Nancy looked around, blinking. She felt like she had escaped from her nightmare back into the real world. The room was both soothing and bright. Ahead was a window looking out on a large garden. She could see a lawn and a large beech tree. On one wall was a large photograph of a fox – brightly, fiercely red – on a frozen lake.
A young woman was sitting in an armchair. She was about Nancy’s own age, with short brown hair, a freckled face. She was wearing jeans and a bright yellow sweater with sleeves that reached just below her elbows. She smiled and gestured at Nancy to sit on the sofa that was against one wall, facing the photograph of the fox.
‘Are you okay?’ she said. She sounded more like a concerned friend than a doctor.
When Nancy started to speak, she realised how dry her mouth was. Her voice was a croak.
‘I’ve been sectioned. I’ve been restrained. I’ve been forcibly given medication.’
‘I’m really sorry,’ said the woman. ‘I hope we can get this sorted out.’
‘Who are you?’
‘My name’s Stef, Stef Cavendish. I’m a doctor here.’
‘You said you were sorry. What are you sorry about?’
Dr Cavendish took a phone from her pocket and laid it on the arm of the sofa.
‘Is it all right if I record our conversation? It’s perfectly okay to say no.’
‘I’d like you to,’ said Nancy. ‘I’d like there to be a record of what I say.’
‘Good,’ said Dr Cavendish and leaned over and tapped on the screen of her phone. She looked down at it. ‘I think it’s working.’
‘Am I free to call someone?’
‘Of course.’
‘Can I call a lawyer?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Now. This moment. Can I call someone now?’
Dr Cavendish smiled again.
‘We can sort all that out. But first, I thought we could just have a chat about what’s brought you here and then I can make a quick assessment.’
‘What kind of assessment?’
‘Are you clear about your situation?’
‘Clear? I don’t even know where I am. How can that be allowed?’
‘You’re in Oakwood Place.’
‘I’ve never heard of it. What is it? Where is it?’
‘It’s a specialist mental health unit. We’re in Kenton.’
‘Kenton? Where’s Kenton?’
‘You were lucky to get a place.’
‘I don’t want a place. I just want to get out. I want to get back to my life.’
‘That’s what we all want. We want you to be back home as soon as it’s safe.’
‘I didn’t say anything about wanting to be back home.’
Dr Cavendish showed a flicker of interest.
‘What do you mean by that?’
Nancy hesitated. ‘It’s not important. This is difficult for me. I’m finding it difficult to trust people at the moment.’
‘Why is that?’
Nancy gestured around her.
‘Because I’m here. The people around me conspired behind my back and they made up things and exaggerated things and now I’m here and I’m not free to leave.’
‘Can I suggest something?’
‘Sure.’
‘You’re talking about your friends conspiring behind your back. I wonder if you might consider looking at it another way. Do you think it’s possible that your friends and your neighbours were actually trying to help you behind your back? Being restrained under the Mental Health Act, as you have been, is only done under very special emergency circumstances. Basically, it means that there is an imminent possibility of the person being a threat to themselves or to someone else. I’ve read your report and it seems that more than one person had those fears for you.’
‘They wanted to get rid of me. They wanted to shut me up.’
‘Nancy,’ Dr Cavendish said, almost in a tone of reproach, ‘is that what friends do?’
‘Who said they were my friends?’
‘One of them is your partner.’
Nancy looked down at the floor before answering. On the terracotta-coloured lino floor was a richly patterned rug, a red square and a yellow circle on a blue background. She looked back up at the doctor.
‘You know I’ve been in a psychiatric hospital before?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you know I’ve been put on medication, and I’ve taken it regularly and responded well to it.’
‘That’s what Dr Lowe says.’
‘But once people know that about you, they look at you in a different way. Every odd thing you do, anything you say, if you get a bit sad, a bit angry, people think that might be a sign of you going crazy again. You’re not allowed to be different.’ She looked more sharply at the doctor. ‘My boyfriend, Felix, you ask why he’d do something like this to me. I think he almost relishes the idea of “looking after” me. I think he’s like one of those people who like the idea of having a cat but they want to keep it inside all the time, they don’t want it to go outside into the world, they just want it for themselves.’ She stopped herself and wondered if she had said too much. ‘You probably think I’m being paranoid.’
Dr Cavendish leaned towards Nancy.
‘Do you already think that I’m another of the people who are your enemy?’
‘I don’t know. Do you think I belong in here?’
‘I would like for you not to be here.’
‘That’s not an answer.’ Nancy spoke in as calm a voice as she could manage. ‘Do I seem unsafe?’
Dr Cavendish made a dismissive gesture.
‘Forget about all that,’ she said. ‘You don’t need to try and convince me of anything. Forget I’m a doctor. Just imagine that we’re two friends meeting for coffee and tell me everything that’s been going on in the last few days.’
Nancy felt a sudden rush of relief. Perhaps this could all be over. All right, she said to herself. I’ll stop trying to be clever. I’ll just say it. So she started to describe all that had happened since she and Felix had moved into the Harlesden flat. She talked about the dislocation in moving to a part of London she didn’t know. She talked about her brief, mild psychotic episode, the voices and the visions and the meeting with Kira. She talked of the shock of the death. She described the awkward meetings with the neighbours.
And it did really feel like she was talking to a friend who understood her. Stef Cavendish never looked shocked or disapproving. She nodded in sympathy, she smiled, she looked thoughtful, but she never interrupted or made comments, even when Nancy paused. Nancy didn’t leave any of the awkward bits out. She was determined not to be evasive. She described how she had sneaked into Kira’s flat; she described the row in the street, the used condom she had found, her growing certainty that Kira hadn’t taken her own life but been killed.
‘I’m not proud of everything I’ve done,’ she said finally. ‘I’ve made some mistakes. But this whole sectioning was being done by people for their own reasons. Michelle Strauss saying I threatened her and threatened myself, that was just completely made up from nothing. She’s just doing that for her own reasons, and we have to find out what those reasons are. And I’ve got this feeling that Felix doesn’t like the idea of me recovering and moving on with my life. I was planning to leave him, I was actually packing my bags, when I was sectioned. This is his way of keeping me. There. That’s my story. What do you think?’
Dr Cavendish nodded slowly.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘That was really helpful.’
‘Good. Now, as we talked about before, I’ve got the right to contact people and I’ve also got the right to challenge my detention. I’ve done my part by being as frank with you as possible and now I’d like to make some calls.’
‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,’ said Dr Cavendish.
‘What do you mean by that? I just want to do what I have a right to do.’
‘Our priority is your health and that comes before everything.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘For the moment, I want to make some adjustments to your medication, perhaps increase them a bit.’
‘You mean the anti-psychotics that have been knocking me out for days?’
‘It’s a matter of restoring your equilibrium.’
‘What are you talking about? Haven’t you listened to what I’ve been saying?’
‘I’ve listened very carefully and now I think we need to work together to control your psychotic episodes.’
‘I’ve told you. I have controlled them. I’m not psychotic. I was sent here to stop me from speaking the truth.’
‘As I say, we need to do this together. Recognising these delusions is the first step on the road to recovery and you need to show me that you are co-operating and the first way you can show this is by taking the medication that I prescribe to you.’
Nancy wanted to shout, she wanted to jump up and down, she wanted to shake this grinning woman who had been sitting opposite her and pretending to be her friend, but with the most enormous effort she spoke in a steady tone.
‘I know about this medication. I probably know as much about it as you do, because I’ve taken it and you haven’t. The point of it is to subdue floridly psychotic patients by making them almost unconscious. What I need to do is to phone people who will be sympathetic to me and explain the situation I’m in so they can help me.’
‘What you need to do is to get better and the way you’ll get better is by co-operating and taking your medicine. I’ve got your best interests at heart.’
‘Forget all that,’ said Nancy, more harshly now. ‘All that pretending to be my friend. I just want what I’ve got a right to. Give me a phone and let me talk to someone.’
‘I don’t think that would be helpful just at the moment.’
‘I’m not going to take any medication. That’ll turn me into one of the other zombies out there watching TV all day. Just keep me under observation and you’ll see that I’m absolutely calm and lucid.’ She noticed her voice had become very loud. ‘Calm and lucid,’ she repeated in what was almost a yell.
‘Please don’t shout. It doesn’t help.’
‘I’m not shouting,’ shouted Nancy.
Somehow, without her noticing, Dr Cavendish must have pressed an alarm bell because the door was suddenly thrown open and Nancy found herself surrounded by uniforms. She tried to tell them that she could walk on her own, but she was hauled off her feet and carried out of the room, her head banging against the doorframe so that everything glowed in yellow spots. She started to shout, and she felt a blow in her stomach, accidental or deliberate, that winded her.
Back in her room she was thrown on her stomach once more. She heard someone laughing as her trousers were pulled down and felt the jab in her buttock and the grey softness descending.