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9
NOW
‘Are you sleeping?’ Dr Bhaduri asks.
I shrug. ‘I do and I don’t. Depends if I’m tired.’
He nods and writes something on his notepad. I have an urge to lean forward and look. I wonder if this is normal. I wonder if I am normal. I wouldn’t be here now, sitting in a room with too much mahogany furniture and the stench of lily of the valley overstimulating my senses if there wasn’t a word for what I was now. I scan the room for one of those triangle plastic containers with the slits in them and the sickly yellow gel in the middle. My eyes fall upon the offensive object, expelling the scent on a shelf in the corner of the room. I was sure it wasn’t there last week. Smells are our biggest memory evoker; that I know for sure. I was sure this smell of lily of the valley was bringing with it images of an auntie. Maybe a grandma. I couldn’t quite catch the memory; it came close and then seemed to disappear into nothing.
‘So sleeping is not too much of a problem,’ Dr Bhaduri asks again, and I suddenly wonder if I’d answered wrong, if I should have said I wasn’t sleeping at all. Was that the response he was looking for? Would that tick some boxes on their little forms? Of course, there was the dream, the recurring nightmare. But it wasn’t as often as it had been, and I would always wake at a reasonable hour in the morning.
He shifts in his seat. I wonder if he is bored of all this. How many times have I been here now? Three, maybe four times. Our conversations keep to the same lines of questioning and the same few problem-building skills to give me the tools I will need to deal with what has happened to me. But that would only work when I knew what had happened surely? And they are trying to enter my subconscious and find out what happened leading up to the day I was found floating in the South Pacific Ocean. It’s all in my notes. I am retold the same story at the beginning of every session. I knew there was more I needed to say, more I should be doing to help myself. Then I wouldn’t need to be here, wasting all this money; wasting all this time. Dr Bhaduri’s time. He looks as though he has a lovely wife at home who cooks him a delicious meal every night and irons those pristine white shirts he wears every day. My body does an involuntary jolt, a side effect of not sleeping properly, never knowing if I am in a dream or fully awake.
‘Are you okay?’ he asks.
I nod. ‘Fine.’
But I can’t look at him; I need to look away for a few moments. I find a mark that looks like a scuff or a burn on the carpet and focus on that.
What will happen if I just come here each week and nothing changes? Was I then to be certified completely mad?
‘And any flashbacks, sudden memories, or images?’
I think of the pile of paper stuffed in my wardrobe with the scribbles on them. The images flash in front of my eyes like a film reel. I must have been quiet for too long because Dr Bhaduri speaks.
‘Sadie? Any flashbacks?’
How could I tell him what was on the paper, what I had drawn, what had come from my memory?
I think about what might happen if I talk about those things I drew, that I still draw like a woman possessed who can’t get them out of her head.
I imagine explaining that I have been drawing pictures of the things that haunt my dreams. That will open Dr Bhaduri’s eyes to something new. He will probably stop looking bored and uncross his legs, maybe lean forward, and say something liketell me more.
It intrigues me how such a thing can change everything in an instant. But I cannot find the words to explain it. So I shake my head.
‘No. Nothing.’
Dr Bhaduri knows we have barely scratched the surface. He knows there is so much more to explore and that it will come out eventually.
I wonder how much time I have left.
10
THEN
The sound of roosters crowing gradually roused me from sleep and I wasn’t surprised to see on my phone that it was only just after 5a.m. My phone was down to its last bit of battery, and I knew after that I would have to rely on my body clock and the position of the sun to know the time, unless there was someone with a watch on the island. A half-hazy light filled the cabin as I realised I had left the curtains open. I felt surprised that I had fallen into such a long and deep sleep. I was used to the heat already, having lived in Nadi for over a month, but it was a new bed, albeit comfortable enough, and new surroundings always challenged me at first; it would often take a night or two to adapt. Clara’s bed was empty and her bed neatly made. It was if she hadn’t been there at all.The half drunk bottle of water remained next to her bed. I stepped outside of my cabin, needing to be near the water’s edge. I also knew I would catchthe sunrise, something I had not experienced enough since I had been here. Living just that far away from the beach meant I had become lackadaisical in my attempts to immerse myself amongst the natural beauty of the landscape.
I pulled on a T-shirt and light sweatshirt, which both smelt of the fire from last night’s dinner. I thought of the kava; I had drunk way more than I had intended, yet still, I was sure I had been sensible with my portions, not wanting to be tripping out on my first night on a new island. When I reached the water’s edge, the stillness of dawn thrilled me. The sky glowed pink and orange, and my spine tingled as a warm breeze grazed my bare legs. Waves gently lapped at the shore and I looked out across the expanse of sea in front of me, unable to believe there was so much of it between me and anyone I knew back home. Yet the sight and feel of it all, knowing that I was here and I had only to share it with a handful of others, excited me and I fell to the ground and let the waves lull me back into a melodic state. I was still wrapped in the warm fuzzy blanket of sleep that I found it easy to bring myself back to an even breathing rhythm.
And even though those thirty other women were just a few hundred yards away from me, I could have been entirely alone. I imagined for a moment that I was alone and solitary, like a castaway. I wondered what I would do and how I would survive. Even with my campmates around me, I was still in a situation where I needed to consider my survival. I was no longer on the mainland; I no longer had a job or income. I would need to do whatever everyone else here did to survive, and I hoped I could adapt. I had come to Fiji to escape Bruno, yet he had still penetrated my thoughts for the last month. And sometimes, much to my annoyance, images of the bettertimes plagued me at moments when I was feeling weak from lack of sleep or just too much alcohol. Or now, when I had thrust myself into another new situation just a few weeks after fleeing the country. But for the first time, since I had crossed the International Date Line, I felt a simmering of contentment, enough to recognise what I had done, what I had achieved. I had come far enough away and not just in miles. We no longer shared the same day, which felt like I was further away. I felt like one of those people creating mantras for their life and sticking to them.
You’re nothing.
He was still in my head, but already his words were a little quieter. I could finally hear my own words and thoughts taking shape. I knew that the power of this island could make space for me to heal and I had only been here a matter of hours. I had seen it on the faces of the women who were here already and I knew that could be me too.
‘Wow.’ I breathed the word out loud. I thought I heard the words echo back at me, and I looked around to see if I had missed someone approaching. Sometimes the quiet played tricks with my ears, I was so unused to silence at that level.
The beach was empty, a prospect that might have terrified me a year ago because I had been used to sitting in the houses of others, listening to their DIY anecdotes, feeling as though I needed to be surrounded by so many other people, even though I had nothing in common with them, just so I could feel less alone because that was how I thought I needed to be. Society had taught me that I needed constant distractions and affirmation for the smallest of achievements. I thought about the other women sleeping in their huts. I thought about the kinship, thesisterhood I was about to be a part of. I hoped I would finally be surrounded by like-minded people who only needed the basics to get by and who had lifetimes of stories to tell.