Chapter 15
As Phoebe’s motorbike pulls up on the gravel turning circle outside the large Georgian house, she double-checks she has the right address. 1 Magnolia Street. An elegant number 1 is carved into the stone fa?ade, where wisteria climbs its way around the enormous sash windows. She parks alongside a gleaming white Land Rover, taking in the imposing building in front of her.
When it comes to her patients, there are certain types she has become familiar with over the years. There are the patients whose lives started badly and never really got any better, drifting from care to temporary housing and in and out of hospital and local police stations. There are many who have been dealing with mental ill health since they were teenagers, people who Phoebe has got to know over the years as they bounce back and forth between independence and hospitalisation.
But then there are also the new patients who join her caseload having had no known mental health problems until the day they turned up in A E, having tried to kill themselves with their dead husband’s razor.
Mrs Ramsgate is one of those patients. Phoebe pulls out her laptop to quickly check her notes, before slipping it back in her bag and heading towards the front door. As she draws closer, she spots a few signs of disrepair that no one would notice if they were just driving along the street, glancing for a moment at the impressive building. The paintwork on the window frames is peeling and there is a row of withered houseplants visible inside. Phoebe has never been one for houseplants herself. It’s enough trying to keep herself and her patients alive.
She knocks on the large brass knocker and steps back slightly to wait.
The door is pulled rapidly open by an incredibly slim woman around Phoebe’s age, dressed in tight jeans, a crisp white shirt and a navy gilet. Diamonds sparkle at her ears, her golden blonde hair pulled back from her face with a velvet headband. Her eyebrows rise for a second as she takes Phoebe in, before her expression settles into a tight-lipped frown.
‘You must be the gardener, we’ve been waiting for you. I hope you don’t think I’ll be paying you for the full three hours.’
Phoebe smiles politely. It’s not the first time something like this has happened. ‘I’m afraid you wouldn’t want me anywhere near your garden. I’m much better at looking after humans than plants. I’m Phoebe, a mental health nurse here to see Mrs Ramsgate.’
‘Oh.’ The woman’s nose wrinkles as if Phoebe is emitting an unpleasant odour. To be fair, she didn’t have time to go back home and shower after her morning swim, so there is a chance she does have a slight waft of river to her. But she’d brushed her hair and checked her make-up, reapplying her bright red lipstick to make sure she looked put together and neat and not as though she’d spent the morning on a riverbank.
But Phoebe doesn’t think that’s the problem.
‘You don’t look like a nurse.’ The woman casts her eyes up and down, taking in Phoebe’s motorcycle boots, jeans, leather jacket and the helmet under her arm, her bag in the other. Just wait till the jacket comes off and she sees the tattoos.
‘Here’s my identification,’ Phoebe says, tugging a lanyard with her photo and details out from inside her jacket to show it to the woman, who barely glances down. ‘Or I could demonstrate if you’d like? I’m extremely quick at finding veins for blood tests if you’d like to give me your arm?’
The woman’s eyebrows raise again and Phoebe immediately regrets the joke. Sometimes they can be a way of breaking the ice, but this woman appears to be carved out of an iceberg.
‘Why aren’t you wearing scrubs?’ she asks, her nose wrinkling again.
‘We tend not to wear them in my line of work. We find it can help the people we work with if we don’t look too formal. Some of our patients are a little wary of health professionals. Can I come in? Is Mrs Ramsgate inside?’
‘Of course, sorry,’ says the woman, composing herself and holding the door open.
Phoebe follows her through into a large tiled foyer, a sweeping staircase leading upstairs. All the furniture looks antique and there are framed portraits on the walls, but the surfaces are dusty, a stack of mail teetering on a table in the middle of the room. Phoebe catches a glimpse through to what looks like a very masculine study, noting the empty chair and the jacket that still hangs there.
There’s an old-fashioned telephone seat next to the door and Phoebe perches there to take off her clunky boots. She puts down her helmet and takes off her leather jacket too, hanging it neatly on the back of the chair.
‘Oh, you don’t have to do that,’ the woman says, glancing down at Phoebe’s socked feet. She went for rainbow stripes today. ‘It’s not exactly tidy in here …’ Embarrassment tinges her voice.
‘That’s OK. It’s still your home. Or your … mother’s, maybe?’
‘Yes, sorry. I’m Arabella.’ She reaches a hand up to smooth an invisible stray hair. ‘Mum’s upstairs. I’ve been staying ever since …’ Her voice catches, cracking slightly. Her welcome might have been less than warm, but Phoebe immediately feels sorry for her. Her face might be smoothed with what looks like incredibly expensive foundation, but Phoebe can still see the dark shadows beneath her eyes. And a glance at her hands shows that her manicured fingernails are bitten, the skin around her cuticles red and sore. She’s learnt over the years to look closely for certain signs, not just in her patients, but in their loved ones too. If they’re lucky enough to have loved ones to support them.
‘Ever since she got back from hospital?’ Phoebe finishes gently for her.
Arabella nods silently, her eyes glistening.
‘She’s very lucky to have you looking out for her,’ Phoebe says, placing a hand lightly on Arabella’s arm. She flinches at the touch but doesn’t move. ‘But I’m here to help you now. This all must have been really tough on you.’
All of Arabella’s poise and frostiness melts away as she breaks down into tears. Phoebe keeps her hand on her arm, waiting patiently as the emotion spills out. She senses that Arabella doesn’t need words right now, just someone to be with her and let her not be OK.
Eventually, Arabella sniffs loudly, wiping her nose with her pristine white sleeve. Phoebe pulls a pack of tissues out of her bag and hands one to Arabella.
‘Thanks,’ she says with a sniff. ‘I know she’s been feeling low ever since Daddy died. It’s been hard on all of us. But I just never thought she’d do something like this …’ She wraps her arms around herself, her slender frame sinking in on itself.
‘It must have been a real shock,’ Phoebe says softly. ‘But the fact that she has been discharged from hospital is a good thing. It means the doctors there think she isn’t feeling like hurting herself anymore.’
Because Phoebe knows that’s what Arabella will be thinking. If her mother could attempt something like this once, what’s to say she won’t do it again? The unfortunate answer is that there are never any guarantees. But Phoebe will do her best to make sure that doesn’t happen.
‘Why don’t you show me through to your mum and then go and have a lie-down? You must be exhausted.’
Arabella nods meekly. ‘I haven’t really been sleeping. She’s upstairs. I’ve been trying to persuade her to get out into the garden, she and Daddy always used to love spending time there. That’s why I called a gardener. I thought if I could spruce things up a bit, maybe I could tempt Mum outside.’
Phoebe follows Arabella up the curving staircase and along the corridor to a large bedroom that faces the garden. Camilla Ramsgate looks tiny beneath the covers of a grand four-poster bed, a patchwork quilt laid across her lap as she leans back against a pile of cushions. The curtains are open, which Phoebe suspects must have been Arabella’s doing, but instead of looking out at the trees in the garden, Mrs Ramsgate stares down at her hands, her hair falling slightly in front of her face. There is a threadbare chaise longue beneath the window and Phoebe spots a crumpled sleeping bag there alongside a book.
Arabella catches her looking and says very quietly, ‘I haven’t wanted to leave her.’ Then, more loudly and with a forced jollity to her voice, she says, ‘Mummy, Nurse Harrison is here to see you.’
The woman in the bed glances up, her expression vacant.
‘Oh,’ is all she says. Then she goes back to looking at her hands.
Arabella shoots a look at Phoebe, biting the corner of her thumb.
‘It’s OK,’ Phoebe says quietly to her. ‘We’ll get to know one another and I’ll call you if we need anything, OK?’
Arabella pauses for a moment, watching her mother. Then she nods slightly and slinks off down the corridor, leaving Phoebe and her patient alone.
Despite the size of the room, the atmosphere is oppressive. Phoebe wonders when Mrs Ramsgate last went outside.
‘It’s nice to meet you, Mrs Ramsgate. Is it all right if I call you Camilla? You can call me Phoebe.’ Phoebe takes a small velvet chair from its spot opposite an antique dressing table and drags it over to the bedside.
‘Yes, that’s fine.’ Camilla lets out a sigh as if even saying those few words has taken it out of her.
Phoebe settles herself in the chair, not rushing to say anything else just yet. She has learnt the value of silence over the years.
Camilla glances through the doorway, as if only just noticing that Arabella has left, or was there in the first place.
‘I hate how much she worries about me. I know she wants to see me up and about, but I just feel so tired.’
‘That might well be a side effect of your medication. And fatigue is a big part of depression.’
‘Depression …’ Camilla says, as if reading a word in a foreign language aloud for the first time. ‘You know my generation doesn’t really believe in things like that.’
‘It’s certainly an attitude I’ve encountered before,’ Phoebe admits.
Camilla twists her pearl earrings between her fingers, the flash of several rings glinting on her hands. As her sleeve slips, Phoebe catches sight of the scars on her left wrist. They have healed nicely, but she knows from past patients that the marks will never disappear completely. They’ll always be a part of her.
‘I was taught to keep my emotions to myself,’ Camilla continues, adjusting the quilt on her lap. ‘Strong upper lip and whatnot.’
‘Except that doesn’t always work, does it?’
‘No. Quite.’
Phoebe glances at Camilla’s bedside table where a pill bottle and glass of water stand alongside several silver-framed black-and-white photographs of a young couple on their wedding day. Although Camilla might have changed dramatically since then, she is still recognisable in the photographs of her in her white lace wedding dress. Phoebe’s attention is drawn particularly to the photograph in the middle, where Camilla’s head is turned towards her husband’s, looking up at him with a proud smile as he faces the camera, beaming, his face slightly obscured by a blur of confetti.
‘Besides,’ Phoebe continues, ‘I’m not so interested in diagnoses and medical terms like that. For now, I really just want to know how you’re feeling. Do you think you could tell me a bit about that?’
Camilla sighs in response, saying nothing.
Phoebe glances at the photos again and decides to try a different approach.
‘What was your husband’s name?’
For the first time since Phoebe arrived, a smile appears on Camilla’s face. She reaches out for the central photograph on the bedside table, lifting it towards the light. ‘Edward. My Teddy.’
‘You look very in love.’
‘We were.’ Her eyes grow misty. ‘Of course, all couples have their little arguments. And, my goodness, his snoring … But we were in love. Right until the end.’
Phoebe’s attention drifts to the table on the other side of the bed. There are a pair of reading glasses folded on top of a copy of a political biography. Propped up beside it is a small, framed photograph, this time of Camilla on her own, perhaps in her twenties, smiling broadly, a rose tucked behind one ear.
It’s hard, sometimes, to imagine that there was once laughter and great joy in her patients’ lives when she meets them at their rock bottom. Seeing the photographs draws to Phoebe’s mind a very different Camilla, a Camilla who perhaps laughed easily and smiled often. Who cheated at Scrabble but whose charm let her always get away with it. Phoebe’s hope is that the person in that photograph is still in there somewhere.
‘I understand it happened quite suddenly. That must have been a huge shock for you.’
Camilla nods, wiping tears from her sparkling blue eyes. ‘Yes. I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye. And after that … Well, I just couldn’t imagine my life without him. I still can’t, really.’ She puts the wedding photo down, her hand trembling slightly. Then she takes a deep breath, pushing her hair behind her ears and meeting Phoebe’s eye properly for the first time. ‘I do want to feel better, though. For Arabella more than anything. She’s already lost her father …’ Her voice trembles again and she stops, unable to continue.
‘Well, the fact that you want to feel better is a huge thing. That’s the start of things getting better, even if I know it mustn’t feel like that right now. What I want to do in our time together is to help you find some things to feel hopeful about again, and to give you some tools to help when those dark feelings descend, as I’m sure they will sometimes. And if those feelings ever get overwhelming, I’m here for you to talk to. I can imagine there’s only so much you feel able to tell your daughter about how you’re feeling.’
Camilla nods. ‘I don’t want her to worry about me. But I hate having to be dishonest when she asks if I’m OK.’
‘That’s understandable. But you can tell me anything, however bad it might seem.’
Another nod.
‘One of my first steps is going to be trying to get you out of this room. It’s a beautiful room – in fact, it’s about the size of my whole flat …’ Is Phoebe imagining it or does Camilla smile slightly at that? There’s certainly a glimmer of amusement in her eye that gives Phoebe hope. ‘But I think it might help to get out and reconnect with some of the things that used to make you happy. What did you love to do before all of this happened?’
The older woman’s attention drifts to the window, where the trees sway slightly, bright green leaves dancing against a sky scattered with pale clouds.
‘I loved to spend time with my husband.’
Phoebe kicks herself as she sees Camilla closing down again, her lips drawing tightly together. She fell into that one. Perhaps she should have phrased it differently.
‘What about things you used to do just for yourself? Can you think of a time you did something for yourself that made you really happy?’
Helping her patients isn’t about getting them to live a version of their life that she thinks will make them feel better. It has to come from them. And that can mean all sorts of different things. It might even mean looking after bees, Phoebe thinks to herself, recalling her patient Maude. She still hasn’t worked out how to help realise that particular ambition. She files the thought away alongside the many other things on her to-do list.
‘I … I don’t know.’ Camilla frowns, the question clearly rolling over in her mind. She looks up, meeting Phoebe’s eye. ‘What would your answer be?’
It takes her by surprise. When has she felt truly happy in the past? She expects some memory of her and Max to pop up, bringing with it a stab of pain, but instead, the image that comes to mind is of glittering blue water, warm sun and the feeling of sand between her toes and salt on her lips.
‘When I was younger, I used to love swimming in the sea. I grew up in Cornwall, so I basically lived on the beach. Although swimming hasn’t been a big part of my life in recent years.’
Or at all. She hasn’t had time for swimming. She signed up to a gym with a pool once but ended up never using her membership so cancelled it a few months later. But then there was this morning’s impromptu dip. She thinks back to laughing with Sandra, Jazz and Hester and to the soothing feeling of the cool water on her skin. God, it had felt good.
Camilla nods again, a thoughtful expression appearing on her face. ‘I started running a few years ago. I wasn’t very fast and never went particularly far, but I did enjoy it.’
‘There we go,’ Phoebe replies enthusiastically. ‘That’s a great start. Going out for a gentle jog sounds like a brilliant idea.’
‘Oh, I don’t know. I can’t see myself doing that now …’
Phoebe can sense Camilla retreating inside herself. Shit. She thinks about Arabella and how terrified she clearly is about her mother’s well-being, however hard she might have tried to hide it when she first opened the door to the big old house that seems so empty with just the two of them in it.
‘It might help you feel more like yourself again,’ she tries, tentatively.
But Camilla shakes her head, her eyes filling with tears again. ‘I won’t ever feel like myself again.’
A silence descends on the grand, sad room. Phoebe runs through all the techniques she could try but for once finds herself struggling to know how to pull Camilla out from her darkness. And then an idea occurs to her.
‘How about this. I’ll get back to swimming if you get back to running.’
‘Really?’ Camilla raises an eyebrow, fixing Phoebe with a challenging expression that says she doesn’t really believe her. The expression just makes Phoebe feel even more determined. She wants to do something to make Camilla feel that she can trust her. And it strikes her now that maybe she’s been something of a hypocrite in the past. How can she expect her patients to follow her advice about exercising, eating well and finding time for the things that help their mental well-being when she doesn’t follow her own advice? Is she just a massive fraud?
‘Yes, really. Next time I visit, I promise I will have gone for a swim. I’ll tell you all about it and you can tell me about your run. Deal?’
Camilla might have lost the love of her life, and, for a while, all hope for the future, but Phoebe wants to show her that there are things that could make her feel happy again. And she wants to do whatever she can to stop this woman’s daughter from feeling as though she can’t leave the room for fear of what her mother might do to herself.
She senses Camilla hesitating as she glances around the room that has been her whole world since returning from hospital.
‘I should stress,’ Phoebe says, attempting a wry smile, ‘me agreeing to go for a swim is a big deal. It’s been months since I last sorted out my bikini line.’
A loud noise bursts out of Camilla’s mouth. It takes Phoebe a second to realise that it’s laughter.
Within moments, Arabella appears at the door, looking flustered.
‘Is everything all right?’ She rubs her eyes, her hair mussed from sleep. She glances between her mother and Phoebe and back again, her eyebrows shooting up as she sees the smile on her mother’s face.
‘Everything’s fine,’ assures Phoebe. ‘Your mum has just agreed to go for a jog.’
Phoebe isn’t sure if Arabella would look more shocked if she’d said her mum had just agreed to do karaoke on live television. While naked.
‘Really?’
Phoebe looks at Camilla questioningly. She wouldn’t normally push a patient like this, but over the years, she’s got pretty good at getting the measure of people. And she can sense a steeliness beneath Camilla’s vulnerability. She just needs a helping hand.
‘Yes,’ nods Camilla determinedly. ‘You heard correctly.’
Arabella’s shoulders sink and she rushes to her mother’s side, reaching for her hand.
‘That’s wonderful, Mum!’
Mother and daughter lock eyes, a look of great meaning passing between them. Phoebe can see how tightly they hold each other’s hand. She casts her eyes up quickly at the ceiling, a trusty technique of hers. She will not let herself cry.
Arabella remains in the room, perched on the side of the bed, holding her mum’s hand, while Phoebe does the medical checks she needs to do. When it’s time for her to leave, they are still sitting like that, quietly holding on to one another.
‘I’ll leave you to it. It was lovely to meet you both. I can see myself out.’
Both women seem so caught up in one another that she isn’t sure they heard her at first. But just as she is about to leave, a voice reaches her from the bed. ‘And don’t forget your side of the bargain too, Phoebe.’
Phoebe nods, lifting her hand to wave goodbye.
‘A promise is a promise.’ And when Phoebe makes a promise to her patients, she doesn’t let them down. It’s a principle that might have cost her love life, but it’s what makes her so good at her job.
She’d better buy a swimsuit. And one that actually fits.