ME: I know you think I’m weird.
DOC: What makes you say that?
ME: I heard you talking to Mum once. You told her it was really weird how sometimes I sound really grown up, almost like an adult, but other times I seem almost babyish.
DOC: I didn’t say it was ‘really weird’, I just said I’d noticed it, that’s all. And I didn’t say ‘babyish’ either. All I said was that sometimes the way you talk makes you sound older than you are, and sometimes you come across as being younger than you are. I didn’t say it was ‘weird’. And I wouldn’t use that word anyway.
ME: What word would you use?
DOC: I don’t know . . . ‘different’, perhaps.
‘Unusual’. There’s nothing wrong with being unusual.
I’ve never met my father. According to Mum, she met him at a party, they spent the night together, and that was that. They never saw each other again.
‘It was all perfectly amiable,’ she told me once. ‘He was a lovely man, and we had a very nice time together. But neither of us wanted to take it any further, and we were both quite happy to go our separate ways.’
‘What was his name?’ I asked her.
‘Martyn.’
‘Martyn what?’
‘I honestly don’t know. He introduced himself as Martyn, and I told him I was Grace, and that’s all we needed to know.’
Even if she had known his surname, she still wouldn’t have made any effort to contact him when she found out she was pregnant.
‘It would only have complicated things,’ she explained. ‘And besides, apart from his name, the only other thing I knew about Martyn was that he lived in Los Angeles and he was a writer, but he didn’t write under his real name. So I couldn’t have tracked him down even if I’d wanted to, which I didn’t.’
I don’t miss having a father – you can’t miss what you’ve never had, can you? – and on the rare occasions when I do wonder what it would be like to have a dad, the mere thought of it makes me shudder. A man living in my house? A monkem? A man I’d have to share Mum with . . .?
No.
I wouldn’t like that one bit.
DOC: We might not know the precise cause of your problem, Elliot, but we know how it affects you, and it might be possible to lessen those effects to some degree.
ME: How?
DOC: There are anti-anxiety medications that might help. They’re obviously not intended for treating the level of fear that afflicts you, and normally I’d never even consider this type of medication for a child, but you’re a far from normal case, Elliot.
ME: Thanks a lot.
The Doc looks totally different when he smiles, which isn’t very often. But when he does smile, it lightens his face, makes him look younger. It lifts his mask of sombre gravity and reveals a twinkle of the child in him.
DOC: Anyway, I’ve talked to your mum about it, and although she hates the idea of putting you on medication as much as I do, she agrees that it’s worth giving it a go. But only if you want to try it.
ME: Will the drugs stop me being afraid?
DOC: No, but they might lessen the severity of your fears.
ME: So I’ll still be scared of things, but not so much.
DOC: Possibly, yes. It’s also possible that medication won’t help you at all. In fact, it could actually make you feel worse. But the only way to find out is by trying it. You also need to bear in mind that there are dozens of different types of anti-anxiety medication, and it could easily take months, or even years, to find out which of them – if any – is best for you. Now I know this is a lot to think about, but at the moment that’s all I want you to do – just think about it, okay? There’s no rush, you can take as much time as you want. And if there’s anything you’re not sure about, anything you want to ask, just let me know, okay?
ME: Yeah.
DOC: We can do this, Elliot. We can do everything possible to make you better. But we have to do it together. We have to do it between the three of us – you, your mum, and me.
And Ellamay, I added silently.
Thank you, she said.
You’re welcome.
It’s twenty-one minutes past three now, and I’m back in the hallway, making some final adjustments to my Wellington boots. They’re actually the Doc’s boots. He left them at our house once – I don’t know why – and they’ve been here ever since. They’re far too big for me, which is why I’ve had to customise them by stuffing the toe-ends with scrunched-up newspaper. I used to have my own pair of Wellingtons, but it’s been so many years since I wore them – so many years since I’ve needed them – that I don’t have a clue where they are. In fact, it’s quite possible that Mum got rid of them a long time ago. And even if she didn’t, and I did know where they are, they’d be at least a couple of sizes too small for me by now.
I don’t feel very comfortable in the Doc’s Wellingtons, but they’re the only boots I could find, so I don’t really have much choice.
The gloves and the coat and the hat I’m wearing aren’t mine either. They’re Mum’s. As with the boots, I used to have my own coat and everything, but if you hardly ever leave the house – and I hardly ever leave my room, let alone the house – there’s not much point in having outdoor clothing. And besides, I can always borrow Mum’s if I need to. She’s only a bit bigger than me, so they’re not too bad a fit.
Although, having said that . . .
What are you doing now? Ellamay says.
‘These gloves are a bit loose. I’m just going to try padding them out a bit with a few scraps of wadded-up newspaper. It won’t take long.’
That’s enough, Elliot.
‘What?’
We have to go. You can’t keep putting it off.
‘I’m not –’
Yes, you are. You know you are.
She’s right, of course. I keep trying to convince myself that I’m ready to do this, that I’ve got my fear under control . . . but the truth is, I’m as terrified now as I was twenty-one minutes ago. All I want to do is go back to the sanctuary of my room and stay there for ever. It’s the only place I feel safe, the only place I ever want to be. My room.
My everything.
My world.
The countryside can be a scary place when darkness falls. Before I had my own specially modified fear-proof room, I’d often lie awake at night just waiting for the horror-sounds to begin. The piercing screech of an owl, the scream of a fox (like someone in terrible pain), the pitiful cries of rabbits being killed . . . and monkem noises too – gunshots from night hunters, the shattering roar