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Dr Bhaduri nods earnestly. I almost felt the need to smile, as though I am a schoolgirl being told off for something I shouldn’t have done. I just want to giggle my way right out of this room, but I also know that there is a very serious undertone to these sessions and that there is a very specific reason I am here with a psychiatrist every week. They want to know what happened. And I want to know what they thought had happened.
‘Okay.’ Dr Bhaduri sighs, and I feel as though I know what is coming. ‘Let’s start at the beginning.’ He looks at me. ‘Again,’he adds. I am not sure if it is for comedy value for himself, or he genuinely has had enough of sitting here with me for the last few weeks.
‘You were picked up in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean on a small power boat, drifting. You were rescued by a group of Fijian fishermen. Who knows where you could have ended up if they hadn’t found you when they had? You claim you had been on an island called Totini for the last six weeks and then you passed out on the boat. When you woke, you couldn’t remember anything, not the last thing you had said to the fishermen, nor why you were there, not even your name. The only thing you could remember was that you had a friend. Your friend Avril. Your passport was with your belongings, and you were first taken to a hospital where you had some basic health checks done before you were taken to the British High Commission in Fiji, and then shortly afterward you were flown home here to Britain.’
Dr Bhaduri looks up at me briefly to make sure I am still listening. I am. Intently, the way I was sure I did most days because to me it was a fascinating story, not one that had happened to me, but something I might read about in a newspaper or magazine. He looks back down at his papers, although I am sure he must know this verbatim by now if it was something that he told me each time we met. ‘You were greeted at the airport by your parents who took you home to their house for a short while.’
Dr Bhaduri stops speaking and looks at me again.
A loud bell sounds. Is that the end of our session? The sound is familiar. Have I heard that before? If feel as though I have heard it in my sleep for weeks, waking me up.
‘The bell,’ I say out loud.
He nods and looks happy that I said that. He quickly scribbles something on the paperwork in front of him.
‘You looked pleased,’ I say.
He keeps smiling. ‘Yes, I am. I feel we have made some progress here. You recognised the sound of the bell. It rings at this time every day. That is the visitors’ bell.’
I screw my face up. He has not spoken this way before...
‘Some patients like to receive visitors here.’
I waited for him to elaborate.
‘Visitors come here, to The Forestry.’ He shifted in his chair, uncrossed and re-crossed his other leg. Then he looked directly at me.
‘Sadie, you are in a psychiatric unit, and you have been here under our care for the last three weeks.’
27
THEN
I left the front beach, making my way through the clearing, and edged my way through camp, trying to appear as inconspicuous as possible, and then found my way to the path that led to the back beach. The rain lashed against my face, the thunder rolled on, and then, occasionally a flash of lightning. I imagined it would look just as spectacular from the back beach, but I wasn’t going to watch a thunderstorm; I was on a mission to find something else. Even though they had burned Clara, surely they must have left some sort of grave for her? It was only right that when someone died they were given a proper burial and a grave. Clara had parents, maybe sisters and brothers; there would be people who needed to know where her final resting place was.
I thought about my own family and my last conversation with them. I would need to speak to them again soon. Butalready I felt different to the person who had left the mainland a few weeks ago. I felt this island had made its mark on me in some way and that trying to put myself mentally back into a world that was so far removed from this one would be impossible right now. Yet the doubts about why I had come here and whether I should be staying consumed me just as much. I had not considered the effect the island would have on me, that it would get into my skin the way it had. And I hadn’t thought that I would feel compelled to see it out despite my reservations. And I certainly hadn’t imagined just a few weeks into being here I would be looking for the grave of a friend.
If I could have seen into the future, would I still have come?
I pushed on through the terrain. The path always became thinner towards the end before it suddenly opened up again to the vast white beach. Except I was seeing it through sepia today. The whole island had lost its vibrancy and colour, washed out by the almost black clouds and torrential rain.
Once on the beach, I wasn’t sure which way to turn. If I went right, I would eventually end up by the foot of the highest peak, past Ula’s shack. Or I could go into the depths of the forest where I had never been before. The foliage was so dense, I was sure I would get lost. I knew I was being silly and, of course, I would find my way out eventually, but I was still nervous around the island, of her tendrils taking hold of me and pulling me in.
I took a walk along the beach to the right. Ula’s cabin was perched up on the ledge and would be visible in a few minutes. I hadn’t ventured past it before. I hadn’t even walked the circumference of the island yet. There was no time like the present, so why not choose to walk around the island when the weatherwas the worst since I arrived here? After walking for a few minutes with the wind and the rain in my face I looked up to my right and saw Ula’s hut. I wondered what she would be doing in there, how she must feel alone. And then, as I heard the word she had spoken to me through the bush that night, it was as if the wind had just whispered it back at me to remind me.
Run.
I didn’t feel as if I was in any immediate danger. I was perturbed about the attitude of the campmates, and yes Clara’s death had shocked me. Still shocked me. Then the way the campmates reacted to things that I would have thought would have affected them more. The way no one spoke of Ula, the woman who lived alone in the shack on the hill. And a young woman at that. When I had heard of her, I had presumed she would have been elderly and out of her mind with dementia or something.
I took a sharp left, leaving the sanctuary of the beach behind me, knowing I was venturing further into the woods where the trees grew thick and dense to see if there was any other sign of a path. And then I spotted it. A very slight indent amongst the foliage, as though someone walked there occasionally, but it hadn’t yet evolved into a path. I wondered if this was where Ula walked or where Adi hid out.
The rain pelted relentlessly at my face. I kept wiping my hand across my eyes, but it made little difference; my vision was a watery haze.
I pushed through the first part of the bush, expecting it to open up immediately, but the plants stayed close to my arms, the sound of them scraping across my rain mac as I walked. I felt my heart thump in my chest as I thought about trying tofind my way back. The woods and forest here were wider than where we were at the camp – to get to the other side of the island from here would take me at least thirty minutes, maybe more in this weather. Or so I had been told when I asked the questions when I first arrived. There were so many questions, yet I was too terrified to go and find out for myself. I had stayed where I felt secure within the camp area. But now the time had come and my curiosity had got the better of me. I wanted to work out exactly what I was surrounded by.
Clara had been burned here somewhere; there had to be another clearing around where they could have done that safely without risking burning other trees or foliage. I walked on. My face was drenched, and I had stopped wiping it a long time ago; now I just let the rain fall over it. Eventually, I saw ahead the path began to open up into something more substantial, and I almost yelped with relief. This could be it; this could be where they left the remains of Clara. But even if it wasn’t, I reminded myself, it was a milestone for me; I had made another break from camp and ventured out alone.
I stopped among the clearing, the rain pouring through the trees. I could see a small path opposite, so I headed straight for it, not before making a note of where I had come from. I picked up a rock and placed it next to the entrance I had come through, as I could now see several indents within the outer foliage.