‘That’s not belly fat, that’s kwashiorkor,’ said Sarah briskly. ‘As I’m sure they’ve told you. A swollen gut caused by malnutrition. Been there, done that. After – the trauma thing, I virtually stopped eating for two months. They had to put me on a drip in the end. I didn’t think I had a problem either, and it almost killed me. You’re never going to get on top of it unless you face up to the fact that it’s your problem, not anyone else’s.’
Julia stared at her.
‘They’re probably pussyfooting around you, are they, listening to your crap about a slow metabolism? When what you need to hear is simply this – you’re wrong and they’re right. Take it from someone who’s been there and got the T-shirt.’
Julia stood.
‘I’ve got a real problem here to deal with,’ said Sarah.
‘Oh right. So your problem’s real and mine isn’t?’
‘My problem is that my little boy’s missing and no one believes me. So yeah. I think a possibly abducted toddler kind of trumps someone in denial about their eating disorder.’
‘Okaay.’ Julia floated to the door. ‘I thought I had issues, but you are really nuts. That’s one good thing about this place. Makes you realise you’re not as bad as you thought.’
Damn. Sarah had handled that all wrong. ‘I’m sorry – Julia, can I just give you my sister’s number –’
Julia, without looking round, gave her the finger.
And the energy Sarah had got from somewhere, the energy she’d been using to try to bend the girl to her will, suddenly drained away, leaving her weak, leaving her so woozy she could hardly stagger across the room to the bed and flop down onto it and let herself sink down, down and down and –
Evie!
Evie was here! She could hear her, she could hear her saying her name.
‘Sarah. Sarah. Hey. Hey there.’
Sarah opened her eyes.
Not Evie. A stranger, a middle-aged woman with hair so thin you could see scalp, was standing over the bed, smiling and nodding at her. A woman in a fluffy white onesie and fluffy pink earmuffs.
‘Hey there,’ she repeated.
‘Hi.’
‘Got something here you might be interested in!’ And, from behind her back, she produced a small box of chocolates. Peppermint cremes.
Sarah stared dully at the illustration on the front of the box, of three unfeasibly large dark chocolate peppermint cremes, one cut open to reveal the fondant centre, nestled beside a sprig of mint.
‘Oh,’ said Sarah. ‘Thanks. But I’m not hungry.’
The woman laughed. She opened the box to reveal that half the chocolates had been eaten. Setting it down on the waffle blanket covering the bed, she removed the plastic tray in which the remaining chocolates sat.
The box underneath was full of pills. All different shapes and colours: some small and round, some larger and tablet-shaped. Some bicoloured capsules. Most of them looked slightly fuzzy, as if they’d got wet.
The woman nodded at Sarah smugly.
‘We have SSRIs. We have laxatives, anti-sickness pills, sedatives… We have painkillers. We have antipsychotics.’ Like a market seller touting her wares. ‘We have tramadol. That’s really popular as a combo with the SSRIs. Drug-drug interaction, they call it. You’re not meant to take them together because… Whoo!’ She grinned. ‘Fiver a pop, but I can give you a free sample, a try-before-you-buy kind of thing?’
Oh God.
‘How did you get all these?’
‘They’re not all mine!’ she laughed. ‘I’m heavily medicated, in theory anyway, but they’re not all mine! I buy as well as sell. What you have to do, right, is push the pill between your teeth and your cheek, so when nursie makes you open your mouth to check you’ve swallowed it – nothing to see here! Then when she’s gone, slip it out, slip it into the box, choccies go back on top.’ She replaced the plastic tray. ‘Simples!’
‘Ingenious.’
The woman nodded. ‘I’m Marianne. You’re Sarah, yes?’
‘Yes. Please… I’m really tired. I don’t want anything.’ The last thing she needed was more drugs swilling around in her system.
The woman’s obvious pride – she wasn’t just touting for business, she was showing off, showing off how clever she was – it was horribly depressing. It was just so, so awful that what counted as an achievement, a win, in this place was an illicit hoard of sucked pills.
Marianne snapped shut the box of chocolates with a wink. ‘I’ve been messing with you. I know what you really want. Julia told me.’ And, like a conjuror, she brought a black, shiny, rectangular object from behind her back.
A phone!
Sarah reached for it, but Marianne pulled it away with a grin. ‘Uh-uh! You want to make a call, it’ll cost you.’
‘Okay. Fine.’
‘Eighty quid.’
‘Okay.’ Sarah reached for it again.
‘And I don’t do credit.’
‘But I don’t have any money with me here! Please!’ She stared into the woman’s face. ‘I need to call my sister because my little boy is missing. I need my sister!’
‘Okay. I’m not made of stone – we’ll say sixty. But that’s the death, as they say. Take it or leave it.’
‘I don’t have any money!’ she sobbed. ‘Please! I can get you it, I can get a lot more than that, but not right now.’
‘Ha! If I had a pound for every time I’ve heard that one, Sarah! You get a visitor to bring you in some cash – cash, mind, not a cheque – and we can do business. I’m in Room Fourteen. Just down the corridor.’
When Marianne had gone, humming cheerily, Sarah curled on her side, away from the door, and gave in, finally, to tears, her face pressed to the pillow so the nurses wouldn’t hear.
She didn’t know how long she’d been asleep when she woke, heart pounding.
Something was telling her she had to move. To get out there.
She shot out of bed, not stopping to put on her robe or slippers. She staggered into the corridor on her bare feet.
‘Sarah!’ Isla, a nurse with scraped-back ginger hair, beamed at her. ‘You’ve got a visitor, my love! Visitors, in fact! Why don’t we get another chair through and you can talk in your room, eh? If you –’
But Sarah wasn’t listening because she had seen who it was, she had seen her at the end of the corridor – a young woman in a green puffer jacket and jeans, an ordinary, average-size woman with a face that was pleasant rather than pretty – although she had rather striking blue eyes – with ordinary mouse-coloured hair pulled back in a ponytail –
‘Evie!’
She ran, her bare feet slapping on the grey vinyl, she ran into her sister’s arms, and Evie was holding her, she was stroking her hair, she was sobbing with her: ‘Oh Rah-Bee! It’s all right, it’s all right. Everything’s going to be all right.’
‘Are you real?’ Sarah sobbed.
‘Of course I’m real, silly!’
‘Where have you been?’
‘I haven’t been anywhere.’
‘But – last night – You weren’t there!’