Bang Bang You're Dead (6 page)

After Grandpa died, I gradually realized how much Jamie had begun to hate Mum.

Actually, it would be more truthful to say that Jamie hated her illness, rather than Mum herself. But because it was so bound up with Mum's personality and the way she behaved, it was difficult to separate the two. Jamie had always blamed Mum a whole lot more than I did for not taking the necessary steps to try and control her condition, but when Grandpa had gone and she had stopped taking her tablets again and slithered headlong back into depression, Jamie became even more frustrated.

'This is ridiculous, Mia!' he would shout, pacing up and down the living room. The fury that poured out of him paralysed me with fear, and I would sit there in silence, too afraid to say anything. 'We know that she behaves differently when she takes the medication, so
why
won't she take it?'

I had asked Mum this very same question myself when Grandpa was ill, when we were close and could talk more easily than we'd ever done before. But Mum had looked so upset, so desperately ashamed and embarrassed, that I wished I hadn't asked at all, and I said so.

'No, Mia.' Mum put her arm round me as I stood there, hanging my head, unable to look into her eyes, which were so, so sad. 'You deserve an explanation. It's just . . .'

She paused, thinking very deeply for a moment before she spoke again.

'When I'm in that hyper state, it's so marvellous, I can't tell you. I need hardly any sleep or food and yet I have so much
energy.
It's euphoric. It's exhilarating. I feel like I can do anything and no one can hurt me. It's like
flying.
' She laughed nervously. 'I know it's difficult for you to understand, Mia. But I feel so special. I feel invincible.'

I was silent, I remember. I tried to imagine an illness that could make you feel that way, but it was impossible. Wasn't being ill supposed to make you feel – well –
ill
?

'It's so hard to give that feeling up,' Mum sighed.

'But what about the other side of it?' I asked, desperate to make sense of something that seemed so unbelievable. 'The depression? The days lying in bed, crying? Surely you don't enjoy that too?'

Mum shook her head. 'Of course not. Then I feel like I'm stuck at the bottom of a deep, dark hole and there's no way for me ever to climb out. But that's the payback, Mia. It's a trade-off, one for the other.'

I told Jamie all this, a few months after Grandpa's death when Mum's behaviour was changing once more. But Jamie's attitude did not soften.

'If Mum wants to do whatever she likes, then she shouldn't have had kids, should she?' he retorted, his face set and hard, determined not to try and understand. 'She never thought about
us.
'

'That's simplistic, Jamie,' I argued. 'Life doesn't always work out like that.'

'And don't I know it?' Jamie had muttered, turning his back on me.

It's never easy to look back and see where a problem situation began, but I would guess that this moment marked the beginning of the breakdown of the relationship between Jamie and me. We'd always had each other to depend on, and I could rely on Jamie for support, but suddenly he seemed to be working to a completely different agenda. He withdrew completely, both physically and emotionally, washing his hands of Mum and her illness and the day-to-day problems it caused, and yet he kept on and on nagging
me
to do something about it.

We struggled on for months after Grandpa died, although I found it increasingly hard to leave Mum at home when she was in a depressive state. I ended up taking the odd day off school to keep an eye on her. Jamie refused to help. Mum sometimes talked about ending it all, which completely terrified me, but I don't think she'd ever actually tried it. It was perfectly possible, though, that she'd attempted to harm herself in the past and Grandpa had kept it from us.

The manic side of Mum's behaviour seemed to be getting worse. She was out all day spending money we didn't have, and then out all night clubbing. In desperation, Jamie stole and hid Mum's credit cards, but a few days later she was out shopping again. I told Jamie she'd found the cards. The truth was, I gave them back because I felt so sorry for her. I know I'm a fool, and Jamie knew it too. He was raging, but this time he was furious with me rather than Mum. He disappeared that Friday night and didn't come back till late on Saturday afternoon. Mum was out partying and she didn't come home either.

So I sat on my own in that dark, tumbledown old house, absolutely terrified that neither of them would ever come back and I'd be left on my own.

Jamie was first to return. I was desperate to be cool and restrained, but when I saw him, I burst into noisy tears of relief. At one time Jamie would have comforted me straight away, but not now. He stood watching me with a strange, unreadable look on his face.

'I thought you weren't going to come back,' I gulped.

'One day I might not,' Jamie said soberly.

That was the very first time he said it.

Mum eventually came home too, but her wild and reckless lifestyle continued. I was hardly getting any sleep, waiting for her to come in every night. For God's sake, Jamie and I were supposed to be the teenagers, not her.

'This stops
now,
' Jamie said savagely after we'd walked into the kitchen and found a strange man in his underwear, making tea, for the third morning in a row. The man looked extremely embarrassed, dropping the hot tea bag he'd just fished out of the mug onto his bare foot.

'Sorry, didn't realize there was anyone else here,' he'd mumbled, hopping around the kitchen clutching his burned toe. Then he'd fled upstairs to Mum's room to collect his clothes.

'This stops now,' Jamie had repeated, staring at me challengingly. 'Mum
has
to go back to the doctor, Mia.'

I tried to keep my face neutral and not show what I felt. I was tired and I was worried and I just wanted everything and everyone to go away and leave me alone. I wanted Jamie to deal with it all. But I had already realized that my instinctive negative reaction to everything, my immediate conviction that I could not and would not cope, was beginning to irritate Jamie intensely.

For some reason, he seemed to
need
me to show him that I had a backbone.

'She won't go.'

'She has to,' Jamie replied curtly, staring me full in the eyes. 'Or they'll have to come here and see her.'

'She'll run off and hide.' I tried to stare right back at him but could not stand his searching gaze. So I pretended to examine my fingernails. 'Anyway, you have to be dying for a doctor to make a house call these days.'

'OK, then, we'll get her to the surgery somehow.' Jamie did not intend to give in. 'For God's sake, Mia, can't you see that things can't go on like this?'

'But you know what will happen, Jamie,' I said wearily. 'Mum won't go. And even if by some miracle, she agrees and says yes to the medication and yes to the therapy – well, she just won't take the tablets and she won't turn up to see her counsellor and everything will go on exactly the same way as before. It took Grandpa
years
to get Mum to do those things.'

'Let's worry about that part later.' Jamie's eyes were glittering strangely. They looked almost manic, which reminded me uncomfortably of Mum. 'There might be ways we can get her to see reason. Just make an appointment with Doctor Fields, Mia, and we'll take it from there.'

I nodded. I was too exhausted and beaten down to argue.

'Make the appointment but
don't tell Mum when it is,
' Jamie said quietly. 'At least then we'll have the advantage of surprise.'

We had to wait a few weeks until the autumn half-term holiday because it was difficult to get an appointment out of school time. But finally I managed to make the appointment for the Monday of half-term week at 9.30 a.m. At 8.45, Jamie and I went into Mum's room. She was lying on her back, sleeping.

'Mum.' I went over to the bed, took her shoulder and shook her gently. 'Wake up.'

She did not move or open her eyes.

'Mum!' I shook her again, but again, nothing. I glanced up at Jamie, fear racing instantly through me. 'Jamie, you don't think—'

Jamie pushed me aside. He gently moved Mum's hair away from her face and studied her intently.

'No, Mia, it's all right. Look, she's breathing.' He picked up an almost-f bottle of pills from the bedside table. 'What are these?'

'I don't know,' I said. 'I've never seen them before.'

Jamie read the label on the back of the bottle. Immediately his face darkened in fury.

'Sleeping pills.' He slapped the bed in frustration. Mum didn't even stir. In fact, she gave a gentle little snore as if confirming what Jamie had said. 'Forget it, Mia. We'll never wake her now.'

'But where did she get the pills from?' I asked.

'You can buy any old crap over the internet these days.' Jamie shoved the bottle into his pocket. 'You don't need a doctor's prescription.'

'We don't have the internet—' I began.

Jamie clicked his tongue in annoyance. 'God, Mia, do you know
anything
? Mum goes to the library and uses the computers there. That's how she meets all these guys, through online dating sites.'

'How do you know that?'

'I followed her, of course,' Jamie retorted with a scowl. 'I've been spying on Mum for months.'

I was silent for a moment. It would never occur to
me
to do such a thing. But then, Jamie is single-minded and ruthless and always,
always,
one step ahead of me.

'Well, what do we do now then?' I asked. I had a secret, sneaky sense of relief that we no longer had to try and persuade Mum to do something she hated. Anything for a quiet life, that's me. Even if that life is almost unbearable.

Jamie did not answer. But the accusing look on his face made my heart sink.

'Did you tell her, Mia?'

'Tell her what?' I blustered.

'About the doctor's appointment today.' Jamie's eyes were cold, hard, glossy chips of ebony. 'Did you tell her? Is that why she took the sleeping pill?'

'I did
not
tell her,' I said truthfully.

But Jamie knows me all too well.

'Did you write it down anywhere?' he demanded.

'I—' My cloak of bravado fell away, leaving me exposed. 'I put it in my diary.'

Jamie gave me a look. 'Get your coat,' he said, and walked out.

'Why?' I chased out of the room after him. 'Where are we going?'

'To see the doctor.'

'But there's no point, Jamie.' I was still repeating the same thing over and over again as we reached the surgery car park, even though I was pathetically grateful that he'd taken charge of the situation. 'The doctor won't tell us
anything
about Mum. Medical confidentiality, remember?'

'I don't
need
to know anything about Mum,' Jamie replied, striding ahead of me through the car park. 'I've lived with her illness for the last thirteen years. What I want to know is what the hell they're going to do to help.'

When I'd phoned to make the appointment, the receptionist had told me that Dr Fields – jolly, charming, grey-haired Dr Fields – had just retired unexpectedly early, due to ill-health, and a locum called Dr Caroline Zeelander would see Mum.

Dr Zeelander didn't exactly inspire confidence in me. She was elegantly tall and at the very extreme of skinniness. She looked like the horrific photographs of anorexics I'd seen in magazines where the skin barely seems to cover the bones. Her blonde hair was scraped back severely, showing every skull-like plane and bone of her face.

'You are
not
Mrs Annabel Jackson,' was the first thing Dr Zeelander said as she stared at me with the pale green eyes of a pedigree cat. She did not say hello or any other words of welcome.

'Sorry, no, I'm not,' I apologized. 'Mrs Jackson's my mum. She couldn't come—'

Instantly Dr Zeelander whipped round and closed down the open page on her computer. I suppose Mum's medical records were on the screen and we weren't allowed to see them.

'Then may I ask what you're doing here?' Dr Zeelander asked coldly. 'The appointment's in your mother's name. Didn't you tell the receptionist that your mother wasn't with you?'

Nervous at being caught out, I glanced at Jamie, but he simply shook his head very slightly.

'Er – we told her Mum was outside making a phone call,' I blurted out anyway. I didn't dare look at Jamie, but I could sense his immediate annoyance with me. 'Sorry.'

'Stop apologizing, Mia,' Jamie said irritably. He glanced at Dr Zeelander, who looked utterly outraged. 'The most important thing is to explain why we're here—'

'Please leave,' Dr Zeelander cut in crisply. She went over to the door and opened it. 'If your mother needs to see me, she has to come herself. I won't discuss her case without her being present.'

'But—' Jamie began.

'Please go. Now.'

I don't really know why, but I got the feeling that Dr Zeelander was stretched as taut as wire. There were faint blue shadows under her eyes and her hands were shaking slightly. I don't think it was anything to do with us. How could it have been? But I also got the strange impression that she was almost
enjoying
what was happening, that asserting her authority was somehow giving her a much-needed sense of power.

I glanced at Jamie. His face was suddenly very white and pinched, his black eyes burning coals. He was so angry, he was almost giving off sparks.

Then, with one brief, swift movement, Jamie lashed out with his left arm and swept the in-tray piled with files and documents off Dr Zeelander's desk. It crashed to the floor, scattering sheets of paper everywhere.

Jamie grabbed my hand and dragged me over to the door. There he stopped, right in front of Dr Zeelander. He was almost as tall as she was, and their eyes met, Dr Zeelander's huge and disbelieving, Jamie's cold, ice-cold, and filled with raging frustration. Then he pulled me out of the consulting room.

Dr Zeelander was frozen to the spot with shock and made no attempt to stop us. I glanced back as we left the surgery and saw her still standing there, mouth open, shaking from head to toe. I couldn't blame her. The sheer, brutal force of Jamie's anger, displayed so openly, had frightened me to death too.