Page 25 of Mad Mabel

She shook her head. Then a moment later, she said: “You didn’t, did you?”

“No!” I said. “Of course not.”

Mum looked relieved, even though she must have known that I didn’t remember. For all I knew I did unlock the door. Maybe I was jealous. Maybe I even wanted her to die.

15

My hospital room had mint green walls, pink plaid curtains, and an ever-present scent of boiled cabbage. I was lucky enough to have a private “balcony,” which was, in fact, just a fire escape with rusting railings and a single potted fern that had long since given up on life. Most of the time, I stared out the hospital window, counting the minutes as they crawled by.

It was scalp-itchingly boring. No radio, no magazines. My parents had paid for a private room, which offered a lovely view of the park opposite. A kindly nurse with thick nylons and a crisp, starched uniform pushed my bed right up to the window so I could watch the tram lines crisscross the streets below. If I was propped up, I could see mothers pushing their prams through the park, and the odd man in a fedora, tilted just so, as he read the newspaper in the sun.

Occasionally there was a school group playing sport in the park, which was slightly more interesting even if it did make me achewith loneliness even more than I already did. It felt like a reminder that I’d been removed from society, even more so than I usually was. It felt a lot like being strangled, very gently.

My mother came to the hospital every morning, dressed immaculately in a perfectly pressed dress or suit, gloves and all, as though she were attending Mass or a ladies’ luncheon. She always brought her hip flask and a packet of Peter Stuyvesant Lights, which she now smoked constantly at my bedside. Cess and Ness came every few days, dressed far more casually and holding bags of books from the library or cellophane-wrapped mixed lollies. They also brought my diary, which I wrote in daily. My father didn’t visit at all. I didn’t want him to, obviously, but I also hated him for it. It was funny how that worked. Just as illogical as love, I supposed.

Mum and I didn’t talk about Kitty again, but I suspect that Mum thought of her often, as I did. The fact that she not only existed, but that my father believed she’d died at my hand was hard to come to terms with, even if it explained a lot. Was this why my father hated me? Did he have reason to? Was I, as he’d said to Susan at the dinner party, not quite right? Was I mad?

In the end, all I could do was read to take my mind off the endless cycle of questions. Despite the vast selection of books Ness had brought, nothing comforted me as much as readingAnne of Green Gables. It was between its pages that I first stumbled across the phrase “bosom friend.” It made me think of Cess and Ness’s friendship—the way they knew and loved each other so fully. I’d never desired such a friend more than as I lay prone in the hospital, day after day.

It was the part of the book where Anne was living with Mrs. Thomas and her drunken husband that I kept coming back to. It was during this time that Anne had felt so lonely that she used toimagine her reflection in the glass door of the bookcase was a girl called Katie Maurice. Never had I seen my own loneliness articulated and reflected back like that.

One evening, I found myself putting my hand on my reflection in the hospital window.

“Katie?”

Katie, of course, didn’t reply. I should have known that even imaginary friends would be out of my grasp.

I removed my hand from the window.

I was going to find a bosom friend, I decided then and there. It wasn’t going to be easy, but it hadn’t been easy for Anne either. In the end, Anne found Diana Barry. And I was going to find my bosom friend too.

About a week into my hospital stay, I woke one morning to find Mum at my bedside. I could smell cigarettes before I even opened my eyes—and port, mingling with the stale scent of Chanel No.5.

“Hi, Mum,” I said.

Her gaze was out the window, softly unfocused, and she startled at the sound of my voice. She was still wearing the navy polka-dot dress from the day before, its stiff taffeta skirt slightly crumpled, her stockings laddered at the knee.

“Oh. Hi, darling.”

“What’s wrong?”

She looked surprised at the question, which baffled me. My mother wore her emotions on the outside for all to see—in the way she turned her head, in the straightness of her spine, and, of course, in the strength of the alcohol she was drinking.

“Nothing’s wrong.” She forced a smile, then lit a cigarette, inhaleddeeply. “But I can’t stay long. Your father’s going away tomorrow. I need to finish packing his things.”

Ah. So that’s why she was upset. My father had always traveled for work, but until recently, he’d always taken Mum with him. She loved to travel. Our house was littered with photographs of them on cruise ships, in first-class train compartments, and posing in front of iconic statues and buildings. But recently, my father had been taking trips alone.

“Where is he going?”

She exhaled smoke. “London.”

“Oh.” I understood that she was upset, but it could’ve been worse. Mum had been to London lots of times. He could have been going to Paris. Mum loved Paris.

“He’s not going alone, Mabel.”

I frowned, trying to catch up. Not alone? “Who is he going with?”

“Susan McGinty.” She said it lightly, casually, as if she were testing it out. But her lips stiffened around Susan’s name.