt she would tell me how much she was looking forward to her trip to London with Ellie.

I knew Dan would be pleased that I managed to get an emergency appointment with the doctor but I couldn’t help but think from my own point of view that what I was doing was an admission of defeat. Depression was a form of mental illness, wasn’t it? – so I must be mentally ill. What did that mean? Unstable? Irrational? Mad? I certainly wasn’t mad. I’m not sure I was even irrational, but I did feel unstable; or, more correctly, I would say destabilized. I waited in the waiting room for my consultation in the consulting room, running through what I would say about why I was here. I decided it was probably best to keep it all to the bare minimum; I wasn’t about to go in there and say, ‘Actually I’ve got this weird neighbour who’s playing silly little games, including planting empty wine bottles in my kitchen to make it seem like I’ve got a serious drink problem . . .’

‘So,’ he said. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘I think I’m suffering from depression . . . My husband is worried about me.’

‘And what about you, what do you think?’

‘I think I’m feeling pretty low.’

‘And people, apart from your husband . . . Do you think others around you have noticed a difference?’

‘God, yes. Everyone keeps on telling me how they’re worried about me. If I had a fiver for every time I’d heard that recently.’

‘How’s your sleeping?’

‘Bad. I toss and turn and then wake up early with all these thoughts just pummelling my brain. I’m so tired, to be honest. Although I did sleep really well last night for the first time in ages.’

‘So you said you’re feeling low. Does that mean you find yourself preoccupied with negative thoughts?’

I nodded. ‘Definitely. Oh yes. Like I’ve got this inexplicable sense of guilt and feeling of anxiety in my stomach that won’t shift. But I don’t think the
whole
world’s against me, and it’s not that
everyone
dislikes me . . . just my friends, really.’ There was a box of tissues on the desk, so I took one and blew my nose. Then the doctor opened a drawer and pulled out a questionnaire. ‘Would you mind filling this in for me?’

It had questions like: do you feel hopeless? Do you feel useless to everyone? Do you ever think people would be better off without you? Do you have suicidal thoughts – some of the time? All the time? Never? It didn’t have any questions about psychopathic neighbours, but I worked my way down the list anyway, and handed it back to him. He read through my answers and then looked at me. I had the awful feeling that his face was a mirror and the reflection coming back at me was cracked and distorted so that the ‘me’ seen through his eyes wasn’t someone I recognized.

‘From your score on this I would say that you are
mildly
depressed, Mrs Burton, and of course depression does distort your thinking, causing negative thoughts and so forth.’

‘Ah . . . really . . .’ I thought, ‘that explained everything.’ If only . . .

‘I can give you antidepressants to increase your serotonin levels, which should make you feel more able to deal with things. But if you have problems that are making you feel like this, it won’t make them go away – you’ll still have the problems.’

‘But I’ll be better able to fight them, because I’ll feel stronger?’

‘Hopefully, yes.’

‘Then that sounds a very positive way forward, doctor.’

He printed off a prescription and signed his signature with what seemed like a simple tick.

‘It might be an idea to talk to someone, as well.’ I was speaking to him, wasn’t I? ‘Like . . .?’

‘Like a counsellor. It could be arranged if you felt like it.’ He looked at me steadily, and spoke gently. ‘Have you been having any thoughts of harming yourself?’ I had a sudden flash that I was watching characters on some trashy soap opera, that this conversation wasn’t really one which could involve me. I felt oddly detached from a surreal-seeming situation. But then didn’t that describe my life perfectly these days?

‘No. Absolutely not,’ I said firmly, as if the question was absurd. ‘I just know that it would be good to get some proper sleep and then maybe I’d feel better able to deal with things.’ I paused and he remained silent, just nodding in that professional, understanding manner. My eyes shifted away from his to the beige vertical blinds which were discreetly blocking off the view from the window, but which seemed to make the small room airless and claustrophobic. He continued with the silent treatment, still nodding. I wasn’t going to fill the space, so I folded my arms in front of my chest and double crossed my legs, making myself smaller in the chair.

‘I’d like you to come back in two weeks and we can see how you’re feeling then. And if you change your mind in the meantime – about some form of counselling – just call my secretary and we’ll go from there.’

I returned to the waiting room and had to wait for my Cipramil prescription to be dispensed. I sat there, hoping that I wouldn’t see anyone I knew. I hated those waiting room chats, although they could be quite funny. I mean, the way you say ‘hello, how are you?’ when obviously you’re not okay because you wouldn’t be at the doctor’s, would you? But when I saw Jules Gale come in I could feel my cheeks go pink as I said overly cheerfully ‘Hi Jules . . . good to see you . . . How are you?’

She sat down on the chair next to me. ‘Smear . . .’ she mouthed, silently ‘with the nurse. So boring.’

‘Oh yeah, poor you.’

‘How about you Cass? Are you okay?’

‘Thrush,’ I said. I honestly couldn’t think of anything else to say.
‘Such a bore . . .’

‘Ouch. Natural yoghurt is good.’

‘Is it? Well I’ll give it a try . . . Just picking up some . . . you know
. . . cream.’

‘Mrs Burton . . . Cassandra Burton . . .’

‘Here,’ I said. I stood up and went over to the hatch to collect my prescription, delving in my purse for the money to cover the fee. And then the stupid woman behind the counter said in a very loud voice, ‘Do you need this Cipramil on repeat, Mrs Burton?’

I looked straight at Jules. It was a reflex action and she was just smiling at me and nodding, like she knew
everything.

Dan was really pleased that I’d taken his advice at last. His only negative comment had been to question the GP saying I was
mildly
depressed. ‘I’d say you were
severely
depressed,’ he said, ‘but maybe you didn’t tell him everything. Anyway, let’s hope you’ll soon be feeling better, eh Cass?’

I couldn’t fault him for the degree of concern he showed, tiptoeing around me, treating me almost as if I was an invalid. ‘How’s your head? . . . How are you feeling? . . . Are you okay? . . . Cass, are you really okay?’

‘I’m fine,’ I kept repeating. I almost found it easier to stay out of his way and away from his questions; and so went to bed soon after supper and attempted to read, but the words on the page refused to register, unable to make themselves heard above the story in my own head. Dan brought me hot chocolate. He sat down on the bed and took my hand, and looked at me with a face full of concern. ‘I’m worried about you, Cass. What can I do?’

‘But I’m fine. You don’t need to do anything.’ I mean, what could I say? I couldn’t say any of the things I wanted to say, so it was easiest to say nothing. I don’t really know what I was waiting for, what I thought would change in our situation. I suppose I hoped that the drugs would work and that I’d feel stronger. But whether that would mean that Dan and I would sort things out I just couldn’t really say. The way I now saw it, I had a battle with myself on two separate fronts. Both of them had Dan in the middle, but one assault came from the past, and one from the here and now. The one I could square up to in the here and now was the one which no one gave any credence to. I was living up to my name – poor Cassandra, whose warnings no one would listen to – while the other assault from the past meant admitting that I’d been spying on Dan. So I wouldn’t really be mounting my own defence – or more correctly, attack – from the moral high ground, would I?

It wouldn’t exactly be the cleverest thing to say, for example, ‘How dare you keep these mementoes locked away in your special box, these special things that mean so much to you, so that one day I’ll come sneaking along and break open all your secrets?’ Hmm, not a very good position from which to win whatever it was that would constitute a win. Maybe that was the place to start from: what did I want to achieve in the end? What did I want from all this? Easy, actually. I wanted Dan to be the loving and loyal husband that I’d
mostly
believed him to be. I wanted him to be satisfied with me, so that I didn’t have to feel that I didn’t somehow live up to his ideal; that I wasn’t clever enough, or thin enough, or young enough, or amusing enough to be
enough
for him. And I wanted Ellie out of our lives. And I wanted
my
daughter to appreciate me and love me as much as she seemed to love her father. Was that such a lot to ask for?

Over the next couple of weeks I could sense that my depression was beginning to wear Dan down. The more I withdrew into myself, the harder he tried to reach out to me, but I just didn’t seem able to lower my defences. I suppose I must have felt that it was okay because in a small way it was a means of punishing him. I know that sounds irrational, because it was hardly an effective punishment when he’d got no idea what it was all about. And to give poor Dan his due he kept on trying. ‘I don’t know what to do to help you,’ he said. ‘You know I’d do anything, Cass. You know I love you, don’t you? But I just don’t know what to do . . . Perhaps we could go away, would that make you feel better?’

‘We can’t afford it, can we? And you’re always far too busy.’

‘But if it would make you feel better, get you smiling again, it would be worth it.’

‘Really, Dan? Do you mean that?’

‘Well of course I do.’

‘Your mother would like to see us. Maybe a night in the Lake
District.’

‘I was thinking of somewhere a little more romantic than that.’
‘Rome, perhaps?’

‘Oh Cass. Don’t . . . please don’t push me away.’

‘I’m not . . .’

But I was. I just couldn’t seem to help myself.