Jessica, as for the date …
I’m drifting. I can’t remember if I ever left this place. I was here in February – I remember that. Two skylights, sometimes with frost patterns.
They are dark now. I don’t dare open the curtains at the window in case he is there. Can he climb on the roof? He can probably come through walls, can’t he?
I turn over and bury my head under the pillow.
You dozed, and watched the night revealing
The thousand sordid images
Of which your soul was constituted.
Shut up! Shut up! Stupid T. S. effing poet – get out of my head!
These fragments I have shored against my ruins.
Things are beginning to make sense. I’m at Willowbank again. I love/hate Charles. He is like my bungee rope. I think I’m leaping off the bridge, free at last, but at the bottom of the fall, he snaps in and pulls me back. I don’t smash on the rocks, I’m left alive and swinging in the wind.
I want Drew.
But do I want Drew to see me like this?
I’m coming back a little, like a shape emerging from fog. I’m not going to sleep anymore because what happens when I close my eyes isn’t sleep – it’s torture.
Charles said in the car that it was best I didn’t take any more pills until my system has ‘levelled out’. The care assistant brought me warm milk and a relaxation download for the sound system. I got fed up listening to whales moaning so switched that off after a few moments – sounded too much like sex noises. Probably are. They sell it as suitable stuff to make you wind down but if you ran it through the animal equivalent of Google translate you’d probably get lots of ‘c’mere baby, I am so hot for you’, ‘come rub your white belly against my enormous dick’.
Fact – blue whales have the biggest penises in the world, stretching up to ten feet when aroused. Thanks, QI, for filling my brain with yet more show-stopping images.
God, I’m a terrible mush of random thoughts.
I have to move from this bed. I’m just not safe here.
Dragging the duvet with me, I get up and go into the bathroom where there are no windows. I shut and lock the door, make a nest of towels in the dry bath and turn off the overhead light so only the one over the mirror is lit. That shuts up the fan after a time so I don’t have to listen to its dementing rattle.
You know only a heap of broken images.
Eliot had that right. My nerves are bad tonight. I cocoon myself in the duvet and curl up in the bath. I’m still clutching my phone but haven’t checked it for some time. I see now that it has been switched off. When did that happen? I switch it back on. The percentage symbol is near red and I have no charger. This brand is the teenage boy of battery-lasting power – gets all excited then goes off prematurely.
I see Drew has been texting me non-stop since about ten – that must’ve been when he got out of his concert. I decide it’s best to call him directly.
‘Jess, where are you?’
‘In the bath.’ It’s so lovely to hear his voice. Stay with me. The pieces of me start to glue back together.
‘What? Tell me where you are!’
‘How was the gig?’
‘Jessica!’
‘OK, OK, look, I had a bit of a meltdown at Michael’s—’
‘What did that bastard do to you?’
‘No, he wasn’t even there. It’s not his fault. I think I’m having a bad reaction to my pills and saw something – you know, like a hallucination? – or that’s what Charles thinks.’
‘You believe Michael’s best mate, the mad doctor?’
‘Mad doctor – good one.’
‘I’m not making a tasteless joke about your state of mind, Jess, but warning you about him. You always said that you can’t trust him.’
‘I just want to survive the night. He’s taking me off the medication. Wants me to let my body chemistry settle so he can see what’s really going on with my condition.’
‘I’m not arguing this with you in the middle of the night. Jessica, where are you?’
‘Willowbank.’ I reel off the address.
‘I’ll come and see you tomorrow – and I’ll have a talk to this Dr Charles of yours. I don’t like the sound of him.’
‘That’d be nice – to have someone on my side. I miss you.’ God, I don’t deserve you.
‘I miss you too. Why are you in the bath at three in the morning?’
‘There are no windows in here.’
‘I guess that makes sense – in a Jessica way.’
‘I knew you’d get it. You’re the only one who does.’
‘It would be better if I were there to keep the bad guys at bay.’
‘I’ll be fine until tomorrow – honestly. I’m feeling a lot better just having talked to you.’
‘OK, that’s good. I’ll be there at nine. Try to get some sleep.’
I hug the phone to my chest. I’m not going to be able to trust what happens when I close my eyes so I decide to dip into the cache of deleted photos. I still have Emma’s diary in there on the thirty-day rule. It’s going to be hell to read but I’d much prefer to keep company with a familiar ghost – she’s less scary than what my imagination can conjure when I don’t keep it busy.