Алекс Михаэлидес - The Silent Patient

We stood there and smoked in silence for a moment.

“This is where we would sit. Alicia and me. Every day, pretty much.”

“How old were you?”

“I was about seven, maybe eight. Alicia couldn’t have been more than ten.”

“You were a bit young to be climbing ladders.”

“I suppose so. Seemed normal to us. When we were teenagers, we’d come up and smoke and drink beers.”

I tried to picture a teenage Alicia, hiding from her father and her bullying aunt; Paul, her adoring younger cousin, following up the ladder, pestering her when she’d much rather be silent, alone with her thoughts.

“It’s a good hiding place,” I said.

Paul nodded. “Uncle Vernon couldn’t make it up the ladder. He had a big build, like Mum.”

“I could barely make it up myself. That ivy is a death trap.”

“It’s not ivy, it’s jasmine.” Paul looked at the green vines that curled over the top of the ladder. “No flowers yet—not until the spring. Smells like perfume then, when there’s a lot of it.” He seemed lost in a memory for a moment. “Funny that.”

“What?”

“Nothing.” He shrugged. “The things you remember … I just was thinking about the jasmine—it was in full bloom that day, the day of the accident, when Eva was killed.”

I looked around. “You and Alicia came up here together, you said?”

He nodded. “Mum and Uncle Vernon were looking for us down there. We could hear them calling. But we didn’t say a word. We stayed hiding. And that’s when it happened.”

He stubbed out his cigarette and gave me an odd smile. “That’s why I brought you here. So you can see it—the scene of the crime.”

“The crime?”

Paul didn’t answer, just kept grinning at me.

“What crime, Paul?”

“Vernon’s crime. Uncle Vernon wasn’t a good man, you see. No, not at all.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“Well, that’s when he did it.”

“Did what?”

“That’s when he killed Alicia.”

I stared at Paul, unable to believe my ears. “Killed Alicia? What are you talking about?”

Paul pointed at the ground below. “Uncle Vernon was down there with Mum. He was drunk. Mum kept trying to get him to go back inside. But he stood down there, yelling for Alicia. He was so angry with her. He was so mad.”

“Because Alicia was hiding? But—she was a child—her mother had just died.”

“He was a mean bastard. The only person he ever cared about was Auntie Eva. I suppose that’s why he said it.”

“Did what?” I was losing patience. “I don’t understand what you’re saying to me. What exactly happened?”

“Vernon was going on about how much he loved Eva—how he couldn’t live without her. ‘My girl,’ he kept saying, ‘my poor girl, my Eva … Why did she have to die? Why did it have to be her? Why didn’t Alicia die instead? ’”

I stared at Paul for a second, stunned. I wasn’t sure I understood. “‘Why didn’t Alicia die instead?’”

“That’s what he said.”

“Alicia heard this?”

“Yeah. And Alicia whispered something to me—I’ll never forget it. ‘He killed me,’ she said. ‘Dad just—killed me.’”

I stared at Paul, speechless. A chorus of bells started ringing in my head, clanging, chiming, reverberating. This was what I’d been looking for. I’d found it, the missing piece of the jigsaw, at last—here on a roof in Cambridge.

* * *

All the way back to London, I kept thinking about the implications of what I had heard. I understood now why Alcestis had struck a chord with Alicia. Just as Admetus had physically condemned Alcestis to die, so had Vernon Rose psychically condemned his daughter to death. Admetus must have loved Alcestis, on some level, but there was no love in Vernon Rose, just hate. He had committed psychic infanticide—and Alicia knew it.

“He killed me,” she said. “Dad just killed me.”

Now, at last, I had something to work with. Something I knew about—the emotional effects of psychological wounds on children, and how they manifest themselves later in adults. Imagine it—hearing your father, the very person you depend upon for your survival, wishing you dead. How terrifying that must be for a child, how traumatizing—how your sense of self-worth would implode, and the pain would be too great, too huge to feel, so you’d swallow it, repress it, bury it. Over time you would lose contact with the origins of your trauma, dissociate the roots of its cause, and forget. But one day, all the hurt and anger would burst forth, like fire from a dragon’s belly—and you’d pick up a gun. You’d visit that rage not upon your father, who was dead and forgotten and out of reach—but upon your husband, the man who had taken his place in your life, who loved you and shared your bed. You’d shoot him five times in the head, without possibly even knowing why.

The train raced through the night back to London. At last, I thought—at last I knew how to reach her.

Now we could begin.

CHAPTER NINE

I SAT WITH ALICIA IN SILENCE.

I was getting better at these silences, better at enduring them, settling into them and toughing it out; it had become almost comfortable, sitting in that small room with her, keeping quiet.

Alicia held her hands in her lap, clenching and unclenching them rhythmically, like a heartbeat. She was facing me, not looking at me, but gazing out of the window through the bars. It had stopped raining, and the clouds momentarily parted to reveal a pale blue sky; then another cloud appeared, obscuring it with gray. Then I spoke.

“There’s something I have become aware of. Something your cousin told me.”

I said this as gently as I could. She didn’t react, so I went on.

“Paul said that when you were a child, you overheard your father say something devastating. After the car accident that killed your mother … you heard him say that he wished you had died, instead of her.”

I was certain there would be a knee-jerk physical reaction, an acknowledgment of some kind. I waited, but none came.

“I wonder how you feel about Paul telling me this—it might seem like a betrayal of confidence. But I believe he had your best interests in mind. You are, after all, in my care.”

No response. I hesitated.

“It might help you if I tell you something. No—perhaps that’s being disingenuous—perhaps it’s me it would help. The truth is I understand you better than you think. Without wishing to disclose too much, you and I experienced similar kinds of childhoods, with similar kinds of fathers. And we both left home as soon as we could. But we soon discovered that geographical distance counts for little in the world of the psyche. Some things are not so easily left behind. I know how damaging your childhood was. It’s important you understand how serious this is. What your father said is tantamount to psychic murder. He killed you.”

This time she reacted.

She looked up sharply—straight at me. Her eyes seemed to burn right through me. If looks could kill, I would have dropped dead. I met her murderous gaze without flinching.

“Alicia. This is our last chance. I’m sitting here now without Professor Diomedes’s knowledge or permission. If I keep breaking the rules like this for your sake, I’m going to get fired. That’s why this will be the last time you see me. Do you understand?”

I said this without any expectation or emotion, drained of hope or feeling. I was sick of bashing my head against a wall. I didn’t expect any kind of response. And then …

I thought I imagined it at first. I thought I was hearing things. I stared at her, breathless. I felt my heart thudding in my chest. My mouth was dry when I spoke.