I run my finger along the handwritten text.
Tuesday evening, we gave up and had to call Dr H out again. I begged, but he refused to increase meds. Too dangerous, he said. She’s already on the maximum recommended dosage. After the doctor left, R. had what looked like an epileptic fit. I ran for the phone, but while I was gone, she climbed out of the window.
I can’t make out the next words, but press on,
. . . back at midnight, in a police car. She was spitting and scratching by then. More like a wild animal than a girl.
I glance up at the door but it’s still closed. I can hardly believe what I’m reading. I mean, I knew Rachel was a total headcase. But involving the police?
It sounds like she was lucky not to be arrested.
We took her to hospital but they could find nothing seriously wrong. Transferred to the psychiatric ward though, just in case. We were there most of the day, waiting to see if she would be committed this time. Doctor H came in later to examine her. He said the fit was most probably faked. That she did it to distract us, perhaps so she could . . .
Some determined crossing out at the bottom of that page. Heavy and black. I turn it over, but can’t make out anything on the other side of the paper. Whatever was written at the end of that paragraph, Dad must have decided it wasn’t fit to be recorded.
So she could . . . what?
Pack a bag? Phone a friend? Run away?
Dr H.
Doctor Holbern. He used to see me in my teens occasionally. Depression, etc. But it was nothing like this shit, thank God.
I continue reading.
Eventually discharged with a follow-up appointment next week. But a committal can’t be far off if she keeps this up. I told Dr H we couldn’t bear the thought of her in a secure unit. Not long-term.
A secure unit?
A few pages later, this:
She’s gone too far this time. Nearly killed herself. A total nightmare. It was all I could do to keep our name out of the papers.
Some more heavy crossing out. As though he was worried who might read this, which doesn’t surprise me. It sounds like a really serious incident. Though I don’t remember anything about it. I would have been quite young at the time, and I doubt my parents would have shared such dramatic news with me. Not where Rachel was concerned, at any rate.
Dr H gave me the website of a specialist clinic in Switzerland. Unorthodox procedures but has helped a few stubborn cases. Am going to contact the director tomorrow. For all our sakes. This can’t go on.
Switzerland.
I suck in my breath, reading that page over again. Presumably that’s why we went on that family holiday to Switzerland. So Rachel could be assessed by a specialist in childhood psychosis. Perhaps she was given some dangerous and unorthodox new treatment, and died because of it. And my parents have been living with the guilt ever since, maybe hiding the true cause of her death behind this elaborate fiction of a family skiing accident.
Is this the secret they’ve been keeping from me all these years?
It would certainly explain why I can’t remember actually skiing on that holiday, or seeing Rachel die in an accident, or anything to do with that terrible day except Dad coming in to tell me she was dead. The rest is a kind of white, senseless blur.
Because we weren’t there to ski, we were there to cure Rachel.
And we failed.
‘Poor Rachel.’
I close my eyes. I didn’t like my sister much, she was a Class A bitch at times. But she didn’t deserve to die, and then for the truth of what happened to be hushed up forever.
‘What the hell did they do to you, Rachel?’
Flicking on five pages, I find a list of medications Rachel was prescribed and study it. It goes on for over half a page, incredibly. The medical names mean nothing to me.
Dominic would know precisely what these meds are for, of course. He would know how and why they’re prescribed, and their various side effects.
But I can’t show him the list. He mustn’t know I’ve stolen the notebook. He wouldn’t understand my compulsion to know about Rachel. I’m not even sure I understand it myself. But I do know he would call it an unhealthy obsession, and tell me to give the notebook back to Dad. They all think I’m incapable of making my own decisions.
I’ll have to look up these drugs on the Internet. Though I can hazard a guess right now that they’re mostly antipsychotics.
Doctor Holbern prescribed antidepressants for me once. Some hormonal surge in my early teens, triggered by a boy I’d met who wasn’t interested in me. Typical teenage angst. The phase only lasted a few months, I’m sure. Perhaps I was trying to compete in some sad way with my dead sister, to be as much trouble to my parents as Rachel had been. But who could ever be as much trouble as Rachel?
There’s a new fear bubbling up inside me now.
I’m trying hard to ignore it.
Now that I’m married, I haven’t been as careful taking the pill as I used to be. In time, I could end up with my own child, my own daughter. What if she turns out to be anything like Rachel? I don’t know how I’d cope with a kid like that.
I can only hope her madness – I hate that word, it feels so judgemental, but Rachel’s behaviour had to stem from some serious mental health issue – isn’t hereditary. But what if it is, and I have a child who starts behaving like Rachel as she grows up?
I need to know this stuff. They shouldn’t be hiding it from me.
I start reading Dad’s notes again, skipping frantically back and forth between medication lists and routine hospital trips, looking for more information about that specialist clinic in Switzerland.
Then I come to something that almost stops my heart.
Switzerland is definitely the way to go, even if it changes all our lives forever. But it’s so unfair. What did we do to deserve Rachel? It’s as if we’re being punished for something, only we have no idea what. I just wish we could have our lovely Cat back.
Chapter Forty-Two The bedroom is dark when I hear someone creeping in. For a moment, I feel confused and disoriented.
I remember having lunch with Jasmine in the kitchen, then we watched a Boxing Day film with her until my parents came home from the shops. Then I told them I had another headache and came up to bed. Mum tried to offer me some medication, but all I would take upstairs with me was a cup of soothing camomile tea.
Obviously it worked, as I must have fallen asleep quite quickly.
But how late is it?
I listen to Dominic fumbling about, trying to undress in the dark without waking me. His trainers, thumping quietly one after the other, under the bed. The slither of his scrubs hitting the wash basket.
‘What’s the time?’ I whisper.
‘I thought you were asleep.’ A slight pause. ‘A bit after nine. Your mum said you weren’t feeling well or I would have come up earlier.’
‘What’s everyone doing?’
‘They’re in the kitchen, playing Scrabble.’
I push up on one elbow, watching his shadowy form in the dark. ‘Oh, I love Scrabble. You should have come and told me.’
‘What?’ He switches on the bedside lamp, looking down at me with an ironic smile. He’s wearing nothing but his underpants, and I study his body thoughtfully. ‘Are you being funny? You hate Scrabble.’
‘Do I?’
He sits on the edge of the bed, and touches the back of his hand to my forehead. ‘No fever. So I’m guessing this is just your sense of humour resurfacing.’ His mouth twists wryly. ‘You haven’t missed much, anyway. Robert’s dominating the field as usual.’
‘I can beat him any day.’
‘Now I know you’re kidding.’
I reach for him hungrily. ‘Come to bed,’ I whisper, stroking his bare chest, then I throw back the duvet to show that I’m naked, too. ‘Join me.’
He looks startled. ‘Right now?’
‘Why not?’
‘Well . . .’ He hesitates, glancing back at the fresh clothes he’s gathered together. ‘I was going to shower and then head back downstairs. To fix myself a light supper.’