A Question of Sanity: Chapter Two C

She didn’t feel mad. As far as she was aware there were no periods of time unaccounted for in her day and yet, two people were convinced that they’d seen her when she hadn’t been there. Nothing in her world, or her understanding, made sense. Doctor Fielding, Ellie’s consultant, had assured her that there should be no mental retardation, but because the disease wasn’t common, this couldn’t be guaranteed. And yet here she was, just twenty-four hours post diagnosis, going crazy. She took some medication to calm her and to help her sleep.

Then she laid her head on her arms at the table and sobbed. Shortly afterwards, exhaustion took her to a place of tormented dreams.

She dreamed that she was sitting at the kitchen table. She looked up to see Matt walking towards her. He was smiling. Jake was barking somewhere. He was barking a warning. Matt had a bouquet of roses in his arms. As she looked at them the roses withered and desiccated. The delicate pink blooms turned tea-coloured and fell in brittle shards to the carpet. Matt wasn’t smiling anymore. The roses had turned into a pistol. He was still coming towards her. She tried to run but found that she couldn’t move from the chair. He raised the gun to eye level and Ellie woke up, terrified.

Somebody was in the room with her. A shadow passed across the door moving quickly but silently. She got up. The chair clattered behind her. She called out, ‘Matt? Who is it? Who’s there?’ Nobody answered. She ran towards the front door as it clicked shut. Along with the click, she heard George’s cheery voice saying, ‘Sizzling. See ya later, hot lips.’ She was dopey from the medication. She felt as though she was still in the dream. Her legs didn’t want to carry her. By the time she got to the gate there was nobody in sight. It must have been Matt. But why had he left again without waking her? The street was deserted. Jake was barking. He’d been barking all the time but she hadn’t registered it until now. She ran into the house. He wasn’t in the kitchen but his insistent scratching at the back door, coupled with the angry barking told her that he was in the garden. The back door was locked.

Somebody had locked him out there. Why would Matt do that? Ellie was confused and frightened. She let Jake in and re-locked the door. She checked that all of the doors and windows were locked. Making herself a coffee she sat at the table, leaving it untouched to go cold, fighting against the medication-induced sleep fogging her brain and bringing shadows to lull her back into her nightmares.

That’s how Matthew found her, four hours later. She roused herself, disturbed by Jake’s excited greeting.

Matt normally made a huge fuss of Jake when he came into the house. Sometimes he even had doggie-chocs in his pocket, or those little round biscuits that stop Jake farting.
Jake was ashamed of farting.
He would fart, look at his rear-end in shame and then run away from the smell. This made his humans laugh at him and that just made him more embarrassed.

Jake has not farted now.

He smelled his backside to make sure.

No, no fart. Matt was making that ‘down Jake’ noise. Matt didn’t like Jake today, but Jake’s a Good Boy. He hadn’t played chase with Matt’s hat. Matty hasn’t got a hat, so they can’t tell Jake off for playing chase with it. Jake’s going back to bed.

‘Down Jake,’ Matt said again, firmer this time, pushing Jake out of the way. Jake padded forlornly back to his basket as Matt rushed to Ellie’s side.
‘Ellie? What’s wrong? Are you all right?’

Since the onset of her illness, it took her longer to wake up. She raised her head from her arms with eyes still puffy and red from sleep and crying. She squinted at Matt, with the fugue of sleep leaving her. She looked at him and smiled in the moments before the events of the day seeped back into her mind, but they did come back, starting with a trickle and developing into a flood. Her eyes closed and she groaned.

‘Hello love. I’m fine. I’ve had a shitter of a day, but I’m okay, honest.’ Why didn’t she tell him about the intruder? What was holding her back? She remembered the pistol in her dream, the look in Matt’s eye. But that was just a dream. She frowned reasoning that dreams don’t usually lock doors. For the first time ever she felt the trust in her boyfriend give a jolt.

‘Are you sure you feel all right? You aren’t bathed and ready to go out.’

There was no accusation in his words, just concern. She remembered the dinner date and groaned again. Going out was the last thing that she felt like doing.

‘I’m sorry. I must have fallen asleep. Give me half an hour and I’ll be ready.’

‘You look shattered. Listen, Ellie, I know you were looking forward to it but I really think we ought to cancel tonight. We can go out any time. Let’s get a Chinese and just relax here. What do you say?’

Those words were a sweet salve to her tattered nerves. God, she loved this man. She pushed the next thought away: but what about the pistol, Ellie?
‘Yes, I’d like that, but only on one condition. For putting you out, tonight is my treat.’

‘No, Ellie, I was going to take you out and now I’m going to treat you to dinner in. No arguments, okay?’

The stranger, who was becoming an all-too-frequent visitor, crept onto her shoulder and for the third time that day, Ellie felt something snap inside her. It came from nowhere and without any warning.

‘I am not a God-damned invalid. Don’t treat me like a crippled degenerate just because I’m dying. If I want to buy you a meal I will, all right? You come in here with your eyes spewing out pity. Well, you can take your fucking pity and shove it as far up your good intentions as your moralistic finger will reach. If you can’t treat me normally you can fuck off, go and save a whipped puppy.’

Ellie’s voice broke on a desperate sob and the tears poured down her face.
‘I’m not going mad. I’m not going fucking mad. And I will not be treated like a broken doll. Do you hear me?’ She only ran out of words when the snot at the back of her throat threatened to choke her. She was sobbing so hard that it took all the oxygen from her lungs, leaving no air to fuel her angry words.

Matt stepped back in shock at her outburst. She had never lost her temper with him in the two years that they’d known each other. She had rarely even raised her voice to him. Ellie was the calmest and most placid person that he had ever known. Apart from the night before when she’d seduced him, he’d never heard her say a word stronger than shit. He was shocked and upset.
‘Oh, Matty, I think I’m going insane. Hold me, please,’ she whispered, almost inaudibly.

He moved to take her in his arms. He didn’t know where the notion came from that she was losing her mind. He’d never insinuated it as her accusation suggested, but this strange woman that he held bore little resemblance to his gentle Ellie.

She moulded her body to his and cried herself out. He made soft placating noises in her ear and whispered gently to her as he felt all the anger and tension melt away from her body. He felt a wet patch forming on the front of his best shirt. He wondered if Ellie had left snot stains on his front and he realised that he didn’t give a damn if she had. As he felt her wilt, he led her through to the sofa. Between the residual sobs, she told him about the horrible day she’d had. At least her irrational behaviour made some sense now, but he was still shocked by the vehemence of her anger. An hour later, Ellie announced that she was starving. Matt didn’t dare offer to buy the meal. That was what had set her off earlier so he sat quietly, his brow knitting into a jumper of worry lines as she went to get her purse. It was only a matter of seconds before the next drama of the day unfolded.
The back door was unlocked and Ellie’s purse had been stolen.