Алекс Михаэлидес - The Silent Patient

I arrived at the house and let myself in. I quickly took off my coat—it was sweltering, like a greenhouse. I turned down the thermostat in the hallway. Kathy loves being hot, while I much prefer being cold, so temperature is one of our little battlegrounds. I could hear the TV from the hallway. Kathy seems to watch a lot of TV these days. A never-ending sound track of garbage that underscores our life in this house.

I found her in the living room, curled up on the sofa. She had a giant bag of prawn cocktail crisps on her lap and was fishing them out with sticky red fingers and shoveling them into her mouth. She’s always eating crap like that; it’s not surprising she’s gained weight recently. She hasn’t been working much in the past couple of years, and she’s become quite withdrawn, depressed even. Her doctor wanted to put her on antidepressants, but I discouraged it. Instead I advocated her getting a therapist and talking through her feelings; I even offered to find her a shrink myself. But Kathy doesn’t want to talk, it seems.

Sometimes I catch her looking at me strangely—and wonder what she’s thinking. Is she trying to summon up the courage to tell me about Gabriel and the affair? But she doesn’t say a word. She just sits in silence, the way Alicia used to. I wish I could help her—but I can’t seem to reach her.

That’s the terrible irony: I did all this to keep Kathy—and I’ve lost her anyway.

I perched on the armrest and watched her a moment. “A patient of mine took an overdose. She’s in a coma.” No reaction. “It looks as though another member of the staff may have administered the overdose deliberately. A colleague.” No reaction. “Are you listening to me?”

Kathy gave a brief shrug. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Some sympathy might be nice.”

“For who? For you?”

“For her. I’ve been seeing her for a while, in individual therapy. Her name is Alicia Berenson.” I glanced at Kathy as I said this.

She didn’t react. Not even a flicker of emotion.

“She’s famous, or infamous. Everyone was talking about her a few years ago. She killed her husband … remember?”

“No, not really.” Kathy shrugged and changed the channel.

So we continue our game of “let’s pretend.”

I seem to do a lot of pretending, these days—for a lot of people, including myself. Which is why I’m writing this, I suppose. An attempt to bypass my monstrous ego and access the truth about myself—if that’s possible.

I needed a drink. I went into the kitchen and poured myself a shot of vodka from the freezer. It burned my throat as I swallowed it. I poured another.

I wondered what Ruth would say if I went to find her again—as I did six years ago—and confessed all this to her? But I knew it was impossible. That I was altogether a different creature now, a guiltier thing, less capable of honesty. How could I sit opposite that frail old lady and look into those watery blue eyes that held me safe for so long—and gave me nothing but decency, kindness, truth—and reveal how foul I am, how cruel, how vengeful and perverse, how unworthy I am of Ruth and everything she tried to do for me? How could I tell her that I have destroyed three lives? That I have no moral code, that I’m capable of the worst kind of acts without remorse, and my only concern is for my own skin?

Even worse than the shock or repulsion, or possibly even fear, in Ruth’s eyes as I told her this would be the look of sadness, disappointment, and self-reproach. Because not only had I let her down, I know she would be thinking she had let me down—and not just me, but the talking cure itself. For no therapist ever had a better shot at it than Ruth—she had years to work with someone who was damaged, yes, but so young, just a boy, and so willing to change, to get better, to heal. Yet, despite hundreds of hours of psychotherapy, talking and listening and analyzing, she was unable to save his soul.

The doorbell rang, rousing me from my thoughts. It wasn’t a common occurrence, an evening visitor, not since we moved to Surrey; I couldn’t even remember the last time we’d had friends over.

“Are you expecting someone?” I called out, but there was no reply. Kathy probably couldn’t hear me over the TV.

I went to the front door and opened it. To my surprise, it was Chief Inspector Allen. He was wrapped up in a scarf and coat, and his cheeks were flushed.

“Good evening, Mr. Faber.”

“Inspector Allen? What are you doing here?”

“I happened to be in the neighborhood and thought I’d pop in. A couple of developments I wanted to tell you about. Is now convenient?”

I hesitated. “To be honest, I’m just about to cook dinner, so—”

“This won’t take long.”

Allen smiled. He clearly wasn’t going to take no for an answer, so I stepped aside and let him enter. He looked happy to be inside. He pulled off his gloves and his coat. “It’s getting bloody cold out there. Cold enough to snow, I’d bet.” His glasses had steamed up and he took them off and wiped them with his handkerchief.

“I’m afraid it’s rather warm in here,” I said.

“Not for me. Can’t be too warm for my liking.”

“You’d get on with my wife.”

Right on cue, Kathy appeared in the hallway. She looked from me to the inspector quizzically. “What’s going on?”

“Kathy, this is Chief Inspector Allen. He’s in charge of the investigation about the patient I mentioned.”

“Good evening, Mrs. Faber.”

“Inspector Allen wants to talk to me about something. We won’t be long. Go upstairs and have your bath, and I’ll call you when dinner’s ready.” I nodded at the inspector to go into the kitchen. “After you.”

Inspector Allen glanced at Kathy again before he turned and went into the kitchen. I followed, leaving Kathy lingering in the hallway, before I heard her footsteps slowly going upstairs.

“Can I get you something to drink?”

“Thank you. That’s very kind. A cup of tea would be lovely.” I saw his eyes go to the bottle of vodka on the counter.

I smiled. “Or something stronger if you prefer?”

“No, thank you. A cup of tea suits me just fine.”

“How do you take it?”

“Strong, please. Just enough milk to color it. No sugar, I’m trying to give it up.”

As he spoke, my mind drifted—wondering what he was doing here, and if I should be nervous. His manner was so genial it was hard not to feel safe. Besides, there was nothing that could trip me up, was there?

I switched on the kettle and turned to face him.

“So, Inspector? What was it you wanted to talk to me about?”

“Well, about Mr. Martin, mainly.”

“Jean-Felix? Really?” That surprised me. “What about him?”

“Well, he came to the Grove to collect Alicia’s art materials, and we got talking about one thing and another. Interesting man, Mr. Martin. He’s planning a retrospective of Alicia’s work. He seems to think now is a good time to reevaluate her as an artist. Given all the publicity, I daresay he’s right.” Allen gave me an appraising look. “You might want to write about her, sir. I’m sure there’ll be interest in a book, or something like that.”

“I hadn’t considered it.… What exactly has Jean-Felix’s retrospective got to do with me, Inspector?”

“Well, Mr. Martin was particularly excited to see the new painting—he didn’t seem concerned that Elif defaced it. He said it added a special quality to it—I can’t remember the exact words he used—I don’t know much about art myself. Do you?”

“Not really.” I wondered how long it was going to take the inspector to get to the point, and why I was feeling increasingly uneasy.