I have arthritis in my left ring finger, brought upon by a historic fracture that I sustained during a netball accident as a teenager. I think it’s a sign I should never marry.
I am terrible at crosswords yet proficient at Scrabble – during my seven years here at Larksmere Hospital I have never been defeated.
I am a convicted killer who was coerced into stabbing a man to death by a sick psychopathic con artist who pretended to be my friend.
OK, so I don’t include the last line on this frankly ridiculous list, though I would’ve liked to just to see the look on Dr Wainwright’s face. Plus it is also a fact, though perhaps not so much of a ‘fun’ one.
Dr Wainwright thinks that this list could act as ‘useful conversation starters’ as I embark upon the process of integrating myself back into society, if they decide I am no longer a danger to it, that is.And they say I’m the mad one.
‘So, Erin,’ Dr Wainwright addresses me with his usual condescending sageness. ‘We all know why we’re here today, don’t we? We’ve been working towards this for some time now, since you were transferred to the low security section of Larksmere last year.’
I nod with a polite smile and remember to maintain eye contact. I need to demonstrate my sincerity today as well as verbalise it. I need him – and the rest of the tribunal – to believe it, tobelieve me,which is something that hasn’t happened in over six years of my life, and is ostensibly the reason why I am still here, stuck in Dante’s Ninth Circle of Hell. That and a woman they tell me isn’t, and never was, real anyway.
‘Today is really more about ticking the right boxes, Erin, crossing the i’s and dotting the t’s,’ Nurse Ledbury says, instantly flushing red as she realises her verbal slip-up. I’ve noticed how she often appears a little flustered in Dr Wainwright’s company and gets her words all in a muddle. I reckon she’s got the hots forhim. Maybe she’s really a secret slut underneath all those roll-neck sweaters and sensible shoes.
Nurse Ledbury is my favourite of all the nurses at Larksmere Hospital, and I don’t even like her all that much. I imagine she probably has some amusing sticker on the inside of her locker that says something like,You don’t have to be mad to work here, but it helps!It sounded promising though, when she said, ‘crossing the i’s and dotting the t’s’. They’ve allowed me out on day release for five weeks running now without incident. If they approve my final release, then I could be out of here in a matter of days. And that really would be something to celebrate.
‘What do you think of now, Erin, when I say the name Samantha Valentine to you?’ Dr Wainwright cocks his head at me, like a dog waiting for a treat. ‘How does it make youfeel?’
I can’t tell him the truth of course. That reallywouldbe madness. I can’t tell him that I despise that name with the burning white-hot fire of ten thousand suns, or that it triggers such acute rage and injustice at the years – at the life and future – I have been robbed of that I want to scream until my larynx collapses. I can’t tell him that it isherwho should’ve been here instead of me, slowly decaying, year by year, day by day, hour by hour, or thatsheis really the dangerous one. They won’t believe me.No one ever has. In my darkest moments, I have even struggled to believe myself.
‘It makes me feel ashamed,’ I reply, mimicking his sageness back at him. ‘Remorseful, but hopeful too, I suppose.’
‘Hopeful?’ He raises a bushy ginger eyebrow. Dr Wainwright has the wildest eyebrows I’ve ever seen, thick and wiry with rogue grey hairs sticking out at random.
‘For the future, a future in which I can, and intend to, repay my debt to society and become part of humanity again.’Tick those boxes.
‘Do you still believe that Samantha Valentine exists, or that she ever did?’ Dr Jameson, a cold woman with a pinched face that she deserves, looks up at me from behind the crescent-shaped desk. I’d anticipated the question of course – not least from her – and had rehearsed my answer, parrot fashion, until the words no longer stuck in my throat.
‘During my time here in Larksmere, in this hospital, throughout the years of different treatments and multiple therapies, the one-to-one sessions and group discussions I’ve engaged in and with, I have gradually come to realise that I was quite ill at the time I committed my crime.’
Dr Wainwright looks at me almost like a proud father. Sally the Social Worker is nodding her head in agreement, and Nurse Ledbury is looking at me in that way she always does, like I am a pitiful lost cause she feels begrudgingly obliged to be kind to lest I may decide to stabherto death.
Old Face-Ache Jameson doesn’t even bother to look up. Miserable cow.
‘I understand now that it was the illness,’ I press on. ‘Although for a long time I struggled to accept that there was a possibility that she never really existed, and that she was just a symptom of my psychosis. But with all the help and support I’ve received here, from you, from everyone at Larksmere, I now understand and have come to terms with this truth.’
My captors watch me silently, intensely. It feels good to have an audience hanging on my every word for a moment, even if it is only because I’m saying what they want to hear.
‘Why now?’ Jameson pipes up again. ‘You have always been so consistent andinsistent in your belief that she was a real person. Throughout most of your sentence you have never deviated from this narrative. So what’s different, Erin?’
The clock on the wall of the sterile office ticks loudly and is a little off per second. It’s distracting.
‘For a long time I hid behind self-denial because it was too painful to face up to the realisation that I had committed, or was even capable of committing, such a heinous crime. Creating a fictitious character enabled me to minimise my actions to myself and stay stuck in that denial.’ I scan their faces to check if they are buying it. I can’t call it.
