The Silent Patient (21 page)

“She’s a fucking nutter.” Elif sounded close to tears, anguished, exhausted. “She’s a psycho.”

Looking at Elif’s bandaged wound, I couldn’t help but wonder if she was right.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

THE MEETING TOOK PLACE
in Diomedes’s office, but Stephanie Clarke assumed control from the start. Now that we had left the abstract world of psychology and entered the concrete realm of health and safety, we were under her jurisdiction and she knew it. Judging by Diomedes’s sullen silence, it was obvious so did he.

Stephanie was standing with her arms crossed; her excitement was palpable. She’s getting off on this, I thought—being in charge, and having the last word. How she must have resented us all, overruling her, teaming up against her. Now she was relishing her revenge. “The incident yesterday morning was totally unacceptable,” she said. “I warned against Alicia being allowed to paint, but I was overruled. Individual privileges always stir up jealousies and resentments. I knew something like this would happen. From now on, safety must come first.”

“Is that why Alicia has been put in seclusion?” I said. “In the interest of safety?”

“She is a threat to herself, and others. She attacked Elif—she could have killed her.”

“She was provoked.”

Diomedes shook his head and spoke wearily. “I don’t think any level of provocation justifies that kind of attack.”

Stephanie nodded.
“Precisely.”

“It was an isolated incident,” I said. “Putting Alicia in seclusion isn’t just cruel—it’s barbaric.” I had seen patients subjected to seclusion in Broadmoor, locked in a tiny, windowless room, barely enough space for a bed, let alone other furniture. Hours or days in seclusion was enough to drive anyone mad, let alone someone who was already unstable.

Stephanie shrugged. “As manager of the clinic, I have the authority to take any action I deem necessary. I asked Christian for his guidance, and he agreed with me.”

“I bet he did.”

Across the room, Christian smiled smugly at me. I could also feel Diomedes watching me. I knew what they were thinking—I was letting it get personal, and letting my feelings show; but I didn’t care.

“Locking her up is not the answer. We need to keep talking to her. We need to understand.”

“I understand perfectly,” Christian said with a heavy, patronizing tone, as if he were talking to a backward child. “It’s you, Theo.”

“Me?”

“Who else? You’re the one who’s been stirring things up.”

“In what sense, stirring?”

“It’s true, isn’t it? You campaigned to lower her medication—”

I laughed. “It was hardly a campaign. It was an intervention. She was drugged up to the eyeballs. A zombie.”

“Bullshit.”

I turned to Diomedes. “You’re not seriously trying to pin this on me? Is that what’s happening here?”

Diomedes shook his head but evaded my eye. “Of course not. Nonetheless, it’s obvious that her therapy has destabilized her. It’s challenged her too much, too soon. I suspect that’s why this unfortunate event took place.”

“I don’t accept that.”

“You’re possibly too close to see it clearly.” Diomedes threw up his hands and sighed, a man defeated. “We can’t afford any more mistakes, not at such a critical juncture—as you know, the future of the unit is at stake. Every mistake we make gives the Trust another excuse to close us down.”

I felt intensely irritated at his defeatism, his weary acceptance. “The answer is not to drug her up and throw away the key. We’re not jailers.”

“I agree.” Indira gave me a supportive smile and went on, “The problem is we’ve become so risk averse, we’d rather overmedicate than take any chances. We need to be brave enough to sit with the madness, to hold it—instead of trying to lock it up.”

Christian rolled his eyes and was about to object, but Diomedes spoke first, shaking his head. “It’s too late for that. This is my fault. Alicia isn’t a suitable candidate for psychotherapy. I should never have allowed it.”

Diomedes said he blamed himself, but I knew he was really blaming me. All eyes were on me: Diomedes’s disappointed frown; Christian’s gaze, mocking, triumphant; Stephanie’s hostile stare; Indira’s look of concern.

I tried not to sound as if I was pleading. “Stop Alicia painting if you must. But don’t stop her therapy—it’s the only way to reach her.”

Diomedes shook his head. “I’m beginning to suspect she’s unreachable.”

“Just give me some more time—”

“No.” The note of finality in Diomedes’s voice told me that arguing further was pointless. It was over.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

DIOMEDES WAS WRONG ABOUT IT SNOWING
. It didn’t snow; instead it started raining heavily that afternoon. A storm with angry drumbeats of thunder and lightning flashes.

I waited for Alicia in the therapy room, watching the rain batter the window.

I felt weary and depressed. The whole thing had been a waste of time. I had lost Alicia before I could help her; now I never would.

A knock at the door. Yuri escorted Alicia into the therapy room. She looked worse than I expected. She was pale, ashen, ghostlike. She moved clumsily, and her right leg trembled nonstop. Fucking Christian, I thought—she was drugged out of her mind.

There was a long pause after Yuri left. Alicia didn’t look at me. Eventually I spoke. Loudly and clearly, to make sure she understood.

“Alicia. I’m sorry you were put in seclusion. I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

No reaction.

I hesitated. “I’m afraid that because of what you did to Elif, our therapy has been terminated. This wasn’t my decision—far from it—but there’s nothing I can do about it. I’d like to offer you this opportunity to talk about what happened, to explain your attack on Elif. And express the remorse I’m sure you’re feeling.”

Alicia said nothing. I wasn’t sure my words were penetrating her medicated haze.

“I’ll tell you how I feel. I feel angry, to be honest. I feel angry that our work is ending before we’ve even properly begun—and I feel angry that you didn’t try harder.”

Alicia’s head moved. Her eyes stared into mine.

“You’re afraid, I know that. I’ve been trying to help you—but you won’t let me. And now I don’t know what to do.”

I fell silent, defeated.

Then Alicia did something I will never forget.

She held out her trembling hand toward me. She was clutching something—a small leatherbound notebook.

“What’s that?”

No reply. She kept holding it out.

I peered at it, curious. “Do you want me to take it?”

No response. I hesitated and gently took the notebook from her fluttering fingers. I opened it and thumbed through the pages. It was a handwritten diary, a journal.

Alicia’s journal.

Judging by the handwriting, it was written in a chaotic state of mind, particularly the last pages, where the writing was barely legible—arrows connecting different paragraphs written in different angles across the page, doodles and drawings taking over some pages, flowers growing into vines, covering what had been written and making it almost indecipherable.

I looked at Alicia, burning with curiosity. “What do you want me to do with this?”

The question was quite unnecessary. It was obvious what Alicia wanted.

She wanted me to read it.

PART THREE

I mustn’t put strangeness where there’s nothing. I think that is the danger of keeping a diary: you exaggerate everything, you are on the lookout, and you continually stretch the truth.

—
JEAN-PAUL SARTRE

Though I am not naturally honest, I am sometimes so by chance.

—
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
,
The Winter’s Tale

Alicia Berenson’s Diary

AUGUST
8

Something odd happened today.

I was in the kitchen, making coffee, looking out the window—looking without seeing—daydreaming—and then I noticed something, or rather someone—outside. A man. I noticed him because he was standing so still—like a statue—and facing the house. He was on the other side of the road, by the entrance to the park. He was standing in the shadow of a tree. He was tall, well built. I couldn’t make out his features, as he was wearing sunglasses and a cap.

I couldn’t tell if he could see me or not, through the window, but it felt as if he was staring right at me. I thought it was weird—I’m used to people waiting across the street at the bus stop, but he wasn’t waiting for a bus. He was staring at the house.

I realized that I had been standing there for several minutes, so I made myself leave the window. I went to the studio. I tried to paint but couldn’t concentrate. My mind kept going back to the man. I decided to give myself another twenty minutes, then I’d go back to the kitchen and look. If he was still there, then what? He wasn’t doing anything wrong. He might be a burglar, studying the house—I suppose that was my first thought—but why just stand there like that, so conspicuously? Maybe he was thinking of moving here? Maybe he’s buying the house for sale at the end of the street? That could explain it.

But when I went back to the kitchen and peered out of the window, he had gone. The street was empty.

I guess I’ll never know what he was doing. How strange.

AUGUST
10

I went to the play with Jean-Felix last night. Gabriel didn’t want me to, but I went anyway. I was dreading it, but I thought if I gave Jean-Felix what he wanted and went with him, maybe that would be an end to this. I hoped so, anyway.

We arranged to meet early, to have a drink—his idea—and when I got there, it was still light. The sun was low in the sky, coloring the river bloodred. Jean-Felix was waiting for me outside the National. I saw him before he saw me. He was scanning the crowds, scowling. If I had any doubt I was doing the right thing, seeing his angry face dispelled it. I was filled with a horrible kind of dread—and nearly turned and bolted. But he turned and saw me before I could. He waved, and I went over to him. I pretended to smile, and so did he.

“I’m so glad you came,” Jean-Felix said. “I was worried you wouldn’t show up. Shall we go in and have a drink?”

We had a drink in the foyer. It was awkward, to say the least. Neither of us mentioned the other day. We talked a lot about nothing, or rather Jean-Felix talked and I listened. We ended up having a couple of drinks. I hadn’t eaten and I felt a bit drunk; I think that was probably Jean-Felix’s intention. He was trying his best to engage me, but the conversation was stilted—it was orchestrated, stage-managed. Everything that came out of his mouth seemed to start with “Wasn’t it fun when” or “Do you remember that time we”—as if he’d rehearsed little reminiscences in the hope that they’d weaken my resolve and remind me how much history we had, how close we were. What he doesn’t seem to realize is I’ve made my decision. And nothing he can say now will change that.

In the end, I’m glad I went. Not because I saw Jean-Felix—because I saw the play. Alcestis isn’t a tragedy I’ve heard of—I suppose it’s obscure because it’s a smaller kind of domestic story, which is why I liked it so much. It was staged in the present day, in a small suburban house in Athens. I liked the scale of it. An intimate kitchen-sink tragedy. A man is condemned to die, and his wife, Alcestis, wants to save him. The actress playing Alcestis looked like a Greek statue, she had a wonderful face—I kept thinking about painting her. I thought about getting her details and contacting her agent. I nearly mentioned it to Jean-Felix, but I stopped myself. I don’t want to involve him in my life anymore, on any level. I had tears in my eyes at the end—Alcestis dies and is reborn. She literally comes back from the dead. There’s something there that I need to think about. I’m not sure exactly what yet. Of course, Jean-Felix had all kinds of reactions to the play, but none of them resonated with me, so I tuned him out and stopped listening.

I couldn’t get Alcestis’s death and resurrection out of my mind—I kept thinking about it as we walked back across the bridge to the station. Jean-Felix asked if I wanted to have another drink, but I said I was tired. There was another awkward pause. We stood outside the entrance to the station. I thanked him for the evening and said it had been fun.

“Just have one more drink,” Jean-Felix said. “One more. For old times’ sake?”

“No, I should go.”

I tried to leave—and he grabbed my hand.

“Alicia,” he said. “Listen to me. I need to tell you something.”

“No, please don’t, there’s nothing to say, really—”

“Just listen. It’s not what you think.”

And he was right, it wasn’t. I was expecting Jean-Felix to plead for our friendship, or try to make me feel guilty for leaving the gallery. But what he said took me totally by surprise.

“You need to be careful,” he said. “You’re way too trusting. The people around you
 
…
you trust them. Don’t. Don’t trust them.”

I stared at him blankly. It took me a second to speak.

“What are you talking about? Who do you mean?”

Jean-Felix just shook his head and didn’t say anything. He let go of my hand and walked off. I called after him but he didn’t stop.

“Jean-Felix. Stop.”

He didn’t look back. I watched him disappear around the corner. I stood there, rooted to the spot. I didn’t know what to think. What was he doing making a mysterious warning and then walking off like that? I guess he wanted to get the upper hand and leave me feeling unsure and wrong-footed. And he succeeded.

He also left me feeling angry. Now, in a way, he’s made it easy for me. Now I’m determined to cut him out of my life. What did he mean about “people around me”—presumably that means Gabriel? But why?

No. I’m not doing this. This is exactly what Jean-Felix wanted—to fuck with my head. Get me obsessing about him. Come between me and Gabriel.