Hush (9 page)

There were bars across the windows in Lily’s room, which cast shadows on the floor of checked black and white tiles. They made an odd, criss-crossing pattern of light and dark with no symmetry which Lily tried to deconstruct, to no avail. She looked until her head hurt, and then she stared at the walls, which were plain white and required no effort on her part.

The first morning, she had awoken early, with no idea of what was required of her. She could hear movement outside the door, but she didn’t dare leave the room by herself, and so when the nurse came for her she was sitting on her bed expectantly. The nurse took her hand and led her through the house, past rows of doors – open, now, and revealing the identical cells contained within – up stairs, down hallways, chattering all the way. Lily followed passively, half-listening, watching everything as she passed. There were other children here, both boys and girls, but no adults. ‘You won’t find any grown-ups in this wing,’ the nurse said cheerfully, which Lily took to mean that they were banned, kept elsewhere.

The nurse led her to a large bathroom and shut the door behind them. She ran her a bath, gave her soap and a towel and clean clothes to change into – her own clothes, Lily realised, though she didn’t remember bringing any – and then sat on a chair in the corner of the room and read a book while Lily bathed. She wasn’t used to having someone watching over her, so she made as quick a job of it as possible. When she dressed herself her skin was still damp. The nurse handed her
a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste, and, when she was finished, brushed her hair for her and twisted it into a single long plait which fell in the centre of her back. Lily never wore her hair like that, preferring it loose, but she made no comment.

When they left the bathroom, there was another girl waiting outside – older, but still with an accompanying nurse, and hundreds of scratches on her forearms, some silvery, some dark, some vivid red. She didn’t look at Lily, but stared straight ahead, at the door she was headed for. Lily’s nurse took her to a room with lots of windows, and left her there.

That first morning, Lily had discovered there were lessons, of sorts. The number of children varied from day to day, the ages ranging from a year or two younger than Lily to girls in their late teens. There were no boys older than thirteen. This was not something she deduced, but something she was told. No boys over thirteen. No girls over eighteen. No children under five. Age was an important factor, she gathered. Age, and gender. In a place where they were defined by the aspects of themselves that were theirs alone, these were the things that bound them together, the common differences by which they were categorised.

In the morning they were all together. They were taught normal subjects, like reading and art and maths and science. There was a lot of disruption in the classes – temperamental children screamed, threw things, started fights. The girl Lily had seen outside the bathroom was prone to arguments and screaming fits, and was frequently taken out of the room to calm down.

The morning classes became something of a routine. Lily worked out that if she sat in the far corner, near the windows, away from all the cupboards that lined one wall and held the art and craft supplies, she could be left in relative peace. The
other kids clamoured for art and craft – they liked chaos, mess, and the opportunity to throw paint in each other’s eyes. Lily sat in the corner, reading books and solving maths puzzles, and no one bothered her.

The nurses had sometimes asked her to read to them, to which she’d responded by closing the books and putting them back on the shelves. They had persisted for a few days, until she’d stopped getting the books out altogether. She stuck with the maths puzzles, which required no verbal demonstration.

After these lessons, there was group therapy. Lily sat on the edges of these sessions, swinging her feet in the air, watching them whoosh backwards and forwards, getting closer and closer to the floor. She imagined tiny people on her toes, riding them like a rollercoaster, screaming to get off every time her feet ventured closer to the black and white sea below.

Lunch was the same as it had been at her old school: noisy, chaotic, unpleasant. Food tasteless, bordering on inedible. She chewed rubbery meat that could just as easily have been vegetable and tried not to catch anyone’s eye.

After lunch she had one-to-one sessions with Dr Hadley. Lily waited in her room until a nurse came for her, and guided her back to the office she had first visited with her father. Dr Hadley would talk to her, ask her questions, note her lack of response. He generally asked closed questions, allowing her to nod or shake her head as required. When he asked open questions – forgetting, maybe, or deliberately provoking her – she simply stared at him until he rephrased them.

And after that, her parents: her mother angry, unforgiving; her father, just her father. Every day, the same.

‘We’ve invited you here today because we’ve reached the end of our period of initial assessment.’

‘Yes.’

Her father was next to her, holding her hand. Her mother was on his other side.

‘As you’re probably aware, Lily hasn’t made a great deal of progress that would be immediately obvious. She is still emphatically non-verbal in her communication. However, we do feel that significant progress is being made with regard to her communication skills in general.’

‘How so?’ Her father again.

‘These things obviously take time. Lily is gradually starting to show a willingness to participate in group activities. She pays attention to what is going on around her in a way that she didn’t when she was first admitted. Even in two short weeks, she has shown a significant level of improvement in her general alertness and interaction with the outside world.’

Her father squeezed her hand. ‘Is it appropriate for her to be here while we discuss this?’

‘It is. We think – ’ and at this point he fixed his gaze pointedly on Lily ‘– that Lily listens to everything that goes on around her. And, as she is aware that her refusal to speak is not a normal or acceptable mode of behaviour, there is no need to conceal from her the fact that she is here because of that. She knows that we are trying to encourage her to communicate. Meetings like this reinforce the fact that we are working on your behalf, rather than as an independent body to which she doesn’t necessarily need to pay attention.’

‘I see.’

Her father fell silent for a while. Lily watched him as he watched her mother, who stared fixedly at the floor and did not move her head, even once.

‘What would you recommend?’ he said finally.

‘I would recommend a further stay of no less than six months, with visits from you on a monthly basis.’

‘We wouldn’t be allowed to see her?’

‘We feel that your presence is… reinforcing her current behaviour. She is essentially being rewarded on a daily basis for behaving in a way which we don’t wish to reward. We think we would make progress much more quickly if your presence weren’t so pervasive.’

Her father nodded, swallowed. His expression was very similar to that of her mother’s. ‘Would we receive regular updates?’

‘One of our nurses can speak to you on the phone once a week.’ Dr Hadley smiled, and leaned forward on his elbows. ‘It’s in her best interests, Mr Emmett. I promise.’

Her father nodded again, though he didn’t look as if he agreed in the slightest.

‘You must understand the position you’ve put us in.’

‘Actually, no. Not really. Not at all, in fact.’

Richard shifted his hands in his lap, considered making some kind of emphatic gesture. In the end he just let them twitch, meaninglessly. Defeat was etched in his every movement, even while his words carried a promise of defiance.

‘We can’t employ people who act in this way.’

‘My girlfriend was in hospital.’

‘Yes, we understand that. But how much time would it have taken to have told us that? It was over an hour before someone realised you had actually gone. Then we had to find someone to finish your work, check the facts – and obviously we wasted time looking for you, trying to contact you – it’s just not professional, to be frank.’

But to be Richard… Not the time.

‘I realise that. I’m sorry. I had an emotional reaction to a situation as opposed to a professional one.’

‘Sarcasm is not going to help you –’

‘That wasn’t sarcasm. I’m just trying to defend my position.’

‘There is no defence, Richard. If the same thing happened today, you’d behave in the same way, wouldn’t you?’

‘Of course. So would most people, I imagine.’

‘Not serious journalists. You see, this is where the difference lies. If you really cared – if it was your number one
priority – then you’d understand that. But your priorities lie elsewhere.’

‘With my
family
. It’s not like I’m privileging a different newspaper or – or calling in sick to watch TV or whatever.’

‘We’re terribly sorry –’

‘You’re not, though, are you? You’ve never really thought I could make it, and now I’ve proved you right, and you’ll be glad to see the back of me.’

‘This kind of talk isn’t going to get us anywhere.’

Richard looked from his managing editor, Sam, to his line manager, Ellis, and saw his hopelessness etched on their features. These were the men who had hired him five years ago, when there was some possibility that he might rise to the challenge of professionalism. They looked weary, and unsympathetic, and he knew that there was no real hope for him here.

‘We’re not saying there isn’t a place for you here, Rich. You know it’s not like that.’

‘No, I’ll always have a place making cups of tea.’

‘You’re being melodramatic.’

‘Well, I’ve had a fairly tiring and dramatic few days, and this isn’t really what I wanted to come back to.’ He looked from face to face, searching for some kind of emotion, but found only flat disdain.

‘You can’t pretend it’s a surprise.’

‘To be told I will
never
write features because of
one
fuck-up? It is a surprise. Actually, it’s a pretty fucking major surprise.’

‘If we could try to keep the bad language to a minimum –’

‘Oh, this is ridiculous.’ Richard stood up and walked out, just barely managing to control himself enough to not slam the door behind him. He was trembling as he grabbed his coat. He hesitated for a moment in front of his desk, and then grabbed the photo of Lily that he kept there as well. It was a
statement, he knew that. If he didn’t take the photo he could pretend that he might come back, that he was just going for a walk to cool off. Taking the photo was effectively telling them that they could stick their job.

He did know that, and he did it anyway.

Five years was long enough.

Lily was sleeping when the phone rang. She hadn’t been back to work yet, though she’d been doing a vague imitation of working from home: checking her emails regularly, toying with the ideas she’d been working on for the last couple of months. Nothing that could be strictly referred to as productive, but she was doing enough to keep herself afloat.

Today, though, she’d found herself wandering aimlessly through the flat, unable to settle to anything. Her head felt as though it was buzzing with ungraspable thoughts. It was the absence of Richard, she knew; his going back to work had signified a return to normal life that she wasn’t entirely ready for. So she’d got up an hour after he’d left, and wandered aimlessly from room to room, carrying the scent of steaming coffee with her from space to space; and at midday she’d retreated back to bed, exhausted by her unproductiveness, and fallen into an instant, dreamless sleep.

It was deep enough that the ringing phone didn’t entirely rouse her, and it was a few seconds after the caller had hung up that she realised she was awake. The sunlight – greyish November mid-afternoon almost-dusk – touched dustily on her belongings; and Richard’s, of course. Their intertwined existence scattered thoughtlessly throughout the room. The rumpled space of the duvet next to her, waiting for his return.

The phone started to ring again, and she hauled herself out of bed.

It took four rings to cross the living room and pick up the receiver. Her mumbled hello was greeted with a five-second-long silence that was almost enough to convince her she’d imagined the ringing of the phone; and then she realised that there was no dialling tone.

‘Hello? Who’s there?’

‘Lils.’ Connie, sounding not like Connie, like not-Connie. ‘I thought you’d be back at work by now.’

‘I don’t… I couldn’t.’ She struggled for a moment for a fuller explanation, and gave up. ‘Is everything okay?’

‘Sure. Of course.’

‘You don’t sound okay.’

‘Don’t I?’ She laughed, a not-Connie laugh, humourless. ‘I’ve been worrying about you, I suppose. Silly of me.’

‘You shouldn’t.’

‘No, probably not.’

‘Is there… Did you want to speak to me about something?’

Connie laughed again, and this time there really was humour there, though Lily couldn’t imagine where it might have sprung from.

‘I suppose I just wanted to talk.’

‘Oh.’

‘But of course, that’s the last thing that you want to do, right?’

Lily didn’t bother to respond. Couldn’t see what there was to say.

‘Do you ever think about Dad?’ Connie asked.

‘I… What’s wrong?’

‘Our parents are dead, Lily.’

‘Yes.’

‘They’re dead. Gone. Don’t you ever think about that? Don’t you want to
talk
about it?’

‘Are you drunk?’

A pause. And then: ‘Oh, fucking forget it, then.’

Lily stood for a while, holding the receiver to her ear, listening to the buzz that signified Connie’s departure from the conversation. Trying to remember where she’d heard that tone of voice before.

To lose
. To part with or come to be without. From the Old English,
losian
: to perish. And also
forlēosan
: to forfeit.

He had lost his job, parted with it, come to be without it. Forfeited it? Yes, almost certainly. For what?

What had he gained in return?

Lily had lost her parents, lost her friends, lost her words. And he had found her – he with an abundance of words, which he gave to her, willingly.
Find
: to meet with or discover by chance, to discover or obtain by effort – which was it? Chance or design? He had found her by chance, certainly. But how had she found him? Through her own chances, or through his desire to hold on to her?

Did she make decisions, he wondered, or did she simply drift along on the tides, finding, losing, allowing other people’s chances to shape her existence?

He walked the streets with no destination in mind, the photo of her in his jacket pocket, his knowledge of what he had done nestled at his breast. He felt as if he teetered on the edge of a precipice. Could see what had gone before but had no idea what was to come. Didn’t know how to tell her what he’d done. Couldn’t decide how to proceed.

Maybe he could just wander into the Jobcentre. Find something else. Continue as if nothing had happened.

One decision didn’t have to change everything.

And yet, it inevitably did. Because what would he do? He couldn’t rely on a good reference. Couldn’t get another job at a paper, even if there had been one available. And what else was there? Five years in one direction, only to find you’d been
driving towards a brick wall all this time. And when you got there, what did you do?

Swerve abruptly to the left?

Crash into it and hope for the best?

Or drive straight through, and discover that the wall was not made of brick after all; that you’d emerged on the other side, unscathed?

It was Connie who found him; accidentally, because of course she wasn’t looking. He was sitting on a bench, watching children play on one side of a park while teenagers toyed with adulthood on the other. And, in between, parents provided the sense of a necessary order: the destination towards which the younger generations were headed.

She had Luke and Tom with her. Richard realised they were on their way back from school: both of them in their uniforms, dark blue sweatshirts with nondescript logos, Tom holding Luke’s hand to keep him from running off. Luke clamouring for something – ice cream, video games, Richard couldn’t tell, but whatever it was he wanted it and he wanted it
now
, please, thank you very much.

Both boys started running when they spotted him, and even Connie sped up, though she limited herself to a purposeful stride.

‘Shouldn’t you be at work?’

He smiled lopsidedly. ‘Haven’t gone back yet.’

‘Don’t lie to me.’

‘Uncle Richard, I’ve got a treasure map! Look.’ Luke dove into his rucksack, emerging with a crumpled piece of paper, which was indeed a crudely executed treasure map. X marks the spot, in red pen, a sharp contrast to the blues and greens of the background.

‘Excellent. Did you make it?’

‘Yes.’ Luke nodded solemnly. ‘Me and Tom are going to find the treasure. Do you want to come?’

‘Definitely. Give me a minute to talk to your mum first, though.’

The two boys bounded off in the direction of the playground, and Connie sat down next to him, her eyes never leaving them as they retreated into the distance.

‘How did you know I was lying?’

‘Well, I rang Lily today, and you weren’t there. She didn’t
say
anything, of course, but I figured you’d gone back to work. And now you’re here, and if you weren’t at work you’d be at home looking after her, so – there you go. Also, you’re a rubbish liar.’ She smiled, though she didn’t seem to mean it.

‘I lost my job.’

‘Oh, Richard.’

‘It’s my own fault. I walked out when Lily was in hospital. Forgot to tell them where I was going. And then I walked out again today.’

‘So you didn’t exactly “lose” it, then.’

‘Mmm. I was thinking about that. Forfeited my job, is what I’ve settled on.’

Connie gave him a curious look, but didn’t comment. ‘So what are you going to do?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘Well, you’d better start thinking pretty quickly. What with Lily being in the state she’s in –’

‘Don’t try to pretend you know what state Lily’s in. She might be fine, for all we know.’

‘She’s not fine. You know she’s not. That collapse – you know what it meant.’

‘It doesn’t have to mean anything,’ Richard said. ‘She’s never been like that since I’ve known her. Maybe she’s changed.’

‘People don’t change.’

‘They
do
, though. Aren’t you different from the way you were ten years ago?’

Connie leaned back against the bench, stretched her arms out in front of her. ‘Not really.’

‘Come on. You’re a wife, a mother. Those are things that change you.’

‘I’m still the same person, though. I still worry about the same things. I still react to things in the same way. I’m still wasting hours of my life trying to look after my baby sister when I should be devoting my energies to looking after myself.’

Richard raised an eyebrow. ‘Do you really think that?’

‘Of course.’

‘But you don’t need to look after her. I’m here for that.’

‘And a fantastic job you’re doing, right now.’

‘Don’t be a bitch –’

‘It’s true. You may be devoted but you don’t understand her the way I do, and you never will. Every time something happens, you run to me for advice because she won’t talk to you and you can’t read her mind. Which is fine, I understand that, but you can’t then act as though I’m completely superfluous to the whole thing.
She
might not realise how much I do for her, but you, at least, could have the decency to remember it every now and again.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.’

‘I know.’

‘I just feel like I’ve let her down. But all I was trying to do was help her.’

‘Look, Richard, some people can’t be helped. Lily is never going to change – and don’t protest that you don’t want her to, because I know that you don’t, or at least you think you don’t. But I for one would like it if she changed just a bit. Just enough to convince me that she was okay, so I could stop worrying about her all the time and get on with my own life. And I think it would benefit you, too.’

They sat in silence while Richard tried to formulate a response. He wanted to tell her that she was wrong, but she wasn’t. At least not entirely. It was as though there was an essence of correctness about what she was saying, but it missed the mark. It wasn’t how he felt.

How to make her understand that what he loved about Lily was the notunderstanding? That being with her was something akin to being in the presence of God, a being so far beyond his comprehension that he was constantly in awe of her.

Then again, maybe he was just a typical man, and she was just a typical woman, and he wanted to protect her.

‘Maybe it’s you that needs to change,’ he said eventually.

Connie laughed; a short, humourless burst of inarticulate emotion.

Then she went to be with her children, and left him to his own devices.