I sit in his chair and run my fingers over the surface for a moment, before turning to the first page. It’s not a conventional medical file, that’s for certain, more a collection of random notes. Scratched-out scribbles in his poor doctor’s handwriting on various types of paper – seemingly whatever he had at hand at the time. I’d thought that whatever I found would go back a year or so, from whenever he’d started hatching this plan. Maybe when he met Marianne from the cafe in Blackheath, a thought that still stings my pride. But no, the first entry is from six years ago and it talks about things going back a decade. He’s infuriating in his lack of detail.
I pull the chair closer to the desk so the file can sit directly under the soft yellow glow of the desk light while I try to make some sense of his scribbles.
A minor breakdown three months after leaving Westlands during which time she had an abortion.
What was it Adele had said? At the start of their marriage he wanted kids and she didn’t. How would her choosing to have an abortion have made him feel? Must have hurt. The start of his resentment maybe? I flick through, further forward.
Suspicions of paranoia and extreme jealousy. She knows things she shouldn’t. Is she spying on me? How?
Now who sounds paranoid, David? is what I want to scribble under his jottings.
Adele claims incident at florist with Julia was not her fault, but too many similarities to the past? No action taken – no proof. Julia upset/afraid. Friendship over. Job over. Agreed no more work. Did she do it so she could stay at home?
The job Adele mentioned she once had. This must be it. But what happened? I think of the daily phone calls. Did David sabotage her work to make sure she stayed at home? But what was the incident? What actually happened? This file would never work to get her sectioned. There’s no detail and no official evaluations or sessions recorded. Maybe he’s relying on his reputation to be able to use this against her. A subtle damning of her rather than going big guns, so he can appear almost reluctant. I scan forward to the most recent entries, my eyes picking up on phrases that chill me.
Psychotic break. Sociopathic tendencies.
I see where he’s jotted down prescriptions, but everything is vague. Just alluded to. It’s all notes as if for a private record, but I still feel like he’s talking about a stranger – this isn’t Adele.
Marianne not pressing charges. No proof. Have agreed to move. Again.
Marianne was the name Adele gave of the woman in Blackheath. What really happened there? Adele obviously found out he was seeing her, and maybe there was a confrontation? I feel a wave of nausea, imagining myself in that situation. It could easily have been me. I hate the thought of Adele ever finding out what I did, and not because I think she’s crazy, whatever David wants the world to believe, but because she’s my friend. I would hate her to know how I betrayed her.
I look at that note. The Again after moving. How many times have they moved? Adele hasn’t said, and there are no clues here. Maybe when he finally presents all this shit to someone – Dr Sykes maybe – he wants it to look as though he was protecting her but can’t any longer. I study the most recent pages, but his writing is indecipherable. I pick out a couple of words that make my heart almost stop – parents … estate – and my eyes strain trying to make sense of the paragraph of broken sentences around them, but I can’t. This was written drunk, I’m pretty sure of it. I feel as if I’m looking into the mind of a mad person rather than reading a file on one.
The last two pages are virtually bare, but what’s written on them makes me freeze.
Rage out of the blue after the move. Kicked the cat. Stamped on it. Killed it. Too many coincidences.
Then, further down the page—
Was it a threat? Making a point? Medication changed. How many accidents can there be?? Have there ever actually been any?
There’s only one line used on the last page but I stare at it for a long time.
Louise. What to do about her?
39
THEN
She’s been at home alone for two days before David arrives, and she’s surprised at how much at peace she feels. The solitude has been strange after the constant company of Westlands, but it’s also been soothing to her soul. Even at night, in the silence of the countryside where it would be easy to believe she was the last person on earth, she’s felt calm. Not that she ever feels isolated from people and places. Not really. Not with what she can do.