Don't Be Afraid Read online

  “Bell, please . . .” He seemed exhausted. Oh God, how much I hated all this. How much I hated myself. “Do you have an idea of what you just tried to do? Don’t you realise—”

  “It was just a moment!”

  “Isabel! You ended up in hospital.” He ran both his hands through his hair, and my heart bled with guilt. He’d called me Isabel. To him, I was Bell. He only called me Isabel when he was very angry or very upset.

  “Okay. Okay.”

  “You’ll give Clara a chance?”

  “Yes. So you don’t have to worry about me,” I said, more sweetly this time.

  “I always worry about you.”

  “One thing, though.”

  “What?”

  “No Skype therapist. It’d be like having to speak into the Eye of Sauron.”

  He couldn’t help smiling a little. “Agreed. But there is something else.”

  “What?”

  “Your medicines. You need to keep the promise you made me at the hospital and start taking them.”

  “Okay.” I said simply. He didn’t need to know that panic spread inside me every time I thought about the meds I’d been prescribed, how my father’s voice resounded in my ears, cruel, taunting, damning.

  He looked at me for a moment, surprised.

  “Really?”

  “Really,” I said, trying to sound convinced. I wasn’t lying. I was really determined to do it. Weird. I’d come to the edge of suicide and over, but losing my life didn’t seem half as bad as Angus losing his chance to fulfil his dream. Because he deserved it, because he’d given up so much for me. Because he was so talented.

  “That is such a relief for me, Bell,” he said, and got up to hold me. We were in each other’s arms for a long time, and while I snuggled into his chest, his hand stroking my long hair, I felt that maybe I didn’t have to fight this battle on my own. That we would fight together, if I allowed him.

  Finally, he let me go, and went to open a cupboard.

  “They’re all here, look.” He showed me a bag from Boots. “I got them all for you. The exact doses and when to take them is written on them, see? But I also have a note from the consultant—”

  “Well, it’s Friday today.”

  “Saturday. But what does this have to do with anything?”

  “There is no point starting things on a Fri— Saturday. I’ll start on Monday.”

  “It makes no sense.”

  “It makes sense to me.”

  “You promised me! And you’re trying to wriggle out of it already! I’m sorry, but this is not a matter for discussion. You are going to take your medication!”

  “I am! I’ll start on Monday.”

  “Fine! Okay, starting on Monday. Jesus, Bell.”

  My stomach churned, and the spell of our closeness was over. I wondered how long it would be before he got tired of me. And he should. He should get tired of me, and find someone normal, and get a life. From the window, I saw a whirlpool of dried leaves dancing in our driveway. The season was beginning to turn; the frozen days were on their way. And I would be cold, so cold. I felt tears rolling down my cheeks of their own accord, like my face was melting into tears, and then Angus’s arms were around me.

  “I love you. I love you,” he said over and over and over again.

  Later on, while Angus was asleep, I tried.

  I tried really hard.

  I sat alone, in front of the bag from Boots and a glass of water.

  I measured ten drops of a medicine, watching it dissolve into the water.

  Then I took a pill from its blister pack and rested it on the kitchen table with trembling hands.

  Then the thoughts came.

  That they were poison.

  That they would make me forget things, and shake, and have terrible nightmares, and turn me into a zombie, or make me so hyper I would not be able to stop rushing from place to place until I collapsed, exhausted. Somewhere inside me, a corner of lucidity told me that the doctor had changed my medication, that those side effects would only be temporary, that if I stuck to it I would feel a lot better.

  But the monster inside won.

  I poured the drops into the sink and squashed the pill down too, letting the water run to cover the noise of my sobs.

  And so there was more lying.

  From [email protected]

  To [email protected]

  Emer. The woman Angus found. She is horrible for sure and I don’t want her.

  From [email protected]

  To [email protected]

  You sound like a bratty ten-year-old who doesn’t want a new babysitter! Honestly, Isabel, can’t you just give her a chance?

  From [email protected]

  To [email protected]

  No.

  From [email protected]

  To [email protected]

  No, you’re right. Giving Angus and me a bit of a break from constant worry would be a thoroughly stupid idea.

  From [email protected]

  To [email protected]

  Well, I have accepted anyway because Angus was threatening to leave the orchestra and I can’t do this to him.

  From [email protected]

  To [email protected]

  No, you can’t. Write to me tomorrow first thing. Tell me all about her. Love you.

  Emer xxxxx

  From [email protected]

  To [email protected]

  Love you too. No, really, I do.

  Bell x

  All these people telling me they love me. They are clearly misguided.

  From [email protected]

  To [email protected]

  I’m sorry for what I did, I began to type. God, how many times would I have to apologise? To how many people? Why, on top of feeling so desperate, did I have to feel guilty too?

  Because they loved me.

  And I kept letting them down.

  I can’t explain. I didn’t want to die; I just didn’t want to feel that way any more. I didn’t want to wake up.

  I’m glad I did.

  While I was under, I had a dream. I saw a woman. I have no idea who she was, but it felt good to be with her, and she led me back. I know it sounds like some stupid eighties series or some weird self-help book, but I think she saved my life.

  From [email protected]

  To [email protected]

  You silly, silly girl. I’m crying as I write this. God, all that matters is that you are alive. What would I do without you? Promise you’ll get better. Promise you’ll accept help. PROMISE ME!

  From [email protected]

  To [email protected]

  Well, you’re still stuck with me, aren’t you?

  And yes, I promise.

  I promise, okay?

  Isabel x

  From [email protected]

  To [email protected]

  Dearest Angus,

  Shona told me how hard things are for you right now with your wife’s health. I just wanted to let you know that whatever happened, I’ll be there. The trial period is not easy, I know, but I’m so sure you’ll make it. And like I said, I’m here, for anything.

  And I have that book for you. I loved it. Hope to see you soon and give it to you in person.

  Bibi xxxx

  15

  Denial

  I shall put

  All my songs

  In your hands

  Isabel

  I wasn’t always this way.

  I’d been a bit melancholy all my life – I suppose it was in the air we breathed at home, seeping off my father like toxic incense – but never to this extent.

  I remembered exactly when it started.

  Angus and I had spent a wonderful weekend at our friends’ in Caithness, John and Zuri. They had a little girl, Amelia, the cutest thing I ever laid my eyes on. We’d spent the weekend hillwalking and playing with Amelia and listening to music – both John and Zuri were musicians and had worked alongside Angus before.
It was a happy time.

  “She is so cute,” I said, stroking Amelia’s silky, fine hair. She blew a raspberry, making everyone laugh.

  “Can I have a cuddle?” Angus took her gently from me and sat looking into the baby’s big, luminous eyes. Up to then, everyone had bounced her, chatted to her, made her laugh, but Angus sat with her quietly, without talking, just holding her and looking into her eyes. Angus had a peace within himself, a sense of stillness and steadiness that always enthralled me, and Amelia felt it too. She lay quietly in his arms, occasionally making a low, sweet sound.

  “Someone is feeling broody,” joked Zuri.

  “Oh, I don’t . . .” I protested.

  “I think she’s talking about Angus!” John said.

  Angus smiled and said nothing. To my surprise, I felt a knot in my stomach. I couldn’t understand why. What was wrong with me? Why should seeing my husband cuddling a child in such a tender way scare me? But the weird sensation left me as quickly as it had come, and I thought nothing more of it.

  And then we came home, and I unravelled, just like that.

  It had probably been brewing for a while, but it felt so sudden. That night, Angus mentioned the possibility of us having babies – and why not, after all? It seemed like a wonderful idea. It had to be a wonderful idea. We were young and brimming with love to give. It was only natural that we should think of children.

  “She’ll have your eyes, I hope,” he said. He’s always loved my eyes – a light shade of green – maybe because most people around here have blue eyes.

  “And your musical sense.”

  “Yes, hopefully not yours; the creature wouldn’t be able to hold a tune. Not even ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’,” he said playfully. My lack of musical talent was an ongoing joke between us. At that point, I hit him with a pillow. The future was just in front of us, full of promise. We were in each other’s arms, we were talking about a baby and a sliver of new moon was shining above the loch outside our window. I was happy.

  I woke up at three in the morning, gasping for air, thinking I was going to die. All the air had been drawn out of the room and there was no oxygen left. I’d dreamt I’d had a daughter, but I had died, and left her. She was crying alone, desolately, like only babies can – and I couldn’t reach her.

  I had left her alone, just like my mum had left me.

  I slipped out of bed, ran downstairs and sat at the kitchen table for hours, petrified. I was unable to move and unable to draw breath. I must have been breathing, of course, otherwise I’d be dead by now – but it didn’t feel like it. I felt like my chest was stuck and would never rise and fall again, like my lungs would never fill again.

  I cried tears of terror. I had no idea what was happening to me. I was drenched in sweat, freezing in the cold night air, the house silent and dark and still. Something in me had snapped. I had been confined to a lonely, faraway moon circling at the edge of space. I was on my own, in a place of dread.

  That was how it began.

  And then it got worse.

  16

  Love, long ago

  I look for her

  Like Orpheus seeks Euridice

  Leading her out

  The world of the dead

  Angus

  If you’d known Bell before she got ill, you wouldn’t believe it was the same person. The Bell I fell in love with was sunny and full of joy. She was brave, and funny, and irresistible.

  We grew up together, in a way. Although her father was Irish and they lived in Ireland, they came to spend the summers in Glen Avich to see Bell’s aunt, her dad’s sister. I was in boarding school, then at university, but I always tried to catch her when I was around. I had a crush on her even when we were children. But Bell began going out with my brother, and then I found out it was serious. They were engaged. I came home less and less. Maybe I didn’t want to see them together, I don’t know.

  But one Christmas, something happened. We happened, Bell and I.

  I was home from university for the Christmas holidays. My father was bedridden, so I spent most of the first few days in his room. I played for him, and I could see he was proud of me.

  Torcuil took advantage of my presence to spend more time with Bell, out for windy walks around the loch or at the Green Hat, away from our family’s heavy presence.

  Every once in a while, this girl I was seeing rang me; I did my best not to answer the phone. The signal was bad; I was busy; I was with my parents. It just wasn’t working out. I said to myself that I was too young for a serious relationship, that all I wanted was to play my music.

  I believed it.

  One night, I was playing for some friends and family, and she was there. Her cheeks were burning, and what I remember the most were her eyes, green like spring leaves: she couldn’t stop looking at me, and I couldn’t stop looking at her.

  I knew. I knew I would not be able to resist. But that didn’t mean I wouldn’t try with all I had.

  I looked away. I went for a walk through frozen fields and sat at the edge of the loch, in silence.

  Bell. Bell. I called her Bell in my heart, though she was “Isabel” when I said it aloud.

  To Torcuil, she was Izzy.

  Oh, show me the way to go home.

  Bell, show me the way to go home.

  And then she was there, beside me. When our eyes locked, we both knew it was too late to stop, it was impossible to turn back.

  We tried, both of us, and we couldn’t help it, but we fell into each other.

  Hope thwarted will make you sick. Love unfulfilled will make you sick. Not to be with each other, not to touch each other, was poison for us. We could not survive apart. We could not live in a world of things that might have been.

  But for Torcuil’s sake, we had to try.

  Everybody realised, of course. What was happening between Bell and I was plain to see. We were both ashamed; I left Glen Avich at the end of the holidays, early in the morning, with a rushed goodbye to my parents. I did not say goodbye to Bell; I did not say goodbye to Torcuil.

  I wanted to leave them both behind, as far as I could go. Bell, because I loved her; Torcuil, because I had hurt him. I had broken my brother’s trust.

  Bell turned up at my flat in Glasgow three days later, in tears. She’d dissolved the engagement to Torcuil. She said she couldn’t lie.

  “You wouldn’t be lying. You love him,” I said.

  “It’s not him I love.”

  The weight of her words fell on me like something terrible, like something beautiful. Like salvation.

  Eight months later, we got married.

  When we were both twenty-two, we moved back to Glen Avich – Bell would work as a freelance illustrator; I would continue my nomadic musician’s life. I would practise my violin while she drew, and I thought our happiness would never end.

  And then, all of a sudden, she became ill.

  It was sudden, yes, but it got worse slowly.

  I wished I could tell everyone how she used to be – a little spark of joy and life, with an Irish accent and a deep, deep passion for art.

  Her smile was a field of daisies.

  So that was Bell. Fearless, joyful and ready to embrace life.

  Not the shell she’d become.

  I knew all about her childhood of course, how she didn’t speak to her father now and only seldom to her sister – they’d been a surly, silent presence at our wedding – but I didn’t think that one day all she’d been through would catch up with her in such a terrible way.

  It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly when it started – when my wife became a nervous, shaky shadow of herself. I remember her having a panic attack one night after a day out with friends, but that’s about it. It was gradual, until she couldn’t get out of the house any more, and I didn’t have my Bell any more, and nothing was right any more.

  Sometimes I thought she was like Briar Rose, asleep under a curse. And I hoped, I prayed my kiss would wake her up one day.

 
17

  A world without you

  And suddenly there was

  A world without you

  Torcuil

  Of course, I knew what was happening. I just didn’t want to believe it. Izzy disappeared for a couple of days – her aunt said she wasn’t at home, but I knew she was. I nearly didn’t want to speak to her, I was so afraid.

  My father knew as well. It was strange how, though he was bedridden and pretty much always stuck in his bedroom, he was always aware of what was going on. My mother was busy with other things.

  After three sleepless nights, Izzy came to the house and she told me she couldn’t marry me.

  I said of course, we were very young, we could take it slow.

  No, she said, I can’t marry you, and I can’t be with you.

  As she spoke, her words fell on me and washed away; I couldn’t listen, I couldn’t let them sink in. It was too cruel; it couldn’t possibly be true.

  Not my brother.

  Not Izzy.

  She cried, of course. I thought it was a bit late for crying. I thought I wanted to comfort her because she was upset. I thought I hated her.

  I loved her.

  I’d like to say I kept my dignity, but I didn’t: I begged with all I had, and then over the next few weeks I phoned her all the time. She would always answer, always be there to take my pain, my rage, my failed attempts at reasoning. I believe she felt she deserved to be punished. That she had to listen to my protestations and my pain. I wrote her long, meandering letters that I never sent, and watched them turn to ash in my fireplace.

  I never spoke to Angus, not once.

  I stopped phoning Izzy too.

  There was silence for almost a year, the longest year of my life. Angus and Isabel got married during that time. It was a lucky, lucky coincidence I was invited to a history conference in Munich, so I had a good enough excuse not to attend the ceremony. If people thought it was strange that I should choose to attend a conference instead of my brother’s wedding, nobody mentioned it. I could just picture it: me, the best man, my heart bleeding all over my white shirt while my brother married the love of my life. Now that would have made for a nice party.