Finding Audrey

I’m doing it. I’m getting better. Not just baby-steps better; massive-great-strides better. It’s three weeks later and I’m feeling more on top of it than ever. I’ve been to Starbucks three times, Costa once and The Ginger Biscuit once for milkshakes. I know! Dr Sarah was, like, ‘Audrey, you are making strides!’ Then she told me not to go too fast too soon, yadda yadda, but you could tell she was impressed.

I’ve even had lunch at a pizza restaurant! I had to leave before pudding because the restaurant suddenly got too clattery and threatening – but still, I lasted a whole Quattro Staggioni. Mum and Dad came too, and Linus and Frank and Felix, and it felt like we were . . . you know. A normal group. Apart from the fact that one of us was sitting there in dark glasses like some sad wannabe celeb. I said that to Mum and she said, ‘You think you’re the abnormal-looking one? Look at Felix!’

Which was a fair point, as Felix was dressed in his beloved new morph suit with a tiger mask on top of it, and had a tantrum when we pointed out that he wouldn’t be able to eat any pizza like that.

So that made me feel better. In fact, a lot is making me feel better at the moment. Seeing Linus is definitely making me feel better. We text all the time and he comes over every day after school, and we’ve started playing table tennis in the garden, like, obsessively. Even Frank joins in sometimes.

And today was amazing, because Linus gave me a present. A T-shirt. It has a picture of rhubarb on it and he got it off the internet. Mum and Dad said, ‘Why rhubarb?’ and he winked at me and said, ‘It’s our thing.’

Our thing.

I’m not sure what makes me happier – the T-shirt or the our thing. I’ve never had an our thing with a boy before. Whichever it is, I’m still glowing. Mum and Dad are out and Frank is doing homework and Felix is in bed and I feel fired up. I feel restless. I’m wandering around the house in my T-shirt, feeling like I want to share all this. I want to talk to someone. I want to see someone.

Natalie. I want to see Natalie.

The thought is like a light ray in my brain, so positive, it makes me blink. I want to see her. I want my friend back. Yes. I’m going to do it. Right now.

I’ve nearly phoned Nat a couple of times since I had that talk with Mum. Once I was actually halfway through dialling when I chickened out at the last moment. But today I can face it. I can more than face it.

I get out my phone and key in Natalie’s number before I can change my mind. I know it off by heart, even though I haven’t spoken to her for, like, a zillion years. The last time we saw each other was on that awful last day at school, and she was crying, and I was, like, beyond crying, and it wasn’t the greatest goodbye.

I text:

Hi Nat. How are u? I’m a lot better. Love to c u sometime. Auds. x

About thirty seconds later her reply arrives. It’s like she’s been sitting by her phone all this time, all these weeks, waiting.

Which maybe she has. I blink at the text, which goes like this:

OMG Auds. I have been SO WORRIED ABOUT U. Can I come round? Shall I come round now? Mum says it’s fine. Nat xxxxx

I text back:

OK C u soon.

And what seems like five minutes later, the doorbell rings. It might have been ten minutes. It definitely wasn’t any longer than that. She must have left the house that exact second.

I swing open the front door and step back, a bit unnerved. Not because I’m not pleased to see Natalie, but because of all the stuff she’s holding. She’s got a gift basket of bath oil and a teddy bear holding a banner saying Get Well Soon and some books and magazines and bars of chocolate and a massive card.

‘Hi,’ I say faintly. ‘Wow.’

‘We wanted to visit you before,’ says Nat in a rush. ‘But your mum said . . .’ She swallows. ‘Anyway. So we’d already bought all this stuff. It’s just been sitting there in the hall.’ She looks at her laden arms. ‘I know. It looks a bit mad.’

‘Well . . . come in.’

As she edges in, she’s eyeing up my dark glasses until I say, ‘What is it?’

‘People at school told me they’d seen you in those.’ She points at my dark glasses. ‘You know, in the street. Even when it’s raining. No one knows why you wear them all the time.’

‘It’s just . . . you know.’ I shrug awkwardly. ‘Being ill and everything.’

‘Oh.’ She seems a bit freaked out. ‘Right.’

She comes in and dumps the stuff on the kitchen table and looks at me. For a moment there’s a prickly, awkward silence, except for the ticking of the clock, and I think, Was this a mistake?

I’m tense like a cat. I’m wary. It’s not the way I expected it to be, but seeing Nat is bringing back all kinds of things I’d put away in my mind.

‘I’m sorry.’ Her voice comes out in a miserable gush. ‘Auds, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—’

‘No.’ I shake my head, not wanting to go there. ‘You don’t have to be sorry.’

‘But I should’ve – I didn’t—’ Tears are trickling down her face. ‘I still can’t believe it happened.’

‘It’s OK. Look, have a drink.’

I pour us both some elderflower. I should have realized she’d be upset. In my head I’ve skipped past all that. Or trudged through it, more like. Worked through it, is what Dr Sarah would say. Processed it. Like I’m a cheese slice machine.

I don’t think Nat has processed an awful lot. Every time she looks at me, fresh tears pour down her face.

‘And now you’re ill.’

‘I’m fine. I’m a lot better. I’ve got a boyfriend!’

OK, that sounded a bit abrupt, but let’s face it – this was the main purpose of inviting her over. To tell her I’ve got a boyfriend. Immediately her tears vanish and she leans forward, avidly.

‘A boyfriend? From the hospital?’

FFS. What does she think, that I’m some mental case hanging out with another mental case because that’s all I’m fit for now?

‘No, not from the hospital,’ I say impatiently. ‘It’s Linus. You know? In Frank’s year at Cardinal Nicholls?’

‘Linus? You mean . . . Atticus Finch?’ Nat seems flabbergasted.

‘Exactly. He gave me this.’ I point at my T-shirt. ‘Today. Isn’t it cool?’

‘Is that a picture of rhubarb?’ She looks confused.

‘Yes. It’s our thing,’ I say casually.

‘Wow.’ Nat seems unable to get over this news. ‘So . . . how long have you been going out?’

‘A few weeks. We go to Starbucks and stuff. I mean, it’s just . . . you know. Kind of fun.’

‘I thought you were, like, properly ill. Like, in bed.’

‘Well, I was.’ I shrug. ‘I suppose I’m recovering or whatever.’ I rip open a bar of chocolate and break it into pieces. ‘So, tell me about school.’

I force myself to ask it, even though the word school leaves a nasty sensation in my brain; a kind of poisonous imprint.

‘Oh, everything’s different now,’ says Natalie vaguely. ‘You wouldn’t believe it. Now that Tasha and that lot have left. Katie’s totally changed. You wouldn’t even know her. And Chloe isn’t friends with Ruby any more, and you know Miss Moore left? Well, we have a new deputy head now and she’s brilliant—’ Natalie breaks off from her jabbering. ‘So, are you going to come back?’

The question hits me like a punch in the stomach. The idea of going back to that place literally makes me feel ill.

‘I’m going to the Heath Academy,’ I tell her. ‘I’m going to go down a year, because I’ve missed so much school time. I mean, I’m young for the year anyway, so it’ll all work out . . .’

‘You could go down a year at Stokeland,’ suggests Nat, but I wrinkle my nose.

‘That would be weird. To be in the year below you. Anyway . . .’ I pause. ‘They hate us at Stokeland. My parents got really angry with them. They called this whole big governors’ meeting and had a go at them and it all got . . . you know. Acrimonious.’ I know this from Frank, not from Mum and Dad. ‘They reckon the staff didn’t handle things well.’

‘Well, they didn’t!’ Nat opens her eyes wide. ‘Everyone says that the whole time. Like, my parents go on about it.’

‘Well. So. Exactly. It’d be weird to come back.’

I break the chocolate into more pieces and offer them to Nat. She takes a piece, then looks up, a tear trickling down her face again. ‘I miss you, Auds.’

‘I miss you too.’

‘It was really horrible when you’d gone. Really horrible.’

‘Yeah.’

There’s a moment’s pause – then somehow, with no warning, we’re hugging one other. Natalie smells of Herbal Essences, just like she always does, and she has this little thing of patting you in the small of your back which brings tears to my eyes, just because it’s so familiar.

I’ve missed hugging. God, I’ve missed hugging.

As we draw away from each other, we’re both laughing but a bit teary too. Natalie’s phone rings and she grabs it impatiently.

‘Yes, Mum,’ she says shortly. ‘Everything’s fine. That’s Mum,’ she explains as she throws her phone down again. ‘She’s waiting outside in the car. I was supposed to text her every five minutes to say everything’s OK.’

‘Why?’

‘Because . . . you know.’

‘What?’

‘You know.’ Natalie wriggles awkwardly, looking past me.

‘I don’t.’

‘Auds. You know. Because you’re . . .’

‘What?’

‘Mentally unstable,’ says Natalie, practically in a whisper.

‘What?’ I stare at her, genuinely gobsmacked. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You’re bipolar.’ Natalie’s cringing all over. ‘Bipolar people can become violent. Mum was just worried.’

‘I’m not bipolar!’ I say in astonishment. ‘Who told you I was bipolar?’

‘Aren’t you?’ Natalie’s jaw drops open. ‘Well, Mum said you must be bipolar.’

‘So I’m going to attack you? Because I should never have been let out of my institution and should in fact be in a straitjacket? Jesus!’ I try to stay calm. ‘I’ve met bipolar people, Nat, and they were perfectly safe, believe it or not.’

‘Look, I’m sorry!’ Natalie looks unhappy. ‘But we didn’t know, did we?’

‘Didn’t my mum tell you what was wrong? Didn’t she explain?’

‘Well . . .’ Natalie looks still more awkward. ‘My mum thought she was putting a gloss on it. I mean, there have been all these rumours—’

‘Like what? What rumours?’ Natalie is silent, and I put on my most menacing tone. ‘What rumours, Nat?’

‘OK!’ she says hurriedly. ‘Like you tried to commit suicide . . . like you’ve gone blind . . . like you can’t speak any more . . . Oh! Someone said you’d gouged out your own eyes and that’s why you wear dark glasses.’

‘What?’ I feel winded from shock. ‘And you believed them?’

‘No!’ Natalie looks foolish. ‘Of course I didn’t believe them. But—’

‘I gouged out my own eyes? Like Van Gogh?’

‘That was ears,’ Natalie points out. ‘Only one ear.’

‘I gouged out my own eyes?’ I feel a bit hysterical. A weird, painful laughter is bubbling through me. ‘You believed it, didn’t you, Nat? You believed it.’

‘I didn’t!’ Natalie is getting all pink. ‘Of course I didn’t. I’m just telling you!’

‘But you thought I was a bipolar homicidal maniac.’

‘I don’t even know what bipolar means,’ admits Natalie. ‘I mean, it’s just one of those words.’

‘A bipolar, homicidal maniac with gouged-out eyes.’ I feel a fresh wave of hysteria. ‘No wonder your mum’s outside in the car.’

‘Stop it!’ wails Natalie. ‘I didn’t mean any of it!’

Natalie is a total, utter dope and her mum is worse. But I can’t help feeling a wave of affection as I watch her, all miserable and flustered and not knowing what to say. I’ve known Nat since we were six, and even then she was totally wide-eyed and thought my dad really was Father Christmas.

‘I’m fine,’ I say at last, letting Natalie off the hook. ‘It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.’

‘Really?’ Natalie looks at me anxiously. ‘Oh God, Auds, I’m sorry. You know I don’t know anything about anything.’ She bites her lip, thinking for a moment. ‘So . . . if you’re not bipolar, what are you?’

The question takes me by surprise. I have to think for a few seconds before I reply.

‘I’m getting better,’ I say at last. ‘That’s what I am.’ I reach for the last piece of the chocolate bar and split it into two. ‘C’mon. Let’s finish this before Frank sees it.’