Ø      I’m not, am I? she said.

They looked at me. All three of them and she made four. It was a loaded question. A .375 Magnum hollow tipped frag shell pull a bull elephant to its knees first time, every time kinda loaded question.

v     Well, go on, said that little voice in my head.

It was the voice we’ve all got, so it was an OK voice this time.

They were still looking at me.

Ø      You know that’s not right, what you said’s not right.

That’s what I said, running my hand over her shoulder, pointlessly fiddling the seams of her blouse into a line like it would make things straight between us.

What else could I have done, it was only 3 hours ago since it had begun, since it had got dark outside and in here…

…I was screaming, slamming the table with the flat of my hand.

Ø      …For god’s sake, put it down.

Nothing like a bit of calm in a crisis to defuse a bad situation and this was surely nothing like a bit…you get the picture.

v     For my sake, put it down. For your sake, put it down.

Ø      You don’t want to do this, I told her.

She wasn’t serious. I knew that. It was just how to punish me, hurt me. Not because I should be or needed to be or deserved to be, but because it was a distraction, a diversion, some solace from the pain inside. A barrier against the memories that seduced, beckoned her to return, to flounder in them, numbed to comfort by all that wallowing pain and isolation. Protection from a world that had treated her so badly.

The first time I heard her story I was sick. That might have been a clue but I wasn’t having any of it. You don’t want to know any more than I want to say. If I said the rape and the buggery were the least of it, you’d understand. She’d used a brillo pad to cleanse herself.  It was in now but I didn’t want it there in my head. No one would.

Ø      What are you going to do now, Geoff.

She tried to sneer. Difficult for her to talk with her head cocked on one side. Chin cradled to the left by her shoulder, the colour dimpling out of her neck where the end of the steel pressed in, so keen and hungry.

She’d got that much right. Found the carotid there OK, not just a vein. But then she knew about veins, had spent years finding them.

Ø      I’m gonna do it.

v     She will you know and there’ll never believe you. Then you’ll be for it.

I knew she wasn’t going to. That thought writhed in my head. I could just hear myself saying the words to her mother “I knew she wasn’t going to, didn’t meant to but her hand slipped. It was only a trickle at first and then it began to hose out of her”.

So we’d talked and decided again what we’d decided so many times before but what, of the two of us, only I remembered. Her consuming passion now was alcohol - not drugs anymore - and it did things to her memory. But never enough.

So I made the call, in both senses, and they came. And that’s how we ended up here, the three of them, her, and me. And they were still looking, eyes gnawing at me.

She said it again like I’d forgotten. Like I ever could, no matter how much I tried.

Ø      I’m not sick, I’m not.

Ø      I’m not sick, am I?

Her eyes pawed at me dredging up a pudgy smile to smudge across her bloated features. She’d been attractive once, inside and out, people said. I too had seen those changes but I felt none but one - now I knew I couldn’t fix her.

Ø      I could stop if I wanted to.

Stop what - living, drinking or dying? I wasn’t sure what she meant. No change there.

The three of them were still looking. They’d made their close fountain pen notes a while ago. They’d listened to her. Read her history. Heard my account of the bedlam from before dusk into this night. And it was down to me.

All I had to do was say. Say how it had been, how it had got worse.

Ø      I love you.

My voice rasped, my throat clenched against myself and what I was going to do. The words came, expelled into the room, an unwelcome relieving torrent of truth and past.

Ø      He’s lying.

But I kept going. I knew she was ill, didn’t mean it, any of the words that spat out of her gaping, hurting mouth but this was a feeling time not a thinking thing and they burnt their way into me.

Ø      You bastard.

Told it all, didn’t fade until the sobbing overwhelmed me, mine not hers.

Then I stopped. Half way through they’d started filling in the forms and then closed their files. It was my curtain call.

Ø      See they don’t believe you, swigging down the last of it.

It was the guy who began. Suit, white cuffs, attaché case with brass flip catches that clicked and thudded open, given to him by someone who cared.

He’d exchanged nods with the social worker, the other shrink and, lastly, with me. It was casual, authoritative. Felt as cold and calculable as any 12 pieces of silver.

You couldn’t blame him, he must have said it more times than he could say in countless situations only the relatives now recalled.

Ø      Sheila Elaine Henderson, under the powers provided by the Mental Health Act 1975 and amending legislation we are by unanimous opinion satisfied that you are a danger to yourself or to others and need therefore to be detained in a secure establishment for your own protection and/or the protection of others for a period of not less than 28 days. You have the right……..

Ø      What’s he saying, Geoff. I’m sorry, give me a hug. It’ll be alright.

His words had so little feeling that truth wouldn’t come.

Ø      You have to leave with us now. The ambulance is downstairs.

And that truth? She was going to place where doors only had one handle and that was on the outside, where there were two sorts of folk, people with uniforms and people with questions – where am I, why don’t my family come any more, where are my clothes, why don’t the lights go off at night, and so on over and over and over.

Ø      Don’t worry, Sheila, I’ll come with you.

Ø      Don’t let them…where are we going. I’m OK really. I’m feeling good.

No one was looking, no one wanted to see.

Ø      I just need to go to the bathroom.

30 seconds later it took two of them and me to wrestle her from the window sill. It was a 40 foot drop. It’d had been a while but she hadn’t forgotten.

They gave me the paperwork for the ambulance crew. My handiwork, something to remember them by.

Outside in the street it was me who broke down. Irony on irony, it was she who helped me into the wagon, its lurid fluorescence aglowing.

Ø      Here…here..the papers.

I was barely coherent as he took them from me. The guy said his name but my tears deafened me. She sat, half lay on the stretcher.

He was a good guy. I flopped into the bucket seat next to her. He helped me with the straps.

Ø      Its regulations, more red tape than you can shake a stick at.

He cared. Maybe it was just road safety seatbelt claptrap but he cared. Resting in the bucket seat, I could feel the pull as the wagon cornered at speed and was glad of the straps. She lounged on the stretcher, as if out of it.

He flicked through the papers, eyes straining briefly and vainly at arms length, and then at me.

Ø      You’ve had a day of it, I see.

He didn’t see, not without his glasses. But he knew it would all be down there in note form, the usual routine. The madness, the call I made, the decision, the whole shooting match. It was sympathy and I warmed to him.

Ø      Too bloody right, it’s an injustice, that’s what it is.

That was what she thought, that was what spat out of her in those words. Maybe she would change her mind.

v     Never you mind, love, in 28 days there’ll be a world of difference. That’s what you want isn’t it, Geoff.

He smiled at her and glanced at me. He was trying to be reassuring. I nodded, stilled by the aftermath as the adrenalin and me faded.

Ø      Oh I do hope so, Mr Ambulance Man. It’s what we’re all hoping for, isn’t it Geoff.

She was putting on her posh accent. Why I don’t know. She could be a chameleon. But it was too late now.

I must have nodded off for a moment. When I surfaced the chat had moved on.

We were slowing to a stop.

Ø      Yes, they work miracles here, Geoff. In a few weeks, things will be completely different. Yes,sir, seen some miracles here. People change.

But he was right. With the right help……..

v     You’re still not getting it. This guy hasn’t read the paperwork.

..with the right help and support who knows…

He exited the back with Sheila and I made to follow but I couldn’t. Couldn’t find the straps, there was no quick release.

Ø      Won’t take along. Don’t worry, Geoff, this is just routine.

He was pulling up my sleeve and dabbing at my upper arm.

Ø      Don’t worry Mrs Henderson, this will………….

Sheila was smiling and saying something about going home soon. She patted my arm and told me it was all going to be alright.

Ø      ………………….this will just knock him out for a bit while we make the transfer.

Ø      Its her, not me. I’m not mad. Look at the paperwork, see for yourself. For Christ’s sake, she’s getting away……….

Ø      Now, now, of course you’re not mad. Just a little stressed. I know. Your lovely wife explained. Don’t you worry, she’ll be back tomorrow. Now just a little scratch, you’ll hardly feel it.

It was like my mind fell through the back of my forehead.