Heller's Regret (13 page)

A nurse came in later to change my dressings
and ensure I swallowed my nighttime tablets. “Do you want a
sleeping tablet tonight, love?”

I thought about it for a moment. “Yes,
please.” It would help pass the time even more quickly.

She smiled knowingly after I’d taken it.
“Missing your sweetheart after he visited, aren’t you? I don’t
blame you. He’s spectacular.” She fanned herself dramatically with
her hands.

I made some vague rejoinder, unsure I was
ready to call Heller my ‘sweetheart’. Being with him earlier had
renewed some of what I suspected were very strong feelings for him.
Those feelings had been powerful enough to break through my mind
fog in the house, but I was still waiting for my emotions to catch
up with my logic. It didn’t
feel
to me as though we were a
couple. After scrutinising my reflection in the bathroom mirror –
wan, thin and miserable – I could hardly credit that someone like
me had landed a boyfriend with his stature and looks. Either I was
the luckiest woman in the world, or I had some impressive secret
skills I had yet to remember.

The sleeping tablet was a good idea because
it knocked me out for the night. I slept solidly and restfully
until the morning, not even waking when the nurses came in for the
routine tests.

When I woke I felt sharper, more alert and
more positive. I told Dr Reid that when he came for his usual
mid-morning visit. We ran through the same questions, his face
expressionless. When he finished writing, he put his pen down
firmly.

“Tilly, you’ve made great progress and I’m
very pleased. I still believe you’re being deliberately evasive
about some of what took place, in particular your real reasoning
behind cutting yourself. However, I’m picking up a strong feeling
that’s because of some sort of embarrassment you have about this,
but otherwise you’ve accepted it was an irrational act.”

“That’s correct,” I mumbled. I could never
tell anyone about my chosen way of remembering Daniel. “I know why
I did it, but now I find that reasoning to be . . .” the word crazy
almost slipping out, “. . . strange.” He nodded to himself in
self-satisfaction at his instincts being so soundly proven.

“That leads me to our sticking points – the
existence of the boy Samuel, and the woman in the portrait in the
bedroom.”

I said nothing, deflating. He’d killed my
improved mood.

“Okay, I can sense you withdrawing at that
statement of mine, so I assume we’re not ready to deal with
those.”

I could have cried. “Does this mean I’m going
to be stuck in here forever?”

“Not necessarily. We can continue to discuss
those matters with you after you’re discharged in counselling
sessions.”

“I don’t need counselling.”

“Tilly, it’s not a sign of weakness to have
counselling sessions. They can be incredibly beneficial to people.
There’s a great deal of scientific research backing that up. We’ve
also found similar results from our own experience in running the
sessions.”

I didn’t care about the benefits of such
sessions. I had no intention of talking about what had happened to
me in the house with a stranger, no matter how qualified they were.
My main priority was to get out of this place so I could help
Samuel. I just had to be smarter about it.

“I’m never going to get out of here.” I
looked down at my hospital gown, smoothing the material over my
legs.

“As I said, I consider overcoming those two
sticking points as critical to your complete recovery, but not
necessarily critical to your discharge from the hospital. I believe
that with every day distancing you further from the events in that
house, we can resolve those two points over time. But I wouldn’t
discharge you without follow-up counselling sessions, preferably
with hospital staff, or maybe with your own choice of psychologist
as long as I’m able to share information about you with them.”

I peered up at him. “So there’s a possibility
I could be discharged today?”

“You’ve vastly improved since you were
admitted. What I’m really concerned about at the moment though is
your physical health. The IV is helping replenish vitamins,
minerals and essential electrolytes, but it’s not food. It won’t
help you regain the weight you’ve lost. I’m also concerned about
the fairly slow healing rate of your injuries. The stronger you
are, the faster you’ll heal. The wounds on your hands and wrists
must be painful and awkward.”

“Yes. I’ll try to eat something today.”

“The food trays will continue to be brought
to you. I’m leaving you on the drip for now, but I’d like to see
you eating at least half of each meal today.”

“If I start eating again, will you let me go
home?”

He stilled. “You just said ‘home’, not ‘the
house’. What do you mean by home?”

“I don’t know. Where I live with Heller and
everyone else, I suppose,” I said in a small voice. “Heller talked
to me yesterday about people I knew who I miss a lot. I don’t want
to be away from them any longer.”

Dr Reid smiled. “Excellent. Just another
quick question from me, Tilly. Are you still able to recall precise
details of Samuel and the woman in the portrait?”

I gave his question – one he’d never asked
before – due consideration. I tried, but found I had trouble
remembering exactly what Samuel looked like, though I could now
picture Daniel and Niq very clearly in my mind. The woman in the
portrait had just become a scary, general image to me.

“They’re not as clear as they were.”

“Okay,” he said neutrally, writing more
notes. “Tell me, did Samuel interact with Miss Grimsley at
all?”

Once more, I took a while to respond. “Mrs .
. .” I shot him a glance. “. . .
Miss
Grimsley spoke to him
and he seemed to do what she asked of him. She hugged and kissed
him when she left, but in the short time I saw them together, he
didn’t speak to or touch her.”

“Okay,” he said again, that neutral tone
still in his voice.

“Do you understand why I find it so difficult
to believe Samuel didn’t exist?”

“Because you had physical contact with him
and he interacted with you.”

“Yes, that’s exactly it. He was
real
to me.”

“I understand that, but there’s no denying
the facts of the matter. Yesterday, Mr Heller promised to take some
photos of the house for my benefit. He emailed those to me last
night. Tilly, there’s clear physical evidence of your presence in
the house – blood and dirt in the bed you used and another bed as
well.”

“Samuel’s bedroom.”

“Blood smeared on a painting in the bedroom
you used, and books dumped on the floor. A pile of used teacups
stacked up in the sink and abandoned in a few other rooms. Miss
Grimsley’s makeup and clothes strewn around her room. The cover for
the piano thrown on the floor, its lid left up. Huge holes in the
basement dirt floor.”

“I guess I left a real mess behind. I don’t
remember noticing any of that.”

“But there’s absolutely no physical evidence
of any child living in that house.”

“What about Samuel’s bedroom? The toys and
books? I read
Alice in Wonderland
to him.”

“Mr Heller found that book jammed between the
bed and the wall, but it was in very poor condition. There was no
cover and half the pages were missing, many of the rest torn. You
couldn’t have read it.”

“But I did,” I insisted.

“There weren’t any other books in the room.
The toy box was dilapidated, the hinges so rusted it took a lot of
effort to open, as if it hadn’t been opened for decades. There
weren’t any toys inside.”

“But . . . I don’t understand.”

“That bedroom that you say was Samuel’s was
covered in dust and cobwebs. Nobody had been inside it for a very
long time. There wasn’t even a light bulb in the ceiling light.
Much of the house was the same, including the bedroom you used and
the music room. Miss Grimsley had only been living in a small
number of downstairs rooms and the rest of the rooms were rather
neglected.”

“I don’t know what to say. What you’re
telling me is the opposite of what I saw and experienced.”

“Which is why I think the counselling
sessions will help. We need to reconcile reality with what you
believe happened. You’re definitely not going home today, so I’d
like you to relax and take it easy for a while, and I’ll visit
again tomorrow.”

“I’ll try.” As if I had a choice. “Bye, Dr
Reid.”

I did what he said and watched TV for the
rest of the day. I found my thoughts frequently wandering, not to
Samuel, but to Daniel and Niq.

I ate as much as I could manage from the
trays, surprised to find myself with a small appetite.
Things
were looking up for me going home
, I thought happily. I took
another sleeping tablet that night and again, had another good
sleep.

Dr Reid wasn’t alone when he came for his
visit the next morning.

“Heller!” I exclaimed.

He came over to me and hugged me. I reached
my arms around him and hugged him back. He kissed me on the
forehead.

“Dr Reid said I could go home today if I ate
something. I had a bit from each tray brought to me yesterday and
this morning.”

“You’re definitely coming home today,
Matilda,” he smiled.

He handed me a piece of paper. I tried to
read it, but it was incomprehensible to me. I shrugged and looked
up at Heller, confused.

“I don’t know what this says,” I
confessed.

“Matilda, what did you eat and drink while
you were at that house?”

“I didn’t eat anything. I guess I forgot to
eat. I just drank tons of tea.”

“How many cups of tea would you have had
every day?”

I shrugged. “Heaps.” I performed a quick
calculation. “At least forty to fifty cups a day. I had a raging
thirst, but geez, that’s a lot of tea, isn’t it? I’d never normally
drink that much.”

“I had quite a few things from that house
analysed by an independent laboratory, my sweet. It’s an old house,
so I thought maybe there was some mould or chemical responsible for
what you went through. The lab emailed their analysis to me this
morning. That tea has the same effect on people as a psychoactive
drug.”

“A what?”

“You were ‘drugged’ the whole time you were
there, my sweet. The more tea you drank, the more drugged you
became.”

“That particular drug, or in this case a
natural version of it, causes delusions that become increasingly
worse with higher doses,” explained Dr Reid. “There are few people
in this world who wouldn’t be affected by that tea. It really
explains everything you experienced in that house. The effects are
wearing off now you haven’t had any more for a while.”

I lay back on my pillow, looking up at them
in shock. Something like that had never occurred to me. “You mean
I’m not going insane? I was just drugged? But that means Mrs . . .
Miss Grimsley did it on purpose. She meant for me to go mad. Why
would she do that? I didn’t even know her.”

“That’s something we’re going to find out,”
said Heller in that hard voice of his that meant business.

“She’s due out of hospital today,” Dr Reid
said.

A couple of hours later, during which a nurse
disconnected me from the IV, Dr Reid returned with the discharge
papers.

“Do I still need to come in for
counselling?”

“It depends. What I want you to do is to rest
for at least an entire month and eat nutritional foods. If you
can’t manage big meals, have a number of small meals throughout the
day. And keep yourself well-hydrated.” He turned to Heller. “Is
there anyone who can change her dressings on a regular basis?”

“Yes,” he said, probably thinking of himself.
But I knew that wouldn’t happen. He would disappear on another job
and it would be Daniel who’d nurse me back to health. Again.

The doctor handed me a plastic bag with
containers of penicillin and super-strength doses of various
vitamins and mineral supplements. “I’ve written you prescriptions
for the penicillin and supplements. I want you to keep taking them
for the entire month. But if after a couple of weeks, you’re still
having difficulties with those two sticking points, contact me and
I’ll arrange some counselling for you.” He checked his watch. “I
have to go. I have an appointment. Tilly, all the best and I hope
you fully recover. It looks as though you’ll be well looked after
at home.”

“I don’t have any clothes to change in to,” I
said to Heller.

He handed me a bag. “I’ve brought some in for
you.”

I shuffled to the bathroom, feeling
incredibly weak, and changed slowly into jeans, t-shirt and
runners. My jeans swam on me before, but now they swamped me.
Luckily Heller had thought to throw in a belt or they’d be puddling
around my ankles with every step.

Heller hunted down a wheelchair, despite my
protests, and pushed me to the carpark. I finally set off for
home.

Chapter 10

Back home, everything began to click back
into place for me. The events that took place in the house seemed
much less important in my own familiar surroundings. I hadn’t quite
given up my beliefs about Samuel and the woman in the portrait, but
I found myself not brooding about them as much as I had before.

Dr Kincaid was less than enthusiastic to tend
to me on a regular basis, complaining about me the whole time he
demonstrated (again) to Daniel how to change my dressings. Over the
next few weeks, he made me keep a careful record of my weight, and
probably for the first (and last) time in my life, I was actually
pleased to add a few kilograms to my frame.

With little energy to spare, I spent most of
the time lying in Heller’s bed watching TV, Daniel and Niq taking
turns to bring me meals. And though I still wasn’t particularly
hungry, they watched me closely until I’d at least made a
reasonable effort to demolish the food.