Into the Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes

Author:Elizabeth Haynes
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Myriad
Published: 2011-02-15T06:00:00+00:00

Wednesday 23 January 2008

It’s time to refocus.

I had my assessment today, and it felt as if I’ve turned some kind of corner with this.

The Community Mental Health Team was based in Leonie Hobbs House, in the next street to Willow Road. It was a normal-looking house from the front, not unlike ours – imposing bay windows and a front door in need of a lick of paint. There was a brass sign on the gatepost and posters in the front windows advertising everything from Smoking Cessation Clinics to a Self Help Group for Post Natal Depression.

It was raining outside, which made the whole place look grimmer than it might have otherwise. The windows looked as though they were crying.

I pushed open the door and the hallway held a reception desk and some stairs going up to the first floor. Behind the reception desk the former front room of the house was crammed with desks and women, shuffling paper from one tray to another, talking and sipping from mugs. The walls were covered with posters. If you’d come for information about something in particular you wouldn’t have had a hope of finding it.

‘I’ve got an appointment for an assessment,’ I said to the woman at the reception desk.

‘That’ll be upstairs. That’s not a local accent, is it? Where are you from?’

She must have been in her late forties, long grey hair in a big plait down her back, wisps of it in a cloud around her face. ‘The north,’ I said. Usually I said this to anyone in London and they accepted it without question, as though the north was a single amorphous blob which began somewhere beyond the Toddington Services.

This woman was going to be an exception.

‘You’re from Lancaster,’ she said, fortunately not waiting for my response. ‘I lived there for twenty years. Then I moved down here. Better pay, but the people aren’t as nice.’

I glanced into the crowded room behind her and the six or seven ladies sitting tight-lipped listening to every word.

I climbed the stairs. At the top a dog-eared piece of paper with the words ‘CMHT turn left’ helpfully written in black marker was taped to the wall. Along a short corridor to the left I found another reception area, this one freshly painted in comforting shades of beige and mushroom. There was nobody behind the desk, so I sat on one of the comfy chairs and waited. I was early for the appointment.

A woman came out of a door to the right. She was dressed in a loose top and jeans, her hair tied in two bunches either side of her head that stuck straight out. She had a lip ring and a beautiful smile full of even white teeth.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Would you be Cathy Bailey, by any chance?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘He’ll be ready in a minute. I’m Deb, one of the CPNs,’ said the woman. She was still smiling. ‘Did you bring your questionnaires?’

‘Oh – yes…’ I rooted around in my bag.

Deb took them off me.

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