Cuckoo (aka Claire, Darling)

Chapter Sixty-Two

Chapter Sixty-Two

I am wringing my hands together in my lap, my eyes fixed on my feet. The disgusting slippers they make you wear here were once white, but are now an off-putting murky beige.

‘And Claire, how about you? How have you been getting on this week?’

I jolt upright at the sound of my name. The team leader, Daisy, looks at me carefully with an encouraging smile on her face. She’s not really a team leader. She’s a psychiatrist. But they make us call them team leaders, as though it makes it all less serious. I take a shaky breath, pairs of eyes peering at me curiously from around the circle we’re sitting in. Some patients, like me, like to keep their gaze fixed on the floor. One woman is muttering to herself under her breath, but she does this so often that it has become a strange comfort to me: a reminder of what true mental illness is. Some of the others are flitting their gaze about restlessly, impatient and bored. But many watch me, interested. And so I begin.

‘This week has been… tough. Honestly, it’s been quite shocking. I’ve now been here long enough that my new medication has worked its way into my system…’

Murmurs around the group of understanding and empathy. ‘And now I guess I’m just coming to terms with what I’ve done, who I really am, and how I’ve ended up here.’ My shoulders sag at this point. Daisy beams at me as though I’ve told her she’s won the lottery. ‘That’s brilliant , Claire. Really good self-awareness and progress! And how are you feeling about these revelations?’

I sigh. ‘Honestly? Tired.’ I get some chuckles around the circle at this, vigorous nods of understanding and camaraderie.

‘I guess it all stems from my childhood, my relationship with my mother. I need to work through all that I went through then, and my unhealthy attitude towards being loved, as a first step.’ Daisy is now nodding her head so enthusiastically that she reminds me of those bobbleheads in cars, and I worry hers may fall off her neck entirely.

‘And how about your emotions? What have you been feeling this week? I know the last time we spoke there was a lot of anger.’ She’s frowning at the memory.

‘Yes, well, I’m still angry, I’ll be honest. I feel betrayed by the court system, even though I suppose it kept me out of prison.’

‘Barely!’ someone heckles.

‘Prison is entirely different and much worse,’ Daisy counters crisply. ‘Claire, carry on, please.’

‘You’re right. Prison is entirely different. At least here we have our own toilets!’ It’s only half a joke, but falls almost entirely flat.

‘Anyway, I wish they’d diagnosed me sooner, prepared me for what was going on. I felt ambushed by my own lawyer. And as part of the psychiatric evidence, they shared my diary entries. Those private, personal memories in my own handwriting… I felt so humiliated,’ I admit for the first time. That was the final kicker, those diary entries. The last trace of any sort of pride I might have retained, dashed as my innermost thoughts, secrets, wishes and horrors were shared with a bunch of strangers. I feel my face flush at the memory, the complete horror of the diary becoming part of my case notes, typed out letter by excruciating letter.

‘And what about Noah? His friends?’ Daisy asks.

I keep my face carefully neutral. ‘I can’t be angry with them: they only went up there and spoke the truth– anybody would have done the same. But I am sad every day about what happened to Lilah, and I wish it hadn’t.’ I look at the ground again and swallow down the lump in my throat. I feel tears spring to my eyes and hurriedly wipe them away. Nobody is laughing now, the circle around me grown quiet. Even the muttering woman has reverted to shaking her head furiously and silently.

‘And that’s what we’re here to help you work through,’ Daisy says gently, watching me with pity in her eyes. ‘Let’s move on. Jacob, how are you getting on with your outbursts of anger this week?’ She turns away from me and I relax just a fraction. I’ve said my piece. Now I just have to sit through the rest of this session and then I can go back to my awful little box room and reflect on what I’ve learned in my journal. A journal that, hopefully, will remain private.

The horror of the court logging my most personal, private feelings as evidence of my mental health was palpable. I thought the trial could not get any worse for me after Noah’s and Jessica’s evidence, but somehow it did. Since then, I’ve had a letter from Grosvenor checking in on me, asking me to call her, but I’ve declined. I don’t want to speak to her, and I don’t want to kid myself that our relationship was anything other than professional. She’ll get another client soon enough and forget I ever existed. Sukhi, however, I do still speak to.

We have weekly phone calls and write letters. She’s pregnant now – she sent me some copies of her scans in a letter. That was hard for me, I’ll be honest. I’d had a low week and felt so empty and alone. And eventually, after speaking with Daisy in a one-to-one session, we realised I was also afraid. Afraid that I would be replaced by this baby and abandoned by Sukhi, our friendship redundant as she assumes a new role. I’ve since acknowledged that I can never compete with a baby for Sukhi’s attention, but that I can offer her a different sort of relationship; one that the baby couldn’t compete with me for, either. And that’s okay. I can accept that, and I can look forward to having this special friendship with Sukhi where we are tied together by the bizarre experience that she, in a way, lived through with me. Of course, there is also the pain of not having my own child, and the fact that it will be a long time before I will be able to have one, considering I am now almost thirty and very much alone. But Daisy has assured me there are several options by which I can conceive naturally, and that my eggs are far from dried up just yet. So that’s a small silver lining, and something that helps encourage me to get better and get out of here. The quicker I’m happy and healthy, the quicker I’m free; and the quicker I’m free, the quicker I can go back to rebuilding a normal life and, hopefully, some day, having my own family.

Alongside the medication, weekly group-therapy sessions and phone calls with Sukhi, I am having extensive therapy sessions relating to Mother and my feelings about her. These are an almost daily occurrence and I have three different therapists. Daisy for my usual CBT chats, a hypnotherapist who is trying to draw out the darker memories my brain has locked away from me, and a therapist who specialises specifically in narcissistic personality disorder and how it affects any offspring.

It’s been eye-opening for me to realise that there are other women like me who have endured a similar upbringing. It’s also been enlightening, though difficult, to take in that none of it was my fault. It was never about me. Mother would have behaved the same way whoever her child was, because she was ill and her way of seeing the world was distorted. She was the main character, always. In her eyes, I was an adjunct who had no feelings, no emotions of my own, only there to support her and drive her forward. And in a way, I feel pity for her. What a sad way to live her life: without any real relationships, without any way of feeling true love or human sympathy.

She must have been as lonely as I am now.