PSYCHOPHILIA: A Disturbing Psychological Thriller (22 page)

Thursday
began as a relatively uneventful day.  The minutes ticked by and I counted, at
times, the seconds such was the monotony.  But there was a thing of positivity
about Thursday and that was the attitude with which I awoke.  I admit that
based on my complete and intoxicating apathy of Wednesday night, which
culminated in me slipping into bed with my hands in latex gloves because I
couldn’t convince myself that my hands were appropriately clean, I was rather
taken by surprise when I woke up in a better mood.  The latex gloves were something
that I had stolen without intention from the hospital during an opportune
moment of solitude and which I have washed thoroughly inside and out prior to
use. 

The
first good thing to come out of this attitude was that I made the decision to
see Dr. Abrams again.  My utter lack of interest in the pregnancy yesterday was
most likely the culmination of a whole lot of nothing.  The mind can and does
become intolerable when left alone and unused, rotting like an abandoned piece
of fruit, soft, and good for nothing.  It happens when there is no stimulation
or hope to cling to that life can and will be better.  The resulting detachment
and utter indifference to my situation imprisoned me in despondency which
appears today, like the mist outside to have lifted.  When I first discovered
the pregnancy I had decided that there was little point in continuing the trips
to Dr. Abrams and avoided his methods of neural interrogation.  Why would I
waste an hour of each week discussing the past with him when I could be thinking
about the future with Gregory?  With a baby.  Gregory’s actions soon put a stop
to that source of positivity, and so I have decided to hang on to the snippet
of peace that this last trip to the therapist’s chair offered me.  Dr. Abrams
wanted so much for me to be happy, and it seems has never once lost hope. 
Gregory has written me off.  Since the day in hospital when his tears ran
across my cheeks and he ignored the black lumps of vomit staining my sheets and
his sleeves we have completed a one hundred and eighty degree shift in his
behaviour.

The
second was a growing satisfaction at the collection of items in my bedside
table and for this I owe a great deal of my gratitude to Ishiko.  Forty nine
undiscovered and unmissed capsules collected and without any hassle stored away
neatly.  My own effort.  The addition of the photograph and CD brought with it
a rewarding sense of accomplishment, and late on yesterday afternoon the addition
of Marianne’s bracelet was another source of positivity.  A reason for hope.  It
is a fortunate turn of fate that Gregory cannot tolerate my routines or my
obsessions.  He cannot tolerate that it always takes me time and a prescriptive
effort to take a tablet.  He cannot stand it whilst I hold water in my mouth
for the count of thirty to moisten it.  Less than this and it remains dry and
the tablet does not slip down.  One time I almost choked to death.  It was
within the first week of being home, and to try to pacify him I swallowed the
water too soon and took the tablet before the time was up.  That tablet wedged
itself into my throat, its plastic coating sticking to me as if I were its life
raft, its last hope before an acidic digestion.  After that I refused and we
agreed (at his suggestion) that the Prozac be taken in privacy. 
More
dignified
.  For whom I don’t know.  Me I suppose.  I do not remember the
incident well.  Prozac has an effect on me you see.  It works like a giant
square box in which I sit right at the centre.  Each tablet slowly pushes each
wall further and further away from me.  The bad, all the pain and hurt outside
of the box got further away, but so did all the good that was mixed in with
it.  The world got further and further away from me.  I didn’t care about
anything.  Nothing mattered.  You could have told me my father had risen from
the lake and was sat waiting for me at home and I wouldn’t have cared.  My pain
left me, but with it took everything else until all I was left with was
numbness and space.  Numbness squared.    I didn’t care about anything.  Even
when I saw Ishiko dancing in front of Gregory and realised they were fucking, I
barely cared.  Then one day I threw up.  Right after taking the tablet.  That
day I realised what had been happening to me.  They were drugging me to shut me
out from reality so they could create their own.  I finally saw it.  I flushed
the tablet away with my vomit.  I calculated the dates.  I took the test.  I
placed the next tablet on the shelf behind my drawer.  I don’t know why I
didn’t flush it away.

I
woke early, 6:41 AM, and I dressed immediately on this should be miserable
Thursday.  I rinsed my mouth three times and washed my hands three times.  I
went straight out for my walk and the chill of the morning air against my skin
felt clean and invigorating.  I felt it.  I didn’t feel fuzzy or blurred or sad. 
I was sharp and awake and alive.  I walked with my left hand against my
stomach, and I wondered how it was that only yesterday I felt so flat and
lifeless.  Fifty days have passed since I found out I was pregnant.  Fifty
whole days.  I encircled the small bump under my coat, tracing it with my
fingertips and realised that I had not paid it due attention.  At the start I
did, but along the way I seem to have got lost.  It's Gregory's fault.  He
snuffed out my hope.  I have to show him that there is a future.  That I
count.  That I am worth it.  Before I forget again.

I
could hear him eating his breakfast and the rustle of the newspaper when I
arrived home but I made a point of not joining him.  Instead I searched the
cupboards in the dining room – still wearing the latex gloves which I acknowledge
as an unfortunate act of madness but I am trying to be flexible with myself - and
found his mother’s old sewing box.  There is a musty smell to it, like an old
cupboard opened after years of closure, or the smell of an old unwashed lady.  I
found the tape measure and took it with me upstairs.  I washed it well, made
sure it was clean and with no trace of the odour, and then made several measurements
of my body.  First my stomach, then under my breasts to my pubic bone, around
the circumference where my ribs ended, around my belly button, buttocks, and
hips.  I wrote them all down.  I made a chart.  I pulled at my skin until it
hurt, unable to comprehend how it might be that it would stretch to the required
size.  I was able to pull at no more than an inch in any location.  I drew
lines on my skin to document the measurement position, the ones on the back appearing
a little less perfect and more like a series of dots.  I used a permanent
marker that I found in the drawer of the cabinet in the dining room.  Holding
the tape measure steady was a challenge, but I managed and felt very good about
the fact.  Underneath my clothes I now look like an architectural plan for
motherhood.  Grow here.  Spread out there.  Fill this area.  I stood naked for
a while admiring my work in the bathroom mirror and because of my good cheer I added
a few lines of artistic expectation to give the stomach a rounder appearance. 
At the moment there is nothing more than a bump.  A too-much-food bump.  I
suspect in a couple of weeks I could look a little fat rather than pregnant.  I
think we have another six or seven weeks before he is obliged to tell the world,
or hide me away like an unmarried mother in 1945. 

I
waited for Gregory to leave and then dressed before I made my way downstairs. 
Ishiko was waiting for me, ready with breakfast.  I ate.  I didn’t speak to her. 
She hovered around me today as if she had something to say but I didn’t push to
learn what it might be.  I am not interested in her thoughts.  Not at the
moment.  I wonder if she has missed the photograph that I took from her wall. 
I wonder if she knows that I was in her room.  I wonder if Gregory told her
what happened.  Would she sympathise with him?  With me?  Would she tell him he
deserves better and stroke his face to remind him how perfect it would be if it
wasn’t for me still hanging around.  Perhaps she wants to kill me too.

I
slept for a while.  I locked my bedroom door and lay back on the bed with the
pearl bracelet and photograph in my hands.  I woke when Ishiko began
hoovering.  I got up and watched her.  She knew I was there, but what could she
say?  Would she ask me to leave?  I watched as she leant over the toilet in the
spare room and scrubbed Gregory’s filth from the shower.  He still hasn’t
returned to our room, and I doubt he will for some time.  Not whilst she is
around for middle of the night rendezvous.

Because
the fog has lifted I took a walk in the garden, just to see what was happening
in the world beyond the house.  Whilst I was out there I saw Dana leaving in
her Range Rover.  She smiled, waved, and looked embarrassed.  Although she
called by the other day, she has not tried to return so I am not sure if she
was really calling to see me.  Perhaps Gregory has asked her to leave me
alone.  Mr. Sedgwick was also in the car, and he said something to her that
looked like it was about me because I saw him say it and then they both took a
look at me before carrying on with their conversation. 

In
the wintertime there are many roses in the garden.  Red, pink, and yellow.  I
called to Ishiko who came out in her red duffle coat and under my watchful eye cut
some for me.  Her hands were blue by the end of it and covered in tiny
scratches like she had been playing with an overexcited kitten.  I asked her to
cut the furthest flowers, the ones near the back of the bushes and for which
she had to stretch to reach.  She is short, and at times it was level with her
face and so she got scratched on the cheeks too.  I enjoyed my time in the
garden and the flowers and the cuts are beautiful.

Less
satisfying was the attention that Gregory paid her that evening.  He obviously
thought it safe to attend to an injury without fear of my judgment.  Nobody
would question a good Samaritan, right?  He was right to assume so, because I
didn’t question him as I watched him bathe the wounds in a mixture of water and
Dettol as his mother had obviously done to him as a child.  His delicate
fingers worked all over her, first her hands, then the face, to which I noticed
he paid particular attention.  He even called our doctor to ask if she might
need a tetanus vaccination.  To her credit, she barely fluttered an eyelash.  I
sat at their side as this caring process occurred, handing him fresh cotton
wool balls as he asked for them and holding the pot that contained the
antiseptic solution.  Throughout the proceedings I was wearing my latex gloves,
a fact for which he seemed mildly impressed and asked me if I had anymore that
he could use.  He obviously quite fancied the idea of a new character.  Dr.
Gregory, perhaps.  I told him that I didn't.  I admit that there was part of me
which quite enjoyed watching.  I remember so few details about his actions when
I was ill. I pretended that I was sat in Ishiko’s place, and that this was how
he tended to me.  I imagined those delicate fingers would feel quite nice when
you are ill, stroking at you like a child’s fingers, or a breath of gentle
breeze on a summer’s day.  Comforting.  He asked me later on that evening when
we were sat together in the drawing room why I had asked her to cut the roses. 
His question was curt and so I replied by asking if he would rather I had done
it myself and sustained the wounds on my own arms and face.  He didn’t say
much, but I heard him utter the words,
of course not
, before slouching
back into his chair with his brandy and last week’s newspaper.  I considered
that perhaps sustaining a few such wounds was a good idea,  and that perhaps
they would attract his attention in much the same way.  I wondered where he
kept the key to the locked away knives, but without much serious intention.  This
was the only mark on an otherwise good day.

I
lay alone again that night, nothing but my thoughts and baby for comfort.  For
a while I stared at myself in the mirror, no real effort on my part to do
anything other than to stare.  I pulled my pyjama top up level with my chest
and stared at myself, tracing the lines with my latex gloved fingers.  There is
a layer of moisture in the glove now, and my skin is feeling itchy more or less
all the time, but I have nevertheless decided to keep them on.  After a while I
returned to the bathroom and searched a drawer underneath the sink which I have
not opened all week because it contains make up and I have had no use for it. 
In there I find a small hand mirror, and after applying a slick of Chanel
Inimitable
lipstick which is bright red and in this instance makes me feel good, I
take it to the bed.  I lock the door before taking off my pyjamas.  I hold my
legs apart as if I was at the gynaecologist's office and with my left hand I
hold the mirror in place.  With my right hand I prod at myself, pulling in one
direction and then the other, sometimes using two fingers to stretch myself
apart until the point that it hurt.  Afterwards I decided to throw the gloves
away.  It was probably for the best because my hands were pruned and very red,
so I washed them well and used the nail brush again which was a painful process
through which I persevered.  My right hand looks like it might split open. 

My
self-inspection was supposed to allay my fears and instil a certain sense of
biological confidence, but I remain unconvinced at the ability of my body to
carry an actual child, or push it out when the time comes.  So I went
downstairs to the study and started up Gregory’s computer.  It revved and
whirled and beeped a few times before eventually coming to life, a steady blue
light casting out across the dark wooden walls.  I searched on the Internet for
pictures of women carrying babies.  I found one that showed the same woman, an
image taken every three weeks with her standing in the same position each time. 
Somebody cared about her growth and the thing inside her that was becoming a
person as each day passed.  Somebody wanted to document it, to remember it so
that the first moments of life would never be forgotten.  She stood very
proudly, her arm covering her breasts which also seemed to grow in size and
hung lower as the photographs progressed.  She was smiling in each photograph,
even when her stomach became red and sore looking with big blue scratches
stretched across the surface.  It was the first time I have cried in weeks.