Simone has been staying with me for three weeks and I must say I’ve never felt better. Once I recovered from the reckless stunt that had landed me in hospital we started to take short trips outside, beginning with standing in the front garden for two minutes while gazing at the park. She holds my hand and moments before the point when I feel everything is about to fold in on me, she seems to sense it, and we go straight back inside. Each day we have walked a little further and each day I’ve endured a little longer.
Simone is the most accepting person I’ve ever known, never judging or hinting at anything to make me feel worthless. She has absolute faith that one day I will recover completely, and her calm and soothing presence is exactly what I need. I try to believe it will happen, but yesterday the whispering voice sent me spiralling down again and, even after only a few minutes outside, my heart felt as if it would leap from my chest. Simone told me to keep my breathing slow and encouraged me not to run back indoors but to concentrate on the flowers lining the beds in the front garden. And I did it. I actually did it.
She’s helping me pack up all my possessions ready for the move. We hope before long I’ll be able to withstand the journey by car. I’m not so worried about being in the car if someone is with me. It’s being in the open that makes me feel as if I’ll be swallowed up.
She’s sitting on the floor now gazing at the few photographs I have from our life in Burma. Simone believes I shouldn’t avoid the thing that terrifies me. She tells me avoidance only makes matters worse and she thinks that’s why I hear the voice. She thinks the darkness I refuse to face or even acknowledge must find its way out. So now, each day, to try to defeat the voice, we take control by spending fifteen minutes looking back. There’s no map to show me the way. I have no choice but to take it as it comes. Dead ends and all. So, we attempt to weave in and out of the past, even though it seems mad to me and I only do it to please her.
As I join her on the rug, she pulls out one of only two photographs I have of Elvira and even before she hands it to me I feel the panic rising and turn away.
‘Come on, Diana. Take a look. It won’t hurt you.’
Her expression is hard to read but I eventually agree and glance down at the blurred younger version of myself cradling my firstborn. As I gently trace the image with my forefinger a strangled noise escapes from my throat.
‘Diana?’
I look up in anguish. ‘But I don’t know what I did.’
‘Do you think you would have hurt your child?’
I shake my head. ‘I loved her,’ I say, but my voice is little more than a whisper.
‘Are you worried the voice told you to do something? Is that it? Had the voices already started then?’
I sigh. ‘I can’t remember. If not then, soon after.’
There’s a long silence as images from the past come hurtling back. The pram, always the pram beneath the tamarind tree and me gazing up into the branches and listening to the birds. I’d drunk two large pink gins over lunch and was feeling tipsy. I didn’t tell the policeman, though one of the servants might have done. I remember I’d been feeling relieved that at last Elvira had gone to sleep. I won’t pretend I didn’t find her crying hard to bear. It wasn’t the sound so much, although it could drive a mother crazy, it was the fact that no matter what I did I couldn’t help her. The doctor said it was probably colic and it would pass but I felt helpless listening to her pitiful cries.
‘You’ve done well,’ Simone says and tucks her arm into mine. ‘Are you all right?’
I’m only half listening, but I come back to the present, nod, and then hand back the picture.
‘Tomorrow,’ she says with a confident smile as she helps me up, ‘I think we might get Mrs Wilkes to donate some stale bread and then we’ll feed the ducks on the pond. What do you think?’
‘Lovely,’ I say. But what I mean is really? Can I really get as far as the pond?