The Book: Chapter 17

Alice’s life was unbearable.

When she put the book down and went upstairs, Mick barely spoke to her. When he did, resentment made her skin crawl. He was furious about the misunderstanding with the bell, the crutches and her deliberate cruelty. But he had to comprehend that it was all caused by his demands. She wasn’t unreasonable. It came from exhaustion and the desperate need for some peace. She’d left him stranded, desperate and crawling across the bedroom floor like an injured animal. He knew she did it on purpose.

‘I’m sorry about that,’ she’d said. It was as feeble an apology as if she’d bent over and broken wind.

He lay in bed, rigid. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and she’d made no effort to provide food or ask if he needed anything. He’d gone without painkillers all day and groaned in discomfort. And it had been hours since she’d taken his juice away, but he was too stubborn to beg her for a drink.

Living with him was worse than she’d ever imagined. What had she been thinking? He had the precision of a hawk when he groped for the remote, and he could flick channels at speed. It was like caring for a child.

The next time she went to the bedroom, it was late. She made him a cup of tea with marmalade toast and gave him his painkillers, which he swallowed with a gulp of scalding tea. She’d crushed a few extra sleeping pills into his tea. It wasn’t too many, just enough to keep him quiet.

He’d taken it fast, thirsty after going all day without a drink, but as he neared the bottom of the mug he stopped. He swirled the dregs and his expression darkened.

‘What have you done?’ His voice was already slurring. ‘Alice?’

‘It’s just your pills, and some Oramorph Mick.’

He stared at her. ‘You drugged me?’

‘Don’t be dramatic. You were going to take them anyway. It’s just a bit extra to help you through the night.’ Drugging her boyfriend wasn’t her finest moment, but he’d been insufferable so it was justified.

He opened his mouth to argue, but his body betrayed him. His limbs were slow-moving, his head lolled against the pillow, and his eyelids looked heavy. Alice watched as his outrage was replaced by exhaustion. He was too weak to fight. She should have felt guilty. But she didn’t.

She sat next to him in bed and read the book. She was lost in the reality of her life and laughed when she read the part about Mick crawling on his belly across the floor. The book was funny. When she put it on the bedside table, Mick was deep in an unnatural sleep. He looked peaceful and she was happy for him.

She woke the next morning to the sound of him struggling out of bed. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

She propped herself on one elbow and watched him reach for a shirt and his shorts that she’d split down the seam to fit over his cast. He didn’t even turn around as he fought to get dressed. ‘I’m going home.’

‘Don’t be stupid. You can’t manage on your own.’

‘It’s better staying here while you murder me.’

‘You’re being dramatic. I gave you a couple of extra pills to help you sleep, that’s all. Grow up, Mick.’

He hooked his shoes one at a time with his crutch and drew them closer to him. Alice didn’t move to help.

‘I’d rather crawl home than stay with you. I can’t take anymore. We’re finished, Alice.’

He penetrated deep enough that he pierced through the enchantment to the person she used to be. His words cut through her with the brutality of a rusted blade dragging across bone. Alice absorbed their sting. ‘Please, don’t do this. I’ll change.’

He shook his head. ‘I can’t stay after what you did.’

‘You’re overreacting. Come back to bed and I’ll bring you some breakfast before I go to work.’

‘What? Are you insane?’

‘Apparently so. At least, that’s what you keep telling me. Look, it’s my first day back today and, quite honestly, I can do without all this drama.’

He stared at her as though she’d sprouted a second head. ‘Don’t you get it? I can’t be here. I’m frightened of you, Alice. Do you hear me? I’m scared of my own girlfriend.’

‘Don’t be silly. It’s just me, baby.’ She reached for him to pull him onto the bed. Sex was always a useful weapon.

‘I’ve got to go,’ he said.  

She clenched her fists, her nails digging into her palms. ‘Fine. Go then. Good riddance.’

She couldn’t believe he was leaving her. She watched him use his crutches to leave the room and heard him bump down the stairs on his bottom.

‘You haven’t brushed your teeth,’ she called.

She stood at the top of the stairs, listening as he called a taxi before slamming the door on his way out. The rage vibrated through her, and something dark controlled her. A tiny voice whispered in the back of her mind. Her voice. But it was so small now that it was difficult to catch.  It said he was right to leave her.

She shoved the thought away and stormed downstairs. ‘Good riddance,’ she shouted down the stairs. She got ready for work, remembered to see to Erik’s needs, and stuffed the book in her bag before leaving.

When she got to the hospital, the atmosphere was different. She’d barely stepped into the unit when she felt the atmosphere shift. The tension was thicker than an NHS budget meeting. And there was a stillness she hadn’t expected. She’d only been gone a few days, but the place had moved on without her.

During the handover, her colleagues spoke over Alice. She couldn’t lead because she hadn’t been there to know what was happening She made notes about the patient’s welfare as the night shift reeled off names and related what kind of night they’d had. Everybody avoided looking at her. Mara welcomed her back, and the others made vague murmurs of acceptance regarding her return but the usual morning bustle seemed subdued. A fog of tension had settled over the ward, and Alice knew it was because of her breakdown. They called it that officially now.

‘Things have been quiet while you were away,’ Felix said. ‘Back to what we perceive as normal around here.’

Alice could see it in their faces. They were walking on eggshells around her, waiting for her to unravel. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.

She’d been excluded from doing rounds or consultations as part of her phased return to work. It was further humiliation, but she was happy in her office until the emergency alarm sounded.

She was still the senior consultant on the unit, and she ran to the patient’s room. Some of the staff were already there, clustered around the door.

Alice pushed through the group and stopped to assess the scene.

‘Should you be here, Alice?’ Mara asked. She looked embarrassed and couldn’t look her in the eye.

‘Of course, I should. I’m the senior consultant.’

Daniel lay half on his bed, his body still—a grotesque swaddled chrysalis. At the moment of death, his torso had contorted in agony and his skin was mortuary blue. Alice had a lapse in concentration. Daniel was already dead, there was nothing she, or anybody else, could do to help him. She dug into her days at college to come up with the exact shade of his skin and was pleased when the words cyanotic blue came to her.

‘Dr Grant?’ Mara instructed Debbie and Felix to clear the ward and get everybody into their rooms. ‘Dr Grant?’ she repeated.

‘Hm?’ Alice roused herself from her thoughts.

‘We need to call Dr Calvert. You don’t have clearance to confirm the death so we can give Daniel some dignity.’

‘Rubbish. Of course I can do it.’  

The cause of death was clear. Daniel had suffocated—but Alice had never seen anything like this before. His head was encased in thick layers of duct tape. They were wrapped tightly around his face, covering his mouth, nose, and eyes.

The unit was kept as safe as possible for the patients, but it was neither a prison nor a padded cell. Sharp objects were monitored sensibly, but there’d never been cause to guard a roll of tape.  ‘I don’t know where he got it, but it’s possible that he picked it out of a workman’s belongings when they came to work on the dodgy hall lighting,’ she said to Mara, keeping her voice low. ‘I’ll mention it to the police when they arrive.’

‘Police? That’s going to unsettle the rest of them.’

‘It’s a clear suicide, but an unexpected death like this necessitates a formal investigation.’

Thoughts of the book and her breakdown were forgotten as Alice clicked into a professional mode of working, and Mara touched her shoulder. No words were needed, but Mara said with a gesture that she accepted Alice’s authority.

The silver duct tape gleamed under the light, crisscrossing Daniel’s features to form a grotesque death mask. His fingers were bloodied. His jagged nails had ripped from their beds when the instinct to survive had taken hold and he’d tried to claw himself free. He had one leg on the floor and he’d lost a trainer.

Alice saw the book on his table and her stomach tumbled, the contents threatening to void.

Debbie said, ‘He must have done it in the breakfast rush. We found him like this during checks.’ His untouched breakfast tray sat next to it. Nothing said last meal like bacon, toast, and a mid-morning sprinkle of demonic possession.

Alice didn’t hear Debbie. Her eyes had fallen to the table. She moved to the bedside and stared at the book.

It was there, beside a plate of bacon and congealing eggs. Next to a cold cup of tea. Alongside two slices of toast and a little plastic serving of jam. And it cosied up to a bottle of ketchup. The book was right there at breakfast. She lost herself and remembered a song from Sesame Street.

‘One of these things is not like the others,’ she sang. ‘One of these things just doesn’t belong. Can you tell which thing is not like the others? By the time I finish my song.’

‘Hang in there, Alice. You’re doing great.’ Mara whispered into her ear, but Alice saw how the others stared at her, relishing her mini meltdown. ‘Clear the room. Debbie, please take Daniel’s tray to the kitchen and close the door behind you.’

She turned Alice around. ‘He must have picked it up when he found the tape. It’s just a book Alice. Just a book, love.’

‘It was in my bag in my locked office.’

‘Daniel didn’t have a key, I promise you. You must have brought it to the nurse’s station. You know him, he’ll take anything that isn’t screwed down.’ Mara laughed it was false and grating.

‘Yes, that must be what happened.’ And like a Minah bird, Alice copied the exact tone of Mara’s laugh and returned it to her. They chuckled as the body of a thirty-year-old man lay within five feet of them. We must act natural at all costs, Alice thought. Silly Dr, Grant.

 She had a job to do and pulled herself together. ‘Daniel Platt,’ she said. Using his name reinforced the fact that he was a human being, still in her care, and he deserved her compassion. She got a grip and thought about the procedure and what needed to be done. ‘He’s been dead for a while, but I still need to pronounce it and record an official time of death.’ She looked at her fob. ‘Time of death, eight forty-six am.’ She looked at the clock on Daniel’s wall to confirm it. 

Her breath threatened to run a marathon without her, and she reigned it in. She needed to get out of that room, away from people. ‘Mara, please can you continue here and I’ll ring the police and coroner?’

She looked at Daniel again. ‘Rest in peace, Danny,’ she said and picked the book up as though it wasn’t important before leaving the room.

She sat at her desk. Her nightmare was as warm and pulsed as though it had just been fed. It was as hot as Mick’s body when he spooned her in bed. The thought of Mick brought a pang of heartache with it. She swallowed hard before pushing him aside and opening the book.

Written in its pages, was the story of Mick leaving, and after that a detailed account of  Daniel’s death. It outlined his suicide in graphic detail, describing the suffocation and the way he’d wrapped the tape around his head in as many layers as it took for him to lose consciousness—six complete rings while his breath held out.  He’d sealed himself in. The words in the book described his burning lungs, the desperate clawing at the tape when he knew there was no escape, and the moment he gave in. Worse, it talked her through his thought process and emotional state. She read every one of his poor, messed-up thoughts and the compulsion he felt that something was pressing on him to do it. The book gloated at its success.

Alice took the guilt.

There was a knock at the door and she snapped the book shut. ‘Come in.’

She managed to stop her voice from shaking. She must act normal. Her career depended on it.

She was certain now. And the truth was more horrific than a written retrospective account. The book had written Daniel’s death before it happened—because the book made it happen.

And it was in her hands again.

She stuffed it in her bag.

Mara was staring at her and she met her eyes, pretending everything was fine.

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