I rang Doctor A from a payphone on the road, giving in to an urge I didn’t necessarily want to interrogate. When he heard my voice, Doctor A clicked his tongue as if it were a surprise, but I knew it could not be.
Hi, I said breezily.
So they’ve come for you, he said.
I mean, you sent them, I said.
He ignored that. We can do our appointments over the phone, until you’re caught, he said instead.
What makes you so sure I will be? I asked.
Calla, please, he said, very kindly.
I have reserves that you don’t know about, I told him.
You forget that I know everything about you, he said. You don’t need to be so angry. There’s no harm in being predictable. Even the act of calling me today—I was expecting it. Ring me twice every week at the usual time.
I said I would try.
He said I should do more than try. He said the body and the mind were often in opposition and the importance of keeping them well-tuned and functioning in unison was paramount, as much as was possible, given my condition. He clicked his tongue again. He spoke a lot of sense.
I must go, it’s time for my next appointment, he said. But remember that it’s open season on women like you. You are a criminal now.
I hung up the phone and leaned against the wall, breathing hard.
In the car, driving again, I listened for my name on the radio, moving the dial compulsively. Weaving in and out of high terrain, the signal skipped and thickened. I was going nowhere fast. Sometimes I would pull over to write down the cars I had seen behind me, in case there was a pattern, in case they were following me. A silver one. A red one. A white one, large, more of a van.
Mostly blue cars, dappled with mud. Blue everywhere. In the plastic detritus by the side of the road, in the curtains of houses that I passed. I paused to pick some berries from a dusty bush at the edge of a lay-by, and got blue juice all over my hands for my trouble. I was in so much trouble. I spat the berries out in a sudden fit of fear that they were poisonous after all, but the taste stayed with me, I feared it would never leave.
As a sea of trees rose on the horizon, a sign indicated a car park. I pulled in for a rest. Nobody else was there. I walked into the forest, over knots of tree and dirt. The ground was wet in places from a brief shower. Somewhere in the distance there came the curved yowl of a bird of prey that I couldn’t see. I walked onwards, towards the sound.
On the ground was a dead rabbit, disembowelled. Still fresh, the dark loops of its insides glistening like jam. I knelt and hovered my hands above its fur, checked its eyes for pinkness and swelling. The rabbit’s stomach seemed swollen. But then that could have been me again, seeing pregnancy in everything. The rabbit’s eyes were milked over but still watched me.
With my bare hands and the knife I dug a shallow hole. There was no ceremony except for laying the rabbit in it and then filling the grave up. There were no words to be said. It was stupid to care about anything.
From the boot of the car I pulled a bottle of water to drink from, to wash my hands. I stared at the other things I was carrying there: the tent, the sleeping bag. I rinsed my filthy hands and broken nails, racked with disgust, and drove on.