She went into the utility room and opened the large double-fronted freezer. She checked through all the various compartments, rummaging through packets of chicken, beef, fish, bags of frozen chips and vegetables, and began to search for any cooked dishes that might contain mushrooms. Agnes would buy in bulk and prepare the dishes, placing them into plastic cartons neatly labelled with the date. These were used at weekends when the housekeeper was not at the house and Lena was alone. Many of the cartons were enough for two people, and she would defrost them and if Amy was at home for the weekend they ate them together.
Lena took out every single plastic carton or zipped bag containing leftovers or home-cooked meals. Throwing them all into a bin bag, she closed the freezer doors, went outside and dumped the bag in the bin.
Returning to the house, she could hear the phone ringing. Marcus must have picked it up from the bedroom, so she went to the foot of the stairs and called up, asking if it was for her. He appeared on the landing above and told her it was Marjory Jordan. Lena frowned, certain she did not have an appointment.
‘What does she want?’
‘To see if you’re all right. Do you want to speak to her?’
‘No, tell her I’m fine and will call tomorrow, and can you come down and look through the photograph albums with me please?’
Marcus went back into the bedroom as Lena went round the house collecting all the family photo albums. She took them through to the dining room and divided them up for them both to go over to try and pinpoint when Amy’s facial expressions noticeably changed to something sinister. Marcus came down after a while and said that Marjory was just checking in, and there was no missed appointment.
He sat beside her and looked at her as she took out a notebook and pen and opened an album.
‘You know, you consistently amaze me. I would have thought you would maybe need to talk with your therapist after what we’ve been told, but instead of you being the one cracking up, I am – I can’t even think straight, I’m so emotional.’
She smiled and patted his hand. ‘You always have been, darling, and you know, sometimes having such awful things to deal with sort of straightens out my thoughts, prevents my darkness from invading me. That’s what it feels like, you know, and it is difficult to control, because sometimes it starts without warning, a terrible feeling of despair envelops me, makes me feel totally inadequate, incapable of thinking straight and unable to cope.’
He couldn’t help but give a small smile; the way she was talking about her depression, it was as if he wasn’t aware of when these episodes occurred. He had borne the brunt of this darkness so many times, and for so many years, and here she was talking about it as if he were a stranger to her condition.
They remained silent, looking through the various albums, and yet again it was Marcus that felt a welter of emotion that he couldn’t deal with. His eyes brimmed with tears as he turned over the plastic-covered pages of photographs.
‘Have you found something?’ she asked.
‘No, it’s just seeing all the good times. Amy building sandcastles, always laughing, and with that golden blonde hair – I don’t think I can do this.’
He left her looking at the albums and quietly slipped up the stairs, went into her bedroom and opened her bedside cabinet. Here he found numerous containers of Prozac, and other prescribed antidepressants, citalopram and paroxetine, which were known to lift a person’s mood. Reading the pamphlets from the containers, he wondered just how much medication Lena was taking. He carefully refolded everything, returning the containers into the cabinet, then checked the sleeping tablets and took a couple out for himself before he went back down to the dining room.
She was still sitting with the albums and he rested his hand on her shoulder as he sat down beside her. ‘Can I ask you something, and I don’t want you flying off the handle, but this bipolar thing you have, it can be hereditary, right?’
She leaned back in her chair as he held her hand. ‘I am just wondering if what this professor has diagnosed for Amy isn’t this multiple personality shit, and that she isn’t being controlled by some monster and planning to poison Christ knows how many people. I mean, could she simply have inherited the bipolar thing from you?’
She released her hand and her whole body tensed up. She wouldn’t look at him but picked up her pen and began twisting it in her fingers. He continued persuasively, keeping his voice quiet and calm.
‘I know that you are and always have been very capable of hiding your true feelings, but all I am suggesting is that perhaps Amy, like you, is bipolar.’
‘Do you really want to get into this now?’ she asked and began to tap the table with the pen.
‘I think we should. I mean, when did it start with you, because when we were first together you didn’t show any signs.’ She sighed, saying that she had never been diagnosed until after Amy’s birth and at first she wanted to believe that it was postnatal depression.
‘I knew it wasn’t – the truth is, Marcus, I’ve been depressed most of my life; it felt like I had some sort of infection,’ she admitted. ‘As a child I was always a bit sad, but things sort of came to a head when Amy was a toddler. I so wanted her to be happy and for me to be able to play with her, and I realised that I had never played much in my own childhood – I became paranoid because it felt as if I didn’t know how. Can you imagine what that felt like, to be unable to play with her?’
‘I never realized that, I never noticed it, and you have always been a good mother to her.’
‘Yes I know, because I tried so hard, and when I was finally diagnosed and given medication, it eased a lot of my sadness, but then my way of coping was to make myself feel as if I was totally in control of every element of my life,’ she explained. ‘That was when I decided to start my business, and I was constantly trying to prove to myself that by being in control I was better. I kept making these schedules, working out how much time I could give to her, and to you – everything depended on how much work I could get done. It was as if I was constantly against a ticking clock, but I was really trying, and when you said you wanted to leave me, or as you put it, create some space between us, I felt as if I was losing it all again.’
‘Why did you never discuss this with me?’
‘Because I never wanted to lose you, and you were adamant that you wanted to leave. And then you moved into Simon’s flat. I just worked harder and harder and kept up this crazy schedule, proving to myself that I was brilliant at business.’
‘It was your decision to put her into that boarding school.’
She bit her lip, her face becoming tense, and she turned to face him. ‘You see, you blame me – admit it, you blame me, first by saying she inherited my depression, which I know is possible, but Amy did not have my background and I never even considered that she could in any way feel the way I did. She never showed any symptoms – don’t you think I would have noticed?’
‘Well, you just said you were very capable of hiding how you were feeling, so perhaps that was what she did.’
She sighed with irritation, asking him what the point was of his questioning her.
‘I am just trying to understand everything, that’s all,’ he said, putting his hands on his head and running them through his hair.
She stood up and looked at him. ‘Don’t you think it’s a bit late for that? What we should be doing is as DI Reid said and trying to find out what might have trigged this DID, gain some insight into the fact that she might be somewhere, not knowing who she is, and if anyone else in her journal dies it could prove that she is alive.’
‘Terrific – prove premeditated murder. Personally, the more I think about this, the less I believe it.’