Swimming Upstream

17

Zara came out of hospital at the beginning of June, the week before my birthday. Catherine and I had planned a party at the flat and Zara said she would come. On the morning of the party Catherine went out early. I was still in my pyjamas when she returned. She put down her shopping bag and leaned against the sink.

“I’ve got everything for the punch, four different types of cheeses, nuts, crisps, French bread, napkins, paper plates... oh, and plastic glasses.”

She started to unload everything onto the work surface where I was making toast, ripping open the packets and stacking the glasses upside down on top of the washing machine.

“That’s a lot of plastic glasses,” I said. “How many people have you invited?” .

“Not that many. But they were cheap. And anyway they're always useful.”

The telephone rang. Catherine went to answer it. I looked apprehensively at the stacks of plastic glasses. The washing machine went into a spin cycle and they all started shuddering, and then rattling manically, and then bouncing up and down. I leaped forwards to catch them.

“It's for you,” Catherine called from the hallway. “It's your mum.”

I took the receiver from her.

“Happy Birthday,” said my mother. “Are you having a nice day?”

“So far so good. Thanks.”

“Did you get your present?”

“What present?”

“Hasn't it arrived yet? I sent it the day before yesterday. By recorded delivery. I hope it hasn't got lost.”

“I’m sure it hasn’t. It’s just the post being slow. So come on, what is it?”

“You’ll see,” said my mother, sounding pleased with herself.

As I put down the phone the doorbell rang. It was the postman with a bundle of cards and a parcel for me that I had to sign for. I unwrapped the parcel. “Oh my God,” I breathed. Inside was the missing doll.

Catherine came out of the kitchen with a glass of purple liquid. “Here try, this,” she said. “Tell me if you think it’s too strong.”

I was still looking at the doll. She was a rag doll with button eyes and black wool hair and an old green and white checked dress and bloomers. It was the doll my mother had talked about, the one she and my dad had give me for my sixth birthday. Seeing her now was the strangest of sensations. I could remember her after all. I remembered holding her, loving her, sleeping with her, never letting her out of my sight. And more, I could remember the day I got her, opened up the parcel - just as I had done minutes earlier - to find her inside. I could suddenly see my father’s face, lit with pleasure at my own delight; I could feel his arms around me, his lips kissing my cheek, and his voice saying, “Happy Birthday, Busy Lizzie. Glad you like your doll.”

The telephone rang again. This time it was for Catherine. She sat silently for several minutes; her jaw dropped and her face became solemn. All she said was, “Oh no,” several times, and then, finally. “Of course I will. Of course.”

Catherine put the receiver down. “It’s my dad,” she said, looking bewildered. “He’s in hospital. He’s had a stroke. They think it’s only a mild one. But my mum needs me. She’s in bits. I’ve got to go home. I’m really sorry, Lizzie. I won’t be able to stay for the party.”

“Oh, for goodness sakes,” I said. “That doesn’t matter. I’ll take you to the station.”

I’d only just got back from Kings Cross when the doorbell rang. It was Zara. She was wearing a see-through chiffon blouse and a denim skirt and knee-high go-go boots. She looked very pretty, although still on the thin side.

“Hi Zara,” I said. “'You look nice. Come in. What’s happening with Tim and Shelley?”

“Tim can’t come. He’s had to work. I’m not sure about Shelley. I think she’s meeting Gavin from work.”

She came in and shut the door.

“How are you feeling?” I asked her.

“Up and down,” she said.

“I suppose you feel different from day to day?” I offered.

“Not really,” said Zara. “Try from minute to minute.”

I hugged her and she clutched hold of the back of my dress. She still felt fragile, as if she could snap at any moment. She followed me into my bedroom, where I was doing my makeup.

“Who’s this?” she asked, picking up my doll and stroking her hair.

“She was mine when I was little,” I said. “My mum and dad gave her to me for my birthday, when I was six.”

Zara sat the doll on a chair. “Little Lizzie,” she said.

I smiled and tightened the cap on my mascara bottle. “So are the tablets helping, do you think?”

“I don’t know. I think so.” Zara sat down on the bed. “When I wake up in the morning I only feel like killing myself till about lunchtime. So I suppose that's something.” She saw the look on my face and smiled at me. “Don't worry,” she said. “I'd never do anything about it. To tell the truth, I haven't got the courage.”

I felt very weak, all of a sudden. I hoped that that was true.

“Usually I just take my pills and go right back to sleep again,” she added. “Then there’s just the afternoon to get through.”

I zipped up my makeup bag and sat down on the bed next to her. “Maybe you shouldn't be sleeping that much,” I told her. “Maybe it doesn’t help.”

She shrugged. “Tim and Shelley have been waking me, and making me get up. But mornings are difficult. It just doesn’t feel like there’s anything to get out of bed for.”

I said. “I wish there was something I could do.”

Zara smiled and touched my arm. “You’re already doing it.” She paused. “Really. You are. Just by being my friend.”

“Well, of course I’m your friend! Now more than ever!”

She shrugged again. “Most people can’t cope with any sign of weakness. They see tramps on the street,” she said. “And they feel sorry for them. But they wouldn’t want to know them, be their friend. They want to be needed but not that much. I’m scared you’ll feel like that too, before long.”

“I won’t,” I protested. “I promise. That’s not how I feel.”

“I keep thinking I'm going to end up like that, a bag lady, begging from shop doorways.”

“Don't be silly,” I said. “That’s not going to happen.”

“Why not?” she insisted. “They're just ordinary people who are down on their luck. One false move and you're under. Go to jail, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred pounds. It could happen to anyone. It could happen to me.”

“I won't let it,” I said, firmly.

“What if I made you crack up too?”

I turned to face her. We sat for a moment, looking into each others’ eyes. Hers were weak and desperate, but there was something else there as well. It was as if she were challenging me and begging me at the same time.

“You won't,” I said, finally. “I'm stronger than that.”

It was the right answer.

I decided to cancel the party.

“Please don’t, not on my account,” pleaded Zara.

“It’s okay, really. What with Tim and Catherine not being here and you… well, I can easily get hold of people from work, tell them not to come.”

Catherine rang a short while later to say that everything was fine, her dad was stable, but she was going to stay for a few days. “I can’t get hold of Martin,” she said. “He was supposed to be coming over later.”

“We’re not having the party now, anyway,” I said. “There’s been a change of plan.”

“Oh. Okay. Well look, the numbers for my friends from college are in my address book. Just ring Sally and she’ll call everyone else. And if I can’t get hold of Martin and he turns up, can you just tell him what’s happened and where I am? We’re going back to the hospital now.”

“Of course.”

I made several phone calls while Zara sat and stared out of the window. Then we sat down to watch a movie. I noticed Zara was drifting off, so I switched off the TV and made her a cup of tea.

“Sorry,” said Zara, taking the cup. “It’s hard to focus still.” She grinned. “I really am losing the plot.”

I smiled. “You’re better than you were a few weeks ago. And that’s the main thing.”

“You know the funny thing,” said Zara. “I knew I was talking rubbish, even while I was doing it. But I had no other thoughts to replace it with, if that makes any sense.”

I nodded. “Yeah. It does, actually. It sounds like those dreams when you’re doing strange things. Running round naked or something. But you know you’re doing it and it’s only a dream.”

“Except it isn’t,” said Zara. “More like a living nightmare.”

“Yeah. Of course. I’m sorry.” I sipped my tea. “So what’s it like, the illness?”

“Well, in the manic stage you think you can do anything. You can get any job, or become famous, do anything you want, so there are no worries about money. The ego’s out, and you can get any man you want. But then you will slowly come down over a few days or even hours, and start to feel cut off from everyone, frightened. You don’t want to go out, you can’t face anything. You lose your inner world. You have no stability, no trust in anything or anybody. You’re watching out for any negativity, you’re hyper-sensitive to any comment by anyone. I thought you were angry with me for dating a terrorist.” She paused. “And then I stopped defending it and became it, if you see what I mean. When they put me in hospital I thought it was because I was bad. I started to identify with James, or what I thought he was. I thought I was ruthless and had a murderous mind, that I was on the same frequency as these people.”

“You were thinking all of that?”

She nodded. “I was dating a bad guy. Guilty by association. And you start to read into things to prove your own point: if there was a yellow car outside it meant another bomb was coming. If an alarm went off in the hospital it meant they knew I was involved and they were trying to shake me up. And then even with normal thoughts, things that were real, I would doubt and second doubt myself so much …”

“So what started it? The psychosis? Did they tell you that, at the hospital?”

“Yeah. That’s just my brain. It’s how it’s wired. But it’s triggered by the mania, by getting too high… So now I take drugs in the morning to stop me going too high. And, inevitably, they make me feel really low. Until around this time of day. I don’t feel too bad at the minute.”

I squeezed her hand. “That’s good.”

She said, “It was triggered by the stress of studying. My exams, of course. Like last time. But it goes deeper than that. I think it was also triggered by what happened when I was a child. It’s like I had to re-create the old feelings of rejection from when I was a kid and re-live them.”

I nodded. “I’m sure that would have something to do with it. Did you talk to them about it?”

“They don’t really talk to you, psychiatrists. They just give you drugs.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

She shrugged. “Anyway, I suppose it’s always been there with me, since I was a kid, just bubbling away under the surface, till the pressure just set it off. I suppose that’s what happens to feelings. They’ve got to go somewhere.”

I nodded. “Or come out in different ways. Ways you don’t expect.”

“Like depression,” said Zara. “Either that or you kill someone.”

“Mad, bad or sad,” I said.

“Yeah,” said Zara. “Only I was all three.”

I laughed and hugged her tight. She clung to me again and put her head on my shoulder.

I said, “You weren’t bad. And James isn’t a terrorist.”

“I know that now,” she said. “But I don’t think he’s ever going to want to see me again.”

“But why?”

“I scared him,” she said. And then she said, “He’s not like you.”

There was a knock at the door. I looked out of the window. There were four strange men standing on my doorstep.”

When I opened the door, Shelley popped up from the midst of the crowd on the pavement like a fairy out of a cake. “Hi!” she shrieked. “Party time!”

I stood on the doorstep with my mouth open. I looked back over my shoulder.

“It’s okay,” said Zara from behind me. “Really.”

Shelley introduced everyone. They were Gavin, and friends of Gavin, all wearing suits and short haircuts. They all looked exactly the same - one amorphous mass of grey pin-stripe and garish ties.

“You don't mind?” Shelley asked me.

“No,” I lied. “I don’t mind.” Someone had to eat all the food, and drink the punch, I supposed.

I opened the door dutifully and they all poured in. Gavin's friend Giles hung back in the hallway.

“So.” There was a pregnant pause and a slight raising of one eyebrow; Giles was evidently a Roger Moore aficionado. “This is your pad.”

He eyed the decor with seeming approval.

“Well, yes,” I said, hesitantly. “In a manner of speaking.” Giles was now eyeing me up in the same way he'd been looking at the Gauguin prints a minute earlier. One of them was of a naked woman reclining under a tree. He looked from me to the painting and back again, and smiled.

I sidestepped him into the already crowded kitchen. I looked for Zara, and spotted her leaning up against the fridge behind Shelley and Gavin and Gavin's friend, Anthon. Malcolm handed me a glass of punch, and gave one to Giles, who had come up behind me.

“Good stuff, this,” said Malcolm.

“Yes, well,” I said. “I’m not quite sure what’s in it, to be honest. My friend made it. Vodka, I think.”

“Ah,” said Giles. “But it's the fruity bits that make all the difference, wouldn't you say?” He winked at me as if this was supposed to mean something.

Shelley was handing round bowls of nibbles.

“Nuts?” she said.

“Over here,” said Zara, and actually smiled. I caught her eye and winked at her.

Malcolm took a peanut from the bowl in Shelley’s hand and popped it into Zara’s mouth. I smiled at her and raised my eyebrows. Zara giggled, and I felt relieved. Maybe this was what she needed after all, to lift her spirits.

Giles took my glass out of my hand and topped it up again with punch, before handing it back to me.

“So, what do you do?” I asked generically, from where I stood in the middle of the kitchen. I was feeling like some stage had been missed out in the bonding process.

Malcolm chose to answer me. “Gavin's a rep for Gateway Pharmaceuticals,” he said. “The rest of us are bankers.”

I started to giggle, suddenly, and found I couldn’t stop. Something went the wrong way down my windpipe and I started to cough.

“It's not that funny,” said Malcolm.

Shelley thumped me on the back. “Everyone listen. It's Lizzie's birthday,” she announced.

“Happy Birthday,” everyone chorused.

“Shall we sing?” asked Malcolm.

“Please don't,” I said, putting my hands over my ears.

“I know,” said Giles. “Let’s play some party games instead.”

The party games - which were actually drinking games - ended somewhere around midnight. I had fallen over backwards into the punch bowl, which had been placed on the floor. Zara had gone to bed in Catherine’s room. Shelley was running around with a tea towel and sprinkling salt onto the carpet when the doorbell rang. I tried to get up but failed, and landed up somehow sprawled in a beanbag with Giles on top of me. Someone went to the door, and a minute later Martin walked into the living room.

“Hello Martin,” I heard Shelley say. “Catherine’s not here. Would you like a drink?”

Martin came nearer and glanced around the room, at Malcolm and at Anthon on the sofa, at Shelley and Gavin on the floor, and at me lying in the beanbag with Giles on top of me. We all watched him in silence; it was like a scene from a Western. He looked as though he were about to draw a pair of pistols from his pockets and turn the room into a bloodbath.

After what seemed like a very long time, Martin said to Shelley, “A beer would be nice.” Then he smiled and sat down.

Some time passed by, or maybe it was only minutes; it was hard to tell. I was lying in the beanbag still and the lights were way too bright. I tried to sit up, but only in my head, it seemed. Then people’s legs were walking past me and I heard the front door slam.

“Hey,” I said. “Where are you all going?”

“Shhh,” said a voice beside me and then a mouth descended on mine and began to kiss me. I gave my brain a second or two to engage, but it was all too blurry and too much like hard work, so I closed my eyes instead.

And then something woke me again, but this time I was in my bed and there was daylight seeping through a gap in the curtains.

Something wasn’t right. I turned my head and saw that there was someone next to me, sleeping. I lay there for a moment, trying to work out who he was and how he had got into my bed, and also how I’d got into my bed, come to think of it. And then I realised that I was naked. And that the body of the man next to me was naked too. And just as the enormity of the whole situation was beginning to hit me and bring me smack bang back to my senses, he stretched, and yawned, and turned towards me.

“Morning,” said Martin, and smiled.