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- Herausgeber: Pushkin Vertigo
- Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
- Sprache: Englisch
OPTIONED FOR NETFLIX BY OZARK'S JASON BATEMAN AND MICHAEL COSTIGAN, FORMER PRESIDENT OF RIDLEY SCOTT'S PRODUCTION COMPANY AN OBSERVER THRILLER OF THE MONTHA SUNDAY TIMES CRIME CLUB PICK: 'Magnificent', Mark SandersonA NEW YORK TIMES NEW & NOTEWORTHY READA GRAZIA BOOK OF THE YEARA WOMAN & HOME PICKA WATERSTONES WEEKEND READA CRIMEREADS MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2020 'Clear your diary - you won't want to put this haunting novel down' SJ WATSON'Totally engrossing' WILL DEAN 'A heartrending page-turner' CLARE MACKINTOSH 'Relentless tension until the shock of the final reveal' HARRIET TYCE 'Utterly addictive' ANNA BAILEY -------- Alexa Wú is a brilliant, darkly self-aware young woman whose life is manipulated by a series of alternate personalities. One woman, many selves. But which one is telling the truth? Only three people know. Her therapistHer best friendHer stepmother When her best friend falls into danger, Alexa is drawn into London's criminal underbelly to save her. But will this lead to self-discovery, or to self-destruction? The dark suspense story of the mind that will hook you in and keep you guessing - perfect for fans of Emma Stonex's The Lamplighters, Sarah Pinborough's Behind Her Eyes and A M Homes' In a Country of Mothers. -------- FURTHER PRAISE FOR THE EIGHTH GIRL 'Magnificent', Mark Sanderson, Sunday Times Crime Club 'The second I finished... I went back to the beginning and read it again: I defy anyone else to do otherwise' Alison Flood, Observer, Thriller of the Month 'Gripping' Grazia, Book of the Year 'It's been picked up by Netflix, so read the original now before it hits your TV screen' Women & Home READERS LOVE THE EIGHTH GIRL 'This was an exciting thriller that started off as a literal rollercoaster and never slowed down' 'A dizzying thriller with a satisfying ending' 'With so many twists and turns, this book left you guessing and wondering what was true and who or what to believe!'
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
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maxine mei-fung chung is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist and clinical supervisor. Trained in the arts, she worked as a Creative Director for ten years at Condé Nast, The Sunday Times and The Times. She lives in London with her son. The Eighth Girl is her first novel.
Optioned by Netflix and a most anticipated book of 2020 from The Rumpus, Crimereads, Electric Literature, and LitHub
“I am so impressed. I love Chung’s writing: The sheer joy she takes in the tones of the separate personalities, and the skill of her negotiation of what is actually a very complicated plot. It’s a brave and ambitious book”
Sabine Durrant, author of Remember Me This Way
“Intricately plotted and sensitively written, The Eighth Girl draws the reader into the dark heart of London’s underworld with relentless tension until the shock of the final reveal”
Harriet Tyce, author of Blood Orange
ii“The Eighth Girl is an exquisite exploration of childhood trauma and its impact on the psyche. Part thriller, part character study, I devoured this novel in one sitting, reflecting on each sentence, each passage, and each astute observation of humanity. A true gem!”
Wendy Walker, bestselling author of The Night Before
“Dark and disturbing, this psychological thriller, told in the voice of multiple unreliable narrators, is filled with surprises until the end, and is a fresh take on the suspense genre”
Booklist
“Deftly written by an author whose professional expertise shines through, I was captivated by The Eighth Girl. A dark and disturbing tale set in London’s gritty underbelly, The Eighth Girl asks big questions about identity, truth and society”
Adam Hamdy, author of Black 13
“A fascinating debut”
Kirkus Reviews
“A multi-layered and compelling exploration of Dissociative Identity Disorder. The author’s expertise of the subject is clear. Intelligent, sensitive and totally engrossing”
Will Dean, author of Dark Pines
“Fans of psychological thrillers will be curious to see what Mei-Fung Chung comes up with next”
Publishers Weekly
v
For Joe—Of course
vi
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
The voices come and go. like flu. weather. weekend shags. i’m unsure how long they’ve been here, or if they intend to stay. I want to say they’re friendly.
Alive to their company I scale the scene, first noticing the cars. Then the backup, close to a mile, crawling under my feet—snaking the strip—my eyes crimping from their blaring white lights. Families escaping the city’s hum, men heading home to their wives. Girls in studied dresses switching heels for flats as they drive across town, ripe for a big night out. Everyone going somewhere, doing something, meeting someone.
Not me, I tell myself.
Not me.
There is no small corner of the world I wish to claim and delight in. No one who knows the stir in my gut. The burn. All my mistakes frozen in the tight lock of my face.
I inch forward enough to feel a surge of adrenaline, part of me always knowing it would end this way: me, the Voices, balancing on the ledge at Jumpers Bridge.
I grip the railings behind me to steady my shake, urging myself to remember how I got here—why is there a key in my left hand? I, after all, am right-handed. Still, nothing unfolds, my mind turning blank like a page erased of its words.
How long have I been here, strangling the bars? White-knuckling as if on the ride of my life—a roller coaster, a ghost train—my bare 2arms pimpled with cold like the skin of poultry. An ache in the base of my back.
Losing time is never good. It’s an expression of the insane. An indicator of how close I am to completely losing my mind. Concentrate, I order myself. Focus.
The Voices clear their throats. A rise of phlegm foaming in my mouth, now spat down at migrating cars, a cool lick of wind guiding its direction. Like all good enforcers, they seem to engulf me tonight, pointing fingers of blame, their message both hateful and threatening.
Istare down at the ready dark—
Flash.
Dusk stealing me for a beat—
Flash.
And not unusually, an image of my father flares up in my mind.
He is sitting in the corner of my bedroom, his legs crossed in the high-backed wicker chair we bought from a car boot sale. When I open my eyes I notice he is wearing a black Crombie, a blue tie—the colors of bruises. His faint eyes and bristled chin payback from the night before. Floating from his left hand is a Hello Kitty balloon.
Flash.
“Happy birthday, my sweet Xiǎo Wáwa,” he whispers.
“Thank you, Baba,” I say, rubbing crusted sleep from my eyes. “I’m too grown-up to be your little doll anymore. But I am sweet. Sweet as kittens.”
Flash.3
Not wishing him to be the last person i relive before letting go, I picture Ella instead. The two of us are sitting in her backyard wearing denim cutoffs and cotton halters, jelly shoes rubbing the soft balls of my feet. The smell of jasmine in the afternoon air. I move a pitcher of beer around the shaded table to avoid the glare of sun. A bowl of salted nuts lassoing our thirst.
Suddenly, Ella surprises me with a silver box, a matching silk bow—which I pull, very gently, its twin loops coming apart. Inside: a stunning pair of gemstone earrings.
“Green ones,” she says, “to match your eyes.”
The memory calms me, and for a second I favor climbing back to safety. My helplessness eased. But then a single tear escapes, acting as a reminder of what she did.
Nerves turned on, I look down again.
How could she? Cunt.
Numb, forlorn, grief drenching my empty body, I loosen my hands. The Voices whispering softly in my ear: Jump, you fucking crybaby. 4
1
Daniel Rosenstein
Iwalk toward my desk and gaze out the open window at the amber evening, August light spilling through a veil of drooping wisteria. I check tomorrow’s diary: Thursday 8 a.m.—Alexa Wú.
Normally I wouldn’t start so early; certainly not before nine, but I have bent rules to accommodate her. A minor allowance because she’s looking for full-time work, has several job interviews lined up, and also works nights—did I have availability early morning, because she could do any day of the week if it was early? This she spoke to my answering machine, her voice trembling at the edge. I’d wondered about this. Imagining it may have been difficult for her to ask for something—the possibility that it might be refused.
My receptionist returned her call the following day, saying I had space on Tuesdays and Thursdays. That maybe she would like to come in then? She agreed; they fixed a day and time; I added Alexa to my roster of patients.
Other psychiatrists might steer away from bending their daily routine, but I have learned such gestures go a long way in the encouraging and building of relationships, am convinced that those who experience some adjustment will eventually learn to compromise.6
Outside, patients are fighting signs of fatigue. with tight yawns they shuffle about, heads limp, shoulders down—their last attempt at exercise before one of the nurses will escort them back inside the ward before supper. Earlier they appeared disorganized and manic; eyes darting, movements awkward. Handicapped as much by the medication they take as the neurosis that makes the medication necessary.
Gathering on the solid timber bench, four patients decide to rest, but reluctant to engage with one another, they stare at the huge oak and surrounding island of grass. Hands cupped in their laps as if waiting for loose change.
In the distance a flock of lively blackbirds have landed, unruffled, on the copper power lines and at once appear like musical notes. Their song is enchanting until they migrate to the blushing apple trees, their chorus now moved to the shelter of leaves.
I open the top drawer of my desk and pull out a packet of M&M’s, allowing myself six candied yellow peanuts with what remains of my coffee. This I take black with three sugars—a long-standing ritual that commenced shortly after I was appointed Glendown’s consulting psychiatrist eight years ago. I rest my mug on the ceramic coaster; on it: a circular hand-painted picture of Aesop’s fable “The Tortoise and the Hare”—a gift from a former patient. A bipolar chef who, from the tender age of eleven, fantasized about setting objects alight. On her thirteenth birthday she set fire to her mother’s entire wardrobe: the smoldering Chanel kindled to a pile of ashen confetti. I like to stare at the coaster, replaying the hare’s boastful behavior and foolish confidence in my mind. Moral of the story: Never sleep on the job. Especially when your pyromaniac patient has access to a lighter.
Some clinicians claim the eroticization of gift-giving is meaningful because of its connection to the libido; that often the gift represents 7love and affection that is not always verbalized in the room. Even Freud, in his overzealous theories, believed a child’s first interest in feces develops because he considers it a gift given up upon the mother’s insistence and through which he manifests his love for her. Further insights led Freud to discover this unconscious link between defecation and treasure hunting, but in this I have to wonder. Maybe sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, a gift just a gift. A poop just a poop.
Evening drawing in, my thoughts turn to supper. A sudden rise of hunger spurs me into the tidying of clinical notes, Post-it reminders, mail, and my letter opener—also a gift, from Lucas, a recovering alcoholic who every evening had a strict one-hour OCD ritual that involved elaborate checking for serial killers in the cutlery drawer. “Oh no, not the flat ones again,” I would tease. And Lucas would smile, rolling his eyes, acknowledging his need for control and obsessive compulsions before tapping the sole of his oxford lace-ups eleven times.
When Clara passed away five years ago, Susannah, who rarely visits, suddenly appeared one afternoon with a corned-beef bagel, claiming she just happened to be in the area. As she looked around my office, a glint in her eye, she jokingly named it “the Museum of Shrink Memorabilia.”
“Your patients are absolutely everywhere, Dad!” She cried freely. “On the desk, on the walls, over there on the shelves. They’re even in the goddamn kitchenette! You know what? You should start paying them!”
I had belly-laughed at the time—my kind, funny daughter. Physically her mother’s child, with quick, grassy-green eyes and jet-black hair. Her broad shoulders, back then, weighted down with grief. I recall smiling—the joke causing my muscles to do something other than sag—as I grieved the loss of my wife. Her death making its own demands, my own emptiness impossible to ignore.
2
Alexa Wú
Ithink i might die of excitement. seriously. reason: ella Collette—best friend, bona fide babe, and, as of last night, matchmaker extraordinaire! Yep. Not only do I have a date, but I also have a date for the date. Next Saturday. Nine p.m. Hoxton.
“He couldn’t take his eyes off you,” Ella teases, batting her heavy lashes, mascara having left a tinge of slate above both cheeks.
Already dressed, I jump and land on my bed, straddling Ella’s flat body between my thighs, head pounding from last night’s vodka tonics.
“Well, he couldn’t!” she yells, triumphant, defending her ribs from my tickling hands.
“Shhh,” I say, tapping my head.
“Well, he couldn’t,” she whispers.
I blush as I always do when Ella gets like this. Am reminded of the time my Reason took it upon herself to fix me up with one of her former school friends, inviting him in a hurried, liquor-laced phone call to her house one Friday night. Both of us had been loose and giddy from cheap Russian wheat vodka. But this time it’s different. 9This time I actually like the guy. He’s funny. And smart. Handsome, but not too handsome. Tall, but not giant. And he has a body to die for. Swoon!
We met last night in Hoxton after Ella insisted that another night drinking wine at home and watching repeats of Girls was simply not an option.
“Fancy meeting up?” she’d called and asked, making it sound more like a demand than an inquiry. “Some cute guy came into work handing out flyers for a new club—the Electra. We got to talking. I thought it might be fun. Sounds kinda different.”
“Different how?” I asked.
“You know, different.”
So I went. And we met. The cute guy and me. Ella introducing us while he served sleek cocktails in chilled tall-stemmed glasses. His blue eyes holding hostage every girl seated at the bar. Ella noticed my dropped jaw as soon as I clapped eyes on him, then disappeared, squeezing my hand three times—a code we both use for reassurance. Help, I’d mouthed at her, palms dripping, stomach in knots, before catching his smile, which I nervously threw back. Then he leaned over and kissed me hello. I looked past his shoulder, aware the club was brimming with attractive bodies and girls performing lavish burlesque on a narrow mirrored stage. One girl with long red hair and legs for days feigned intimacy with a nickel pole at the far end. Her shoulders shimmering but her gaze somewhere else as she fingered a delicate gold necklace with a small key attached. I gawped for longer than seemed right, lost in her drops and swerves, her perfect body forcing me to want to run home and never eat again. But then cute guy’s gaze brought me right back, pinning me to the spot. Stirred, I felt my breath fill my entire chest.
Flash.10
Snapping back from the memory, i see ella, drenched in mischief, cupping both hands beneath her chin to form a heart.
“Alexa and Shaun, sittin’ in a tree; K-I-S-S-I-N-G,” she sings, looking around me at one of my many clocks. “Fuck!”
“What?” I yell, startled. Mouth dry as a bone.
She pushes me off her—“Fuck! Fuck! Shit!”—jumps up and grabs her skinny jeans off my bedroom floor.
“Why didn’t you wake me?” she scolds.
“I thought you took the week off work,” I say, knowing I’m not being dense.
“I did, but I’m babysitting the kid, remember? It’s half term. Mum’s got that temp job.”
The kid, aka Grace, is Ella’s younger sister. Not particularly bratty for a thirteen-year-old, but she does have a tendency to nick stuff. A month ago it was a pair of hair straighteners, a week later steam-punk comics and a manga Pop! Vinyl from Forbidden Planet. A large, goateed security guard caught her with them tucked under her sweater. He didn’t report her, just scared her a little, made her cry, and then called Mrs. Collette, which, if I’m honest, was probably worse than calling the police.
“We can give you a lift if you’d like?” I say, upsetting a pile of ironed clothes stacked on top of my oak dresser. “Anna’s driving me to Glendown, so we can drop you on the way.”
Ella relaxes.
“Okay,” she purrs, knowing she looks pretty when she pouts, “that would be great. I can pick up Grace from her sleepover, then we’ll walk back home.”
She throws herself, belly first, back on my bed. Her perfect elbows supporting her perfect chin. It’s the kind of chin that looks good in anything: mirrors, photos, cute scarves, turtlenecks. Anything. I walk 11toward her, pretending I’m a photographer while Ella poses, my fingers bluffing to click, click on a push-button, flash, flash.
Chin up, chin down, Ella tilts her head. Her tired eyes narrowing for effect until a final look involving her full lips sends me off balance.
I check my watch, aware I also need to get a move on.
Ella, calmed now, picks up last month’s Vogue. “So what’s his name, this new Glendown shrink?”
“Dr. Rosenstein. But he said to call him Daniel.”
“I bet he did. And I bet he said you’d have to pay through the nose for the pleasure, thank you very much. I guess they do that, don’t they—shrinks—get you to trust them, act all friendly, lure you in before rawrrrr—pouncing in!”
Ella’s imitation of a wildcat isn’t half-bad. On hands and knees she dismisses her Vogue and claws her fingers, opens her mouth wide, and prowls along my bed like a tiger in the savannah. She roars again.
“You’re crazy!” I laugh.
Thrilled with the compliment, Ella crosses her eyes and shows me her jazz hands.
“Anyway, enough of the shrink,” she says, swapping my pajama shirt for her cotton tank top, “you’re clearly besotted with this Shaun guy, which probably means I’m about to lose my best friend until you get bored of him. When are you meeting up?”
“Saturday.” I shrug.
“Saturday,” she mimics, coy and kittenish, then points at my forehead.
“What?”
“Your bangs are all wonky,” she says, her hot breath blowing the fine strands of my hair.12
Not convinced, I stride toward my Venetian mirror, but when faced with my reflection, yep, soon realize what she means.
“I was going for electro-pop,” I say, feeling defensive and licking my three longest fingers, using them to press down on my bangs.
“Yeah? Well, it’s definitely more geek than Gaga.”
“Rude!”
“Just saying.”
Sweeping my long brown hair to one side, I tuck the wayward strands behind both ears. Unfortunately, my right ear is unable to hold back my hair as effectively as the left because a chunk of it is missing. I am the opposite of Mr. Spock. Were I to be invited aboard the USS Enterprise I would have to decline. Fact. I pinch my cheeks for a flash of color and turn, noticing that Ella, now fully dressed, has borrowed my mint cashmere sweater, which I have to confess looks a zillion times more chic on her than it ever has on me. I may sound a tad envious, but that’s only because I am.
“ALEXAAAA! Hurry up. I haven’t got all day. You’ve got five minutes, young lady!”
That’s my stepmother, Anna, at the bottom of the stairs screaming her pretty little lungs out, clearly vexed. Ella and I roll our eyes.
Anna pretty much raised me after my mother killed herself—pause for a feeling—there. If my young life’s taught me one thing so far, it’s not to skip over difficult feelings. For many years I did my best to avoid them, fearful they’d destroy me. Comfort eating, drinking, masturbating, or sometimes even cutting—the backs of my legs, often with a blunt kitchen knife. The messy butchering ordered my pain inward and took preference over letting others witness my rage, a result of my mother’s sad life and lonely death. I was too vain to cut my arms and hadn’t wanted to give people the opportunity to judge me, at best, or at 13worst, pity me, assuming I was self-loathing, which, if I’m completely honest, I was at times.
When one of your parents kills themselves you grow up believing you were never quite good enough. But you also realize there is always a way out, however many people you might hurt in the process. Selfish, I know.
When I was nineteen years old, Anna suggested I go to therapy. “I’ll pay,” she said, so she did and I went and it helped. For four years I talked the hind leg off a dog. I became fluent in the language of shrinkese: exploring feelings, repeating behaviors, and patterns of self-destruction. I understood why cutting felt safer than rage; masturbating less scary than intimacy; why eating kept the Body protected and that talking was curative. Back then, Anna had me down as some kind of teenage cliché—mad, moody, and depressed, and for this she blamed my father, claiming no responsibility for her part. I eventually became a bone in Anna’s contention. An inconvenience and constant reminder of the man, my father, who eventually up and left. But I haven’t forgotten what she did, or rather, what she didn’t do. I’ve stored a tiny mental note in my brain should I ever need to remind myself, the resentment felt just one among many.
“Better go,” I say, collecting my denim rucksack and sunglasses.
Ella smiles and leans into me. “Your dress is on back to front. Who got you dressed, Dolly?”
Checking my collar, I notice the label that ought to be at the back is right here beneath my chin. I laugh, embarrassed, circling my red dress back to its rightful place before straightening it with a gentle tug at the waist.
“Whoops.” I smile.
Ella and Anna are the only people besides my previous shrink who know about my other personalities. During my third year of therapy I 14decided to come clean and confessed to the other people living inside me, and that was when I was given a diagnosis of DID.
Dissociative identity disorder, previously known as multiple personality disorder, is caused by many factors, including trauma in early childhood. This leads to depersonalization (detachment from one’s mind, self, or body) or derealization (experiences of the world as unreal) and dissociative amnesia (inability to remember events, periods of time, or life history, and in rare cases complete loss of identity).
I was fearful to begin with, thinking that if I told anyone about my condition that I’d be committed or that said shrink might attempt to control, remove, or even destroy my personalities. This was not an option. After all, I was the one who created them, which meant I got to decide who went and who stayed. Not him.
Anna has less of a grasp on my condition because she chooses to live in denial and think of my personalities more like moods. The very idea of others living inside me freaks her out, so I guess it’s just easier for her this way. Less mad.
Those who have never seen a switch of personalities in someone often expect some big dramatic physical transformation. Something like a vampire or werewolf sprouting fangs, hair, and claws. But in reality it’s much more subtle. The Body doesn’t change per se, just the body language. Or sometimes it’s our voice or the way we dress. Occasionally, I’m told, it can be the gaze that is actually far more unnerving than anything else.
Unlike Anna, Ella can handle it—them—us. The Flock. And even though she finds it rather amusing at times, she is incredibly attuned to us all. She can usually tell when one of us has taken the Light and seized control of the Body. Take last week: Ella and I were waiting for the Tube when Dolly, not realizing we’d left home, woke up and caught sight of a moving train and completely freaked. Ella immediately 15noticed the switch—a childlike look of confusion, the simple in-turn of feet and wringing of hands—then put her arm around us for comfort.
“It’s okay, Dolly,” Ella whispered, “don’t panic. It’s just a train.”
Most people wouldn’t know what to do with so many personalities set loose in one body. That’s one of the reasons we’re so close, Ella and I. Even though we’re very different—opposites, even—she’s not once made us feel mad or bad or unlovable.
I look affectionately at my Reason and follow her swishing black bob down the stairs.
“What time do you have to be there, at Daniel’s?” she asks.
“Eight,” I reply.
“Remember. Just be yourself. Okay?”
“Okay.”
She turns back and smiles. “You got this.”
Outside, Anna greets Ella and me with a tight jaw. She crosses her tanned, slender arms and with a pinched mouth—glossed with peach—makes a disapproving sound. I attempt a smile, hoping it might smooth things over, but she simply looks away. Clearly miffed at having missed her Zumba class, she makes a point of slamming the door of her Volvo SUV—such a drama queen—and mutters something under her breath about thighs and bums.
“You look nice,” I chime brightly, lying.
Anna checks her rearview mirror, fingers a lone blond curl, and keys the ignition.
“Yeah, thanks for the lift,” Ella adds.
I clear my throat.
“Sorry you missed your class,” I say sheepishly, applying three strokes of cherry ChapStick.
But Anna’s glance, mean and sharp, silences us. Refusing to indulge our docile chitchat.16
“You girls,” she finally snaps, gripping the leather-covered steering wheel, “why do you have to drink yourselves sick? There’s no need for it, getting drunk like that. It’s not—”
“Ladylike?” I finish for her. “Christ, Anna.”
Silence.
“You’re right, Mrs. Wú,” Ella allows, kneeing me in the back of my seat, “we’re no ladies. You’re such a bad influence, Alexa!”
I eject my seat belt, and a trio of pings fills the car, alerting us that I’m no longer safe. I twist around, giving Ella the middle finger.
“Alexa!” Anna barks. “Quit fooling around.”
Sniggering, Ella winks so I slap her leg, hard, making a you wait face before turning back to face the road. Click.
The three of us are quiet. Just the sound of rushing wind from the open car windows. The SUV’s husky engine and Anna’s The Best of Bluegrass all adding ambience to our stale urban road trip. Head still pounding, I lower my sunglasses to cover my eyes, the light immediately dimmed. I step inside the Body and turn to Runner. Thanks for the hangover, I say, voice dripping with sarcasm.
Whatevs, she snickers.
After a short drive over to Grace’s sleepover, we pull into a gravel driveway. I spot a stray cat the color of marmalade licking its ass on the front lawn.
“See you later! Thanks again, Mrs. Wú,” Ella calls, slamming the car door.
As she approaches the block of flats, I notice the ground floor’s net curtains twitch and part—Grace appearing in between them like some kid sandwich, an eager smile to her softly freckled cheeks. On seeing her big sister—adored and envied in equal measure—Grace dashes to open the front door, the curtains flapping in her wake. She 17strokes her new champagne bob, an attempt to mimic Ella, and waves. Anna and I wave back, the ginger cat now on her back and enjoying the warm reach of sun on her pink belly, oblivious to the crouching tomcat staring down from the garage wall. Ears pricked and alert.
We swerve into glendown’s visitors’ parking lot. anna kills the engine and sighs.
Resting her lean forearm on the ledge of her open window, she looks me square in the eye. “Look,” she says, “you knew you had therapy this morning. It’s not my responsibility to get you here and your friend back home. If you’re going to make these commitments, Alexa, you need to get yourself organized.”
“I didn’t realize—”
“You never do. It’s like you’re in a goddamn dream world.”
“I was just—”
Anna’s French-manicured nail pokes a hole in my sentence and cuts me off. “Just what? Expecting me to chauffeur you around?”
“Hardly,” I answer back. The truth is that it’s actually Ella who drives me everywhere, only last night she’d fancied a drink or five.
“Maybe I need to remind you how hard I work, the sacrifices I’ve made.”
I retreat, noting the alley-cat look in her eyes, pupils growing, irises shrinking.
“I know, I’m sorry,” I say, defeated, opening the glove compartment and choosing a hard candy from a dented tin. I offer her one but she refuses.
Silence.
Anna’s face settles.18
“Shall I wait for you?” she asks, a softer tone to her voice now I’ve apologized.
“No, it’s okay. I’m going to meet Ella and Grace in the West End afterward,” I say, the candy rattling against my teeth, cherry sweetening our unease.
Anna checks her rearview mirror and adjusts the collar of her silk blouse.
“All right, then,” she says, delighting me with a somewhat tight-lipped kiss on the cheek. I close the door, peer in, and wave. But already she is gone, is staring ahead and driving off.
3
Daniel Rosenstein
Two patients lean against glendown’s imperial oak— abulk of a tree—deciding on a game of I Spy. The usual conundrum of finding something other than an obvious tree, flower, or patient immediately stunting their game. Charlotte, a resident for three years, gives up after her second attempt and walks away, leaving Emma stranded, more interested, it seems, by the imaginings in her head.
“They’ll be here soon. Not long now,” she declares, eyes wide and remote while tilting her gaze to the sky. “Isn’t that right, Dr. Rosenstein?”
I smile. Not wanting to contradict or interrupt Emma’s imagined world, yet knowing it’s the “happy invaders” to whom she’s referring. The ones she believes to be her real family.
The morning warm and cloudless, I wander across the lawn. The fresh air feels good in my lungs. A trace of honeysuckle paving the way across the graveled path toward Glendown—a residential hospital for what were once termed lunatics or the criminally insane. But lunatic asylums are antiquated in the leafy suburbs of North West London and are best left to the imaginations of all things gothic. The patients are neither insane nor lunatics. Rather, they are long-standing sufferers of trauma.20
Taking a turn at the knee-high borders of flowering shrubs, I run my hands along the thick dwarf hedges of lavender, inhaling the scent it leaves on my fingers. Fresh cuttings have been planted in the herb garden, rosemary and chives. A project set up last year to encourage residents’ outdoor activity, though I can see it would benefit from some attention, the large-leafed ivy slowly spreading across the soil.
My thoughts turn to today’s patients. The attention they will need. The care. Their rising disquiet spreading like wildfire, requiring that I hold and contain, name and affirm. Be the good psychiatrist they assume me to be. I have wondered, sometimes, what might happen if I were to disappoint them, if my ethical code were to slip. My clinical standards abandoned, their good shrink turned bad, or vigilante.
I check my watch before drifting over to count the nine sash windows punched out of Glendown’s walls while Nurse Veal peers down at me. Her thick arms crossed over her tight white tunic. She neither smiles nor waves, her stare as cold as a witch’s tits.
From nowhere, a fat bumblebee rests and hovers, its sound much louder than you could possibly imagine for something of its size. Perfectly still, the bumblebee sails toward me, disoriented and drunk on pollen and fine weather. I wait—the bumblebee edging nearer—then swat it with the flat of my hand. When I glance up at the window, Nurse Veal is gone.
Glendown’s thick air hits me as i enter its imposing black Georgian door. The earlier fresh lavender breeze snatched from my lungs and replaced with the familiar, foreboding dank scent. Walking along the squeaky corridors, my rubber-soled shoes suck on the oatmeal-colored floor—linoleum surfaced for easy cleaning of vomit, shit, or tantrum-thrown food. The canteen filled with the smell of itself. 21Above me, unreachably high windows have been opened: the hope that the pungent smell of cottage pie will eventually escape.
Nurse Veal has transported herself to the office box. A perfect six-by-six-foot tuck shop where every morning at seven a.m. she doles out daily meds in tiny white paper cups like Smarties. She spots me, wipes her brow, then looks away. I check my hand for any sign of the flattened bee and continue walking toward my office. Distant cries from Ward C tailing off like a fading siren.
She is already there when i arrive.
On seeing me, she stands. With quick fingers she straightens her bangs, then places both of her feet together: black round-toed shoes. Scuffed and unflattering. Feeling discomfort at her standing at attention like this—a little soldier, a child of the Red Revolution—I prevent myself from speaking: at ease.
She is pretty and shy, with a pale, almost translucent complexion. She dodges my gaze, instead focusing on my collar like an orphan longing to be hugged. Her eyes, I observe, are jade green and flecked with gold, wide and unsure. Her shoulders hunched. Hands nervous and wringing.
“Hello. Alexa?” I inquire, glancing up at the silver waiting room clock.
“Yes. Hello.”
“You’re a little early,” I reply, “but come in.”
Boundaries, I remind myself. Keeping firm boundaries is essential for building trust. For some clinicians, the odd five minutes are neither here nor there, but experience tells me a firm framework keeps the patient safe—and the psychiatrist too. I open the door and wait for her to follow, but as I turn, she has stopped.22
Captured in the heavy doorframe, she appears small for being, I assume, in her midtwenties. Her face a heart perched above a short red dress that looks like one a child no older than ten might wear. We stand in silence for a moment while she glances over her shoulder—checking for what, I am not quite sure.
She stares again at my collar.
A slight cough.
“Would you like to come in?” I ask.
“Yes, sorry,” she says, tugging at the hem of her dress.
It is standard practice for the patient to lead, to initiate dialogue by opening up and discussing what is currently on his or her mind, but with new patients I tend to sidle over into the driver’s seat. Getting a hold of the therapeutic reins. It can be as simple as an introduction or a question regarding their reason for seeking treatment. Occasionally, there will be tears before either question, and that’s usually when I sit back, allowing the patient’s feelings to breathe. There are no hard-and-fast rules, but I believe it helps to have some sense of the person before your next move. Today I wait.
Alexa finds my eyes, readjusts her dress, and stretches. Her posture now suddenly alert, upright and focused.
“I want to resume my therapy,” she begins.
“You stopped?”
“He retired.”
“Oh.”
“I was in twice weekly for just over four years. We did some good work, I think. But then Joseph—Dr. Applebaum—retired. Moved out of London to spend more time with his family. He had grandchildren. He was old.”
“I imagine that was difficult, saying goodbye.”
“It was. It—”23
I sense her unease, aware of her sentence breaking off. The slight drop of her chin.
“It was—?” I encourage.
“It was difficult. Painful. I missed him terribly.”
I shift in my seat, leaning to one side. I must look like a therapy cliché: legs crossed, wry smile, head tilted in deep thought. A box of tissues resting between us.
She twirls a strand of her long brown hair, smiles, then hands me her set of forms—a requirement for all new patients and residents beginning analysis at Glendown. Scanning her answers, I quickly observe her handwriting—cursive and childlike, signaling arrested development and insecurity.
“I notice you haven’t filled in the section regarding medication,” I say.
A pause.
“Is there a reason for this?”
“I don’t want to be labeled. Or given a diagnosis,” she explains.
Furrowing my brow, I look at her quizzically and ask her to clarify.
“I don’t like labels,” she defends. “They pathologize.”
“I see.”
A less experienced psychiatrist might step in at this point, prick the air with words—fearful of quiet, of the patient’s unwillingness to talk, or of not doing enough. But a shrink who rushes in to rescue forgets to listen. He forgets that this is not about him and the easing of his discomfort.
So, I sit back.
This is when all the good stuff happens. When emotions shake and feelings surface, giving the patient time to reflect and the shrink time to observe. Alexa stares at the oil painting above my head, a landscape of the English coastline.24
There she lingers, a vague and involved expression on her face. Her eyes searching the jutting cliffs and circling gulls, the inky strait of Dover’s shoreline foaming at the edge of its beach. We sit quietly. The clock’s tick on my desk as clear as a bell. I note her comfort with silence and do nothing to disturb it. I, however, feel a surge of loneliness in my gut and wonder what she is thinking, what she is lost to, why her attention has left our therapeutic dance.
Be patient, I tell myself. Wait.
Eventually she looks away from the oil painting, but catching my expectant eyes, diverts her gaze south to her feet.
I clear my throat.
“Labels can pathologize,” I say, revisiting her previous thoughts, “but sometimes a diagnosis can be helpful. One would be foolish, reckless even, to prescribe an aspirin for brain damage, a bandage for a broken wrist, or homeopathy for severe depression.”
She scrunches her forehead.
“I fear being misunderstood,” she replies, “that I’ll be stuck with a label. Branded with a certain kind of madness.”
“You think you are mad?”
She shrugs.
I lean forward.
She leans back.
“Madness is a state of mind,” I say, “scary if given legs. Maybe you’ve always believed yourself mad. And now, being here is evidence, proof, right? You can’t hide it anymore. People will find out. Me included. And with that fear comes shame and guilt because you also think it’s your fault—that you’ve brought it upon yourself. Even if you can’t always remember what it is you’ve actually done. So it’s not just a case of the whole world seeing just how crazy you are, but now you’re evil and destructive too. Labeled. Branded with a certain kind of madness.”25
She looks at me, eyes wide.
“I just don’t want everyone thinking I’m nuts,” she whispers.
“Everyone?”
“Well, my stepmother mainly.”
I look down again at the form.
“You live with your stepmother—Anna. What’s that like?”
“A drag. She still treats me like a kid.”
Her breath quickens.
“She moved in after my mother killed herself and cared for me, well, me and my father—until he took off and left us. I was sixteen.”
“He didn’t take you with him?”
“He didn’t want me.”
A pause.
“Tough?” I ask.
“Pfft. I saw it coming.”
“How so?”
“He got bored. I watched Anna try to win him back, but the harder she tried the more he despised her. Then he met someone else. Someone younger.”
“I meant, was it tough that he didn’t take you with him?”
She shrugs, dismissing my attempt to access feelings.
“Anna assumed the worst, of course. That I’d go off the rails, have a breakdown. But I was relieved when he left. Well, part of me was.”
“We’ll try to steer clear of assumptions here,” I say. “Here we’ll work with feelings, thought patterns, behaviors, and dreams. It might be difficult at times.”
She shrugs again. Sits up straight and clears her throat.
“I was taking Seroquel, but it didn’t agree with me,” she says, pulling back her shoulders, her voice strengthening. “It made me tired and I put on weight. A nasty rash appeared on my hands.”26
“And now?”
“Now I take risperidone.”
“How much?”
“Four milligrams, twice daily.”
“That helps?”
“It seems to, but I want to reduce it. Eventually stop taking it.”
“This ties into what you and the rest of the world believe is madness? That if you medicate, you are mad?”
“Something like that.”
“I see.”
“I also don’t like the idea of being dependent on anything.”
“Anything?”
“People, places, things.”
“And Joseph—Dr. Applebaum, your previous therapist?”
She stares at me, defiant. “I became dependent. He retired.”
I take a moment, and stare down again at her forms.
“You’re a photographer?” I inquire.
“Kind of,” she says. “I recently graduated. Like I said on the phone, I’m looking for work.”
“In photography?”
She nods.
“What kind of photography?”
“Photojournalism.”
“Interesting,” I say. “Why are you drawn to that particular area?”
“I like taking photographs.” She smiles. “Always have. On my thirteenth birthday my father gave me a disposable camera and I just got into it. It’s been a way for me to absorb truth and beauty. It soothes me.”
“How so?”
“I guess it helps me to reorient myself. I get caught up in the moment and embody what I’m looking at. There’s a kind of magnification 27of life. A groundedness. It’s like everything in my head—the noise, the disorientation, the confusion—it all fades into oblivion.” She pauses. “Sorry. That sounds so pretentious.”
“I don’t think it does,” I encourage. “Sounds like it’s been important for you. Like a life raft.”
She smiles.
“When I take a photograph, I know what I see is real, and considering how forgetful I am, it feels comforting. I trust it.”
“How forgetful?” I ask.
“Very.”
I note the in-turn of her left foot. Her slight body twisting in the chair.
Silence.
“Last week,” she continues, “I was walking on Hampstead Heath. A man ran toward an elderly woman and sheltered her with his umbrella. I caught her smile on camera. It made me happy. I might have forgotten that moment if I didn’t have my camera with me. Recording these small acts of kindness helps me feel better about the world. More at peace.”
“Like a balm?” I suggest.
“Exactly.”
“Observing the man’s kindness, what did that feel like?”
“Tender. Like the world wasn’t such a sad, lonely place.”
Slouching now, she lets her legs relax and fall open slightly. I watch her red dress ride up her thighs. Unaware of exposing her flesh, she remains still, not caring to pull it down. I divert my eyes.
“The way I work,” I say, “is much like an alliance. I ask that you show up, work hard, respect and engage with the process, and also inform reception if you can’t make your session.”
She nods.
“How does that sound?” I ask.28
“Good. I’d like the form again, please.”
Alexa digs noisily in her denim rucksack and retrieves a pen. She writes something down, then hands the form back. I notice she has completed the section regarding medication, this time in a different hand. No longer cursive and childlike as before, but rather more adult, joined and fluid—this time signaling confidence and creativity.
“Thank you,” I say.
I wonder what the antipsychotics are managing: Disordered thoughts? Voices? Hallucinations? Suicide, maybe? I could ask but instead allow the process to gently unfold. First sessions are as much about building safety as they are about forensics.
Reaching over to my side table I pour myself a glass of water, noticing Alexa’s mouth open and close, like a fish’s. I wonder if she would like a drink but again stop myself from asking. Let her ask, I think. Don’t do all the work. It strips her of agency. Let her come to you.
She swallows.
I take another sip, waiting to see if she green-lights her desire.
She smiles.
“I bet you’re a glass-half-full kinda guy, right?” she says, eyes locked on the glass.
I nod. “You?”
“Same,” she says, notably pleased. Her eyes diverted and glancing again at the oil painting.
“Do you think you can help me?” she asks.
“It’s difficult to confirm with certainty,” I say, “but as the glass might suggest: I’m hopeful.”
“Uncertainty bothers me.”
“I’m sure.”
“Joseph used to say ‘One day at a time.’”
“Wise man, your Joseph.”29
She smiles.
“He was never mine,” she says, “but he was wise. And he cared. I’m positive of that.”
Aware she hasn’t afforded to ask for a glass of water, I observe her detour to the safety of Joseph, her previous attachment. The security of what is already known quenching any uncertainty with me. She must think I’d refuse her, I think, noting that small risks will be important for our work.
She gazes down at the rug between us. One of her shoes dangles on the tips of her toes. I note the smoothness of her olive legs, her nails painted blood red. For a moment I wonder about the tiny bruise on her knee, how she got it. How long it’s been there. But catching my eyes on her skin, she crosses her legs and pulls down her dress. Looks me straight in the eye.
“So how long will this take?” she asks. “You know, considering I’ve been in therapy previously.”
Silence.
“Six months? A year?”
“It depends,” I say.
“On?”
“How willing you are to seek and be frank. I think twice weekly will be helpful.”
She nods.
“What do you hope to gain this time around?” I ask.
She twists her mouth and stares at the ceiling.
“Confidence,” she says. “I get anxious, particularly with men. I’d also like to talk about family.”
“Oh?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Complicated how?”30
“I’m not sure what ‘family’ means exactly. I’d like help figuring out what I want rather than constantly pleasing others all the time. I’m such a useless fuckup at times.”
The phrase strikes me with a startling left hook, but I do not react. If it’s her intention to shock me I won’t take the bait.
“So codependency is an issue?” I ask, meaning it to sound like a statement.
“Yes.”
“You fear abandonment?”
“I guess. I don’t like to disappoint people. I fear they’ll reject me.”
“You wish to be a good girl?” I say.
A pause.
Narrowing her eyes, she leans forward. Her dress now barely covering her thighs.
“Occasionally, Daniel,” she purrs, “it pays to be a good girl.”
I note the switch in tone, her voice deeper now. Seductive.
“You’ve found this to work in the past? Being good?” I say.
She runs her hand through her hair.
“Certainly.”
Leaning back, her torso straightens, her arms relax like two hanging pendants. Deliberately, she crosses her legs.
“At what cost, though?” I ask.
Silence. My challenge ignored.
I check the small gold clock on my desk.
“We have to end now, Alexa,” I say. “I’d like you to reflect on today’s session. If anything comes up, remember to bring it next time. What’s your memory like?”
“I told you earlier, I’m forgetful.” She laughs. “How’s yours?”
I smile, her challenge and acute observation of me duly noted.
“So write it down,” I suggest.31
“Sure.”
“It’s time,” I say.
We stand.
“Next Tuesday, same time?”
She agrees and dusts down her dress. Lifts her warm jade-green eyes to mine, then walks to the door.
“Thank you, Daniel,” she says, turning toward me while stroking a heart-shaped necklace tied at her throat. “It was a pleasure to meet you.”
I’m aware of how close we are, that I can smell her perfume. Its scent wafting up to the fine hair in my nostrils, leaving a dizzying tang of citrus. Above her plump mouth, a perfect vertical groove touched by an angel, a fiend.
“Goodbye,” I say.
I close the door, sit back at my desk, and pick up the phone.
“Hello, this is Dr. Patel speaking.”
“Hey, it’s me.”
“Daniel. How are you?”
“Good. You?”
“Exhausted, but what’s new?”
“I have a new patient,” I say, “a young woman. My countertransference tells me bad things have been done.”
“Then listen to it,” he says. “Chances are you’re right.”
While transference deals with feelings that the patient transfers onto the psychiatrist and is often founded on earlier relationships, countertransference is the reverse. That is: similar irrational feelings that the psychiatrist has toward the patient. Occasionally, countertransference can make the work deeply uncomfortable, sometimes impossible. Imagine, for example, a psychiatrist who was sexually abused as a child treating a pedophile, or a victim of domestic violence treating a manic 32abuser. But in milder form, countertransference is a psychiatrist’s most reliable tool, and without doubt the most effective.
“Age?” Mohsin continues.
“Twenty-four.”
“Signs of trauma?”
“Childhood trauma, if I were to take a guess. Avoids eye contact, a tendency to dissociate. I don’t quite know who was here today; there was some switching. My head feels light, certainly lighter than before the session.”
“Is she attractive?”
“Very.”
“Mm. Family?”
“Her mother’s dead. Estranged from her father. No siblings. Apparently there’s a stepmother. One of her requests, however, was to address family. I suspect what she means is the loss of family.”
“Sounds likely. What about her memory?”
“Useless, she says.”
“A fractured self?”
“Possibly.”
“So most likely compartmentalized. Maybe a false self has been necessary for protection. Boundaries will be important. Medication?”
“Antipsychotics. Four milligrams, twice daily.”
“Heavy stuff. What else?”
“She filled in the standard forms, left out the part on medication, then decided, during session, to complete it. When she handed the form back it was written in a different hand. There was definitely a younger self here. But an older self left, potentially quite seductive.”
“Possibly multiple personalities? DID?”
“That was my thought.”
“You’ll need some help with this one.”33
“Why else do you think I called?”
“I thought you might be missing me.”
“Ha!”
“Well, don’t be shy. Call if you need a second opinion.”
“You may live to regret that.”
“No doubt. Well good luck, and be careful.”
“Of what?”
“Deception, manipulation.”
“You sound concerned.”
“They’re not straightforward—patients with dissociative identity disorder—dangerous in the wrong conditions.”
“I’ll be careful. Are we still on for lunch tomorrow?”
“Sure. Usual place?”
“See you then.”
I hang up; stare down at the forms, my eyes lingering over an unfinished question that I hadn’t spotted earlier.
FULL NAME: Ale—
Strange. I take out my fountain pen and finish her answer:
—xa Wú
Outside, morning has fully arrived. the sky now blue and soft, a murder of crows resting on top of the rose brick wall. Staring out at the imperial oak and thick rows of lavender, I wonder if Alexa’s seductress has a name. When and if she’ll return.
4
Alexa Wú
Hazy from the session, i walk along the tacky oatmeal corridor.
That wasn’t so bad, I say, haranguing everyone inside.
Dolly is the only one who responds by smiling. I want ice cream, she insists, scooting into my side.
Later, I say, chucking her under her chin. It’s only nine o’clock.
Dolly makes a face. The overbearing smell of cafeteria-cooked food hijacking any air that might be circulating from the open barred windows.
Stinky, she says, holding her nose.
All doors I detect open outward, making them impossible to barricade. This I learned while watching a documentary on young offenders with Anna, who has a strange fascination for anything involving the captivity of animals or human beings. Sometimes that includes me. I imagine it’s got something to do with keeping me safe. To put right what she couldn’t before my father left, his strong will ruling our home, Anna doing her best to protect me in her nonsword hand as the other defended us from my father’s heavy blows. But she was no match for his vile temper. Was rarely quick enough for his sneaky fists.35
I’m suddenly aware of a woman—heavy with unruly blond hair—staring at me from behind a water cooler. As I draw closer she lasers me with a gimlet eye but then quickly turns away, supposedly shy. Ebbing back, she squats farther behind the barrel and taps it repeatedly. Spooked, I rush for the door. Her stare unsettling and eerie, her tapping a thorny and stark reminder of my own obsessive compulsions.
Outside, my attention stays pinned on the pretty gardens and their handsome gardener as he wrestles with a large bush of white lace-capped hydrangea. I head toward Glendown’s wrought-iron gates, while behind me miracle flowers and birdsong disguise what the world labels madness.
On the tube, i’m rocked by the swaying train and lean my head back. An image of Daniel appears: red hair, broad shoulders, his blue eyes intense, his smile soft and kind.
He knows, Runner declares in my head, he caught the switch when some of the others stepped into the Light. He can read us. He knows.
Do you really think so? I worry it’s way too early for him to know about my other personalities.
I know so, Runner replies.
Ella and grace are already there when i arrive. have secured a table at the café beneath the department store where we’ve agreed to look but not buy. Waving as I approach, I note my borrowed mint sweater now draped over Ella’s shoulders. Grace has done the same, only hers is red.
“Alexa!” My Reason sings through the crowd of people. A maroon beret placed on top of her neat Dorothy Parker bob. Her signature look, 36acquired two years ago when she started work at Jean&Co.—a clothing store for denim nuts, those who use a coat hanger to pull up zippers on the tightest of jeans.
Three hairy guys who appear to be in their late thirties look up and follow Ella with their eyes as she glides toward me. Watch her as she kisses me square on the mouth. She turns to the men, then drops the mint sweater seductively off her shoulder and smiles.
I spot a copy of Sartre’s Being and Nothingness resting on the table, obscured by women’s style magazines. Philosophy and fashion not the easiest of bedfellows, yet add a dash of art and it makes for a lively ménage à trois.
“Hey, Simone,” I say.
“Hey, Bangs,” Ella flirts.
I reach over and give Grace a hug. She looks up briefly from Snap-chat, a yellowing zit on the end of her nose.
“Have you ordered?” I ask.
Ella gives her beret a little tweak. “Meh.” She shrugs, perching her oversize tortoiseshell sunglasses on her nose. “You order. We’ve had breakfast.”
“And it’s a rip-off,” Grace dares, adding: “Five quid for a smoothie!” which is rewarded by Ella’s curt grunt.
A waitress appears.
“Still deciding,” I say.
She sighs only slightly, but immediately I pick up on her irritation. A curl to her plum-tinted lip.
“Snotty cow.” Grace sneers at the waitress’s slim back.
“Shh!” Ella curbs.
“Well, she is! Did you see the way she looked at us?”
Ella picks at delinquent pills on Grace’s red sweater.37
“I’ve been thinking,” she says, Grace nudging aside her plucking hand, “I wanna get a new job.”
“How come?” I ask.
“I’m broke,” she speaks bluntly. “It’s all right for you. You can leave Chen’s when your photography career takes off. You’ll be fine, and move on.”
“Move on?”
“To better things.”
“You’re being silly, Ella.”
“Pfft,” she rejects with a flick of her wrist. “Anyway, did you send your portfolio in for that job you wanted?”
“Yeah, I included those portraits of you that I took on the heath. Remember?”
She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, I remember. So what now?”
“I guess I just wait and see if I get an interview. It would be so amazing to work for Jack Carrasqueiro. You know, I even based part of my college thesis on his photography.”
“I’m sure you will,” she says, sulking. “You’ll probably get the job too. Then what will I do?”
Currently I work part-time in a Chinese takeaway on the Euston Road. I’d spotted the advertisement stuck down with two Band-Aids in a window veiled with a grubby curtain and several red paper lanterns while on my way to class my senior year.
Wanted: Person to work. Must be honest and able to add. Apply within.
I was both and needed some sort of income, so decided to give it a shot. My guess is that Mr. Chen took me on because I could (1) add, (2) look relatively honest (I smiled a lot), and (3) speak Mandarin.
