Where the West Wind Blows Read Free

career I’d barely noticed her passing. And as for children, well James and I had decided against them, fearing they would get in the way of our painting, our joint career, that gargantuan thing that was us .
    For the first time, I realise that had we had been less selfish and produced a brood of disruptive offspring, I’d have someone to lean on now, lots of small replica James’ ready to take me in and let me grow old in the bosom of their families. I’d have sons and daughters; grandchildren. If only we had been less unconventional I would have someone to love me now, a sort of build-your-own security package. But no, we made the decision and as a result, I grieve alone, and to grieve alone is so very hard. I never thought he’d run out on me like this.
    It must be easier to be James.
    To be past all this.
     
    The girl fidgets on the end of my bed, stretches out her legs, wiggles her plump ankles, her feet encased in grubby pink velour slippers, like my nan used to wear. “Is it your first cut?”
    “I’m sorry?”
    She nods at my bandaged wrists. “Is it the first time you’ve done it?”
    “Oh … yes,” I say, wishing she would bugger off so I could think about James.
    “Are they deep?”
    “Not deep enough; no.”
    “Nor mine,” she sniffs. “Next time I’m doing them deeper and in the other direction, up and down. I did it wrong this time but next time I won’t. I don’t want to end up back in here. The boredom is killing me.”
    I ignore the irony and store the snippet of information away while she sniffs again and twiddles her mousy hair, her mouth slightly open and a gleam of saliva on her lip.
    I am so useless I’ve even got dying wrong.
    The woman in the next bed lets out a wail and begins rocking back and forth, seeking comfort in a comfortless world. No one comes to attend her and the girl and I exchange glances. She raises her eyebrows dispassionately, leans forward to confide in me. “They found all ‘er dead babies buried in ‘er garden. She won’t say if they were dead when they came or if she smothered ‘em after. And there’s no way o’ tellin’.”
    I look at the sad, grey woman who now has only herself to hold in her arms and decide perhaps it is better not to be a mother after all. Everyone in here is lonely. It is loneliness that drove us mad, took away our options. We are all lonely, and every one of us is crazy. We do not ask each other’s names for we have none. We are like spirits in purgatory, a shuttered, clinical purgatory, with some of us passing through to a better place, while others remain indefinitely, wailing like wraiths until our time is done here.
    In the opposite bay another woman is sobbing as she has been since I woke up; she makes no sound but her cheeks are always wet, her eyes are raw as wounds. Empty boxes of tissues are abandoned on her bed, crumpled balls of sodden kleenex falling from the covers to litter the cold tiled floor. The ward sister will scold her when she comes and the junior nurse will grumble as she tidies up around her. Then they will administer her medication and the sad woman will cease weeping for a while and sleep and forget …but just for a while. I hope her dreams are happier than her waking. This woman never gives up crying for long enough to speak to us and none of us know her story.
    In the last bed there is a girl who never cries. She cannot be more than fifteen. She doesn’t seem to like her bed and so she stands and stares blank-eyed from the barred window and speaks to nobody, not even her shrink – therapist .  Beneath her eyes there are old bruises, scars on her face and on her neck and she seems to be the saddest of us all.
    This girl is unreachable, unknowable.
    We are all sad here. Sad and alone and I am no different. My fine arts degree and reputation as an artist means nothing in here. Minor celebrity is irrelevant. Just like the rest of them, I am displaced and unloved and, just as in the outside world, I do