Page 55 of The Truth About You and Me
What if it’s something more though and she reallycanhear what others are thinking? If I told Nell what she’d said, she’d laugh and tell me to get as far away from her as possible and yet… Yet, I can’t stop my mind questioning. It wakes me up in the night. It haunted me as I tried to draft the email advert to sublet the shop that I still haven’t sent.
I’ve even tried to recall any time that Maggiecouldhave read my thoughts in the days that followed. What would she have heard? That I feel like a failure? Did she know about my stroke before I told her? Is that how she knew Luke was telling the truth?
That’s the toughest thing to take. Because since I’ve met her, I haven’t felt the need to hide anything. And if I’m being honest, part of mewantsit to be true, to have one person see the darkest parts of me, the parts that scared Vicky away, that I try to hide away even from myself, and want a relationship with me anyway. That’s what she said. She wanted to kiss me, she wanted me to know how she felt. If she heard what I was thinking, would she still want to do that? I shake my head. This is ridiculous. People can’tread minds.
* * *
Dr Levin’s office is not far from the uni campus, and I’m going to have to try and navigate my way through a town I don’t know, with road signs I can’t read. I wait until I hear my stop and disembark. I’ve been counting the times I’ve been accidentally touched since I left home. I’ve made it out onto the street and I’ve already hit sixteen. Sixteen people who Maggie says she would be able to ‘hear’.
I squint against the sun. I have no idea whether to walk left or right, or whether I’ve used the right exit from the station. I open up my voice note with the instructions, cross the road outside the Black Swan Inn – easy to spot by the colours. I stop still. The sound of the town is playing its own chaotic symphony: traffic parping horns, a couple arguing, and a man asking me for a fiver so he’s warm for the night. I give it and ask him directions.
I make a few wrong turns, getting more and more frustrated as my feet hit the pavement. The ground is cobbled, and the air feels compacted around me. There is something about this place that feels like it expects something of you, a greater knowledge of the world, which only amplifies as I make my way around the outskirts of the campus. I unwind my scarf, shove my gloves into my pockets.
I looked at pictures of his office before I left, but I still have to ask three more people until I find a small row of houses at the end of a cul-de-sac. According to Google Maps playing in my ear, I have arrived at my destination.
I take a breath, looking up at the plaque on the front of the Victorian building.
There is a woman around Mum’s age outside the house next door. I squint at the words, stepping forwards. In my mind, I know that there will be a space between the two smudges of shape if this says Dr Levin but still my finger hovers over the buzzer. I scratch my neck, squeeze my eyes shut and reopen them to see if I get any more clarity. Since finding out more about Luke, that he wasn’t the one to cause the stroke, the pain has eased a little.
‘Forgotten your glasses?’ the woman asks, joining me: short blonde bob, bright red lipstick.
‘I… yes.’ I give an exaggerated eye roll. ‘I’m looking for Dr Levin?’
‘You’re in the right place.’ She looks back to the building, her face softening, and gives my arm a gentle squeeze.
I knock on the door, the sounds of a dog barking coming from behind.
Dr Levin is short, hairy and has thick glasses. He reminds me of a mole.
‘Hi, I’m Jack Chadwick. We have an appointment – sorry, I’m a bit late…’
‘Not to worry. Come on through.’
His office has high ceilings, yellow walls, battered leather sofas and arched windows that do little to block out the sounds outside.
‘So, Jack.’ The chair he’s sitting in seems to almost swallow him. ‘What brings you to my door?’
‘Well, I had a stroke and?—’
‘Yes, yes. I know all about that, but why are you here?’ He peers at me over his glasses.Because if I didn’t come, I could financially ruin myself and end up losing my home and cost Nell her job. And it gives me something else to focus on.
‘I… I want to read again.’
‘Are you sure?’
What a question. Of course I do. I frown. ‘Yes.’
‘Because I’ve looked at your history and you’ve only made it to seven of your speech and language appointments in the past six months and I don’t have time to start the trial with a patient who isn’t fully committed.’
I shift in my seat. ‘Things have changed. Before, I didn’t remember much about the night it happened and any time I tried to read I would feel this pain at the back of my skull.’
‘Psychosomatic pain.’
‘Sorry?’
‘That’s what it’s called. When you experience that type of pain that is connected to trauma.’
‘Right. But since then…’ I push away the image of Maggie, of the way she tried to help me find the answers. ‘Since I’ve started to piece together a few things, the pain isn’t as… excruciating. So now I am. Committed.’
