8 October
“So, Kate. If you’re feeling up to it, perhaps you could take a moment to talk me through your mindset last night.”
My allotted NHS psychotherapist is Dr Jones, a Chinese man with glasses and a goatee. He exudes precisely the kind of calming vibes I could use right now.
I will never again need to season my food. Both the taste and the lingering feel of salt on my skin are so pervasive that I feel like one almighty hunk of cured meat.
Casting my mind back to the pier triggers mental snapshots I’d much sooner forget.
The violent up-and-down motion of the coastguard’s boat. Someone shoving me onto my side so I don’t choke on my own copious vomit.
Riding in an ambulance as a patient for the first time in my life. Wrapped in a red cotton blanket, immobilised, spider-strapped to an orthopaedic scoop stretcher. One of the paramedics informing Control that she’s pretty sure the patient is one of our own, then muttering my name into the radio.
Morning hours blurring and flashing by, thanks to fitful naps on my hospital bed. Whoa, my recurring zip-wire dream came back. This time, the memory’s so much clearer: as I hurtled along the wire, I realised I was moving backwards. I knew that when I reached the platform of the tower, something horrendous would happen, but I couldn’t stop my ascent… and then I woke up.
Probably best not to mention this dream to Dr Jones.
“I’m not sure how to describe what my mindset was,” I tell him.
What you mean is, you’re not sure whether it’d be best all round if you were sectioned, right? Because that’s what might happen if you tell him you were suicidal. Or if you tell him you were trying to rescue your dead ex-boyfriend’s drowning soul.
Dr Jones creaks back in his seat and cups the back of his head with both hands, as if sunning himself on a Hawaiian beach. His smile is carefree. Disarmingly conspiratorial. “Well, give it a go and see how you do.”
“Okay,” I say, deciding to unveil as much truth as I dare. “At first, I… I thought I might be dreaming. I thought the whole thing was a dream.”
“Ah,” he says. “Okay. In my line of work, I’m always loath to put words in anyone’s mouth, but would you say you might have been…”
“Sleepwalking? Yes, I was, but it was so lucid. I was fully aware of everything.”
“So, what was your purpose for entering the pier?”
I try to fight the urge to tell him everything, but I’m not strong enough to keep it all inside. This stuff wants out. I’m also keen to hear the psychiatric take on what the hell I was doing last night.
“My ex-boyfriend has gone missing, and I think he’s dead, and I heard him calling me from the pier. So I followed his voice and…” A lump in my throat rules out any further speech. The sole coherent thought I seem able to form is that I don’t understand anything anymore. Scott’s ghost told me to get rid of the phone, which I did – only for Scott’s voice to lead me back to the damn thing. Or did I only imagine hearing him?
Dr Jones nods encouragingly, without judgement, as if he hears this kind of wacked-out scenario all the time. “So, from your perspective, why did you jump into the water?”
I’m half grief, half snot. “I thought he was down there. Drowning in the sea.”
The full, dizzying extent of everything hits home, as if I’m floating above myself. Scott’s disappearance. Scott’s ghost. The dead, phoning me for chats. Me, very nearly dying on Chanctonbury Hill. Me, voluntarily leaping off the end of a pier in the middle of the night. My life has become a forest fire, way out of control, and now I’m sobbing into both hands.
Dr Jones pushes a box of tissues across the table to me. “Okay, Kate. It sounds like you’re going through a great deal of stress, uncertainty and mental trauma.”
Something definitely took over my body last night: could this really have been a manifestation of stress? Chills me to the core, how easily I threw myself off those rails. Didn’t even question it, and for what? Almost killed myself, trying to save a guy who was already dead.
Are you really sure it was Scott you were so determined to save?
Christ, what if I wasn’t hunting for Scott? What if I was actually hell-bent on retrieving the phone?
Have I really fallen so far? Does my obsession seriously run so deep that I would risk my life to find out what happened to Scott?
You know the answer, don’t you.
Yes, you know only too well.
Dr Jones says, “Since you’re in the medical trade, Kate, chances are you’re well aware of the main purpose of our session this evening. So I’m sure you won’t mind me asking outright, and answering me as honestly as you can. Were you acting on thoughts of self-harm last night?”
I shake my head. Through the tears, I see him nod as if he believes me.
“Then as far as I’m concerned, unless they want to run any further tests, you can go home for now. As I’m sure you know, I could prescribe you something to help with the anxiety, but you’d probably get addicted. So what needs to happen now, more than anything, is for the police to deal with your missing boyfriend. You should reach out to them. It will help. You should also absolutely reach out to your GP.”
Once again, he adopts that Hawaiian beach pose on his chair. “Your friend Isabella is waiting outside to take you home. I sincerely hope you’re wrong about your missing ex, and I will cross my fingers for you. In the meantime, you’re gonna have to try and chill out, man.”
Did Dr Jones really say that? I might not be the most reliable witness at present, but I honestly believe it happened.
Man. Wow.