There were no tears when they finally admitted what I already knew about Dad. Maybe the contents of the needle had hardened me, but I looked the nurse full on as she told me. These were words I had to hear, and I breathed them in, along with the guilt that came with them.
It had taken them a few days to calm me down after I first woke up. At least that’s what they told me. Time had ceased to matter. Whether I slept or woke, in daylight or in darkness, I was trapped in the same nightmare of my own making.
They tried to pity me, soothe me, stroke my hair and pat my hand, but I wouldn’t let them near me. It was just too risky.
I wouldn’t even let them tend to my arm, still weeping and throbbing because of what I’d done.
‘I’ll have to get the doctor,’ one of them eventually told me, ‘and he won’t be as patient as me, I’ll tell you that for nothing.’
The doctor left empty-handed as well, ears ringing at my protests.
They seemed to tire after that, leaving me to slip in and out of fitful sleep, returning only to collect untouched dinner trays, eyebrows raised as I fixed them with a terrified feral gaze.
Eventually, though, two women returned, one a doctor and the other a pen-pusher of some kind.
‘I’m Evelyn,’ the non-doctor said, smiling briskly. I noted her good sense in not trying to shake my hand or touch me in any way. ‘Do you have a middle name, Daisy?’
I was confused by the simplicity of the question and what bearing it could possibly have. Unless she was a copper and was ready to arrest me.
I said nothing, gave nothing away.
She seemed comfortable with the silence, opening a folder in her lap, her pen scratching angrily on a page of densely typed paper.
‘So, as I say, my name’s Evelyn and I’m a social worker. Your social worker from this point on.’
For some reason I wanted to laugh. Social workers were for kids who got clobbered by their dads, not ones who killed them. I considered telling her this myself, but the white-coated woman didn’t give me the chance.
‘And I’m Alice.’ There was a touch of irritation in her voice and instantly I worried what I’d done to upset her. ‘I’m the psychiatrist on the ward. I’m sorry I haven’t had time to come and see you properly until now.’
I tried to weigh up what I was dealing with: a shrink and a do-gooder, both of them capable of giving me exactly what I deserved, both of them with the power to lock me up in some way for what I’d done.
Evelyn spoke first. ‘Daisy, we need to try and work out the next move for you. After you’re discharged from here. We need to know if you have relatives that we might be able to contact, anyone who might be able to act as your guardian.’
I pulled my legs up to my chest, feeling my cuts groan as I wrapped my arms around my knees. Even if there was someone, there was no way I was telling her. No way I was going to sign someone else up for the same fate as Mum and Dad.
‘I understand this must be very difficult for you, my love –’ I winced at Evelyn’s term of affection (she spoke without a trace of emotion anywhere in her voice) – ‘but at times like this, it’s important to have family around you. And the quicker we can identify someone, the sooner we can move on.’
I didn’t need to think about it. There was no one. Both Mum and Dad had been only children. Dad did inherit a step-brother after his father remarried, but there was a big age gap between them and they’d never been close. I’d only met him once, at Grandpa’s funeral, and even then he’d not said a word to me. Dad reckoned he’d only pitched up in case there was something in it for him, and when there wasn’t, we didn’t hear from him again.
I saw the two women eyeing me as I sat silently. The social worker was getting angsty, her foot tapping out an urgent Morse code message on the polished floor.
It was obvious she didn’t want to be here, that she wanted to tick her boxes and move on as smartly as she could, and I knew that my reluctance to answer was already starting to get on her wick.
The doctor obviously saw it too, as she took up the attack, her body language everything that Evelyn’s wasn’t.
‘How are you coping with the anxiety you’ve been suffering, Daisy?’ she asked, her voice completely calm.
I raised my eyebrows, wondering how she knew.
‘The nurses have been very worried about you. About your levels of distress and inability to eat or drink. That’s why you’ve been given a drip – is it bothering you?’
I shook my head.
‘They’re also concerned about your arm: that you haven’t allowed them to change the dressing. When you were admitted there was a level of infection from where you cut yourself and if we don’t keep on top of it your temperature will rise again.’
I shuffled on the bed, thinking of a way to hide my arm as well as the drip, realizing quickly as I squirmed that I felt more vulnerable than ever.
‘Do you want to tell us how long you’ve been self-harming, Daisy?’
This was Evelyn again, her tone flat-lining as she failed to even look up from her paper. I wondered if she was putting a shopping list together as she spoke, as it seemed to be annoying Alice as well.
‘Let’s not worry about that for now. What’s important is that we make you comfortable, and that a nurse gets that arm clean.’ She ushered Evelyn to the back of the room, a gesture that revealed the pair’s dislike for each other as plain as day.
What followed was an awkward dance, as a nurse tried to get close enough to clean me. At first I flatly refused to let her touch and, had it not been for Alice and her endless patient smile, the nurse would soon have been picking the instruments out of her forehead rather than using them to clean me up.
In the end we reached a compromise of me dressing my own arm, as they watched and prompted.
They prodded in other ways instead, nagging questions about how long this had been going on, what had happened for me to be so unhappy. I zoned them out, looking at the lines and gouges, remembering the panic associated with them, ashamed to realize that I deserved each and every one of them.
By the time I’d cleaned half of them, the three adults realized that they weren’t going to get anything out of me today, and that was enough for Evelyn to make her excuses and leave.
‘I’ll be back in tomorrow, Daisy, once I’ve done some more research. I’m sure you must have some family you’re not telling us about.’ She forced a smile on to her face, cheeks groaning with the force of the effort.
The nurse didn’t last much longer either. Content that I was germ-free, and after checking that every sharp implement she’d arrived with was back on her tray, she shuffled into the hall.
Which just left Alice, and although she was happy to sit in my silence, it was obvious she wanted information. And she wasn’t going to get it. No matter the size of her death wish.
Instead, she told me the way things were.
‘Daisy, you’ve been here for six days now, and aside from the infection in your arm, there’s nothing physically wrong with you.’
I picked at the skin on the side of my thumb, my heart-rate picking up as I waited for the ‘but’.
I didn’t have to wait to hear it.
‘Emotionally, though … well, that’s a different matter. You’ve barely said two words to any of the staff here. The most we’ve got out of you was when your temperature was raging and you were delirious.’
‘What did I say?’ I didn’t look at her as I asked the question.
‘Daisy, it was so nonsensical it barely needs repeating. But it was enough, coupled with your self-harming and inability to connect with anyone, to know that we are going to have to make plans for you.’
I felt my insides splinter as the prospect of another night under strip lighting stretched out before me. ‘I want to go home,’ I moaned. ‘Just let me go home.’
‘To whom?’ she asked. ‘If you have any family, any friends we can contact, then for goodness’ sake tell us about them. This is no place for you. No place at all.’
She paused before she went on, seeming to weigh up what she was about to say.
‘And that’s why you need to talk to us. Because if you don’t, then the places you could end up in … Well, they make this ward look like the Hilton.’
She smiled sadly before pushing herself upright.
‘Think about what I’ve said, won’t you? Please?’
But I wasn’t in the right place to listen. She was wrong, I thought. There could be nowhere worse in the world than here and now.
I was wrong.
On both scores.