Page 7 of The Beach Holiday

NOW

I know it’s lunchtime, and that I should be hungry but I’m not.

I look at the plate of vegetables in front of me.

They are earthy and red and as they hit my stomach I feel my mouth fill with saliva.

I think I might be sick. I take a long drink of water, leave the plate where it is and find my way back to my bed.

The bedroom is cool. There is a fan on. Did I put that on before I left the room?

I can’t remember. I lie down on the bed and the sound of the fan is so familiar.

I’ve done this before: lain in a hot room with a fan whirring loudly until it lulled me into a melodic state, drunk on heat, unable to move from the humidity.

The images swirl around in my mind, and I push them away. Not today.

I find a stray piece of cotton on the bedsheet and play with it until it begins to burn at my fingers. I look at the sheets; they seem so unfamiliar.

A bell trills loudly around me. A doorbell? I should get up to answer it. It rings again. I feel so tired. I stay still and hope that whoever is there will go away and leave me alone. I only want to speak to two people: Jane and Dr Bhaduri.

I doze off and when I open my eyes a man stands at the side of my bed.

‘Sadie,’ he says and his voice is close by and far away at the same time.

I try to reach out and touch the tattoo on his arm and he fades to nothing.

I sit up, grasping around at the space where he had been.

I was not supposed to see that man’s face ever again.

Yet here he is, creeping into my subconscious, coming to me when I am at my most vulnerable when I am sleeping.

I want to see Jane again, but it was only yesterday I saw her. I must wait one whole week until she and I can meet at our usual spot. How on earth shall I fill my time until then? Eating. Sleeping. Thinking.

I pick up the paper pad that I keep next to the bed.

I let my pen wander across the page, pressing lightly at first, and then slowly, I gain traction until I find I am scribbling, and the pen is pressing hard into the paper as it speeds across the page.

Before I know it, I’ve ripped the page from the book and thrown it on the floor.

I start again with another page and another until a dozen pages later, the pen flies across the room and lands amongst the discarded pages.

I look at them and what they hold. I jump up, disgusted with myself.

I quickly gather them up in my arms, open the wardrobe, and put them inside, on top of a pile that will soon reach my stomach.

I slam the wardrobe, out of sight, out of mind.

But Dr Bhaduri wants to know what I know.

Terror clutches at my throat, and I try to breathe deeply, but to no avail. I have done something so dreadful, that not even I have the words for it.