Page 32 of The Beach Holiday

NOW

‘You understand why you are here, don’t you, Sadie?’ Dr Bhaduri asks. The question sounds familiar. Had he asked me that before?

I try to work out what I am supposed to say.

‘Is this how we open each of our sessions?’ I ask him. ‘With you asking me if I know why I am here.’

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.’