As I did my shift that evening, I thought that because you had died, there was, of course, a part-time position that had needed filling. But recently I discovered that someone else had already taken the job, so she’d hired me out of loyalty to you and sympathy for me.
I get home from the Coyote at almost midnight and don’t expect many, if any, press. It’s too late and in any case after the frenzy of the last few days they must have got all the pictures and footage they need. But I was wrong. As I get near, I see there’s a gang of them, their huge lights shining, and illuminated in the middle is Kasia. She’s been at a friend’s house for the last two days, until I thought the press attack would have died down enough for her to return. She’s living with me now, which I think you’re pleased about but curious about how we fit. Well, she has your bed and I have a futon in the sitting room, which I unroll each night, and we somehow squash in.
As I get closer, I see how shy she looks, anxious about the attention, and exhausted. Feeling furiously protective, I shoo photographers and journalists out of the way.
“How long have you been waiting?” I ask her.
“Hours.”
For Kasia that could mean ten minutes upward.
“What happened to your key?”
She shrugs, embarrassed. “Sorry.” She’s always losing something and this reminds me of you. Sometimes I find her scattiness endearing. This evening, I have to admit to being a little irritated. (Old habits die hard, and to be fair, I’m exhausted after a long stint at the CPS, a shift as a barmaid, and now I’ve got the press shoving cameras into my face for what I imagine to be a poignant-moment shot.)
“Come on, you need something to eat.”
She’s only a week away from her due date now and she shouldn’t go too long without food. She gets faint and I’m sure it can’t be good for the baby.
I put my arm around her to usher her inside and the cameras click in synch.
Tomorrow, next to the picture of me with my arm around Kasia, there will be similar articles to the ones there were today about my “saving” Kasia. They actually use words like that: “saving” and “owing her life to,” comic-book words that are in danger of turning me into someone who wears pants on the outside of her tights, switches outfits and personas in telephone booths and has web coming out of her wrists. They will write that I was too late to save you (that telephone booth change just not quite quick enough), but how because of me, Kasia and her baby will live. Like all of us, their readers want a happy ending to the story. It’s just not my story. And my ending was a strand of hair caught in a zipper.
8
Thursday
I am walking across St. James’s Park toward the CPS offices. The sky is blue again today, Pantone PMS 635 to be precise, a hopeful sky. This morning Mr. Wright is going to ask me about the next installment in your story, which is my meeting with your psychiatrist. But still half asleep, my mind lacks the necessary clarity so I will run through it out here first, a mental dress rehearsal before I tell Mr. Wright.
Dr. Nichols’s NHS waiting list was four months, so I paid to see him. His private patients’ waiting room looked more upmarket hairdressing salon than anything remotely medicaclass="underline" vases of lilies, glossy magazines, a mineral water dispenser. The young receptionist had the same de rigueur disdainful look, lording her keeper-of-the-gate power over the clients waiting. As I waited, I flicked through a magazine in a futile bid to look occupied. It had the next month’s date on the cover and I remembered you laughing at time-traveling fashion mags, saying the date on the cover should alert people to their absurdity inside. Nervous mental chatter because there was so much riding on this meeting. It was because of Dr. Nichols that the police were convinced you had postpartum psychosis, because of him that they were sure you committed suicide. It was because of Dr. Nichols that no one was looking for your murderer.
The receptionist glanced at me. “What time did you say your appointment was?”
“Two-thirty.”
“You were fortunate Dr. Nichols made a space to see you.”
“I’m sure I’ll be charged accordingly.”
I was limbering up for a little more confrontation. She sounded irritated. “Have you completed the form?”
I gave her back the form, which was blank apart from my credit card details. She took it from me, voice snide, eyes scornful. “You haven’t filled in any of your medical history.”
I thought of people coming here who were depressed, or anxious, or losing their grip on reality and falling into the void of madness; fragile, vulnerable people who were owed at least a little civility by the first person they would have to talk to.
“I’m not here for a medical consultation.”
She didn’t want to show me she was interested. Or maybe she thought I was just another barmy patient, not worth the bother.
“I’m here because my sister was murdered and Dr. Nichols was her psychiatrist.”
For a moment I had her attention. She took in my greasy hair (hair washing is one of the first corner cuttings of grief), my lack of makeup and the bags under my eyes. She saw the markers of grief but interpreted them as signs of madness. I wondered if, in a larger way, this was what happened to you: your signals of fear being interpreted as insanity. She took the form from me without another word.
As I waited, I remembered our e-mails when I told you once that I was thinking of seeing a therapist.
From: tesshemming@hotmail.co.uk
To: Beatrice Hemming’s iPhone
A shrink?! Why on earth do you want one of them, Bee? If you want to talk about something, why not talk to me or to one of your friends?
From: Beatrice Hemming’s iPhone
To: tesshemming@hotmail.co.uk
I just thought it would be interesting, valuable even, to see a psychiatrist. It’s completely different to talking to a friend.
PS They’re not called shrinks anymore.
From: tesshemming@hotmail.co.uk
To: Beatrice Hemming’s iPhone
But talking to me comes free and I’d have your best interests at heart, and I wouldn’t limit you to an hour time slot.
PS They’re a hot cycle for the personality, shrinking you down to something that fits a category in a textbook.
From: Beatrice Hemming’s iPhone
To: tesshemming@hotmail.co.uk
They’re highly trained. A psychiatrist (rather than a psychologist) is a fully qualified medical doctor who then specializes. You wouldn’t say they were washing machines if you were bipolar or demented or schizophrenic would you?
From: tesshemming@hotmail.co.uk
To: Beatrice Hemming’s iPhone
Fair point. But you’re not.
Ps I’ll shout that a bit louder in case it didn’t reach you up on that podium.
From: Beatrice Hemming’s iPhone
To: tesshemming@hotmail.co.uk