The Things We Never Said Read Online Free Page A

‘Well now, it’s splendid to hear you talking again, I must say. I’ve no doubt you’re on the mend this time. No doubt at all.’
    ‘Please tell me,’ Maggie says. ‘Are you a proper doctor?’
    The man chortles at this. ‘That depends on what you mean by “proper”, I suppose. Some of my colleagues might dispute the fact but yes, I am a proper doctor.’ He extends his hand and she automatically shakes it. ‘I’m Dr Carver; I’m a psychiatrist.’ He pauses. ‘Couldn’t very well have gone into surgery with a name like that, could I?’ He turns, grinning to the nurse, who smiles dutifully.
    ‘So you think I’m mad.’ He doesn’t answer. She looks around the room. ‘Is this . . . a . . . one of those . . .’
    ‘It’s a psychiatric hospital, yes. Now you mustn’t worry about that. If you’d broken your leg, you’d go to an ordinary hospital, wouldn’t you? We’re very modern in our approach here, you know. It’s not like the old days.’
    ‘I’m not mad,’ Maggie says. ‘I just can’t remember . . .’ She pauses, tries again, concentrates as hard as she can on the hazy images skating just outside her mind’s edge. It is as though some memory is bouncing against the perimeters, trying to find a way in.
    Dr Carver is watching her intently. ‘Tell me,’ he says, ‘do you know why you’re here?’ His voice has gone soft again, and she senses he is being careful. ‘Can you remember anything about when you were first admitted? Or before you came to us?’
    Again there are glimpses as she tries to force her brain to work, but the effort almost hurts. She shakes her head. ‘I can’t remember anything . ’
    ‘That’s perfectly normal.’ Dr Carver gets to his feet, towers over her again. ‘It happens now and then, but it won’t last. I’ve a notion it’s the brain’s way of protecting us. Anyhow, it’s early days yet, early days indeed. Try not to think too hard.’ He taps his temple twice with his index finger. ‘Can’t force the old grey matter into action before it’s ready. Does no good, you know. No good at all.’ He starts to move away. ‘I’ll come and see you in a day or two. We’ll have a little chat.’
    Maggie watches him walk down the ward as the nurse straightens the bedclothes. ‘I’m not mad, you know,’ she says. But the phrase not right in the head comes out of somewhere, and it’s true, something isn’t quite right in her head. There are too many spaces.

CHAPTER THREE
    Jonathan feels a discernable tightening in his gut as he drives across Blackheath to his parents’ house. Even if his father isn’t thrilled, he’ll be a bit pleased, surely? Traffic is slow. It’s late afternoon and the light is beginning to fade as the November sky prepares to draw its blanket over the day. Out on the expanse of grassland, walkers huddle deeper into their coats against the wind; dogs chase balls and sticks; a few kids run, faces turned upwards as they pull at the strings of their kites, desperate to get the last dregs out of the afternoon. At the edge of the pond where he and Alan Harper used to fish for minnows and sticklebacks, a couple of oversized crows are shrieking at each other as they worry at a discarded burger. Blackheath: as kids, he and Alan had been beguiled by the idea that it was so-named because it was the site of a massive burial ground for victims of the Black Death, and they’d been gutted to discover that the plague story was an urban myth – the name actually came from ‘bleak heath’. And when you look at the balding, boggy grass, the grimy, defeated skyline and the traffic snaking down into the polluted bowl of Lewisham and Deptford, it is utterly appropriate.
    The area near Greenwich Park is crowded with cars, lorries and trailers emblazoned with the words Zippo’s Circus . A small group of boys mill around, just as he and Alan had all those years ago; it was Billy Smart’s in those days. One year, he’d asked his father if he could