The World Out There - 36. Thirty-Six

He had a poor appetite that Tuesday lunchtime. He would eat a few mouthfuls and then just pushed his food around his plate as his interest in it disappeared. It was a chicken pie, and usually he liked them - they had some degree of flavour, but this one tasted like cardboard in his mouth. What was wrong with him?

He didn’t know how he felt but his mood was strange after that interview with Robert Roud. The man had accused him so quickly, as if Robert Roud had already decided he was guilty. But how could the man know that? He hadn’t done anything. Chrissy had come up to him and… Why was that man like that? What had Liam done?

Finally, he pushed his plate away. There was no point in trying to eat it now that the food had turned disgustingly cold. He hated eating alone - it made mealtimes twice as long, and he still had nearly forty-five minutes before he was due back in the Education Centre. Maybe he could go and read in his room? He always had reading for company.

<><><><>

He was sat in the corner of a sofa, trying to lose himself in his latest book when Cindi approached him. As he saw her walking towards him, he closed his book. She was coming to take him to the Education Centre.

“Liam,” Cindi said as she stopped next to him. Liam pushed his body to the edge of the sofa. “Janet and Dr Sayeed want to see you before you go back to the Education Centre.”

“What’s happened?” Had that man complained about him? Was he in trouble?

“They only want to talk to you, that’s all,” Cindi replied.

“Okay,” he said as he stood up. But was it okay?

He followed Cindi out of the ward, and she quickly led him on the long journey down to the front of the hospital, through all those locked doors. Once on the corridor that ran along there, where he had only been yesterday, Cindi walked up to one of the interview rooms, but not the one he’d been in the day before. She just pushed the door open, calling into the room, “I’ve got Liam here.”

“Come in Liam,” Janet’s voice called out from inside the room.

Inside the room he found Janet and Dr Sayeed sitting behind one of the round tables there. Both women were sitting on the opposite side of the table from the door, both wearing their usual smart work clothes, but neither woman had any papers in front of them. The table itself was empty.

“Please sit down,” Janet said to him.

He sat down on the chair nearest to the door.

“This morning you were interviewed by two people from the Trust’s security team,” Janet said. “Aiden told me all about it.”

“Yes,” Liam replied.

“Janet and Aiden came to me about it,” Dr Sayeed said. “I was really shocked at what had happened.”

“You were?” Liam said.

“They accused you of causing what happened to Chrissy…actually giving her the knife. I was so shocked. They didn’t seem to even know the basic facts of what happened,” Dr Sayeed said. She still spoke with her calm and level voice, but underneath, Liam could hear a heavy and serious tone. Was she angry? He’d not heard her angry before.

“It was very unprofessional of Mr Roud and Miss Graham,” Janet said.

“That’s a polite way to say it,” Dr Sayeed said. “Those two people should never have treated you that way. I am so angry at what happened.”

“Thank you,” he quietly said. How else could he express his gratitude? But he was grateful.

“Janet and I have put in an official complaint to the Trust over the way you were treated,” Dr Sayeed said.

“We’ve complained about the way Roud and Graham behaved towards everyone. They upset and accused half the nurses on the ward. Half my nurses,” Janet added.

“What… What will happen?” he asked them.

“I will not be letting Roud and Graham speak to anyone on the ward, especially you,” Janet said.

“The investigation will have to continue but Roud and Graham won’t be involved,” Dr Sayeed said.

“I’ve been told a senior nurse will take it over,” Janet replied.

“They should have done that from the start,” Dr Sayeed said.

“What… What about Chrissy? When will she be coming back?” he asked. No one had told him anything about Chrissy, only that she was alive. Was she well? Was she ill? If she was ill, how bad was she?

Janet glanced at Dr Sayeed, the expression on her face seeming to say something to Dr Sayeed, but he couldn’t read it.

“Chrissy is being treated in a general hospital, the general hospital for this Trust, but she will not be coming back here. It was decided that it was best if she is transferred to a different hospital for the rest of her sentence after what has happened,” Dr Sayeed told him.

“Right,” Liam said. Why couldn’t she come back here? Wasn’t she doing well here? But Dr Sayeed was a psychiatrist. She probably knew a lot more about Chrissy, but she wouldn’t be telling him.

Janet stood up from the table.

“I’ll take you back to the ward, Liam,” she said.

“You will come back? I need to discuss, you know it, with you,” Dr Sayeed said to Janet.

“Of course,” Janet replied to her. “Come on, Liam. Let’s get you back to the ward.”

Liam followed Janet out of there. As he always did, he followed behind her - he always followed behind the nurse because it was always best - the nurse had to unlock and lock all those doors they had to pass through. It was the same with Janet.

As they walked back along the main corridor, the only part of their route where they could walk for a few minutes without having to unlock doors every few steps, Janet said: “It’s not your fault that Chrissy harmed herself.”

“I… I know.”

“Chrissy isn’t very well.”

“She said she’s in love with TJ but he doesn’t love her. That’s why she hurt herself, she said.”

“I know she had a crush on TJ.”

“How?”

“I’ve been the Ward Manager for long enough. I know a crush when I see it.”

“Oh, right,” he replied, as he stopped while Janet unlocked the next door.

<><><><>

Liam turned over in bed. He was awake. He could see the shapes of his room in the darkness there. He knew those shapes all too well. He knew he was awake. He wasn’t dreaming anymore. The dream was over, it was finished. He pulled his body into a foetal position, his arms folded up in front of himself, his knees folded up against his belly. It was such a comfortable position. He lay there for a long moment, just breathing in and out slowly through his nose, his breaths making an audible rush of sound.

He hated his dreams. At best they were just full of red, bright red, blood red. They always left him feeling uncomfortable and bewildered. What were those dreams about? This one wasn’t one of them - this one was full of details and images, sounds and feelings. He was back at the police station, dressed in the ridiculously oversized jumpsuit. Miss James was sat on one side of him, and Mark was sat on the other, but both of them were strangely silent. On the other side of the table sat the two police detectives, the woman and the man, their names long forgotten to him. They were shouting at him, over and over, questions barked at him that he couldn’t answer. He started crying and their shouting only increased, as the others remained silent.

He couldn’t remember anything they shouted at him - did he even want to? - but he remembered how scared he was, how much he just wanted them to stop, how much his mind begged God to make them stop. Did he even believe in God?

It was a stupid dream, but a new one. Why was he remembering that? Why that dream? He couldn’t discuss this with anyone here - he wouldn’t want to relive it. Best ignore it, best keep quiet about it. It was a stupid dream, like all the others.

He was still tired. It was so dark in there so it must be the middle of the night. He just wanted to go back to sleep. Would he dream again? Would it be the same dream? Could he ever stop these stupid dreams? Why couldn’t he just have sex dreams? Weren’t boys his age supposed to only have sex dreams? Why couldn’t he just dream about naked men?

Liam rolled back onto his back and stretched out his legs. His body was so tired and… Sleep swept over him.

<><><><>

Friday lunchtime and Liam was presented with spaghetti bolognaise, though not the best quality spaghetti bolognaise. The spaghetti was rubbery with almost no taste, while the bolognaise tasted of weak tomatoes only. Unfortunately, he was used to that. The food was kept warm for so long that all the flavour was cooked out of it, but he was still hungry, so he began to slowly eat his lunch.

He was also getting used to eating alone. He still missed TJ and Chrissy, missed their company, but he was already used to just being in his own company again. He’d been on his own all his life: he’d never really had any friends until TJ and Chrissy. Now, he was back to his usual position in his life - on his own. He had his books for company during the week and once a month Mark came to see him. Mark was so easy to talk with and Mark wasn’t always asking him how he was: they could just talk about stuff in general and things that interested them. He could cope like this: he had coped with less before.

He dreamt about Rhys Clarke last night. He could remember it, but now it felt like a bad nightmare, a nightmare he could… No, he couldn’t cope with, it but he’d have to live with it. He would have to live with so much. He did live with so much.

When he’d been sat with TJ and Chrissy, their endless chatter filled his mind. Now his mind had too much silence to fill. He should start reading a book when he ate, something to distract his mind.

Liam pushed his half-empty plate away from him. His appetite was still poor, or was it just the poor food? He was barely hungry anyway.

He picked up his plate, stood up and returned it to the dirty plate trolley before heading to the room’s entrance. As he reached the door, Gary, the nurse who was sat next to it, asked him, “You all right Liam?”

“I’m just going to get my book to read.”

“Will you be reading it in the Common Room?”

“Yes,” he answered Gary.

“Good,” Gary nodded to him.

As he left his room, his current book held in his hand, he almost ran into Aiden. Aiden’s face lit-up with a smile.

“There you are,” Aiden said.

“Is something wrong?”

“No. It’s only that someone wants to see you.”

“Who?” Was this still to do with Chrissy? The ward had quietened down in the last few days, Chrissy falling from the top of everyone’s conversation. She had been replaced with gossip and the everyday problems of living there.

“She’s called Ellen Newman. She’s the Trust’s Safeguarding Lead. She only wants to talk to you.”

“Is it about Chrissy?” He asked Aiden.

“Yes, but you don’t have to worry. She’s replaced Roud and Graham. I’ve spoken to her and she’s nothing like them.”

“Okay,” Liam replied. Did he have any other choice?

As he followed behind Aiden on their walk to the front of the hospital, waiting for Aiden to unlock the doors in front of them and lock them again behind them, he kept wondering why this woman wanted to see him. Could it be as simple as Aiden said? Had something else happened with Chrissy? The questions kept jumping into his mind.

When they reached the corridor, at the front of the hospital where the Interview Rooms were housed, Aiden walked up to one of the doors, knocked quickly on it, but didn’t wait outside. Instead, he just pushed the door open. Liam followed behind him.

“Ah, Aiden,” the woman sat at the table said. Liam followed Aiden inside the room.

“This is Liam Andrews,” Aiden said to the woman, before he turned to Liam, saying, “Liam, this is Ellen Newman, who I told you about.”

“Nice to meet you Liam,” the woman said.

As he sat down, at one of the chairs at the round table next to Aiden, Liam took a moment to look at the woman.

She was middle-aged and, though she was smartly dressed, she gave off a very motherly presence. Her brown/blonde hair was cut into a neat and short style, a style that appeared far more practical than fashionable. It framed her round and friendly face, a face with warm pink cheeks, a gently smiling mouth and bright eyes. Her body, covered by a pale brown jacket and pale blue blouse, was filled with curves and flesh upon her frame. She wasn’t fat but her body was certainly round and curving.

“Liam, I’m a nurse and I’m also the Trust’s Safeguarding Lead and I’ve taken over the investigation into what happened with Chrissy Ledson,” Ellen Newman said, her voice as warm and gentle as her appearance.

“Does this mean I won’t be seeing the other people?” Liam asked.

“Mr Roud and Miss Graham shouldn’t have interviewed you in the first place,” Ellen Newman said. “The Trust received the complaint by Dr Sayeed and Ms Hayes, and they agreed with it. That’s why I have taken over.”

“You should have been running it from the beginning,” Aiden said.

“Thank you, Aiden, but it isn’t my place to comment on Trust policy,” Ellen Newman replied.

“Of course,” Aiden said.

“Now Liam,” Ellen Newman turned her face onto him, “I’ve got a couple of things I want to ask you.”

“I didn’t give Chrissy that knife,” Liam almost spat out the words. He had to make her see that he didn’t.

“I know you didn’t,” Ellen Newman said.

“You do?”

How did she know? The others hadn’t. How did she know? Liam stared back at her.

“Chrissy told me yesterday when I spoke to her. She said she found it out in the hospital’s vegetable garden, near the fence,” Ellen Newman said. “She sharpened it in her room.”

“Why did she do that?” Liam asked.

“I need to ask you about that,” Ellen Newman said.

“Okay,” Liam quietly replied. Did he have a choice? But what Chrissy did… How could she have done that?

“What did Chrissy say to you, before she hurt herself?”

“She said she was upset because TJ didn’t love her,” Liam said. It was what Chrissy said. He hadn’t known she’d felt like that about TJ. He hadn’t seen how Chrissy felt. He looked at Ellen Newman’s gentle face, but he couldn’t tell the woman that TJ didn’t love Chrissy because he was gay, could he?

“TJ is Thomas John Gumede. He was discharged shortly before Chrissy hurt herself,” Aiden added.

“Thank you,” Ellen Newman said. “Now Liam, were Chrissy and TJ in a relationship?”

“No, they were just friends. We were just friends. They were my friends.”

“Did Chrissy tell you how she felt about TJ?”

“No,” he told her.

“Did she say she was unhappy about TJ being discharged?”

“TJ didn’t know he was being discharged until the day before.”

“He didn’t?”

“It was a bit complicated,” Aiden said. “TJ had had an MDT teaming and they decided that he could be discharged but only if he lived with a family member. If he had the support of a family member.”

“Is this appropriate?” Ellen Newman asked.

“Everyone on the ward knew it because TJ told everyone,” Aiden replied.

“He did,” Liam agreed.

“So, what happened?” Ellen Newman asked.

“His father agreed he could live with him, but only right at the last moment,” Aiden said.

“Chrissy was dead upset when he told us last Friday,” Liam said.

“How upset was she?”

“Well, not upset. She was dead angry at him because he only told us the day before,” Liam said. “It wasn’t really TJ’s fault, not really.”

“I know it wasn’t.”

“Chrissy was… Well, she was dead upset just before she… she did it.”

“Thank you, Liam. That’s been really helpful,” Ellen Newman said.

“It has?” Liam said.

“It has, but I think Aiden can take you back to the ward, I don’t have any more questions.”

“Can I ask a question?” Liam said.

“Of course, you can,” she replied.

“How’s Chrissy? Is she all right?”

“I can’t go into details, but she’s getting better and doing well. The nurses here got to her so quickly, so she isn’t as ill as she could have been.”

“But she won’t be coming back here. I know because Dr Sayeed said,” Liam added.

“Yes, that’s right,” Ellen Newman said.

“Can you tell her… Can you tell her I miss her,” he quietly asked her.

“Of course, I will.”

“Then we should be getting back,” Aiden said.

Liam just nodded his agreement. But as he stood up, he turned back to Ellen Newman and said, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she replied.

<><><><>

That Friday afternoon, in the Education Centre, again he found his mind wandering. He liked history. He liked the way Mrs Williams looked beyond the details of any historical event. She showed him that history was more than a list of dates and who won which battle. That day she asked him to research how women’s lives were changed by World War One. He had his pile of reference books next to him, and his note pad in front of him and… He kept forgetting what he’d read. He would read a paragraph from a book, but his mind would slip away as he did, and when he reached the end of it, he had no idea what he’d read. Over and over this kept happening. Some passages from some books. He had to re-read several times so he could make notes from it. He only had half the notes he should have done.

“Are you all right, Liam?” Mrs Williams said, as she sat down at his table.

“I’m sorry. I can’t get my head clear. I’m… I haven’t done much.”

“Don’t worry. You’ve had a bad week. You can carry on with this on Monday. Hopefully, you’ll be feeling better by then.”

“Thanks.”

“Aiden’s here to take you back to the ward.”

He looked up and saw Aiden stood, waiting inside the room’s door.

“What about my work?” Liam asked her.

“I’ll put it away for you. You can start again on Monday.”

“Thank you.”

“Now go. Aiden’s waiting for you.”

Again, he followed Aiden back to the ward, waiting as Aiden unlocked and then locked again all the doors on their way. It was Friday afternoon when he and Aiden usually spent time together, when he talked with Aiden. Last Friday Aiden had asked him all about Chrissy and TJ, asked him about missing them. Would today Aiden start up about him needing new friends? He didn’t want to think about that.

Once they were back on the ward, Aiden said, “Should we go for a walk in the garden? The weather is nice again today.”

He looked at Aiden, at Aiden’s face. Aiden was always ready to listen to him, and he knew.

“Can we talk in one of the Quiet Rooms?”

“Yes, sure,” Aiden said. “I’ll just get the key out of the office.”

A few moments later, Aiden was unlocking the door to the second Quiet Room. Liam followed him in there. As soon as he was inside there, Liam was struck by the stale odour slipping around the room on the warm air there, air far warmer than the corridor outside. Had the room been left shut up for too long? He tried not to let disgust show on his face.

“God! No one opens the window in here?” Aiden said, obvious annoyance in his voice, and opened the room’s little window. It only opened a few degrees, only as far as the bars on the window would allow barely enough space for Liam to slip his hand through. There was no way he could “escape” through that window.

They both sat down on the leatherette covered armchairs there, which his bum always slipped downwards on.

“Is there something you want to talk about?” Aiden asked him. Aiden’s face wore that expression Liam knew too well, that “talk-to-me” expression and he had to.

Liam drew in a silent breath of air.

“I’ve been having bad dreams, well nightmares really,” he told Aiden.

“What about?”

“About… about what happened with Rhys Clarke.”

“What exactly did you dream about.”

“About… about me killing him.”

“You’ve never talked about that, have you?”

“Not here, and… I tried not talking about it before.”

“Should we talk about it? It would start to help with your dreams.”

“Okay,” he told Aiden.

“What happened with Rhys Clarke?”

“He was bullying me at school. I was terrified of him. I wanted him to just stop. Him and his mates would follow me home and… I just wanted it all to stop.”

“What did you do?”

“I took one of the big knives from the kitchen at home. My mum never used them, so she’d never miss one. I took it to school in my school bag.”

“Why did you do that?”

“I just wanted to scare him off. Show him I could stand up to him and scare him off.”

“What happened?”

“Him and his mates picked on me at break, as they always did. I pulled the knife out of my school bag and told him to leave me alone, but he didn’t.”

“What did he do?”

“He called me a queer, and said I wasn’t strong enough to stab him. He actually held his arms up, like he was leaving his stomach unprotected.”

“What happened next?”

“I only meant to hurt him a little, stab him and make him bleed only. I stabbed him and… and…”

“And what?”

He looked down at the carpet between them. He didn’t look at Aiden, not even Aiden’s feet.

“Stabbing Rhys Clarke made him weak, and I enjoyed that. It felt really good making him weak, him being the weak one for once. So, I stabbed him again because it made him weak, and I stabbed him again and again and again because it made him so weak. And then someone pulled me off him and he was lying on the ground and there was blood everywhere and people were screaming and… I don’t know.”

“How did you feel when they pulled you off him?”

“I felt like shit. I’d really hurt him and there was blood everywhere. I didn’t mean that to happen. I wanted to… well to die, to disappear, to stop being alive. I felt like shit. Then they told me he was dead, and I felt… I felt my life was over and it was my stupid fault. I took that knife.”

“What you felt was normal. That’s what people feel when they accidentally kill someone, in a fight or something like that.”

“But I enjoyed killing him.”

“And how long did you feel like that?”

“For the few seconds I was stabbing him.”

“How did you feel when he was bullying you, when he was waiting to hurt you on the way home from school?”

“I felt like nothing. I was terrified and I wanted to… to stop being.”

“Rhys Clarke was making your life hell.”

“Yes,” he agreed with Aiden - it was true.

“And you couldn’t stop it.”

“Yes. I tried telling my mum, but she just hit me for getting my school uniform ripped. It happened when Rhys Clarke and his mates beat me up.”

“And when you stabbed Rhys Clarke, for a moment you had power over him, who was making your life hell and you couldn’t stop him. It’s only natural to enjoy that moment. But you don’t enjoy that memory.”

“God no! I wish it had never happened.”

“And that is very normal, what a normal person feels. Someone abnormal would still enjoy that memory.”

“I don’t!”

“I know… There’s nothing wrong with you, Liam.”

“But I killed Rhys Clarke.”

“And there was no one there to help you when he was bullying you, certainly not your mother.”

“I’m… I’m… I don’t know.”

“You’re depressed and you are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. That’s very understandable with all that happened to you.”

“But I killed Rhys Clarke.”

“Have you heard of Red Mist?”

“No.”

“That’s when someone kills someone else because they are angry or afraid. They lose control because their fear or anger takes over and that’s all they can act on. It only lasts for a few moments, and then they are back to their normal selves, but they have killed someone else, and they feel very guilty about it all.”

“Yes.”

“I think that’s what happened to you. From what you say it sounds like that’s what happened. Also, from what other people said happened, it very much sounds like that is what happened.”

“How do you know what other people said?” he asked as he looked up at Aiden, but only at Aiden’s chest, not Aiden’s face, at the dark green shirt Aiden was wearing.

“I read your file when you first came here, when Janet told me I was to be your named nurse. It had all the police statements from people who were there and saw what happened.”

“Oh, right,” he said. How could Aiden see so much from his file? But there must have been so much in his file. Didn’t Mark say something like that before his trial?

“You’re not crazy or evil. You’re someone who was pushed too far and lashed out. Now you are having to deal with that and its hard, and your mind is acting normally. You’re suffering from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, and that’s normal in someone who has been through what you have been through.”

He looked up into Aiden’s face and saw such a sincere expression looking back at him. Aiden must mean it - did he?

“You mean that?”

“Yes. And we now need to help you come to terms with what happened and to get you better.”

“Thank you,” he quietly said, nodding his agreement with Aiden.