Chapter Six
Present Day
'Lowfield Hospital'. The car slowed as it rolled onto the tarmac drive that stretched with the endlessness of an airport walkway towards the grey stone building at the end. Silver birches lined the track, their slender white trunks jutting from the earth like the bars of a cage. Elizabeth's stomach clenched, and for every tree that they passed, it cinched a little tighter, another notch on the girth. Three days. Three days until everyone knows.
The car pulled to a stop outside the stone steps that led up to the arched doorway. A flash of the day she first arrived back in April 1984 appeared in her mind. The image settled and blended into the view before her; one superimposed over the other, until they melded. So much, yet nothing at all, had changed.
September 1984
The office was painted soft pink: the colour of candy floss as she roamed the fairground with Will, the sugar roses her mother had placed on her birthday cake, the strawberry ice cream she had asked for before…
"The anniversary of your parents' death is coming up—"
Others said 'accident' but Dr Hartwell insisted on calling it what it was.
"—how are you feeling about that?"
The gnawing void in Elizabeth's soul strained its jaws wider.
"Any urges to restrict?"
Elizabeth chewed her lower lip. "I have the thought sometimes, but I don't think I would act on it." The leather creaked beneath her as she shifted on the couch. "It feels like I can recognise that that's the illness speaking, not me."
"Good," Dr Hartwell said, and she gave her a warm smile. "That shows just how far you've come." She jotted something down on her notepad.
Elizabeth's gaze followed the pen. The heavy scent of patchouli perfume powdered the air and made the walls feel closer somehow, as if they were edging inwards at an imperceptible rate. "Will those thoughts ever go away?"
"They'll get less and less frequent." Dr Hartwell rested her arms on top of the notepad and hid the text beneath. "I can't predict whether they'll ever go away completely—they do for some people."
"And for others?" Elizabeth's heart beat in time to the tock, tock, tock of the grandfather clock that stood by the door.
"Other patients of mine say that the thoughts crop up from time to time," Dr Hartwell said, "but they just acknowledge them and then they go away again. They no longer distress them, no more than 'maybe I'll wear yellow today'." Her lips tugged into a reassuring smile. "We caught your illness early, thanks to your aunt, so I see no reason why you shouldn't make a full recovery and put this all behind you."
Elizabeth's whole body lightened at that, and the walls eased away. Perhaps she could escape this; perhaps she could claw her way out and return to the world unscathed.
"I'd like us to start thinking about preparing you to return to school, how we can manage your perfectionist qualities and your need for control."
A buzz rippled through Elizabeth's chest. "I can go back to school?"
Dr Hartwell mirrored her smile. "You can join your brother next month." Then she added, "I'd still like to see you during the holidays mind, just to check in on how you're doing."
But who cared how many 'check-ups' she'd have to have? So long as life went back to normal, or at least as normal as it could be now.
Present Day
Elizabeth opened the car door with a clunk and stepped out onto the tarmac. The air still held the trace of a bonfire, and the smokiness blended with the delicate fragrance of the pansies that burst from the flowerbeds at the foot of the grey stone wall. Above, row upon row of arched windows watched over her, all blackened like the eyes of a spider.
The aged oak door of the entrance shuddered open, and a short, blonde-haired woman with thick-framed glasses stepped out. She offered Elizabeth a shy smile, pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and then extended her hand. "Madam Secretary, it's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Sasha. I spoke to your assistant—"
"Blake." Elizabeth nodded. She climbed the stone steps and shook Sasha's hand. "Thank you for agreeing to this visit; I know it's a rather unusual request."
"Not at all," Sasha said, and then she beckoned for Elizabeth to follow her inside. "Actually, Dr Baines was pleased to hear that you'd be coming."
"Dr Baines?" Elizabeth repeated, her brow pinching.
Sasha signed her in at reception and then grabbed a guest pass from behind the desk and handed it to Elizabeth. The pale peach of her lipstick offered a certain softness to her smile. "I'll take you to her office. If you'd like to follow me."
The office was no longer soft pink, but now as yellow as daffodils, and the scent of patchouli had gone, replaced by the rich embrace of coffee and the tang of citrus. Everything about it was brighter, lifted somehow, as if someone had thrown open the windows and filled it with the breath of spring. Elizabeth tapped on the open door, and the woman—Dr Baines—swivelled round in her chair. She had long dark hair, piled into a messy bun, and vivid green eyes that crinkled at their edges as she smiled.
"Alice?" The breath fled Elizabeth's lungs. "You're Dr Baines?"
Alice beamed back at her, her eyes alight and as witchy as ever—some things never changed. "Elizabeth," she said. She stood up and enveloped Elizabeth in a hug, and they could have been sixteen again, on the roof, their last night together as roommates before Alice returned to the world. "I can't tell you how glad I was when I heard that you were coming today."
She motioned for Elizabeth to take a seat on one of the cream armchairs that had ousted the worn leather couch. Elizabeth shrugged off her coat and draped it over the back of the cushion and then settled down. She nodded as Alice gestured to the pot of coffee on her desk.
"So, you became a doctor after all," Elizabeth said. Way to state the obvious, Lizzie.
"And you became Secretary of State." Alice handed her the cup and saucer. She poured her own cup, then sat back down in the black mesh chair and swivelled round to face Elizabeth. "I have to admit, my path back here was rather circuitous…" Her expression turned pained.
Elizabeth had lifted the cup to her lips, but she set it back down with a clink. "Circuitous?"
"I made the mistake of disclosing my admissions and was barred from applying to medical school." The corners of her lips twitched. "That led to another relapse, but fortunately I caught it early, and after a short stay on another ward, I was able to study to become a nurse. Once they relaxed the rules, I retrained as a doctor." Her lips broadened into a smile, and she gestured to the room around them. "And here I am now."
Elizabeth's brow furrowed. "They barred you from medical school?" Perhaps her aunt was right, perhaps it was better that she never told. What would they have thought at the CIA?
"People weren't so accepting of mental illness as they are now—not that the world's perfect, but it's certainly improved." Alice sipped on her coffee. She swallowed, and as she lowered her cup, her lips twisted into a wry smile. "Provision for people with eating disorders on the other hand, well that's still an issue." She opened her mouth as if to say something more, but then stopped. She shook her head, and the smile that had faltered widened again. "So what happened to you after you left?"
You have a chance now to make something of your life. It's time to put this whole episode behind you. Elizabeth's lips pressed into a taut line. "I moved on." Husband, kids, career; she was one of the lucky ones.
The green of Alice's eyes sharpened. "Then what brings you back?"
"I'm due to do an interview next week, Tuesday actually—" Her chest tightened—just three days. "—and it turns out that someone got hold of my file."
"The data breach?"
Elizabeth nodded. "Just having it mentioned again brought up all those memories, things I haven't thought about in years, decades." A light breeze tumbled in through the open window and ruffled the papers on Alice's desk. It carried with it a hint of smoke. "If people are going to find out, I'd rather tell them myself than have it leaked to the world—" Anything for a little control. "—but it turns out that I don't know what to say." I fell ill; I wasn't myself; I couldn't cope; I needed the control, I needed the rules, I needed to numb the pain. "I thought coming back here might help, it might help me face that fear."
"What fear?" Alice asked. She studied Elizabeth the same way that Dr Hartwell had all those years ago.
Elizabeth stared down at the surface of the coffee, watching the bubbles of the bloom that congregated and burst around the edge. "The fear of what people will think, the fear that their perception of me will change." Her lips quirked, a derisive smile. "I tell myself it's just that, fear, and I never let myself be ruled by my fears but—"
"It's the truth."
Elizabeth froze. She stared hard at Alice. "What?"
"People's perceptions of you will change," Alice said. And Elizabeth felt as though she had lurched over the edge of some great abyss. "I can see that isn't what you wanted to hear, but I believe that nothing prepares you better than the truth." Alice set her coffee cup down on her desk and then stood up and retreated to the window. She leant back against the ledge. "I've always been open about my illness, and for every person who has accepted me, two more have been unable to understand. Some distance themselves or disappear completely, others change the way they act. I've had boyfriends who monitored my food, or friends who assumed that I'd never eat more than a salad. Subtle changes, but changes nonetheless."
Elizabeth's palms turned sweaty, and she set her coffee cup down on the floor before it could slip from her grasp. "And how do you deal with that?"
"When I was younger, I spent ages trying to prove that I was 'normal'—" Alice made the accompanying air quotes. "—thinking that if only they could see that, things would go back to how they were before they knew." She picked at the white paint of the window ledge, and flakes fluttered to the floor. "But over time I learnt that stigma runs far deeper than that, that there's so much fear and uncertainty when it comes to disorders of the mind." She gave a defeated shrug. "And I learnt that either you put up with people treating you like that and always holding you at a distance, or you accept that perhaps they'll never understand and you let those people go."
Let people go? But what about those who were bound to you? What about those who you would never choose to live without? "Do you regret telling people about your past?" Will I regret this too?
Alice's gaze turned distant. "No." Her eyes sharpened again, trained on Elizabeth. "I feel like my illness shaped me and it's not something that I want to hide. Sometimes our experiences, even the most painful ones, can help others. Take my patients for example." She gestured towards the door and the hallway beyond. "They find it a comfort to know that I've been through the same thing and that I now live a normal life. It gives them hope. It gives them the courage to seek help and to find the strength to push through."
Elizabeth's lips tugged into a small smile. "You gave me hope when we were on the ward."
"And you can give people hope too," Alice said. "Having someone like you speak out…It would make a huge difference."
Elizabeth's smile faded. "But I wasn't that ill—"
"There's no such thing as 'not ill enough'." Alice's tone sharpened. "You suffered. You got help. You got better." She lowered her gaze and shook her head to herself. Strands of dark hair escaped her bun and fell forward into her face. "I wish all of my patients were admitted as quickly as you were, then they might stand a chance of achieving real recovery. Instead they're told that they're 'not sick enough', again and again, until they're on death's door." Her knuckles blanched as she gripped the window ledge. "Then they spend all their time here gaining the weight and don't get a chance to do the real psychological work, and then they're discharged before they're ready. And guess what?" She gave a bitter laugh. "They relapse, again and again and again, this endless cycle, and soon the disorder defines them."
Please, Elizabeth, don't let this define you. Elizabeth's throat bobbed. "I'm sorry."
"No," Alice said, and her voice softened, "I'm sorry." She took a deep breath. "It's just so frustrating to deal with this system every day, and to see how it's hurting people, yet it never changes." She pushed herself away from the window ledge and sank back into her chair. "I've seen how you've overhauled foreign policy, and I just wish someone would come along and overhaul the health system too."
But as Alice had already said, when all this came out, people's perception of her would change. It's about being likeable, but strong. But what would happen when people thought her weak? Remember, the media make a frenzy of piranha look like guppies on parade. If they get one whiff of weakness…How much sway would she hold then?
"I'm sorry if I haven't given you the reassurance you're looking for—"
Elizabeth shook her head and forced a smile. "It's fine." Three days. And she still needed to find the words she had to say. Three days. Then would things ever be fine again?
