January 14 – Wednesday
‘How would you know if someone was depressed?’ Robyn asked Tess one afternoon when she dropped by to check on Matt. They were sitting at the back of the flat, overlooking the little yard as night drew in too fast for Tess’s liking. Outside, the final drops of shadowy winter daylight sieved through patterned blocks that gave a teasing interstitial view of the lush forbidden garden just beyond. Tess was going through some newspapers she’d liberated from the office she’d been working in earlier that week. A wad of discount vouchers arranged at her elbow, a heavy pair of black scissors wielded for the next incursion.
‘Well, I don’t know, do I?’ Honestly, the questions that child asked sometimes. ‘I suppose they’d be very miserable. They’d look sad, wouldn’t do a lot of laughing. Why?’ It suddenly dawned on Tess that perhaps the girl thought she was depressed. After all, Tess could hardly be described as a jolly sort and she’d be hard-pressed to remember the last time she’d laughed; properly laughed that is. And, that wasn’t just down to hearing about Douglas. Funny, but that hadn’t made her feel as she’d have expected at all. Perhaps those connections had been all too long ago, because rather than feeling bereft or grief, the news from Nancy made her nostalgic, not depressed at all.
‘Oh, no reason, I was just wondering.’
‘Well you must have a reason.’ Tess looked at the girl now. She was an odd sort of a thing, really. She was both childish and advanced; she was what Tess would call, unconventional. She must be fourteen at least, but she was a scrap of a thing, perhaps not yet ready to grow up on any front. Tess didn’t know a lot about teenagers; apart from having been one herself, she was clueless. The world was a different place when Tess was fourteen. The Ireland of her youth didn’t entertain depression, drugs or even adolescence. These days, most fourteen-year-old girls were traipsing about the city making a nuisance of themselves around make-up counters where they could not afford to buy what they stuck their tacky fingers in. ‘Do you think…’ she couldn’t finish the sentence, it might make it more real.
‘Me?’ Robyn looked at her, misunderstanding the concern on Tess’s face. ‘No, I’m not depressed, I’m just quiet – everyone says girls my age are meant to be moody, right? My mum says I’m at a difficult stage.’ She screwed up her face as though wondering how well she was managing it.
‘Do they now?’ Tess shook her head, really some people know far more than what’s good for them.
‘I think my mum might be depressed.’ The words were an undertone, murmured into the cat’s soft fur. For a moment, it felt as if the noiselessness of the flat might swig them down into a hollow echoing of the words last spoken. Then Matt alleviated the awkwardness with the start of a loud purr that stretched on as though it might never stop. Silently, Tess thanked him, but she knew, she had to make sure that Robyn was okay.
‘Why do you think that, Robyn?’ Tess asked in the softest tone she could manage, it was one she’d kept stored away for a long time and it sounded unfamiliar as it slipped into the fragile kitchen air.
‘Sometimes I hear her crying when she doesn’t realise anyone is around. I watch her moving about the house and it’s as if she doesn’t really think about things, like she’s on autopilot and then she pats her eyes and blames allergies, but she’s not allergic to anything so far as I know.’
‘I see,’ Tess said and she knew she was so far out of her depth with this. God, there was a time she might have welcomed news of Amanda’s misery, but now, well, things had changed, she felt a twinge of something close to empathy for the woman. Much to Tess’s surprise, she really couldn’t wish that kind of unhappiness on her. In Tess’s day, that was what it was, nobody talked about depression. People didn’t get depressed, they got a bit ‘down in the dumps’, and then they got told to ‘pull themselves together’. Then they were either ‘grand’, or it was all down to ‘trouble with the nerves’. No. Tess really didn’t know a lot about being depressed. ‘Well, there’s probably no good telling her to cheer up,’ Tess smiled at Robyn, the obvious solution now scurrying to the front of her mind. ‘Have you told your dad about this?’
‘No.’ She shook her head slowly. ‘No, I don’t think he can help. You see, I think he’s the reason she’s upset.’
‘I see,’ Tess said, trying to catch the right thing to say before it dashed away from her too fast. Maybe she should feel a twinge of guilt, knowing what she knew, but really, Amanda King would not thank her for telling her what in all likelihood she already knew. ‘If it’s problems between them, you may just have to let them sort things out for themselves.’ She reached out and placed her hand on the girl’s sleeve, an automatic response that was so far from normal for Tess it made her catch her breath. All the same, it felt nice to reach out to someone who needed you, even if it was only for a moment. ‘I suppose if there’s anything that I can do, you know, to help…’ Of course there wasn’t, what did Tess know about depression or nerves, or Amanda King for that matter.
Robyn looked at her now with those searching blue eyes that seemed to see far more than was their due, considering how young they were. ‘Could you talk to her?’
‘I can’t see what good that would do. She needs to get proper help, if it is what you think it is.’ It felt strange talking about Amanda King like this, she might almost be a different woman to the person Tess had known for so long – it made her seem vulnerable, almost pitiable.
‘Our school guidance councillor said that sometimes people who are suffering with depression do everything they can not to know it. You could find out if there’s something wrong at least.’
‘Oh dear. I’m afraid I’m the very last person your mother would tell if something was wrong.’ Tess watched as a single tear slid down the child’s cheek. It brought up in her the uncomfortable reminder that she’d seen Richard in the act, so to speak. While she’d laughed at the time, perhaps she had some responsibility to do something that would set things right, if only for Robyn. Tess had hung that notion on a peg far back in her conscience until now. ‘It’s not that I wouldn’t help, if I thought it would make a difference, but I think I’d probably only make things worse.’ Even though it was the truth, on this occasion Robyn was too young to understand.
‘That’s okay,’ Robyn said and she stared hard at the charcoal evening drawing closer through the window. Silence yawned in the small space between them. It seemed to Tess she was willing the tears to stop. In the end, she wiped them with her sleeve and Tess thought her heart would break at the child’s hushed misery. When Robyn turned from the table to sit with Matt, Tess wanted to say something. There was nothing to say that wouldn’t just give Robyn false hope and that would be a cruel thing to do.
The truth was, Tess had never seen more of Amanda King. Each day, it seemed no matter how she timed it, there was Amanda power-walking towards her as Tess took her daily constitutional. Typical Amanda, she was still walking in the wrong direction, even if Tess changed her track, she couldn’t imagine walking alongside her. God, that would be a penance even Tess didn’t deserve. No, she could no more hold out any help to the child’s mother than Amanda King would take it from her
*
The following day dawned brighter and breezier than the weather forecast promised. It seemed there was no good reason not to keep her appointment at the hospital, so Tess set off early for St. Mel’s. With a little luck, she might get there before the other appointments and have it over with quickly. She thought it was funny how hospitals never seemed to change, even if they added on extensions or built them from new; there was something in their fibre that remained the same. Tess looked about her now, the waiting room was little more than a corridor. A cream-painted, shiny-floored corridor. She watched purposeful nurses and doctors move to the beat of their own self-important steps, rubber kissing tiles in a tell-tale drawn-out squeak. They were all ants – grey and white on a constant rotation along corridors identical and unending. She wondered if it was just her, or did they move slower now than they had years ago? It felt that way with everything these days, as far as Tess could tell.
‘Mrs Cuffe?’ a young nurse looked about the waiting room, her eyes hardly falling on any of the patients waiting to be next.
‘It’s Miss Cuffe, actually,’ Tess said as she gathered up her bag, coat and the plaster she intended to dispose of today.
‘Of course it is,’ the nurse, a whippet of a thing, murmured and then hardly under her breath, ‘how could I have forgotten.’
‘Pardon?’ Tess said, but she wasn’t really annoyed. Remembering her was a compliment in a place that saw hundreds of people pass through it every week. It was an acknowledgment of her unique personality.
‘Ah Tess. So you came back to us, eh?’ Dr Kilker said in salute. He had the look of a man who was ready to play a practical joke on her.
‘Yes, well, fond and all as I am of your banter, we do have to take this plaster off sometime, don’t we?’ She was being facetious but he seemed to enjoy it.
‘I suppose,’ he said, but his eyes were twinkling. Surely, he wouldn’t bandage her up again? ‘How have you been feeling?’ He looked into her eyes now with that intensity that made her feel he knew her too well for her liking.
‘Well enough, I’m not one to complain, I just get on with things.’
‘Yes, but I sense you enjoy a challenge.’ Dr Kilker smiled now. ‘And the arm, does it feel… better?’
‘It feels as it always has, the very same, only now I’m dragging your big awkward plaster about with me.’
‘Well, let’s see if we can do something about that today, eh?’ His voice was even and, for a moment, Tess wondered if anything ruffled him. He nodded towards one of the young nurses. ‘Let’s get this plaster off and then we’ll take a quick X-ray before we make any big decisions.’ Then he was off again, to the next patient, doling out his own particular brand of humorous treatment.
The rest of the day seemed to fall into the antiseptic haze of the hospital. They insisted on putting her in a wheelchair, which she absolutely did not need. ‘It was my arm, you fools,’ she said to their unheeding ears. ‘Wheelchairs are for old people, for sick people,’ she growled at them, but the orderlies didn’t seem to have a word of English between them. The more she barked, the more they crashed her about, so she gripped her handbag tighter and swore at them even if they pretended not to hear. She might as well be on a roller coaster when they took some of the hospital corners at breakneck speed. They shunted her about endless corridors from the outpatients to the X-ray and back again. Two X-rays later and the junior doctors who were studying her slides were none the wiser.
‘God, will someone bring back old Dr Kilker. At least he can make a decision,’ she blew out the words, exhausted with half a day wasted and no nearer to getting home.
‘Good job I haven’t gone to lunch so.’ Dr Kilker was behind her. ‘Nice to be missed. How on earth will you get along when I retire, Tess?’ he said, pushing his glasses a little further up his nose to study the slide on the light box before him.
‘I’ll try not to break any more arms,’ she said drily. ‘Now, can I go home?’
‘Hmm.’ His stomach rumbled loudly and he patted it for reassurance, but was non-committal in his reply. ‘Let’s try and put some work on it without the plaster,’ he said, nodding towards an empty cubicle nearby. ‘Have you used it, since the plaster came off?’
‘Well… it’s not as if I’ve had much of a chance what with the Stig driving me about the place like we’re on a time trial.’ Honestly, Dr Kilker was the most exasperating person she’d ever met. ‘No. But I’m confident it’ll be fine, I’m hardly going to be lifting weights or directing traffic,’ she said, steeling her gaze so he knew there was no mistaking her resolve.
‘Right, why aren’t I fully convinced?’ He nodded to the others who seemed happy to make a hasty retreat and leave them to it. ‘Look, Tess, you’ve had a nasty fall and, more than that, a break at your age, which can lead to all sorts of things. Your blood pressure is not as low as it was, but I know it’s been dangerously low. We both know that you’re not in your twenties anymore,’ he shook his head, good-naturedly, ‘at our age, well, we have to be careful. That’s all. I’m happy to see you walking out of here right now without a bandage or a further check-up, but if you feel any strain on that wrist, it could do quite a bit of damage.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Half an hour either way, should be enough to sort you out for sure.’ He smiled to himself. ‘Come on, you can leave the chair there, but bring your coat and bag.’
‘I don’t need to be talked to as if I’m an old biddy, Dr Kilker,’ she said huffily, but she wasn’t fooling anyone. She was just glad to be within sight of getting out of here for good.
‘It’s either me or back to the plaster room, Tess.’ He stood, arms folded truculently, unmoving before her.
‘Fine.’
‘I’m bringing you for lunch. The cafeteria is a nice little walk from here. We can eat a sandwich, have a little chat and walk back again. You’ll be able to tell me then how many compliments you got for my stitches.’
‘How does it look? The arm?’ She nodded to the light box as they passed it. The slides had changed now and the doctors were studying a ribcage, small and vulnerable. The heart-wrenching sound of a child’s crying tugged at her for a moment too long. The feeling surprised her, she’d never considered herself a sensitive, bleeding heart sort of woman. Perhaps she was, at this late stage becoming a softie – there were, she realised, worse things in life.
*
Lunch was not the panic-inducing ordeal that Tess would have imagined. She found herself quite relaxed for the twenty minutes they were sitting.
‘So, what is it you do with yourself, exactly, when you’re not falling over cats?’ Dr Kilker asked. He paid for her sandwich so she couldn’t be too huffy with him.
‘Well, I…’ she smiled wearily, ‘I make a lot less money than you do office temping around the city.’
‘You’re a secretary?’ he said with his usual directness. ‘An honourable trade, but what do you do apart from work?’
‘I beg your pardon.’ She found herself blushing slightly. To cover it up, she leaned over to put some more salt on her sandwich and he pushed the saltcellar from her.
‘I mean, you need to be busy. At our stage in life, you need to have things to occupy your mind. You need people to take you out of yourself.’ He put his hand up to stop her objections, then he lowered it slowly and rested it on her forearm. ‘Don’t go shooting the messenger; I’m only saying it because you know that it’s the truth. Your bones and joints might be getting older, but you’re a young woman in terms of what life has ahead of you, Tess, and your life could be great.’ There was that familiar twinkle in his eye and she had a feeling they’d met before, long ago.
‘So, I suppose you have the whole thing down?’ she said flatly.
‘No, I’m not saying that. My life isn’t perfect. But I’m chasing it. That’s the difference. I’m out there looking for my own contentment every day.’ His words were gentle, perhaps too gentle because Tess could feel her heart softening.
‘And I’m not?’ She hated being so transparent.
‘I suspect you are too argumentative to agree, and too proud to admit it, but you’re on your own, Tess, I’ve seen it from the moment I met you. It’s like a shawl you carry about you and it’s going to kill you far faster than any cat or low blood pressure.’
‘So, join a club? Take an evening class, is that it?’
‘You’re a smart woman, Tess, I’m not going to advise you on what to do.’ He shook his head, looked about them for a minute, perhaps giving her time to think or make a plan.
‘I’ve started exercising, just gently until I’m fully mobile,’ she whispered. Somehow, it didn’t seem right to add that she had only started to want to live longer so she could spite her neighbours.
‘Well, good for you. That’s the spirit,’ he smiled. ‘And does it leave you feeling fulfilled?’
‘No. I mean, yes. Oh, I don’t know.’ She wasn’t sure what she meant. The only time she’d known real joy was when she sang, but that was years ago and long gone now. He was throwing her thoughts up in the air as if he was a practiced juggler. It annoyed her because she never liked to examine how she felt too closely. What was she doing, explaining herself to this old codger?
She bent down to pick up her bag. She needed to be out of this café. It was suddenly claustrophobic, too hot, too packed and too intimate for her prickly nature. She could feel that tightening sensation in her chest again, as though she couldn’t breathe. It pulled her like a marionette; strings of resolve drawn from deep behind her ribcage so her lungs fell hot together and she gasped for air as though about to drown.
‘What is it?’ He moved closer to her now. ‘Sometimes, you need to tell whoever is there at the time, Tess, because if you don’t… well, these things they only end up getting bigger.’
‘There’s nothing to tell,’ she said, but her heart was racing in her chest, the same as it had a million times before, the same as it did a dozen times a day when she was home doing absolutely nothing. They careered into silence gravid with words she couldn’t find.
‘Just sit,’ he said quietly and she found herself obeying him. ‘You’ve the classic signs of hypotension. That feeling, it’s sitting probably in either your stomach or maybe even your chest?’
‘I…’ There was no point in trying to lie.
‘The breathlessness? Hopelessness? You’ve been feeling all of those things?’ He shook his head and she knew he was too wise to judge her and maybe too kind behind those mocking eyes. ‘You’re having panic attacks and you need to help yourself before anyone else can make you feel better.’
They sat in silence for a few more minutes. Tess felt her heart slow down, her pulse slackened to a rate where she didn’t feel as if it might burst through every vessel in her body.
‘So, what do I do?’ Tess muttered once she was ready. Part of her couldn’t believe she was asking Dr Kilker for advice, and especially for advice like this. It may be okay for the younger generation to bandy about their breakdowns, addictions and phobias as though they were a badge of honour, but Tess felt only shame. It made her feel weak and vulnerable.
‘Do you sing?’ he asked and she imagined herself like old Dancy, the handyman who hung about the square singing old rebel songs under his wheezy breath. ‘Don’t even answer that, Tess, because I know you do. I heard you, years ago – you were unforgettable.’
‘I…’ For once, Tess didn’t know quite what to say. ‘You heard me sing?’ She felt an odd flutter, something rattle in some deep part of her, as though the very fact that someone remembered her from that time made it seem like it might have been real. ‘You heard me sing?’ she said again and, just beyond her reach, she thought she saw his shadowy figure many years before. That was all it was, a ghost, a bit player, one of many in that club perhaps, or churchgoers on a Sunday morning that she hardly recognised, then she’d been too lost in her own world. ‘It was a long time ago.’ Tess could hardly remember that time, she had spent too long sending memories scuttling like spiders into the crevice of her thoughts whenever they threatened to remind her how things had once been. It was so far back, but then, she had almost been a different person altogether.
‘That’s settled so,’ he said, smiling at her indecision, and it felt to her as though she’d missed half a conversation, or maybe it was half a lifetime. ‘I’ll pick you up at seven on Monday evening.’ From deep inside his jacket pocket, an incessant buzzing intruded on their conversation. He pulled out a pager and shook his head sadly then he looked at Tess. ‘Your arm is fine, Tess. Go home, don’t do anything silly, and we’ll start working on that other thing straight away.’ He waved a hand regally, to flap away her protests, ‘It’ll be good for both of us, I promise,’ he said and then he was getting up from the table, hardly giving her time to catch her breath, much less wriggle out of whatever torture he had lined up for her on Monday evening.