The Rapture (10 page)

'She killed her mother? Christ. You didn't tell me that bit.' He looks uneasy. 'Are you surrounded by murderers in that place?'

I shrug. 'I don't think of them that way. They're just disturbed. And it's my job. Anyway, what I'm getting at is that Child B had -has - religion issues. To put it mildly. The fall of the Rio Christ was to her what 9/11 was to all the anti-Western Muslims we saw dancing for joy that day. And not just because she claims to have predicted it. If her father visited, I'd have a lot of questions for him.'

'You can hardly blame him for keeping clear, if she killed his wife.'

'Things are always more complex than they look,' I say. 'I'm wondering about the healthiness of his role in her life. And her mother's.' We consider this for a moment and then I point my fork at him. 'Eschatology.'

'Greek. The doctrine of last things.'

'Correct. If you're an eschatologist, and you believe the Apocalypse is about to happen, you're happy. You're going to be saved. But as a sinner, how would you spend your last moments on the Earth as we know it?'

'I'd do exactly what I'm doing now,' he says, amused. '
Eat spaghetti alle vongole
in enjoyable and combative and extremely attractive company. No, scrub that. I'd take the said company to its natural psychic habitat, which is probably Paris because I'm guessing you're partly French, with a name like Gabrielle.'

'French-Canadian.'

'OK then, Montreal. Which doesn't have quite the same ring to it. But we'd order ourselves a gastronomic extravaganza in a Michelin-starred restaurant, and finish it with industrial doses of Belgian chocolate.'

Something about the physicist doesn't add up. 'Are you
flirting
with me?'

'Well, if I am, you started it. You invited it. Yes maybe I am. In a safe kind of way.'

I flare. 'Right. So being paralysed from the ninth vertebra down makes me a safe kind of girl? Thanks for the compliment.'

'I didn't mean that. I meant . . . I'm flirting in a non-threatening kind of way.'

'The way gay men do?' A wild guess.

Interestingly, the physicist looks thoughtful rather than outraged. 'How do gay men flirt?'

'They talk a lot and they give compliments but they never follow through on the physical side. Is that what you meant by unthreatening?'

'I read somewhere that thirty per cent of people have had at least one homosexual experience, and I must say I was quite surprised the figure was that low. But the trouble is, in my case, I was always far too attached to the mammary gland.'

'I noticed.'

'So you are a mind-reader.'

I laugh. 'No, I've got a pair of eyes, though, and I'm a normal woman. Or I used to be.' I stop, appalled that I've just said it aloud. It isn't funny. What am I doing, discussing my breasts with a physicist, when nothing works below the bellybutton?

'The fact is, I've been quite, er, reserved on that front since my marriage broke up,' confesses the physicist.

I nod. 'How long were you together?'

'Four years. But we were apart for a lot of that time. Melina would do these long field trips, and then I'd go off to China or somewhere. By the time it ended, we exchanged e-mails more than we spoke. But there were other factors. Well. There was one other factor.'

'An irreconcilable difference?'

He reddens and studies his spaghetti with intense interest. Then he looks up and smiles. 'It turned out I wasn't the only one with a thing about mammary glands.'

It's too funny not to laugh, but after a moment we both stop ourselves, embarrassed. 'So she was a lesbian before you met?'

He sighs. 'I expect you've read case-studies about things like this.' I nod. 'What do they conclude?'

'Well, often what happens is that both partners think the homosexuality is just a phase, or something they can overcome. Love conquers all, etcetera. And sometimes it does.'

He looks up, relieved. He even musters another laugh. 'So go on. I'm interested.'

'OK. In your case, perhaps it turned out you were just Melina's heterosexual experiment.'

He nods ruefully. 'Is it that classic?'

'Fairly. Sorry to tell you. And the turning point?'

'When we learned she couldn't have children. That's when she gave up on the whole idea of men, I think. Or the whole idea of me. Somewhere along the way she met Agnesca.'

'And since then you've been wary of forming new relationships.'

'Understatement. Everything's been on ice. Physically and emotionally.' He looks anxious, then smiles. 'Is that classic too?'

'Speaking as your new therapist?' I say. 'It's completely understandable. Your manhood took a knock. But it will pass, when the right person comes along, and if Jupiter's in the ascendant. All shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well. Julian of Norwich. That'll be fifty quid.'

He smiles. 'Worryingly cheap. But if it doesn't pass? What if I carry on being . . .'

'Reserved
? Then stick to Belgian chocolate. Industrial doses are fine. A lot more satisfying.'

'And you can do it alone.'

'There's this expectation that we should all be sexual beings, but the fact is, not all of us are, particularly.' For some reason, as I am saying this, I am imagining the physicist's erect penis.

'That's me. Depressed testosterone. I think basically Melina . . .'

'Castrated you? Cliche. But no doubt true. Have you found a substitute passion?'

'I worship increasingly at the shrine of food,' he confesses as his dessert arrives, a confection of peaches, meringue and sorbet.

'Since this,' I say, indicating the chair, 'sex isn't high on my agenda either.'

'You don't miss it?'

'It's been so long I've practically forgotten,' I lie. 'But the men, they mind a lot.'

'I bet they do!' he says gallantly, deliberately misunderstanding, and I laugh again.

'The guys at rehab, they were all obsessed with having sex again. Could they do it, could they give a woman pleasure, how soon could they try Viagra?'

'And the women? How was it for you?'

'There weren't many of us, compared to the men. Men throw themselves around more, apparently. Congenital recklessness. So anyway, there were only two of us. The thing we wanted most had nothing to do with sex.'

'I guess you'd want to stand up? Be your real height again, look people in the eye?'

I take in his slightly anxious brow, his thick, rust-coloured hair, his deep-set brown eyes with the green fleck in the left one, and feel immensely touched that he has bothered to imagine. I am not going to put him right. The fact is, not being able to stand up is not the worst thing. Not by a long, long way.

We have reached the coffee stage, when the manager, Harry, comes up to me. 'You have a possibly unwelcome visitor. She says she'd like a moment of your time.' Discreetly, he nods in the direction of the door. 'She seems a bit off. If you don't know her, I don't mind asking her to leave.'

Dishevelled and defiant, she stands with her hands buried deep inside the pockets of a grubby beige jacket. The red-haired woman.

My guts tilt.

'Who is it?' asks the physicist, looking across.

'My stalker,' I say. 'Just joking.' Then nod reassuringly at Harry. 'Yes, let's do it. But take her jacket off her.' I'm not taking any chances. As Harry heads over to the woman, I take a big gulp of wine.

'Gabrielle, I don't know what's going on, but is this a good idea?' asks the physicist.

'It's - inevitable. I'm glad it's happened in a public place. It'll be interesting. You'll see.' I have taught myself a long time ago not to say no to certain things just because they scare me, so in reality it's an easy decision. But when I reassure him, I sound calmer than I feel.

She shuffles up and I see she's younger than I'd thought. Early forties. She doesn't look threatening: just lonely and deranged. She sees the picture of the sky-diver, still perched against the cruet set, and points. 'Bethany drew that.'

Immediately, things fall into place. Of course. Who else could she be?

'Yes,' I say. 'Two weeks ago. Frazer Melville, this is Joy McConey, my predecessor at Oxsmith. She's referring to the female patient I've been calling Child B.'

The physicist is clearly unsettled by the turn our evening has taken, but he adjusts quickly: after shaking Joy's hand, he pulls up a chair for her. Waving away the waiter's offer of a glass of mineral water, Joy McConey slides into the chair, leans her arms forward on the table and begins speaking urgently, her eyes flickering this way and that. 'I can't stay long, he'll come for me. My husband,' she explains hastily. 'He won't want me talking to you. But you have to listen. Bethany Krall's much more dangerous than you think.'

It's an odd assumption, that I find Bethany dangerous. 'I'm listening. Tell me what you have to say.'

Frazer Melville is looking anxious and a bit resentful. 'You know the reason Bethany gets things right, Gabrielle?' Her voice is light, strained, almost girlish. 'Can I call you Gabrielle, is that OK, you won't feel it's an intrusion?' Her pale freckled face, tinged yellow by the flickering candlelight, veers at me asymmetrically. There has at some point been an attempt to apply mascara: the area below one eye is smudged with it. 'I mean, I know what it must look like, I know you saw I was following you. But I had to warn you about Bethany.'

'So does Bethany get things right?' I ask, cocking an eyebrow at Frazer Melville. He rearranges his teaspoon.

'Yes. You'll see. I started paying attention after the cyclone that hit Osaka six months ago. She talked about it after her ECT, and then it happened. And then more things did.' The physicist is looking at Joy McConey intently. 'The Nepal earthquake. Now this hurricane, the fall of Christ - she predicted it, didn't she? I mean, this drawing -' she points at it.

'So she claims.'

'Well, believe me, that's part of it.' I can sense the physicist getting agitated. I shoot him a look that I hope conveys, Calm down.
Therapists have breakdowns too. More than you'd think. Fact.

' I didn't see your notes on Bethany. But I'd be very interested to hear what you wrote in them.'

'She feels things. Blood and minerals. The way things flow.' Frazer Melville stiffens. I can see now that Joy is trembling, as though she has just stepped in from a night of snow. 'I told Sheldon-Gray and he wouldn't listen. No one would. But her father, Leonard Krall. He knows what she's capable of. I tried to warn people and so Sheldon-Gray got rid of me. And if you're not careful, they'll do the same to you. Ask Leonard. Ask him what he thinks. Ask him why he won't visit his own daughter. She'll try to get you to help her escape. And if you don't, she'll do what she did to me.'

'Excuse me,' interrupts a man's voice. Then, 'Joy.' He approaches quickly, and I recognise him as the blond, balding man she argued with in the swimming pool car park. He looks firm and angry. But there's shame in there too. Humiliation. His wife has gone nuts, in public. And he's picking up the pieces. I wonder how often he has done this. 'Let's get you home to the kids now, Joy,' he says, grabbing her hand and tugging. He is clearly at the end of his tether, beyond embarrassment. 'Look, I'm SO sorry,' he says, addressing me. 'I've been trying to prevent this, believe me. Joy's not herself at the moment.'

She looks at him with contempt. 'My husband,' she says with bitterness, 'is a great believer in women keeping their mouths shut.'

'It's OK,' I tell the man. 'I'm interested. Please -Joy can stay if she wants. I'd like to hear what she has to say. Joy? What do you think Bethany did to you?'

But he is already steering her off. In the doorway, Joy turns.

'Can't you see what she's doing, Gabrielle?' she calls across the room. 'She's not just predicting things! She's making them happen!'

The next morning the physicist arrives at Oxsmith wearing a frayed linen jacket and a tie that doesn't match. He's bearing a large square box wrapped in plain brown paper and strapped with duct tape, which he now plonks on my lap unceremoniously and without explanation.

'Sure, just use me as a shopping trolley,' I smile. 'I'll spit a coin back at you when you're done. But you'll have to push me because I can't see zilch.'

He glances around the reception area nervously as I log him in. It's the first time, he tells me, he's been inside any kind of secure hospital. I can tell he's excited at the prospect of meeting Bethany - but he's wary, too.

'It's more hospital than prison, right?'

'Most days,' I tell him. 'But it can flip the other way.'

Bethany is waiting in the interview room, chatting with a female nurse with multiple piercings. When the physicist offers her a handshake, Bethany shoots me a glance of ironic despair: haven't I warned him she only does rude? I look away. I am not helping her out. Finally, flummoxed by the insistence of Frazer Melville's huge, proffered hand, she sighs, grasps it and shakes it up and down three times - formally, like a mechanised puppet. Duty done.

'Frazer Melville is a scientist from the university,' I tell her.

'Uh-huh. I'm honoured.' She certainly does not intend to sound it.

'Me too,' he says, lifting the box from my lap. 'So much so that I brought this gift for you.'

'It's not my birthday,' she says gracelessly, eyeing him sideways, full of mistrust. But I can see curiosity fighting its way through the jaded façade.

He says, 'In Japan, it's traditional to bring a present when you visit someone's house or apartment for the first time. I think it's very civilised, so I'm trying to get it to catch on here.'

She snorts. 'Well, welcome to my charming high-security home. As well as the tasteful colour choices, may I point out the bull dyke nurse here, and the bars on the windows, and the total lack of any view of the outside world, and' - she is unpacking the box as she speaks. But when she glimpses what it contains, she stops dead and opens her mouth in an 0 of shock. She has lifted out a large globe made of light translucent plastic. She places it on the desk. I can see a struggle going on inside her. I know that her instinct is to articulate something positive -perhaps even blurt a thank you. But she can't allow herself. I see her quelling it. Expressing a positive emotion would be against her principles.