Nearest Thing to Crazy (37 page)

There are some things I remember so clearly, and then other things which have become really hazy. I guess the medication they filled me with saw to that. I remember Dan bringing me a cup of tea, and then I don’t know what time passed – it could have been an hour, or three, I couldn’t say – but two of them came. One was the shrink, for sure, and the other person was some kind of social worker. They asked me lots of questions, I think. To be honest it’s all a bit of a blur and there’s so much that I don’t want to think about. It was the usual sort of stuff, you know, did I hear voices, what happened with my previous psychiatric
episodes
as they coyly termed it, whether I’d had thoughts about harming myself.

I remember saying something along the lines of, ‘I don’t expect you to believe me, but I don’t hear voices telling me to do terrible things. If I’m guilty of anything, then it’s of trying to pretend that things were other than they really were between me and my daughter. And I’m guilty of being jealous of the fact that I’m not my daughter’s biological mother, but that Dan is her father. I’m threatened by that. And I’m threatened by the fact that the person who wants to destroy me is closer to my daughter than I can ever be. I am sickened to the very core of me by all that. It causes me the deepest pain imaginable that she is doing all of this to me. But it is not me that’s insane, it’s
her
you should be examining, sectioning, or whatever it is you’re no doubt planning to do to me. I am not making any of this up.’ I decided I’d try and play my ace card. ‘Tell me, does the term gaslighting mean anything to you?’

‘No, I don’t believe it does.’

‘It’s a film, from the 1940s, about how you can manipulate someone into making them seem insane. It’s what she called her book. That’s what she’s been doing to me, and all of you, everyone, yes, even
you
are being taken in by her.’

‘Really. Interesting . . .’ he said. But it was obvious from the way he said it that he didn’t find it at all interesting. He opened up his briefcase and rooted around inside for a few moments. Then he produced a small bottle of pills. He scribbled my name on the label together with the dosage. Then he opened the bottle and took out a pill. ‘Take this, now, please.’

‘What is it?’

‘Olanzapine. An anti-psychotic.’

There it was.
My
label. He thought I was psychotic.

He handed me a glass of water and I dutifully swallowed the tiny pill.

When the ambulance arrived, appropriately the earlier sunshine of the day had been obliterated by thick grey clouds and a fine drizzle was misting the air around us. Kind people in uniforms guided me up the steps and strapped me into a chair. The tremors started again and I hugged myself, as tightly as I could. I heard Dan say he’d follow behind, in the car.

I just nodded, dumbly. I was just so exhausted. All the fight had gone. There was nothing left, no more spirit to draw upon. Just my own body declaring war on itself as my life limped towards the final battle.

CHAPTER

21

‘Mum . . . Mum . . . it’s me . . .’

I opened my eyes and tried to blink away the shutter between imagination and reality. ‘Laura, is that really you?’

‘Yes, it’s me.’ I heard her fingers scrape over the starched sheet like she was searching for something. And then I felt her take my hand lightly in hers and squeeze her fingers around mine. Then she bent down and placed a kiss on my forehead. Her hair fell forward and brushed against my face and I could smell Laura, my Laura. I felt tears stinging my eyes and I bit my lip, chewing on a piece of dry, fraying skin, trying to control myself.

‘How are you feeling?’ She asked softly.

I just nodded and closed my eyes for a moment, wondering if, when I opened them, I would find she was just a fantasy. But no, she was still there. ‘Darling,’ I sighed. I felt so sleepy from the drugs. All I could remember were the odd wakeful moments – food, drugs, disjointed voices, sometimes Dan – and then drifting in and out of dreamless sleep. My limbs were glued to the bed so I stayed motionless, literally dead-still, as if rigor mortis had overtaken my body while my mind remained locked inside the prison of my subconscious. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant because I no longer had to worry or fight against anything. I could just remain here, passive and immobile, while other people did whatever was required to keep me sedated but breathing.

‘Mum, I’m so sorry.’

‘Laura? You’ve nothing to feel sorry for. Wait . . .’ I struggled to sit up, but the effort seemed too much.

‘I’ll help you,’ she said. I think she must have found the button, because soon I could feel my head and shoulders rising towards her. She plumped the pillows behind my head and then she poured a glass of water and handed it to me. I took a couple of sips, feeling more awake now.

I licked my lips and my voice sounded strained and out of practice. ‘Laura. I never got a chance to talk to you, about everything. I’m so sorry. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?’

‘About me. About us. About where I came from?’

‘Yes. About me not being your biological mother. Laura, I know that Granny told you. I am so sorry that I didn’t . . . couldn’t . . . wasn’t brave enough. I just didn’t want you to see me as any different. You see it’s because I love you so much – you do see that, don’t you?’

‘Of course, Mum. And you always were my mum, always will be. Don’t forget you carried me, gave birth to me. And even if you hadn’t, it doesn’t matter. It’s you I love. You’re my mum. That’s all there is to it.’

‘Ellie. Did she tell you the truth?’ I was clutching Laura’s hand now. She looked down at my fingers. She was wincing because I was grasping her so tightly, so I relaxed my grip and her hand stayed in mine. ‘Laura. It was Ellie. Ellie who donated the egg. She’s your biological mother. It’s her – that’s why she’s here, in the village. She came to claim you, or so she said in that stupid book of hers. She wanted you and your father – how did she put it? – to make a perfect family, or something.’

I could tell there were a million thoughts swirling around Laura’s head all at the same time. She seemed both angry and confused, as though she was struggling to control herself. I could see her swallowing hard, taking a deep breath. She looked down at our two hands, joined together. ‘Mum, listen. It’s not Ellie. She isn’t my mother. God, that sounds so weird, calling anyone else my mother. Biological mother, whatever . . . But it’s not her.’

‘But . . . how . . . I don’t understand. It’s there, in her book. That’s why she came here – to get you.’

Laura was shaking her head. ‘There’s something you need to know, Mum. Granny did tell me when I was eighteen about how I was conceived, and I admit I was angry. Angry and very confused. After a while I decided I wanted to try and contact the donor – apart from anything else I wanted to see if I’d got any siblings. And also I just wanted to know where I came from, to know my history, my real history. I thought I’d love it if I’d got brothers and sisters somewhere in the world. So I contacted the place, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, and they said that even though the anonymity rules had been in place at the time of my birth, my donor, your donor . . . I can’t call her my mother,’ she grinned at me, ‘can I? Anyway she’d written to them sometime and left her details on file, in case I – well she wouldn’t have known about me, specifically, would she? – but in case her daughter, because I think she’d have been told a daughter resulted . . . but anyway, that’s not what’s important. The important thing is that I wrote to her. I got a letter back from her husband. It was a really sweet letter, but Mum, she’d died. She had breast cancer. She died six years ago. He sent me a picture of her, and I suppose I look a bit like her. Same hair colour, frizzy, wild. He – Adam – also sent me this little potted history of her family. I’ve got a half-sister and brother – teenagers – but he said it would be hard on the children to know about me in the circumstances. So he’s asked me to hold off any thought of contacting them until they’re older. I can understand that. I guess it’s bad enough losing their mum without having the shock of learning about me. I’m the lucky one. I’ve got you – I’ve still got my mum. And that’s why, in the end, I decided not to tell you. I didn’t see the point in upsetting you . . .’

‘So you’ve known all this time that that poor woman was dead.’

‘Yes. Sad, isn’t it? But I imagined that you hadn’t told me about how I was conceived because you wanted me to believe I was yours. And I am yours, always will be. I love you, Mum.’

I sobbed. ‘Sorry . . .’ I said, choking back tears. ‘I’m just so sorry. But then what about Ellie? Why? Why did she write that?’

‘In her book – the book that she said doesn’t exist?’

‘Laura, I know I haven’t been honest with you in the past, but I promise you I’m not mad.’

‘No, Mum. I don’t think you are.’

‘You don’t?’

‘No.’

‘You believe the book existed? That I wasn’t making it up?’

‘Yes. I do believe you, Mum.’

‘But how? Why? What’s happened?’

‘Are you sure you’re well enough for all this? I don’t want to give you too much excitement all at once.’

‘I’m getting better and better by the minute,’ I managed to grin at her. ‘Please, go on.’

Laura didn’t want to go to the quiz that night. I could understand that, of course I could. I called Dan – I mean he was the quizmaster, after all, and the evening kind of depended on him. He was quite terse about it, considering everything I’d done to help. But then he was under a lot of pressure, one way and another. He just snapped, saying something like. ‘Of course I’m not doing the effing quiz.’ So I offered to do it for him. Then he was a bit nicer. He said that would be good. That he’d see Laura after he got back from the hospital. The NHS is amazing, I do think that, I honestly do. I mean you all work so hard and when you really, really need it – in an emergency – it all just works so efficiently, doesn’t it? At weekends, even – everything just seemed to happen so quickly. So anyway, I left Laura at around six and I said she could carry on reading the book if she wanted to. She said she’d got to the end, but then I told her there was more on the computer if she wanted to go to the file, and that if she really wanted to read it there were a few more chapters on there she could look at. She seemed grateful, and I thought it would do her good to have something to take her mind off everything that was going on. Poor thing. It was all just so upsetting.

Anyway, when I got back from the quiz, the house was in darkness, which I thought was odd. At first I thought perhaps Laura had gone to bed, but no, she wasn’t there. I called Dan to see if he knew where she was, but he didn’t answer. So I sent a text, just saying have you got Laura, is she safe? A few moments later I got a text back saying, thanks, she’s with me. And that was that. I was so concerned that I went round there. Well it’s only just up the road, after all. I could see the lights on. I knocked on the door. After a few moments Dan came to the door. He looked dreadful. Just drained, white, exhausted. Poor man. What a day he must have had.

‘Dan,’ I said, ‘I’m so sorry. What can I do?’

‘Nothing, nothing at all. You’ve been fantastic,’he said. I told him that I hadn’t really done anything – well no more than any other good friend would have done – and that I’d call tomorrow to see how they were, how things were. I told him that the quiz had been a success, even though there’d obviously been a bit of a shadow cast over everything, you know, everyone trying not to mention Cass, but of course it was all anyone was thinking about. But I didn’t tell Dan that – no, of course not.

Oh, and I also said that they weren’t to worry about any of the damage, you know, the car tyres, the house, all of that, the trauma, I said it was all okay. And then I went home.

I suppose it was about an hour or so after Laura had left that Dan arrived. I had made an effort to stay upright. I’d even got out of bed and had a little walk around the ward, although my legs felt really wobbly. For the first time in I don’t know how long I actually felt like I wanted to eat something. Honestly, I couldn’t believe how my life could turn around like that, like everything suddenly seemed almost okay. So when Dan arrived he found me sitting up, hair brushed and smiling.