‘If I’m going to look like a mental,’ Rob says, ‘then I intend to look like a proper mental.’
Adele looks at her own hands, dry blue paint under her nails, David’s watch face glinting in the sunlight. Rob was right, and the nurses are pleased with her new water art – if it can be called that – but it’s not helping her lay her family to rest. Instead, she’s found she imagines the old disused well in the woods at the back of her parents’ house. She sees herself standing beside it and pouring her past into it. Maybe one day she’ll find it metaphorically full, and then she can cover it over and move on. Maybe then she’ll sleep. Like she used to. She’s missing that time behind her own eyes. It’s a part of her, and guilt isn’t enough to shut it off completely.
‘Just do it, Rob,’ she says. ‘You’ll thank me.’
‘Okay, okay. Only for you though.’ He winks at her and they smile at each other, and the warmth isn’t only from the sunshine, but from within her for a moment too.
17
LOUISE
My guilt over taking a fake sickie is totally washed away by the tidal wave of sadness when Adam leaves for the month, racing out of the flat with the casual hurt that only children can inflict in their excitement. As soon as the door is closed behind him, our tiny flat feels too big and too empty. Like everyone’s moved out and left me behind. I don’t know what to do with myself. I prowl around the flat until I can no longer ignore the lure of the wine bottle. As I reach for the corkscrew I see where I threw the notebook Adele gave me into the drawer. I stare at it for a long moment before taking it out.
On the inside cover of the book, high up in the corner, a name is carefully printed. ROBERT DOMINIC HOYLE, and those words interest me more than the list of instructions on the opposite page. ‘Pinch myself and say I AM AWAKE once an hour.’ I ignore these for now – but at least these are things I can do at home – and stare at the stranger’s name. I’ve always loved books with names hand-written in them, like those you pick up in charity shops that were once gifts and have greetings scribbled on the inside, whole stories hidden behind a few words, and this one is no different. Who is this boy? Are Adele and David still friends with him? Did he think that this whole thing was as stupid as I do when Adele first tried to help him?
I turn the page and expect it to be more instructions, but the scribbles, tight spiky writing in Biro that doesn’t entirely stay within the lines, are more than that. A record of attempts I think. I open the wine, pour a large glass, and settle back, curious at this time capsule of writing, this snippet of Adele’s past, and start to read.
If I keep pinching myself like a twat then my arms are going to be so bruised the nurses are going to think I’m using again (I fucking wish) but at least it’s marking off the hours in this shit place. Two days of counting my fingers and looking at clocks and pinching the shit out of myself and nothing. Adele says I have to be patient. At least she says it with a smile. I’m not good at patience. I am good at making her laugh though. She makes me laugh too. Thank fuck for Adele. Without her this do-goody up its own arse place would be enough to make me throw myself in the lake with boredom. I did fucking rehab. Don’t know why they had to send me here and punish me twice. So typical of fucking Ailsa. It’s free so do it. I’m sure she talked the doctor into referring me so I wouldn’t clutter up the flat and she could shag whoever whenever.