If I Never Went Home Read online

  About seven o’clock she came back to the ward and was told by a passing nurse that Dr. Payne was there and would be checking on her soon. Bea went to her room and sat in the small stiff armchair next to the barred window. Hooting and cheering from a television game show mixed with the general mêlée of movement and talk from down the hallway. Bea chewed her already short nails and waited for Dr. Payne.

  When he finally put his head around the door she had trouble containing her relief at seeing a familiar face. She gave him her chair and sat on the bed opposite. Dr. Payne smiled as he asked if everything was fine and had she been shown around places like the dining room and gym. He urged her to get in touch with friends who were welcome during visiting hours. Bea managed a weak smile but knew that was impossible. She asked if she could leave on her own to go shopping or have a coffee. Not yet. He felt it was too early. And then he was done, promising to check on her the following day.

  With Dr. Payne gone, Bea sat on the bed, unsure what was expected of her. It was too early to sleep. Television held no interest for her. There was a shelf of books in the lounge, but there was no way she was going to risk having to make small talk while retrieving one. Indecision gave way to anxiety, and anxiety morphed into numbing fear. Forty-eight hours earlier she had been free and knew what she had to do. Now she was in a room she could not leave, in a place she did not understand. Sitting on the bed much longer might attract the attention of the patrolling nurses, but what else was she to do? Outside her room the passing foot traffic seemed to be lessening, the noises more muted. It was at least thirty minutes before she forced herself to move and change into her nightdress. She turned off the light and was surprised at how heavy with sleep she suddenly felt.

  *

  In her office, Bea put the teacup on her desk and turned on the lights. Few had made her journey from one side of the desk to the other. She should be proud. There was no reason to think it would all unravel because of a short visit to Trinidad. She was stronger than that. If this was a test of her worth and everything she had achieved in the intervening years, then she would not be found wanting. Thriving in voluntary exile, far away from the site of memories and dreams, might have been enough in the early years. But surely those she had left behind could get a look in now. After all, the visit could be kept to a long weekend.

  She sipped her tea and thumbed through the files she had collected. It all seemed routine apart from the client outside, handcuffed to the police. He had tried to stab his girlfriend when she announced she was leaving him and taking their baby son. It was Bea’s job to do the first interview, brief Dr. Payne, and then sit in on any further client assessment. She needed to be alert, focused to pick up signs of psychosis, drug abuse, anything that might explain today’s behaviour or indicate future risks.

  But even as she gathered her iPad and headed off to the assessment room her mind was wandering. Mira and Granny Gwen aside, there were people and places she missed. It was strange what popped into her head. On the drive from Piarco airport to Mira’s house in Port of Spain, they always passed that bleak monastery built into the side of the northern range of mountains. The sprawling, castle-like Mount St. Benedict stood so high up that low cumulus clouds often sliced off the tops of the buildings. Her kindergarten school was somewhere up that mountainside. She remembered unsmiling nuns. Was it her imagination, or did they really smack tiny hands with a wooden ruler for the slightest perceived wrong?

  Then they would swish past the chaotically sprawled-out shopping mall at Valsayn. And the Nestlé factory. Her child’s mind had imagined huge metal vats inside with unlimited supplies of Milo milk chocolate drink or smooth chocolate to be pressed into bars, a Caribbean version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that she might get to enter one day. And as they neared home they always had to go around the Savannah in the heart of Port of Spain, ringed by once splendid mansions from a bygone age. She loved it when they stopped at one of the coconut vendors. Before their eyes he would slice the top off a nut with his machete and they would drink the ice-cold water inside. Port of Spain may boast five-star hotels and an imitation Sydney Opera House, but she hoped there was still space in town for a simple coconut vendor.

  No decision was necessary today. She would get on with her work and let the invitation wait. Anger, fear and nostalgia would have to wrestle a final decision out of her.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Bea slept fitfully that first night at St. Anthony’s, fearful of the unfamiliar surroundings and the nighttime din. Nurses stopped regularly by her room to shine a torch on her face. Routine hospital policy, they explained. The drugs helped her doze off at first, but her anxieties broke through and by three in the morning she gave up trying to sleep. Why was she being forcibly kept alive in this jailhouse? The goodbyes had already been said. Her papers were either shredded or in a neat pile on her kitchen table. Yes, she had more doubts now, but nothing had fundamentally changed. And she resented not being allowed to end the semester neatly, with grades properly delivered. All she had left to live for were her beloved students, and that one last goodbye had not happened – at least not in the way she had planned. Well, they couldn’t lock her up for ever. Besides, the medical insurance was bound to cut off funds at some point. Best to do as she was told and not draw unnecessary attention to herself. Soon she would be in control again.

  Breakfast was tea from the machine on the ward – she could not face the canteen again so soon. She gulped it down, went back to bed and curled up under the blankets, weary and weighed down. In recent weeks, routine matters of personal hygiene – brushing teeth, showering, choosing her clothes, getting dressed – had become exhausting challenges. Only a lazy failure would take almost three hours over basic ablutions. The woman who held a university post and could be washed, changed, breakfasted and out the door in less than thirty minutes had disappeared, leaving behind this inept doppelgänger.

  ‘Morning. Weather getting good!’ said a woman in pink-and-green scrubs as she pushed her head around the unlocked door to Bea’s room. ‘I’m Sharon, one of the nursing assistants here on the ward. I hear you is a Trini?’

  Bea sat up and took in the broad flat face of this dark, buxom, middle-aged woman. The cloying smell of cheap perfume filled the room.

  ‘Yes. I’m from Trinidad,’ Bea said softly. ‘You too?’

  ‘No man,’ said Sharon, settling herself in the armchair. ‘Grenadian. Been here a good thirty years now. Imagine that.’ She looked around the bare room. ‘You sleep sound?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Bea, and immediately regretted it. ‘Actually it was okay. I’m fine.’

  ‘Why you don’t put on a little TV to keep you company? That’s why they have it put up in the room.’

  ‘Don’t know why, but I find I can’t watch TV.’

  ‘Well, get a book then. I hear you working in the university. A bright girl like you must like book.’

  Bea sat up. ‘I’ll get one today.’

  Sharon stole a quick glance outside Bea’s door. ‘This not the kind of thing I supposed to say to people, but you is different. This place ain’t good for we people,’ she whispered. ‘We so don’t get these kind of sickness in the head. That is a white people thing. How much people you know back home does get put in hospital when things ain’t too right? I working here long and is them white people that does be here idling. They idling instead of getting up and going to work. If you ask me them have it too easy. We not like them, girl. If you know what good for you, you would start getting better fast-fast.’

  Bea managed a slight nod. Getting out of St. Anthony’s fast-fast was her goal. But Sharon had it wrong. The reason ‘we people’ weren’t in places like St. Anthony’s was because ‘we people’ didn’t have facilities like this in Trinidad or Grenada. But arguing with Sharon was the last thing she felt able to do.

  When Sharon left, Bea looked for the first time at the papers she had been given, outlining her programme. Group therapy was later that morning. She mental
ly rehearsed the sequence of actions that would take her from the bedroom to the group therapy room one floor up.

  Swing legs over side of bed.

  Stand up.

  Put on slippers.

  Possibly.

  Not sure.

  Okay, no slippers.

  Walk three paces to bathroom door.

  She had been warned there were no locks on the doors. Hospital policy.

  Shower.

  Shampoo hair today?

  No energy. Hair’s greasy. Oh shit.

  She pulled the hair off her face and into a ponytail.

  Wash it tomorrow. No one will notice.

  Her armpit hair was longer than she normally allowed. It would need shaving soon.

  Why bother? Nobody’s going to look.

  She opened the closet door and stared at her blue and black jeans. She decided on the black pair and matched them with a crumpled black T-shirt, then pulled a black sweater on and slipped into a pair of black flats. The clock showed a few minutes before eight. She had been up for almost five hours and still she struggled to face the day.

  Dirty, lazy, woman.

  No wonder he left me.

  She stayed in her room, unable to take the final step into the public area of the ward. It was only when she heard voices outside talking about the group therapy that she forced herself into the corridor. The pale young man she had seen yesterday in the canteen introduced himself again as Dave, and she followed his lead into a windowless room with armchairs arranged in a circle. As the newest person, she had to say her name first, then the dozen or so patients introduced themselves.

  The facilitator, a gentle soft-spoken woman called Melanie, encouraged the gathering to talk about how things were with them that morning. Dave was expecting his first visitor in the three weeks he had been there. A former girlfriend, actually his only girlfriend ever, had promised to come by after work. His whole body jittered with excitement. Bea found it hard to tell how old he was with his skinny pale body and open child-like face. He must be younger than her – early twenties at most. Why would such a sweet man-boy be here?

  Sarah, who sat cross-legged, was due to go home for the weekend and unsure of coping. Her husband had given her an ultimatum. After years of unsuccessful attempts he wanted her to forget about ever having a baby. It had destroyed them emotionally and financially. If she could not let go, then he could not stay. Sarah wanted her marriage, but did she want a baby at any price? During the six weeks she had been at St. Anthony’s she had felt calmer. The visit home might help her decide. Bea could hardly believe that anyone would be here for that long. Six weeks? She expected to be gone in a week, two tops.

  She felt complete relief when the hour-and-a-half session ended and she had not been made to chip in with the discussion. But Dave was waiting for her as they walked out. Did she know about the art and craft classes every afternoon? He had made an enamel brooch last week. Today they were going to try making paper. Bea smiled politely, knowing she would not be there unless Dr. Payne specifically prescribed it.

  In the time before lunch Dave invited her to have a coffee with him in the canteen. There was something gentle and vulnerable in his bearing that made it rude to refuse him.

  ‘Why are you here?’ he asked quietly almost as soon as they had sat down.

  ‘Not sure,’ she said, looking around.

  ‘It’s no big deal.’ He sipped his tea. ‘I was knocking back the booze. Took too many pills one night and now I’m here.’

  Bea concentrated on her coffee.

  ‘I thought maybe I was an alcoholic,’ he went on. ‘But since I’ve been here I know that’s not me.’

  Bea nodded in agreement and took another gulp of too-hot coffee.

  ‘It’s the abuse that got me drinking,’ Dave said, biting his nails. ‘Stepdad. Every chance he got it was bathroom door locked. Down on the floor. He only stopped last year. I suspect he’s abusing my little nephew too.’

  He looked up and beyond her. ‘I’m not gay. I’m not. I’ve had a girlfriend and everything. Melanie says just because he did that to me doesn’t make me gay.’

  Bea’s coffee suddenly tasted bitter. She had no business being here.

  Towards lunchtime people began to flow into the canteen. Some joined their table. Bea felt boxed in, but afraid to offend by leaving. She only relaxed a little when it became clear there was no need to talk. A listener was valued. Smells of cooking wafted through to the table while the group sat chatting. Sarah was the first to investigate. She was sure she smelt spicy chilli. Then a group of about ten people burst noisily into the canteen, a swagger of silk, leather, and sunglasses. At least two of them sported cowboy boots. Could these be in-patients? They must have wandered in accidentally. Their flamboyance silenced Bea’s group. Compared to these wild things, they looked like unsophisticated country cousins on a supervised day trip to the big city.

  Bea leaned over to Dave. ‘Who are they?’ she whispered.

  ‘Fourth floor. Addicts. They don’t talk to the rest of us.’

  ‘Do we ever do stuff with them?’

  ‘No. They have their own groups and everything. I only ever see them in here.’

  She thought for a moment about this new tribe. They seemed happier than her bunch.

  She leaned back over to Dave. ‘Yesterday there were people eating behind that partition off to the side. It wasn’t them, was it?’

  ‘No.’ He took a breath in and bit his lip. ‘That’s the eating disorders group.’

  ‘Oh. Sorry.’

  ‘They don’t do much with us either. They’re on the fifth floor.’

  ‘Can we go there?’

  ‘Don’t know. Don’t think so. Well, I’ve never been up there.’

  Bea could feel anxiety welling up inside. She wanted to leave, but she could smell the warm, spicy food. She should not eat. Eating would only prolong a life she was ambivalent about. An apple would be enough. But there was only one fruit on display: grapefruit. Menacing grapefruit, cut in half with a cherry in the middle, like an evil eye searching for victims to devour. She was afraid to ask if they might have a bigger selection squirrelled away behind the counter. Maybe she could have a Diet Coke as well? That had no nutritional value. But they had Sprite Zero too. So many decisions. Her hands began to shake. She abandoned the idea of fruit or a drink. Suddenly, from one second to the next, she knew she had to leave the canteen.

  Don’t run.

  Don’t draw attention to yourself.

  Walk quickly.

  Her leg muscles felt weak and it took all her will to concentrate on walking. Sweat began pouring down into her eyes, blurring her vision. She was almost there. She had to keep focusing as she climbed up the stairs.

  You’re on the ward now.

  Down the corridor.

  Third door on the left.

  You can do it.

  A few more steps.

  She collapsed on the bed and burst into tears. She heard low whimpering sounds, and it was some time before she realised they were coming from deep inside herself.

  Nurse Sharon found her curled in a ball. ‘What wrong now?’

  Bea didn’t answer.

  ‘You hurt yourself?’

  Silence.

  ‘Somebody make you cry?’

  Bea wished the nurse would go away or shut up.

  ‘Well, I going sit down here little bit,’ she said. ‘I right here, girl. Rest yourself. This go pass.’

  Pain swelled up inside her like a balloon being slowly inflated. It moved from the pit of her stomach, up through her chest, down through her arms, out through her fingertips, into her thighs, through her knees, and settled on the tips of her toes. She was a single, bloated mass of unnameable pain. The room teetered, then slipped and slid, taking her far away to a hilly suburb in the north of Trinidad. She was about five years old.

  *

  ‘Is every day so I have to tell you to take your nasty elbows off the table!’ screamed Mira.
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br />   ‘Why do I have to eat a whole grapefruit and a bowl of cereal?’ whined Bea. ‘I only want the grapefruit.’

  ‘Hurry up and eat what I give you. Lord Jesus, give me patience.’

  Mira scraped her long jet black hair into a ponytail and pulled an elastic band around it. Bea was a miniature version of her, with the same golden-brown complexion and thick straight hair that swished down her back.

  Her mother picked up a wooden spoon and shook it in front of little Bea’s eyes. ‘Every morning is a big headache dealing with you, madam. The day ain’t even start good yet and I already dead tired.’

  Bea picked up her fork and dug into the fruit until she had pulled a mouthful of the tart flesh free from its membrane. She brought each small forkful to eye level and inspected its tight, cellular structure before savouring it.

  ‘Stop eating so slow, child. You want to kill me?’

  ‘Mummy, you forget it’s Saturday. No school.’

  Her mother rolled her eyes to the ceiling. ‘I have a whole heap of things to do! When I was your age I was helping my mother in the house. But you? Whole day you in the yard or next door playing. Stay inside and read a book today.’

  ‘I promised Michael we’d finish making the play house behind the Julie mango tree.’

  ‘You think I reach where I is in life playing dolly house every day so? Go play. See if you don’t end up like your father.’

  Bea continued excavating the grapefruit. ‘So what if I come out like Daddy?’

  ‘Don’t be rude, child. And stay out of big people business.’

  Bea bent her head. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I hope you sorry for true. My life would be a lot better if it wasn’t for you and your damn father. I don’t get a minute to myself because of all you.’

  Her father, tall, slim, almond-brown with curly black hair, walked into the kitchen, wiping the corners of his eyes clean. Even with his rumpled morning face there was no mistaking that he was a handsome man. He smiled at Bea. ‘Morning, Beezy.’