Charles mentioning of Rebecca has made me curious of her. There are no photos around in the house that I have seen and so far, she has not made a visit when I'm there. I cannot resist asking Hutchins when we one day have afternoon tea in the kitchen, this time without Charles.
"Charles mentioned he has a girlfriend."
"Rebecca, yes..."
The tone of her voice indicates she may not be a fan of Rebecca, which encourages me to dig deeper.
"What is she like? I mean, I just find it a bit odd that I haven't seen her around in the weeks I've worked here."
"Ah, she comes here sometimes in the evenings, but if you ask me it would be just as good if she didn't bother. Or better."
"Why?"
"She's not there for him, not in any sense that matters. In her world, all was good as long as he was this handsome successful officer, headed for a splendid military career, progressing to major and so on - with her by his side, naturally. His injuries, and maybe even worse from her perspective, him not being able to be social like he used to, it's difficult for her to handle. I think she thinks that it's not what she signed up for. She comes here more and more seldom, and from what I can tell it hardly raises his spirits."
My hand is resting on the table surface and surprisingly, she puts her hand over it, saying:
"I'm glad he has you Molly."
"I'm just employed to be here, remember" I say a bit embarrassed.
"I know, but you are still doing so much more for him than she is. He needs you."
My cheeks are blushing but I cannot pretend that her words do not make me proud and happy.
-O-
I do not notice at first. Maybe because the worsening comes gradually, maybe because I was a little too caught up in the bubble of happiness of him getting better, seemingly both physically and mentally, so I did not want to see the signs. In retrospect I curse myself for not paying better attention. Not that I know for sure if it would have made any difference but maybe we could have pulled the break and reversed it before it got so bad.
Over a few weeks, he gradually becomes more silent again and more often prefers to be alone. There are days when I suspect he has skipped exercising when we are at home. The Headley Court sessions would be more difficult to escape because I would notice at once, but he seems more reluctant to go there. He begins to look more tired, with dark circles under his eyes and when I ask he just mumbles he had a bad night. And there is something in his gaze sometimes, like a transient flicker of panic but it is nothing concrete, nothing I can ask him about and if I had, I probably would not have gotten an answer. Slowly I realise something is not quite right. I worry increasingly, but I do not know what to do. He is not shutting me out completely, like in the beginning, but he is not inviting me in either.
-O-
Then comes an afternoon when I meet Rebecca for the first time. Charles is upstairs and I'm loitering in the library when there is a call on the front door. I know Hutchins I busy preparing dinner, so I make myself useful opening the door in her place. There stands this perfect woman, as if she just had stepped out of a magazine. Not Hello, but rather one of those with a cover featuring upper class people, cheerfully seated on a horseback in spotless outfit while simultaneously drinking a cup of tea with an autumn leafy estate in the background, or pictured inside their perfect home, surrounded by their perfect family, all with plastic white smiles pasted on their aristocratic faces. She is tall and thin like a model. She has long, straight and shiny blonde hair, the kind you expect to hear a swoosh sound effect from when she moves. Her face is a very beautiful but cold. She can compete with Charles when it comes to having high cheekbones and her whole face is quite sharp with pale smooth skin, but she has a pair of pouty pink lips that softens the overall impression. And her eyes. They are large, framed by long eyelashes, which I do not doubt she uses frequently to dupe men, and the colour of the large iris is icy blue. From the moment I see her, she is the Ice Queen to me and I'm seriously wondering if I would turn to ice if I reached out a finger to touch her.
"You must be Rebecca" I state.
"Ms. Hawthorne" she corrects me, seemingly offended I went straight to her first name. "I don't think we have been introduced. Who are you?"
I would have thought Charles might have mentioned something to her about me. Something like that he has this great girl keeping him company during the days and cheering him up, but no, it seems like I have not been worth mentioning to this ice goddess.
"My name is Molly Dawes. I work here, helping Mr. James."
For some reason it seems fitting not to call him Charles in front of her. I just get the feeling she would not appreciate it much that we are on a first name basis (or that I am with him and he calls me Dawesy). I wonder if it does not hurt to lie down beside her, her hipbones look so protruding in her skinny fit jeans one could almost cut oneself on them. Why has Charles chosen this woman to be his girlfriend? I'm a bit disappointed in his judgement. I would have thought he liked a warmer personality than hers appears to be. But of course, she is extremely beautiful.
"Are you going to let me in?" impatiently she steps forward and although I'm reluctant to, I have no valid reason to not let her in.
While she takes of her expensive-looking coat, she decides to make conversation.
"What do you help Charles with anyway?"
"I drive him back and forth to rehab and I keep him company when he likes to."
"That can't be often" she snorts. "He has turned into quite an eremite since Belize."
She does not say it fondly, or even with pity, rather with contempt. I like her less and less and as I started off at zero we are now on the minus scale. When she disappears up the stairs I do not miss her.
I do not think the house is badly insulated, but it is very quiet, and therefore it is difficult not to hear that they start arguing when she has only been with him for a short while. I cannot hear what they say, which I'm both grateful for and annoyed about, but I can hear their raised voices, his dark and hers more high-pitched like a disturbing, loud mumble. It goes on for quite a while, then she storms down the stairs and out the front door and slams it after her. I do not see him before I head home that evening, he just lets Hutchins know that he does not want any dinner.
I do not know if that argument was the last push in the wrong direction, or if the argument started because he already was in a bad place, but next day is certainly not a good day.
It was intended to be a Headley Court day and I'm surprised that he is not ready and waiting for me in the hallway like is our routine. Instead, Hutchins appears, looking sad.
"It seems we are back on square one" she says.
"What do you mean?"
"He won't come out of bed, he won't have breakfast and he won't even let me open up the blinds."
I feel so disappointed. I was not mentally prepared for a backlash, which was naïve of me, I realise that instantly. In the light of this, the last weeks play up in my head and now I see the signs of worsening painfully clear.
"I'll go to him" I say.
"I'm not sure he'll want your company, Molly."
"Neither am I, but I have to try. We can't just leave him like that" and heart pounding I head up the stairs, to once again enter his dark bedroom.
He lies on the bed, curled up in a fetal position. When he senses my presence, he raises his head to look at me. It is horrible. The eyes that look into mine are dead and yet panicked at the same time, how that is even possible. When he sees that it is me, he just lies down again and say weakly:
"Please leave, Dawes."
No 'piss off Dawesy', no 'get the fuck out' in the request, which makes me even more worried. I linger, hesitating because I really do not want to leave him like this but I'm not sure what to do. I decide I will not leave. Instead I do what I don't really dare. I walk around to the other side of the gigantic bed, carefully climb up on it, and without showing the hesitation I still feel, move as close to him as I can.
"What are you doing Dawes?"
"Just shut up. I'm not leaving you."
Strange enough, he does not protest and that is the last thing any of us say for many hours as I now lie down behind him, curl my body to follow his and wrap my arms around him. It is a strange thing to do but it is the only thing I can think of. To try to give him some sort of comfort for whatever it is that he needs to be comforted for. I wish I could keep him safe from the past ghosts in his mind. Our breathing falls into the same pace, slower and slower and eventually we both fall asleep. When I wake up, I stay where I am, just shift position slightly. It seems he is already awake and feels it.
"What are you doing here, Dawes?" his voice is low, tired, not angry.
"I don't want to leave you alone when you're like this. I just won't, so there is no point you tell me to go. You don't have to talk to me but I'll stay here."
I hope he will not get the idea to push me out of the bed, because I know he easily could. He does nothing of the sort, just stays silent for a while.
"I want to talk to you."
He surprises me.
"I would love to listen."
It takes a while still before he says anything, but I'm not in a hurry for anything.
"I just can't get out of this bed... It's like I'm in this giant black hole, trying to climb out of it and sometimes I think I'm on my way but then something pulls me back down."
"Was it Rebecca's visit?"
"No. No, she does not make any difference. She is... just nothing to me. When I think of her I feel numb, empty. Like with so many other things. I look around me and I feel nothing. Not anger, not sadness, I don't feel at all. It's like the past hurts so bad I can't feel anything for the present."
He takes a deep breath.
"Even the most ordinary things feel difficult, not because I can't walk, but inside of me. Getting out of this bed. Bringing myself to the bathroom to have a shower. Turn on the water, pump soap out of the bottle... To everything, there is this sequence of steps that seems so unbelievably difficult to do, that I don't know how to get started with the first one."
I just listen without interrupting, without letting go of my arms around him.
"And when people, not only Rebecca, come around or call me or text me, instead of thinking how great that they think of me, I think 'can't they just go', and 'how will I ever be able to call them back'. It's only you and Hutchins I can stand at all... And then there's the anxiety. I feel terrified, but I'm not sure what I'm terrified of. There's such a weight on me that is so unbearable that I don't know how I will get through the next minute, and the minute after that, so I can get through the day. I makes me paralysed, I just can't get out of this bed. Something is wrong with me, Dawesy. Very wrong."
It breaks my heart that he is so messed up, I almost do not know what to say.
"When did it start? Not this time, but first."
"After I was in Afghanistan the last time, nearly two years ago. It started after that and has gradually become worse, especially after I got the injuries in Belize as I'm stuck here with my thoughts."
"Do you want to tell me? About what happened in Afghanistan?"
There is a silence so long that I first do not think he will tell me anything, but finally he starts to speak again.
"It was my fifth tour to Afghanistan. I probably shouldn't have gone that time. I wasn't fully focused, not like I had been before. I think I maybe had started to feel a bit disillusioned about Afghan. The British Army was packing up, preparing to leave them to their own fate and I couldn't see we had done that much real difference, you know. For the first time I was doubting my role there."
He pauses and we just lie there again, breathing slowly. I do not want to say anything and risk disturbing this fragile moment of trust.
"Yet, I was happy to be there because I was able to reconnect with some Afghan soldiers I had served alongside before and considered to be my friends. Captain Azizi, one of them was called. Also, one of my best mates happened to be deployed there, Elvis."
He is silent again but I refrain from commenting the unusual name. This is clearly not the moment for that.
"We knew each other from Sandhurst. He was a cheeky, too good-looking Italian, very different from me, but we just got along from the very first day and became best friends. He was a bit like the brother I never had..."
His voice breaks and he pauses before he can continue.
"He was a special forces soldier but our paths crossed every now and then on tour, and when we were home at the same time we always hung out. He was also dating a female private in my section, a bit of a complicated story but they loved each other. Both she and I were really happy he was there with us, in Afghan... Then shit was going down. Azizi seemed to have despaired even more than I about his country and he... betrayed us. There was an unexpected ambush where I realised he was on the enemy side now. Then there was this bomb... Elvis discovered it but before he could do anything... "
He gasps for air but continue.
"...before he could do anything, it blew up in his face and he was thrown from the roof of a building. I think he was dead before he hit the ground."
I press my face into his back, hold my arms tighter around him, feel myself crying for this person I never knew because I understand how it must hurt inside him.
"His girlfriend... she was our medic. She tried CPR but there was no use, there was nothing anyone could do. God, I have never heard anyone cry like that, it was almost not human. I don't think you can understand it if you were not there."
I think I can, I know I can. Poor girl. And him, his best friend. He is crying now, I hear him sob.
"It was my fault. I was in charge, I should have seen it coming. Should have sensed there was something the matter with Azizi, but I wasn't alert as I should have been. I will never forgive myself. I see him again and again, cannot get him to disappear. I mean, I don't want him to disappear, I always want to remember my best mate... but I want to forget that, the burnt and bruised version of him, with eyes open, staring into the sky without seeing anything. It's like it's burned into my retina. It comes back in my nightmares, it comes back in flashes when I'm awake nearly every day, but some worse than other. And her...It's my fault she lost her love. We have met many times since and I know she doesn't blame me, but I do. I feel the weight of it, I just can't escape it. Sometimes, like today, it's like this pressure over my chest. I can't get air. I'm just paralysed. It was my fault, Molly and I don't know what to do. I don't know how to live without my friend, or how to live with the guilt. So many times, I have thought it would be better to just end this misery. I'm no good to anyone and I can't live with myself."
"Don't even think that Charles. I can't begin to tell you how sad this all makes me and I understand this is so hard to live with, but don't even think about doing anything to yourself."
I know there are no magic words I can say like a quick-fix to make him feel better. I know he is not in control of his mind and will need help far beyond what I can give him. The only thing I can do is support him to get that help.
"You need help."
"I know... but I don't know how anyone can ever help me."
"We need to get you to Headley Court, to get help from the professionals there. You need to see the doctor and the psychologist, and you need to start talking to the psychologist about all this. Otherwise they cannot help you. You need to trust them like you have trusted me now. They are there to help. And I know it may seem impossible to get there, to even get out of this bed, but I'm here for you and I will come with you, hold your hand if you need me to. But I won't let you give up, I won't let you just sink into this. I can't let you die because Elvis did, I just won't let it happen."
He does not agree, but he does not say he will not let me take him there either.
I stay with him and eventually I can feel him falling asleep again, into a much-needed rest. Later, I get up from the bed and go get something for myself to eat. Then I sit in an armchair by his side, reading and just watching him sleep, his long eyelashes against his cheeks he looks peaceful for a while. Tomorrow I will take him to Headley Court and I do not intend to let him out of my sight before that, just in case he would get the idea to escape from it all in the worst possible way. Eventually I fall asleep in that chair and when I wake up, finding myself tucked under a blanket, by Hutchins I assume, the new day has arrived.
-O-
At Headley Court they instantly identify the situation as grave. Charles has asked that I join him when he meets with the doctor and psychologist. I do and he takes me up on the offer to hold his hand. There is no doubt that he is suffering from depression in combination with PTSD. They agree they will increase his dose of SSRI medication, he needs that right now. There is quite a risk that his condition will initially get worse as a side effect of the increased dose, before he gets any better. Because of that and because they think he needs to see the psychologist daily for some time (and, even if they do not say it out loud, because there is also the risk he might harm himself), it is agreed that he will be submitted to the clinic for a few weeks. I can come visit, but he must stay. I hate to leave him here, but I'm also relieved. I think it is what he needs right now.
Before I head home, I tell him I will be back in a few days, to bring him some of his things. He may not need anything right now, but it feels good to have that excuse to come.
"Come back to me" he says.
"I promise, I will. And you have to promise me to talk to the psychologist, like really talk. Please, for me if not for yourself."
I do not know why I get the idea to say that. I do not know why he would want to do anything for my sake.
-O-
When I drive back to Bath, alone, I think about my own past. At some point I will share it with him, so he realises that I know for real what he is going through. Today was not the right time to share my story though. He has more than enough with his own demons and I would not want to diminish his feelings by telling him about my experience, saying "Hey, me too". But later on, I may be able to connect to him better if he realises that I understand from my own experience that depression is not loss of only happiness, it is loss of vitality. Loss of any feelings, of energy, of strength, of the ability to care about anything around you. That it is the need to sleep endlessly. But even if I understand, I will not let him sleep endlessly although it may seem to him like the only way out. No. Fucking. Way. I will make him understand that what I see in him does not scare me. It only makes me feel empathy, it makes me want to help him and I will not leave him even if he tells me to.