Novel extract - The Agency (3)

Kitt

It was not where she had expected to wake up on Christmas morning.  Opening her eyes she had expected to see George lying next to her.  Usually she would wake him up with breakfast in bread and the first present of the day.  Instead here she lay in a ward with 7 strangers with unknown names. 

 

Why am I here she thought.   There was one thing that she was thankful for, the fact that maybe today would be a day that she wouldn’t have to explain herself again.   Noone believed her when she said she didn’t try to kill herself.  She had spent so much time trying to defend herself that even she was starting to believe that maybe she did do it.  Maybe her subconscious had a way of making her do it without her evening knowing. 

 

She had to admit that the evidence was stacked up against her.  It was her tablets that she overdosed on, tablets prescribed for depression. The truth was that she can’t even remember that night.  She had started on the red wine at lunch time, everything past 4pm being a blur.  She didn’t even realise that they had found her in the office, convinced that she had made it across the road to the party. Lord knows she had threatened to kill herself enough times.  

 

She shuddered as she remembered herself screaming it down the hallway of her apartment block at George as he dragged his case behind him.  But she didn’t really mean it.  She just wanted him to come back, to not leave. She sighed.  She barely recognised herself.   “Good morning Katherine! Merry Christmas.”   She smiled at the nurse who opened the curtains around her bed and placed some indecipherable mulch on the table.  This Christmas is anything but merry, she thought.  

 

She moved the mulch around the bowl, her stomach rumbling at the thought of scrambled eggs on toast with smoked salmon, her usual choice of cuisine on the festive morning.  Her salty tears started to drop, the first time since she had arrived in the ward.  She couldn’t bring herself to eat it.  This had to be her all-time low.   She tried to wish the time away.  Well wishers came and sang tuneless carols to try and liven the mood.  From the expressions on everyone’s faces they hadn’t succeeded.  Christmas lunch came round which was miles better than the breakfast option, but still left a lot to be desired.  Then 2pm came.  Visiting time.  

 

Kitt sat there knowing that everyone would be far too busy with their families to visit her on Christmas day of all days.  Having no family of her own, the sound of the swinging doors would give way to no anticipation.   It was times like these that she had regretted not getting married and having children, the usual thing that supposedly most women wish for. 

 

She wasn’t born with the gene that other women have, the one that makes them yearn for a child, makes them feel somehow incomplete or unfulfilled should it not come to pass.  Kitt had never thought this way.  She had always wanted to be independent and for everything to be on her terms.  She wanted to be her own boss and be in control of her own destiny.  But it didn’t quite happen for her and she missed out on the other things in life like having kids because the time was never right and George got tired of waiting.  That’s when the arguments started.  

 

They never were a bickering couple.  George was a great man, very calm and patient and willing to let Kitt achieve her dreams while his got sidelined.  But the one thing he wanted was children, little bairns of his own.  She sat there thinking if she had just given him what he wanted, maybe she wouldn’t be sat here alone.   Her mother, her usual comforter had passed away a few years ago.  She sat there remembering the funeral that she and her brother had planned, all the people sobbing, half of them having not bothered to even visit her in the hospital while she still clung to what was left of her life.  As for her brother, he felt that as long as his money kept coming through, his presence wasn’t needed.  They hadn’t seen or spoken to each other since that day, apart from the obligatory season’s greetings card every year.  She wondered if one was lying on her door mat now, waiting to be opened.  

 

Each time she heard the whoosh of the door to the ward as it closed she dared not look in its direction.  She tried not to pay any attention to the greetings, hugs and sound of scrunching paper as presents brought were opened.  Now and again someone would throw a greeting her way, like a bit of food thrown to a dog eagerly waiting by a dinner table.  Their smiles could not hide the pity in their eyes as they looked around her bed to find empty chairs, all of which one by one found themselves by other bedsides where there were actually bums to fill them.  

 

It all became a bit too much, Kitt getting out of bed to draw the curtain around it.  As she returned she heard it being pulled back.   She spun around to find George standing there with a small present in his hands.  She swallowed back her tears amazed that he would show up considering the argument that they had when when he left.  

 

“George?”

 

“Hi,” he said avoiding looking her directly in the eye.  

 

“Where are all the seats?”  

 

“They’ve been taken.”

 

He went over to one of the other beds and asked for the vacant chair.  He placed it by the bed and sat down.  There was silence.  Neither of them knew quite what to say, or where to begin.  

 

“Well, Merry Christmas,” he said still not daring to look her in the eye. Kitt laughed, another first since entering the hospital.  

 

“Yes, merry Christmas. Thanks for coming.  I…… I honestly didn’t expect to see you here,” she said smiling.  He didn’t return it.  

 

“Well,” he said after a pause.  

 

“I knew you had no one else.”  His words hung in the air.   “Besides a bought you this present a while ago.  It’s only fair that you should have it.”  

 

“So you didn’t want to come and see me?  See how I am?” He didn’t say anything. “Well, I want someone who wants to see me not someone who feels obliged!”  

 

“God Kitt, why do you always have to start an argument?”  

 

“Why do you always have to be such an arse?!” she retorted, her saliva sprinting from her mouth.  

 

“Me an arse! Really, Kitt really?  Considering what you did I’m a mug for even being here. I knew I shouldn’t have come,’ he said their eyes locking for the first time. Kitt’s eyes glistened as she knew that he was right.  No one would have blamed him if he stayed away.  

 

“Then why did you?”  

 

“I don’t know.  I loved you once.  I didn’t want you to be alone.  Not today.”  She looked at him and he seemed sincere. 

 

“I shouldn’t have said what I said before.  I wanted to see that you were alright.  I did come before.”  

 

“You did?”  

 

“Yeah,” he said surprised.

 

“Your colleague didn’t mention it?”  

 

“No,” she said unsure which colleague it would have been with both Natalie and Shawna visiting her most days.  

 

“Well to be fair I was rather rude and I was angry and may have said some things that would have made her NOT want to mention it to you.”

 

Kitt was silent.  She knew what was going to come next, what everyone was intent on asking her.

 

“I couldn’t believe that you would do it.  I just thought you were trying to manipulate once again into staying, then when I came and saw you I was just so angry, but not just with you but myself too.  Maybe I could have done something.”  His eyes returned to his lap and his fingers traced the corners of the neatly wrapped present.

 

Kitt sighed.   “Not you too.  I didn’t try to kill myself, I keep trying to tell everyone that.” She could see the shock on his face.  

 

“You overdosed on your own pills!  The whole bottle they said!  Can you honestly look me in the eye and tell me that you weren’t trying to kill yourself?”  

 

“Yes.”  George laughed.  “Yes I can.  Look I know it looks bad and the fact that I can’t remember that night doesn’t help but I know that I didn’t try to do that to myself.”  

 

“Then what?  Someone tried to kill you?”  

 

“I don’t know OK, I don’t know.  Look I’m really tired of having to go through this all the time and no doubt I’ll have to do it again in a couple days with the psychiatrist, so please can you just drop it!” George sat there.  She could see he wasn’t finished but he kept quiet.  

 

“OK.  I’ll drop it.”   “I am happy you’re here,” she said putting her hand on his. “…and before you get worried, I know it’s over, OK.  I’m just happy you’re here.” He looked at her uncertainly and smiled.  

 

“Alright.  Here, open your present.”  

 

“I burnt YOUR present,” she said sheepishly.  George laughed.  

 

“It doesn’t matter, just open it.”  

 

She opened it, unwrapping the paper as neatly as it was wrapped, being careful not to tear it.  Inside was an old photo of her and her mother, framed.  It was when she was little and it was the first time she went to the seaside and had built her first sand castle.   The photo was of her and her mother by the sand castle.  She remembered she had told George the story many times.  Shortly after the photo was taken the waves rushed in and ruined the castle.  Kitt who was only a child at the time cried and her mother said to her “Don’t worry Katherine.  In life when things get knocked down you just get up and start building them again bit by bit.”   George had had the frame inscribed with the quote.  

 

Kitt wanted to say thankyou but the words wouldn’t come out.  Despite all she had done to him she was touched that he was still there for her.  George held her hand and squeezed it acknowledging her silent gratitude.