Now
Sam and Greg are talking about me again, standing here, right in front of my chair, as if both of them have begun to believe that those who do not speak also cannot hear.
‘We can pinpoint the exact moment of dissociation,’ Greg says.
‘The question is, how much does she remember about what happened?’
Sam says, ‘You honestly think she doesn’t know?
’
I don’t like the way his voice sounds; these words of his slither around the base of my stomach, they stick like an airlock in my throat.
‘Until she speaks to us or finds some other way to communicate, it’s impossible for us to be sure of what she does and doesn’t remember.
This is all conjecture at the moment, but in cases such as these – and they are rare – the patient often wipes out the exact moment of trauma because they are unable to process it.
’
‘It’s been almost three months, Greg.
’
Sam’s voice is earnest, angsty, I can hear his frustration with the doctor.
Why can’t you sort it out?
That’s what he’s thinking.
Why don’t you know exactly what’s wrong with her?
Why can’t you fix it?
‘You’ve made your diagnosis, you’ve told us she has dissociative disorder.
Why aren’t we seeing any improvement?
Why doesn’t she want to get better?
It’s as if she doesn’t care.
’
‘Have you heard of la belle indifference? Freud again, he coined the term. He used it to describe people who apparently didn’t seem to care about their symptoms. But really this indifference is just another tool to avoid an unbearable feeling or memory.
Catherine’s shutdown, if you like, is simply her means of forgetting what happened at Shute Park.
And making sure it stays forgotten.
’
‘So what now, Greg? What now?’
Sam’s voice is calm but his quiet anger is spray-painted on my brain.
‘Is she going to get better? Are you going to cure her?’
‘I know it’s frustrating, but right now we just don’t know what the outcome will be.
The most important thing is that you don’t give up hope, Sam.
And you have to give her more time.
That’s the only thing you can do.
’
After Greg leaves, I hear Sam sitting down in the chair next to mine and I know without looking that he is crying.
He doesn’t bother to talk to me at first, none of his usual stream-of-consciousness chat, relentless and forced, an enormous effort for a man who was famed for his brevity.
I almost forget that he’s there, it’s such a long time before he starts speaking again.
When I tune back in, I understand that he’s talking about a day at the beach last summer.
Lulworth Cove, he says.
The one with the cliff, the one with the famous door.
Durdle Door. Jurassic arch.
Geological wonder. There’s something in his voice as he says this and it takes me a while to work out what it is.
Do I remember what happened that day, he’s asking, the last time we went there?
He doesn’t mean the obligatory climb to get the best view of that ancient rocky door hooping up from the water, a Caribbean turquoise when viewed from the top.
He doesn’t mean the little wooden dinghy we ended up buying, a small, shabby boat that captured all our hearts.
He wants to know if I remember what came afterwards, and I do.
The day when everything changed, the precise moment, as it turned out, when I was able to start working my way back to you.