The Walkman became my constant companion. No one knew what I was listening to. That prospect was unbearable, as was the potential for them clocking the Walkman itself. It was hidden inside a cord bag that Ade had given me. In fact, I’d hidden it in a carrier inside the bag, not that I was paranoid or anything.
I didn’t keep anything else in there. Tobacco and lighter lived in my shirt pocket, as I didn’t want to give anyone an excuse to go rooting around and find what I was hiding. If I was to follow Ade’s plan, then it had to be done with the utmost secrecy. Even when I had the tape of my voice playing through my buds, I did it at a volume that the others couldn’t clock. I could see it was confusing them, see Naomi straining to hear what I was listening to. They must have known it wasn’t music, as there was no bass leaking out. Mind you, they thought so little of me it wouldn’t have been a surprise to them to find I walked round listening to the shipping forecast.
I played the tape a lot, more than the twice daily Ade had suggested. Becoming the Bellfield leper had focused my mind, made me think about what Ade had said when I arrived, about the day I walked out, the potential for a family beyond what I’d lost.
I can’t lie: the thought of foster parents still petrified me, made me play out images of a wicked stepfamily who’d punish me in the way I deserved. But the Walkman had given me the bravery to confide in Ade about everything, and if she found my fears ridiculous, then she didn’t show it.
‘Every time you find these thoughts invading your head, I want you to challenge them, to face them full on and say, “Where is the evidence that I am responsible for what happened? Where is the evidence that any new family will do anything but love me?”’
I stared at her. It was a look she was starting to recognize.
‘You are making that face again!’ She smiled. ‘Remember the trust. What I’m asking you to do is simple. Every time the thought comes, you simply ask it how you caused the crash. Did you pull the steering wheel while he was driving? Did you stamp on a pedal by mistake? The answer to all these questions will be no, and as with the tape, if you tell your brain this often enough, eventually it will tire of the thoughts and dismiss them as soon as they arrive.’
‘Is this what you did too?’
‘Absolutely. It takes time and commitment, but it will work.’
I must have sagged at the mention of time, as she saw my disappointment.
‘What is it?’
‘I don’t know. It’s just … all these things you’re giving me to do. I believe in them, I do. At least I want to …’
All I could think about were the things I hadn’t told her, about Mum and Mr Hobson, the other problems I’d created. Did these things change what she was asking me to do? I didn’t know and was too scared to ask, or tell her about them.
‘… but why does everything have to be so complicated? Why does everything have to take time?’
‘Believe me, I wish there was a wand I could wave, or a pill that would make it all go away. But it doesn’t work like that. You can self-medicate, hide inside a bottle of spirits, but that won’t take the problems away, it will only mask them until the bottle is empty. Alcohol isn’t powerful, your mind is. These strategies I’m giving you, these are the only things you need to beat these thoughts. Once you understand what you are doing, once you truly believe that you are in control, then these thoughts –’ she paused, looking at me more deeply than ever before – ‘won’t be yours any more. You have my word.’
So started Groundhog Day. An endless round of lessons, Walkman sessions and, whenever the weather allowed, walks along the cliff tops. In fact, as autumn rolled in, Ade made it clear that falling temperatures and falling rain weren’t going to stop us from our daily outing, and on the whole I didn’t complain.
Maybe it was the training she was putting my brain through, or the absence of vodka wrecking my defences, but whatever the reason I felt like I was winning. All right, there were times when the anxiety would bite harder than others, hours when I had to fight dirtier than usual to stave off the fear, but these times were getting shorter, less sustained.
Ade was delighted. She took great pleasure in getting me to grade the day’s fear levels out of ten, beaming when the number was lower than the day before, supportive when I was overwhelmed and struggling. There didn’t seem to be anything that her smile couldn’t cure. I swear there were days in October when it parted the clouds.
The routine of the walks was working too, something about the rhythm that we found in our strides that focused our minds. Although I knew why we were walking, that eventually I’d tell her more about the inside of my head, it didn’t bother me in the same way it had before. I was easier in her company, not so paranoid. I believed that if something did fall out of my mouth, then she’d probably heard or felt it before.
And man had she lived. In the days when she’d been at her worst, addled with guilt and cut to pieces, she’d trusted all the wrong people, people who’d got her higher instead of talking her down. And she’d stayed with these people for so long, lived with them in squats for such prolonged periods of time, that I found it almost impossible to believe she’d found her way back.
This alone gave me a new sense of belief, although I felt guilty about it. She’d hit rock bottom and stayed there for years. It was only a few months since Dad died and she was giving me the skills she’d waited so long for. It was up to me now to not mess up the chance she’d given me.
I suppose it was this feeling that led me to share a little more, to let her in on why I cut myself, to explain that I didn’t do it out of guilt like her, that it was simply my last line of defence against the panic attacks.
This didn’t shock her of course. It pleased her. Gave her ‘another piece of the jigsaw’, told her that we simply had to identify what was bringing the fear on. If we could identify that, then we were halfway there.
The prospect of turning another corner pleased and distracted me. In the hours when I wasn’t plugged into Walkman torture, or questioning every dumb thought that flashed into my head, I was on my own, trying to work out a way of telling her the other stuff, the stuff she hadn’t given me the tools to cure.
I was so distracted, it was like the others didn’t exist. Even Susie and Jimmy, who still spoke to me, became peripheral. As for the other two, I’d become used to avoiding their snide comments and, bit by bit, they seemed to be ignoring me too. It was almost blissful, like the earlier kickings had never happened.
Which is why, when the next one came, it hurt like hell.