Towers of Silence

Chapter Twenty-four

Over the years I’ve built up a network of contacts, some friends, some acquaintances, who I can ask for help in the course of my work. People who have their own expertise and don’t mind giving me a little time.

Moira, our GP is one, and also a friend. I hadn’t seen her for some time but that didn’t matter. I rang and asked her who she knew that I could talk to about women and mental health; she referred me to Zoe Roberts and gave me a number.

“She’s involved with MIND, and various community mental health schemes,” Moira said, “but she’s also done a good few years in hospital so she’s a good all-rounder. And she’s still publishing research.”

We left it at that.

Zoe Roberts was happy to talk but not available till later in the day. “Ring me at home,” she suggested.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, it’s fine.”

I rang back as arranged and described to her what I knew of Miriam’s mental health history and explained that the family were resistant to the scenario that she’d gone from being apparently well to suicidal in a matter of hours. Could it happen like that?

“Well, it did in this case, didn’t it?” Zoe pointed out. “Medicine is as much an art as it is a science. Changes in mood, response to drugs, social context, cultural mores; they all impinge on our health and they are all impossible to measure in neat scientific units. How we feel is hard to quantify, it’s subjective, it has to be. We can point to statistics or patterns or probabilities but there are always exceptions, lots of exceptions. What you’ve described isn’t the most common story but nor is it unheard of. And it is definitely possible. Everything’s possible.”

“And can you usually find something to explain why someone becomes suicidal one day when they’ve not been before?”

She laughed. “No, no, no. Health is a process. So is disease or lack of health. It’s a continuum too. Even when we talk with people who are failed suicides they can’t often articulate what precipitated the attempt. I’m sorry, I’m not deliberately being vague but we’re talking about complex human conditions and decisions and chance and everything else you can think of.”

I thanked Zoe, appreciating her honesty but disappointed that I had nothing more clear-cut to take back to Connie. Though Hattie’s information was a plus. Proof positive of Connie’s mounting fears and increasing dislocation.