Because We Are Bad Read online

“You’ll have to see the school doctor,” says our housemaster, a few hours after Mum has gone.

  Mr. Elingham has only been our housemaster for a few weeks, but we can tell he has already mentally picked us out as being a potentially problematic pupil. This is probably partly because in the first week we were in Austen, he caught us going through the bin in the middle of the night like a deranged posh girl playing a hobo.

  We were doing this because we had become worried that we might have thrown away a piece of paper with highly incriminating information on it, without actually remembering the act of throwing it away. We were gripped by the urge to root around in the bin and make sure we hadn’t, so that no one was able to use the information to destroy our life.

  Only Mr. Elingham didn’t know that. He just stood there wide-eyed and startled, as if his teacher training hadn’t prepared him properly. We were startled too. We dropped the banana skin between our thumb and forefinger and whizzed our hands behind our back in the hope that he wouldn’t notice our latex gloves. We stuttered an excuse about having lost something, but we could tell he didn’t buy it.

  “I’m not ill,” we reply.

  “You missed a week of school. In my book that counts as unwell—”

  “I was tired—”

  “I’ve booked you in for four o’clock on Tuesday.”

  “I don’t want to go.”

  “No one’s writing you a prescription, no one’s saying anything serious. You missed a week of school, and now you have to go to one thirty-minute appointment. In my book that’s a small price to pay. Don’t you think?”

  Mr. Elingham has a lot of stupid ideas in his book.

  It’s Tuesday, 4:37 p.m. Two younger students have gone in already: one with a sprained ankle and the other with a tummy ache.

  She says: Whatever you do, do not mention me.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” Tess the school nurse whisper-shouts across the waiting room, “we just have to make sure the sick folks get seen first.”

  We’re waiting for an hour.

  Who cares? says my friend.

  I care, I say.

  We backward-flip through July’s Teen Vogue and Glamour. Across from us, pamphlets in a rack advertise the best treatment for various common ailments, like in a real doctor’s office instead of this private-school attempt at one.

  “Lol. I have neither of those, innit,” says a spotty girl with big boobs in the year above, pointing at leaflets about safe sex and skin cancer. “Should that make me happy or sad man?” She turns to her friend in search of the recognition her joke deserves.

  “Both,” the friend assents. “It means you’re cray, and you got your whole life ahead of you. Ya know what I’m saying bruv?”

  Why do the children of the rich insist on talking like this? It makes us mad.

  We look out the window and carry on with our lists.

  “The doctor will see you now,” calls Tess. Dr. Ford has a lazy eye and frumpy jeans, but something about her is liberating.

  So I tell her, tell her the secret. Not all of it.

  She is screaming:

  Leave me out.

  Leave me out.

  Leave me OUT!

  So I don’t tell Dr. Ford about us. I simply say that I make lists about things, day and night, and that I can’t stop it.

  I don’t talk for long, maybe forty-five seconds, just long enough to get the basics out. Dr. Ford listens quietly and nods encouragingly. When I’m finished, she looks at me expectantly for a few seconds, as if she’s waiting for something else. What is she waiting for? She pushes a box of tissues toward me.

  Oh, that.

  “I’m not much of a crier,” I say.

  Dr. Ford tells me I may have a mental health problem (“Because I didn’t cry?” “No, because of what you said before you didn’t cry”), and then she mentions a different patient who had to stay up all night knitting, or she thought bad things would happen. This doesn’t really sound like what I have, but I nod because I don’t want to be rude. She says I have to see a specialist.

  Dr. Ford refers us to Dr. Finch, who we are about to see for the first time.

  My friend does not like the idea of Dr. Finch.

  Dr. Finch practices in a hospital half an hour from school, and Mum drives from London to Kent to take us.

  We plummet down topsy-turvy roads with the sunlight flash-flashing through the hedgerows.

  She is restless. She thrashes about like a small child in uncomfortable lace clothing.

  We turn left and enter the

  —PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL.

  · 13 ·

  Doctor, Doctor

  A woman swings round the doorway to the waiting room. She wears a long skirt and has puffy strawberry-blond hair. “Lily?” she says, like our name is a question in itself. “Lily?”

  I want to resent her for it, but I don’t. Perhaps she is so intelligent, she doesn’t have to use full sentences when she meets someone. She is a doctor, after all. And a woman. It’s hard to be both. They say it isn’t anymore, but the truth is, it is. We still haven’t looked up. We probably should. “Lily?”

  Mum sighs, exasperated. “Lily is over here,” she says, poking us.

  Standing up is hard—She has flown down into our legs and oscillates with vengeance, knotting threads only I can see round the chair legs. Mum stays where she is, magazine on lap, reading but not reading, and we finally get up and follow Dr. Finch. Her office is tucked away at the top of the building, along a reassuringly out-of-the-way corridor. She says to sit down, so we do, and we watch her shut the door and arrange herself on the chair opposite us with a file on her lap.

  “Tell me about you,” she says.

  I squeeze my eyes shut and try to hold on to this moment. These short few seconds are the bridge between when then becomes now. Then: you and me, together and on a mission to make me perfect, wedded together by our shared purpose. Now: a secret told that can’t be unspoken, a bond broken beyond repair thanks to my weakness. Everything I know about my world so far, changed by what I say next.

  The promise of a full confession was made when I told Dr. Ford the first part, even if I didn’t know it at the time. The facts are hard but irrefutable: I don’t want to live like this anymore. And any second now, I am going to tell the truth:

  “There are two of me in my head.”

  Something strange has happened.

  My head feels clear and fresh, like being dunked in an ice bucket and pulled out by the scruff of your neck—or slapped across the face by someone you respect.

  These thoughts that have plagued me don’t define me.

  These rules that must be obeyed to make sure nothing goes wrong might just be the things messing everything up.

  “Was she helpful?” Mum asks tentatively, cutting through steak and kidney pie in the pub where we’ve gone for a debrief.

  “Yes—in a way. I have obsessive-compulsive disorder, but it’s treatable.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t know. I’d heard of OCD, but I thought it was all about lining up your books and checking the door’s locked. I mean, I do have that door thing a bit, but it’s so far from the main problem. . . . I didn’t make the link.”

  She squeezes my hand and bites her lip.

  “I feel so terrible.”

  “Why?”

  “For not noticing.”

  “You couldn’t have. I live my life trying to come across as normal. All my energy seems to go into making sure no one does notice anything at all. If you knew, that would have meant I’d failed.”

  “I don’t get it, though. How is that OCD? I’m not saying I don’t believe you fully—I do. But why don’t I see you doing things over and over?”

  “I do it all in my head.” I stop. I don’t want to talk to her about it properly; it was bad enough with a stranger. The whole thing is so shameful and exposing; it’s the naked-in-public nightmare, apart from the good bit where you wake up. And yet, of
everyone who I could possibly tell, I think she probably deserves to know the most.

  “Darling?”

  “I make lists in my head of everything I’ve done that might be wrong. Then I repeat them over and over again and analyze them. I have to be perfect. I feel like if I do this enough, then one day I will be.”

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why do you have to be perfect?”

  “You know what?” I smile properly for the first time in days. “I’ve never really thought about it.”

  My head is my own for two hours: no lists, no nothing. It is eerily quiet. I imagine myself bobbing about in a nighttime sea, alone on a small boat with no destination or guiding stars.

  My friend doesn’t like this.

  Don’t think She won’t put up a fight.

  She will.

  She will tell me that I can’t cope without her; that I will do crazy things; that I will be irresponsible. And She will say that—

  people will watch you, but you won’t remember how to smile. When you open your mouth to say “I agree, we should go to class, I’ll just get my pencil case,” what you’ll actually snarl is “Fuck you, little bitch.”

  No conversations will ever be the same, because without me to regulate things, you’ll become a bully. A mean, selfish waste of a soul. A manipulator.

  You’ll be the girl who makes other girls cry in the toilet. The girl who destroys the weakest one in the room—a cat swinging a mouse in its teeth, not for survival, just for fun—

  I hate Dr. Finch for taking something away, even temporarily.

  It is 7:35 p.m. We are sitting cross-legged on our bed, staring hard at the wall. Anger is coming. At first it’s just a rumbling on the horizon, like distant horses coming over the hill, but it draws closer, becoming bigger and bigger . . . the swords are in view, glinting in the low evening sun, and the horses don’t look like toys anymore. They are almost life-size, getting more real and . . .

  She and I have a conversation:

  Have I ever let you down?

  In what way?

  You have friends. You are liked. Okay, you’re not the most popular girl in the school, but you’re above average. You have a personality. You have a character. You are not a blank space of nothingness like you always feared. When you do things wrong, we put them right. So, tell me: Why did you tell? Have I ever let you down?

  No, yes. No. Well, not really. It’s just . . . sometimes I wonder, does it have to be this hard? Maybe if we didn’t try to remember everything and make it right, things would still be okay? I know you look after me. But for the last few years I’ve been in so much pain. I’ve been wondering if there’s an easier way.

  You only think that because you’ve seen some snotty psychiatrist who claims she can make you better. Well, she can’t. She doesn’t know you. Not like me. And she never will. Think how many patients she sees a day. You’re just one of many fucked-up people she gets paid to pretend to like. What does she know about anything? You’re safer with me. And you better not tell her about me. If you do, she’ll think you’re nuts, kaput, crazy—it’s a one-way ticket to the madhouse. Do you understand? Keep your mouth shut.

  I was worried about trying to explain it to Dad. Between him going away for work and me being at school, we don’t see each other all that much anymore, but he drove to Hambledon when Mum told him.

  For all their differences, his main question was the same as Mum’s:

  “Why didn’t I know? How have you been keeping this secret?”

  “You did know. Well, you knew something was wrong.”

  “What? What did I know?”

  Dad, Ella, and me, sitting round the table at his place eating spaghetti bolognese about a year ago. Me, disappearing for the second time that meal to the bathroom, standing with my back to the door and my eyes screwed shut, juggling letters in fast motion. Dad, when I come back, his jaw clenched as he looks me up and down with an expression I can’t place.

  My room, after dinner.

  Dad: “Lily, I just want to check something.”

  “Yes?”

  “Are you bulimic?”

  “No.” Kneading my fingers into the faux fur throw at the end of the bed. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because I’ve noticed you disappear to the toilet at mealtimes. Not just tonight. Pretty much every time I’ve seen you in the last year. So that’s why I ask. Are you?”

  “No!”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, good. Well, night then.”

  “Night.”

  “You asked me if I was bulimic. Because I kept going to the bathroom at mealtimes. Well, I’m not bulimic, but I do go to the bathroom to do routines.”

  Great, She interjects. You’re having a heart-to-heart with Daddy. How sweet. Is there anyone else with whom you would like to air our dirty laundry? A vicar, perhaps? The local radio?

  “I see. You know, when I was younger, I used to do routines too.”

  “Really? Like what?”

  “Well, I always wanted everything to be in fours. I needed my dad to tickle my back one hundred times before bed. And I had these prayers I had to keep saying.”

  “What happened?”

  “I guess I . . . grew out of it. I still like the number four, though, as you know.” He grins childishly. He’s talking about when we eat chocolate.

  “Give me four Maltesers,” he’ll say.

  “But you’re going to eat them all!” Ella whines. “It’s not fair!”

  “But I have to have four!” He laughs. “It’s my number!”

  I wonder whether I’ll grow out of it too. How perfect it would be, to stop doing things in threes, apart from when it would work to my advantage.

  Give me three puppies! I’ll say. I have to have three, it’s my number! But, no thank you, I don’t want to wash my hands three times, I’ve grown out of that . . .

  From now on, Mum drives up from London every week, to take us to see Dr. Finch at Fieldness Hospital. The sessions are arranged to be during free periods, and that way we don’t miss any classes. The whole thing is kept hush-hush. Mr. Elingham knows where we go, but he is very discreet, and says it’s fine for Mum to take me out of school once a week for as long as is needed. I was wrong to think he was interfering. He really does just want the best for me. He checks in—asks me how I am.

  On Thursdays, we wait in my room for Mum to call and let us know she’s arrived. When she does, we check the coast is clear before legging it out to her car in the Austen forecourt. She’ll be sitting in her silver Beetle, slunk low in her seat, wearing giant paparazzi-proof sunglasses. We have given her clear instructions. “Be totally inconspicuous. Under no circumstances talk to anyone.”

  We dive into the passenger seat. “Drive!” we shout. “Drive!”

  She accelerates, and away we go. The drive out runs past the main building, and we really could see anyone. Teachers going between lessons, other girls walking back to their houses . . . We are desperate not to.

  “I saw you leaving school earlier,” they’ll say. “Where were you going?”

  It’s not normal to leave school in the middle of the day, and we want to avoid suspicion. It just takes one person to see us leaving school too many times to wonder, Where exactly does Lily go every week?

  Mum gets it, and she assumes the role of the getaway driver. A shiny battalion of girls from our year rise up on the right, canvas book bags swinging, legs in sync as they march across the green. We duck. “TAKE COVER!” yells Mum. “Get down!” Our head is in our lap. We feel the rumble of tarmac beneath me hum through our body.

  “As you were!” She laughs, impersonating an officer. “They’re gone.”

  It takes up half her day, coming here and back. But she never complains.

  Dr. Finch’s first job is to convince us that we do actually have OCD. We are not sold. In particular, my friend has grievances.

  She says, OCD is a mental d
isorder. Mental disorder implies bad. What we do is good. It’s helpful, constructive, and without it you wouldn’t know who you were or how to be consistent. Okay, so it got a little out of hand.

  Perhaps we were sometimes recording some stuff that didn’t need to be recorded. We’ve been working too hard, and it got you down. But it’s like if you start spending too long in the office and you feel like you can’t cope. Then what do you do? You take a step back. You do a bit less of it. You don’t give up that job, no, certainly not if it’s a dream job you are happy with most of the time.

  We can go easier in the future.

  We can let some things slide.

  I am quite certain this is not OCD.

  “Okay,” says Dr. Finch. “I am sure you have OCD. In fact, it’s been a very long time since I saw someone so young with OCD as progressed as yours. But as most people think it always relates to cleaning or straightening things or being meticulously organized, it’s not surprising that you don’t think you have OCD. So let’s take a step back and look at what OCD is.

  “Obsessions are recurring thoughts and images that cause you distress. You don’t want to have them, but you can’t stop them coming, and it’s hard to make them go away. In your case, you obsess over things you think you’ve done wrong.

  “Compulsions are the things you repeatedly do in response to the obsessions. In your case, you make lists in your head of things you’ve done wrong and go through each word, trying to make it better.

  “Doing compulsions is called neutralizing. You can think of it as an attempt to ‘cancel out’ the obsession.”

  I am beginning to feel a little more convinced.

  She is sulking in a corner of my brain.

  Remembering and analyzing what we have done wrong improves our mood for a while, Dr. Finch says. “But the problem is that in the long term, going along with your compulsions just increases the frequency of the obsessions. So you get this vicious circle going on, where the more you try to avoid anxiety, the more anxious you become.