I think Dr Ebbs thinks my whole time here has been some kind of travesty. It would be normal, I suppose, for people to think that way. Some, if they knew the truth, might even call it unjust. But I care little for injustice, at least not the injustice that has been done to me.
Today surprised me all the same. Not so much by what I’d said, more that I’d said it at all. Yes, before the meeting I’d been anxious, and I’d certainly never revealed so much before. If it had rested there, in my one act of revelation, perhaps sleep would have granted me some release. I would not have woken more distressed than ever, as I am now.
I’d been surprised by my words, taken aback by my own honesty. My voice had felt like the voice of someone else, a stranger, someone far stronger than I could ever be – someone capable of shocking me nearly as much as I might have shocked Dr Ebbs.
Fifteen years is a long time to maintain your silence. At the beginning, I’d tried to tell my story, but it isn’t easy when people don’t want to listen. I was angry, so angry, the rage inside me was black and choking. But in the end, I think the sadness won out over that.
I was taken aback by other things today, such as the strength of resolution I heard in my voice, something that seemed to have eluded me for a long time. There was a strange security to be found within it. Then later, I had been surprised again, when Dr Ebbs asked his last question. By then I’d already felt the medication kicking in, relieved by its irresistible exhaustion. Perhaps it was because the good doctor had taken me unawares, perhaps the exposure of myself had left me raw, unravelling the layers to the point where anything other than honesty was impossible. But I‘d been shocked by my answer all the same, because I had forgotten how much I loved him.
Andrew had come to me immediately after the fire. He’d been distraught, loud and accusing, shouting at me. I remember looking at him, staring him blankly in the face, all the while thinking how different he’d been only hours before.
I knew that by going to see him that night I had taken a chance. I had tried to see him the night before, but that caretaker, Gilmartin, the one who dragged me from the fire, had spotted me. He was out doing his own bit of night roaming, poaching most like. Up until that summer, and even now, I still believe Joe had no idea about Andrew and me. If Joe had woken up on either occasion, he would have been suspicious straight away, wondered where I had gone and come out looking for me. But I’d no choice but to talk to Andrew. I’d spent days trying to find time alone with him, without success, so I chose when everyone else was sleeping, I was like a ghost who was most at home in the dark.
When he opened the door to his caravan, Andrew had not even looked surprised. It was as if he had expected me all the time. I loved him and hated him for that. There were times in the months before that summer, especially when I’d got deeper and deeper into my depression, that I’d wondered if I’d loved him at all. And yet, when he looked at me, I knew. It was in the way the words between us never mattered. The way I could feel him without touch. The way I knew he felt the very same things.
He was the first to speak. He’d asked me if I was cold. It was just a small thing, something of no relevance really, but it was enough to soften my original intentions. In my head I had planned to argue with him, to ask him why he hadn’t been in touch, why he cared so little, rally my anger against the foolishness that I had once believed in him, thinking he felt the same about me. As on so many occasions before, he sat back and waited. It didn’t take long for me to run out of steam. While he listened, part of him was shaded by the dark. I could see only half of his face. The outside lights from the caravan park lit the seating area, as if the light was with me and the dark with him. Finally I went over and sat beside him, a willing audience. My silence lasted only a few seconds before he spoke.
He told me he had never stopped loving me all the time we’d been apart. He had felt a void in his life like nothing he had ever felt before. He admitted it was he who had suggested the holiday to Joe. A friend had owed him a favour and said he could use both the caravans if he wanted to. Almost immediately he’d jumped at the idea, knowing full well it would be an easy way for us to meet. He said all this as if everything that had happened over the previous months could be brushed aside, as if none of it mattered.