Cornwall 2016
The dashboard clock ticks to 08.02 on a typical autumnal Cornish morning. A low sun hangs between turning leaves. A morning warranting a mindful appreciation. But I’m switching in and out of autopilot as my world attempts to submerge my floating body. I see the beautiful horizon; I don’t feel it. My mind is a stew of rapid bubbling thoughts and images, desperately trying to push back each mutinous ingredient.
Just because I’m a psychologist, people assume I’m so together; if only they knew the half of it. Had some appreciation of my inner turmoil. I’ve even noticed recently, I’ve been afraid of time alone. Too much interfering noise, thumping at my rationale. Ever since the phone call. Not so much a phone call as a silence. A drawn-out silence, with someone listening intently at the other end. The number was withheld but I understood the message. I ended the call – my instincts told me to – gathering a small amount of feigned control.
I see my knuckles pale, so I reduce the grip on the steering wheel. Shaking off the shiver running down my spine. Nothing too strange about receiving withheld calls, wrong numbers. But this wasn’t one of those; this was a message. Glancing at the dashboard clock, I see I’ve seven minutes before you call again. You’ve called every day since that first call, at 08.10 sharp.
There’s something else pushing the adrenaline button, a horrible nagging feeling. Jack missed his school bus this morning, so I was chasing him around the house like a sergeant major, his ability to interpret the notion of moving quickly being non-existent. I’ve been rerunning through the events since, over and over, but I can’t quite remember.
I waved the Geography book in front of Jack’s face, having spent the previous ten minutes hunting for it. ‘For God’s sake, Jack! Why didn’t you look for this last night instead of messing about on that stupid game? We’re going to be late. I’m going to be late for clinic. Again!’
He was sitting on the sofa, squashing the back down on his shoes, rather than undo them, to slide his feet in easily. ‘Because… I didn’t think about it last night, did I?’ He rolled his eyes.
‘Exactly! You didn’t think about it!’
‘Yeah. Exactly, how could I have looked for it, then, if I didn’t even think about it?’
‘Again, this conversation is going nowhere. This attitude of “only think about it when I have to” has to change. Jack. Are you even listening to me?’
He frowned. ‘What?’
‘Just hurry up. I’ll see you in the car.’ I reached for my mobile and keys, then opened the front door. ‘One day it would be nice to leave the house without my blood pressure reaching for the sky.’
‘Yeah, sure, Mum. Sounds cool.’ He continued lifting cushions and throwing them back down again. ‘Before you go, have you seen my—?’
‘No, I haven’t.’
So, I was running late, in such a fluster. For the life of me, I can’t remember – did I lock the kitchen door? Did Jack do it? I’d let our cat, Humphrey, out before we left, but did I lock the door after him? I keep trying to retrace my steps in my mind. But all I come back with is brick walls and fuzz. With a twisted stomach, I continue to wind my way home to St Agnes, my home village, postcard pretty. It’s 08.09. Until the phone calls, we’d almost managed to stuff our heavy baggage deep down in the dark limbic system. Now, stress hormones are gradually creeping back through the back door. My sleep cycle has bowed to their intrusion. Hence why I keep forgetting things, doubting myself. I’m anxious but haven’t the time to be. Is Jack aware? My little absorbent sponge, soaking up my emotions, internalising them as his?
I jump at the trill of my mobile, breaking hard, I squeeze my car into the bramble and stop. I snatch at the device, to answer your call. I don’t speak. Each intake of air hurts; something is crushing my chest. I hold the phone at a distance on loudspeaker, not wishing to be close to you, in any way. Silence. I see you smirk, loving your perceived power. You don’t see it, do you? Despite my fear, I will not bow down to you again. I’ve too much to lose. At 08.11, I hang-up. Why do I play your games? Because it’s the only way I will ever be rid of you. However much it pains me, playing your game is the only way. Sometimes, I scare myself, no longer recognising who I’ve needed to become. It revolts me to think I’ve needed to behave anything like you, in order to survive.
I head back off, being roughly only five minutes from home, switching on the radio. Anything to shroud the images of you. The curse of the imagination, I tell my clients, re-establishing old neural pathways. The greater the imagination, the greater the fear. How often I see people’s lives destroyed by this and worrying, the perverse comfort blanket. Somewhere along the twisted life line it’s believed worrying keeps us safe. Always on-guard, balanced on the lookout post, with a gunshot startle response. Last night it meant I slept with my car keys and mobile laid ready in position on my bedside table. Just in case.
From my objective position in clinic I ask anxious clients, ‘What evidence do you have for this worry? Actual facts, not subjective reasoning?’ Mostly, they have none, but my worries are fed from past battered memory templates. Preparing me for fight or flight. With the smell of impending danger. A whiff of insanity. A scent of you. I do have the evidence. We relocated to Cornwall to escape. But even then, how do you ever escape something implanted in your mind? I turn off the radio, or the Pied Piper of emotions, as I prefer to call it. Each track to be vetted as a potential co-conspirator, sneakily partnering up with emotions in a microsecond. Does perspective change with music? Or does music change perspective?
Then there are the shadows too, the feeling of being watched, opaque dark shapes playing with my eyes. Not long before that first phone call, they seemed to appear. When I leave work, when I’m at home, something in the air, something dark, lingering. Biding time. I can’t go to the police; experience tells me I’d be wasting my time. Not long after our divorce proceedings began, you were there, waiting, and watching. I know you were; I could feel you. Following us home from the park, waiting for me to leave for work, just outside the window – whilst I read Jack his bedtime story. You were there. No crime without evidence though.
Just a feeling of being watched. That’s it? they said.
How stupid would they make me feel again?
Miss Sands, what exactly do we have to go on? they’d say. Other than an empty phone call, and what else was it you mentioned? Oh, yes, shadows in the dark?
History repeating. I was married to a psychopath. Years of hell. Near-death experiences. The things I thieved, how about those?
It’s 2016. There’s been no contact for ten years. That’s a very long time ago. We’ll need something more concrete to implicate your… ex-husband? they’d demand.
Something else: there’s been a definite shift in Jack’s carefree demeanor; I’m sure he senses you too, your presence. Hunted, wounded animals, aren’t we? Or, even worse than sensing your proximity, maybe Jack knows something he hasn’t wanted to share with me? He’s really only a child but even so he tries to protect me, from you, from the memories. He’s been a little secretive with his mobile, now I think of it. But he’s just being a teenager, normal. Isn’t he?
I will not go back to my cell of old but how can I deny I remain locked in your world? Too many lies; too many secrets. The world we created together. Both of us declaring to be the casualty. But now I hold the key to freedom, there doesn’t appear to be a door, never mind a keyhole.
You have the door; I have the key.
Waiting and watching.
You’re getting closer again, aren’t you?