Chapter 25
Jack
It’s Friday. I know where she will be tonight, just as I have for the past three weeks.
Outside the train window, the edges of Guildford come into view; the sun sinking behind the crooked buildings; the cathedral bruising the sky. The train is busy and each time a person bumps into me, each time there’s a nudge against my shoulder, I think of her.
I’ve replayed that conversation over and over. Questioned if she’s just really good at reading people. But she believes she can hear thoughts, see thoughts. It’s ludicrous. I must be mad to be even considering this.
I rub my forehead, a migraine already on the way.
Then again, I can write but not read… how many times have I had to explain that? They’re the thoughts that have been turning around in my mind for the past three weeks, like a scratch on a broken record.
What if it’s something more though and she really can hear what others are thinking?
If I told Nell what she’d said, she’d laugh and tell me to get as far away from her as possible and yet…
Yet, I can’t stop my mind questioning. It wakes me up in the night.
It haunted me as I tried to draft the email advert to sublet the shop that I still haven’t sent.
I’ve even tried to recall any time that Maggie could have read my thoughts in the days that followed. What would she have heard? That I feel like a failure? Did she know about my stroke before I told her? Is that how she knew Luke was telling the truth?
That’s the toughest thing to take. Because since I’ve met her, I haven’t felt the need to hide anything.
And if I’m being honest, part of me wants it to be true, to have one person see the darkest parts of me, the parts that scared Vicky away, that I try to hide away even from myself, and want a relationship with me anyway.
That’s what she said. She wanted to kiss me, she wanted me to know how she felt.
If she heard what I was thinking, would she still want to do that?
I shake my head. This is ridiculous. People can’t read minds.
* * *
Dr Levin’s office is not far from the uni campus, and I’m going to have to try and navigate my way through a town I don’t know, with road signs I can’t read.
I wait until I hear my stop and disembark.
I’ve been counting the times I’ve been accidentally touched since I left home.
I’ve made it out onto the street and I’ve already hit sixteen.
Sixteen people who Maggie says she would be able to ‘hear’.
I squint against the sun. I have no idea whether to walk left or right, or whether I’ve used the right exit from the station.
I open up my voice note with the instructions, cross the road outside the Black Swan Inn – easy to spot by the colours.
I stop still. The sound of the town is playing its own chaotic symphony: traffic parping horns, a couple arguing, and a man asking me for a fiver so he’s warm for the night. I give it and ask him directions.
I make a few wrong turns, getting more and more frustrated as my feet hit the pavement.
The ground is cobbled, and the air feels compacted around me.
There is something about this place that feels like it expects something of you, a greater knowledge of the world, which only amplifies as I make my way around the outskirts of the campus.
I unwind my scarf, shove my gloves into my pockets.
I looked at pictures of his office before I left, but I still have to ask three more people until I find a small row of houses at the end of a cul-de-sac. According to Google Maps playing in my ear, I have arrived at my destination.
I take a breath, looking up at the plaque on the front of the Victorian building.
There is a woman around Mum’s age outside the house next door.
I squint at the words, stepping forwards.
In my mind, I know that there will be a space between the two smudges of shape if this says Dr Levin but still my finger hovers over the buzzer.
I scratch my neck, squeeze my eyes shut and reopen them to see if I get any more clarity.
Since finding out more about Luke, that he wasn’t the one to cause the stroke, the pain has eased a little.
‘Forgotten your glasses?’ the woman asks, joining me: short blonde bob, bright red lipstick.
‘I… yes.’ I give an exaggerated eye roll. ‘I’m looking for Dr Levin?’
‘You’re in the right place.’ She looks back to the building, her face softening, and gives my arm a gentle squeeze.
I knock on the door, the sounds of a dog barking coming from behind.
Dr Levin is short, hairy and has thick glasses. He reminds me of a mole.
‘Hi, I’m Jack Chadwick. We have an appointment – sorry, I’m a bit late…’
‘Not to worry. Come on through.’
His office has high ceilings, yellow walls, battered leather sofas and arched windows that do little to block out the sounds outside.
‘So, Jack.’ The chair he’s sitting in seems to almost swallow him. ‘What brings you to my door?’
‘Well, I had a stroke and—’
‘Yes, yes. I know all about that, but why are you here?’ He peers at me over his glasses. Because if I didn’t come, I could financially ruin myself and end up losing my home and cost Nell her job. And it gives me something else to focus on.
‘I… I want to read again.’
‘Are you sure?’
What a question. Of course I do. I frown. ‘Yes.’
‘Because I’ve looked at your history and you’ve only made it to seven of your speech and language appointments in the past six months and I don’t have time to start the trial with a patient who isn’t fully committed.’
I shift in my seat. ‘Things have changed. Before, I didn’t remember much about the night it happened and any time I tried to read I would feel this pain at the back of my skull.’
‘Psychosomatic pain.’
‘Sorry?’
‘That’s what it’s called. When you experience that type of pain that is connected to trauma.’
‘Right. But since then…’ I push away the image of Maggie, of the way she tried to help me find the answers. ‘Since I’ve started to piece together a few things, the pain isn’t as… excruciating. So now I am. Committed.’
He taps his note pad with a pen. And waits. And waits. And waits.
‘Reading is part of me it’s…’
‘No. It’s not. Not any more.’
‘What am I doing here then?’ I ask, frustrated. ‘Isn’t that your job? To teach me? Shouldn’t we be reading right now?’ I’m being unnecessarily rude, but losing Maggie, not sleeping and the pressure of the new shop is taking its toll.
‘You can’t read.’
‘I know!’ I throw my hands up.
‘Good. Now we can start.’
Wait, what?
He leans forward with a green plate in his hands. ‘Choccy biccy?’
Christ. This is going to be worse than I thought.
Over the next hour I’m forced to try to read for his baseline assessment.
He told me not to think too hard, to be honest. And honestly?
I can hardly recognise any of the words on the page he gives me.
I’m sitting at the desk in the corner of the room, the sun too warm on the back of my neck.
Dr Levin is sitting opposite. The setup is the same as my parents’ desk at home.
He barely blinks; eyes scrutinising my every move, every attempt.
‘Llllllll—’ I stop take a breath and look back at the paper. ‘Lllllll… aaaaaa.’
‘Move on.’ He uses an extended pointer stick and taps the paper.
I don’t know what I was expecting to happen, but as I made my way here, I’d be lying if I didn’t feel a small seed of hope trying to grow.
All the last hour has taught me is that I.
Can’t. Read. And that Levin seems to have little patience with my pathetic attempts.
I let out a breath, waiting for him to tell me I’m a lost cause.
Instead, he produces another sheet of hieroglyphics.
This test is different. Four or five sets of ‘words’.
‘Can you tell me which of these are real words and which are fake?’
‘I can’t read.’
‘I know. Now tell me which is real and which is fake.’ He taps the paper again and I want to take the stick and shove it right up his— ‘Today, Jack. Not next week.’
I let out a long breath, staring back at the paper. ‘This one is fake?’
‘No, that one says “king”. Try again. Next box.’
When I look at the next box, something clicks. I can’t read it, but my body seems to shift internally, like I’m readjusting my balance when I’m standing on a bus and it brakes.
‘This one is fake.’
‘Good. Next one.’
I do as he says. I can somehow differentiate some of the fake words and even more bewilderingly, on the next sheet, I can spot words that are in Italian as opposed to English.
I finish the list. My head is pounding but I feel… I feel. Pleased? ‘How do I know that?’
‘It’s a common aspect of alexia. You can still recognise syntax patterns.’
‘Huh.’
‘That’s it for now. It’s lunchtime and if I don’t get to the deli all the pumpernickel bagels will be gone. I’ll see you Monday.’
‘Monday?’
‘As I explained to your father, this is an intensive course, Jack; I see you three days a week for six weeks.’
‘Oh. OK.’ I fold the paper.
‘Same time?’
‘Um. Yeah. I’ll be here.’ I pull on my coat and head towards the door.
‘Before I go…’ I should push the thoughts aside, keep Maggie and her confession locked away with the rest of my old life.
I’m behaving like a kid still trying to believe in Santa Claus even when the evidence is stacked up against the truth.
Even so, if what Maggie is saying is real, or some part of it is, I’ve just destroyed a relationship with the one person who gets me without having to pretend I’m someone I’m not. The words come out anyway.
‘Before I go, I have this… friend and she thinks she can hear thoughts.’
‘A friend?’ His eyebrows rise sardonically. He takes off his glasses and cleans them with the corner of his navy jumper.
I catch on. ‘A real friend. I don’t think I can hear people’s thoughts.’
‘Right.’ He puts his glasses back on.
‘Is there, I mean…’ I look to the picture on the wall of a much younger Dr Levin holding a pint to the camera. ‘Are there any studies about it? Or any theories?’
‘It’s not my area, I’m afraid.’
I’m being ridiculous. What did I think he was going to say?
Give me the answers to explain it all? I can’t ignore the way that it hurts to let that small glimmer of hope fall away though.
I’m clutching at the smallest of straws and I can’t deny the way I wish I had some glimmer of tangible evidence that I could hang on to.
If there is even a small chance that what she is saying is true, then I wouldn’t feel like I’m losing my mind for wanting to believe her.
I nod. ‘Well, thanks anyway.’
‘But there will be some papers on it somewhere. Have a dig around. You’ll find something I’m sure. Us academics can’t help ourselves researching one thing or another.’
I don’t ask how I’m supposed to do that when I can’t read.
‘And Jack?’
‘Hmmm?’ I wrap my scarf around my neck.
‘You did good.’