‘Ah.’ Lou appears surprised. ‘You did a course in
flower-arranging
?’
Karen has to laugh. ‘No. We met at Moreland’s, actually.’
Lou looks even more startled. ‘What, Moreland’s Place? In Lewes?’
Karen nods.
‘I didn’t know you went there.’
‘When Dad died I got really down, so I went as a day patient for a bit.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I’m sorry.’ Karen grasps Lou is wounded. ‘I didn’t want to bother you with it at the time, but it wasn’t anything to do with my not trusting you. It’s
only it was exactly when you were having this little one.’ She leans to coo over Frankie. ‘I’ll tell you the full story later, I promise. Let’s go and see what’s
happening first.’
Karen quickens her pace – Molly and Luke are eager, and she doesn’t want to lose them in the swelling crowd.
A young man close by is keenly jangling a yellow bucket of coins. There are several others dressed as he is; all proceeds are going to a mental health charity, according to the jacquards they
are wearing. Karen reaches for her purse and is so intent on rummaging for change, it’s not until she looks up that she sees who is holding the bucket.
‘Colin!’
‘’Tis I,’ he says, and takes a little bow.
‘But you’re outside,’ says Karen.
Colin holds out a foot. ‘And in shoes.’ He chuckles.
‘Oh, I’m so proud of you!’ she says, and gives him a hug.
‘Took some doing,’ he admits. ‘Baby steps, you know. This is the first time I’ve been this far from the hospital, but, well—’ he coughs, ‘ – you
know, I had to.’
Karen hugs him even tighter. He’s lovely and cuddly, she thinks, reminded for a split second of Simon.
‘She was one of the best mates I’ve ever had,’ says Colin, as Karen releases him from her embrace. ‘I always found it hard to make friends, but Lillie, I dunno, she just
kind of got me, right from the start . . .’
His voice wobbles, and Karen can tell he’s finding it hard to hold himself together. Though I wouldn’t care if he bawled his eyes out, she thinks. ‘Colin,’ she says on
impulse. ‘I’d like to be your friend. I can’t promise to be anything like Lillie, but I’d love to stay in touch.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, and I see Abby, so maybe we can meet up from time to time. I’ve got your number.’
‘I thought you were just being polite, when you asked for it,’ he says.
‘And I thought you were just being polite, when you gave it to me.’ Karen smiles. ‘What are we like?’
Colin grins. ‘Rubbish. Hey, you know, Johnnie said some of the staff are coming to this, too. Or he and Beth are, at any rate.’
‘That’s nice.’ It would be good to say hello to Johnnie again, thinks Karen.
‘And that’s Tash, up there—’ He points to the promenade up above them, and sure enough, she glimpses a flash of pink frizz. ‘I’m sure she’d like to see
you too. Maybe we could go for a drink some time: me, you, her and Abby. It’s not like we’re Bads or anything.’
‘Exactly.’
At that moment, the strains of the ‘Blue Danube’ waltz fill the air.
‘Oh, look, Mum, lots of Auroras!’ says Mollie, pointing.
Karen follows her daughter’s gaze. On the bandstand are a dozen couples, swooping and twirling in time to the music. The women are in floor-length ball gowns; the men in jackets with
tails. It’s all rather ad hoc, but that only makes it more enchanting, somehow. One of the dancers is more elderly and seems a bit unsteady on her legs compared to the rest, and when Colin
nudges Karen and murmurs, ‘See who that is?’ she realizes it is the snowy-haired Rita. Her gown, a silk sari, is covered in beads, and she’s waltzing with Karl, the Mohican.
What
a shame Callum missed this, thinks Karen.
And as for the flowers . . . They are like something from a fairy tale. There is ivy entwined round every pillar, and hundreds of white trumpets burst from the roof, as if heralding the talent
of each of the performers below.
‘Bravo!’ As the waltz finishes, Karen claps enthusiastically along with the rest of the crowd and says to Lou, ‘I gather we’re working through from traditional ballroom
to today – and anyone who fancies taking part can have a go. Apparently there’s all sorts later – you know, the street dancing Lillie was known for, break-dancing and
stuff.’
‘I don’t think we’ll last through all that.’ Lou glances down at Frankie. ‘We’d better make the most of this tamer bit of the celebration.’
Normally Karen would only stay for the gentler music, too. But today she doesn’t give a damn if the tracks aren’t to her taste or no one’s rehearsed or has any idea what steps
they’re supposed to be doing. She doesn’t care if the kids insist on staying too late or it gets so noisy that the council is inundated with more complaints than they know what to do
with. The whole experience of being here right now will be worthwhile, whatever happens.
As they move round the bandstand to get a better view, she can see there’s a banner strung high above their heads facing the prom. It’s glistening in the sun, so she has to shield
her eyes to see it properly. When she reads the words, she’s unsure whether to laugh or cry.
A LAST DANCE FOR LILLIE
, it says.
People often ask if my novels are drawn from experience, and the honest answer is ‘Of course they are.’ That doesn’t mean my books are autobiographical:
they’re not. My husband didn’t die on a train like Simon in
One Moment, One Morning
, and I’ve never been through IVF like Lou and Cath in
The Two Week Wait
.
Equally, my circumstances are not identical to those of Karen, Abby or Michael in this story. However, I
do
have first-hand experience of anxiety and depression, and it’s this that
made me want to write this book.
Because the problems of mental illness are very real and immensely painful, I feel passionately that mental health should be taken as seriously as physical health. Yet by and large it
isn’t. Too often sufferers are told to pull themselves together or snap out of it. This is partly because the symptoms are often not visible, but it’s also because the topic is still
hard for many of us (myself included) to talk about. And yet mental illness is something that touches all of us. Statistics such as ‘One in four suffer some kind of mental health
problem’ are often bandied about and can be helpful in illustrating how widespread problems are. To view mental illness as something you either have or don’t have still boxes people
off, however – and makes it easy for others to keep the lid of that box firmly closed. The result is that we live in a world where suicide is rarely spoken of, much mental illness is
surrounded by shame and blame, and politicians can make cuts to services whilst we who voted for them turn a blind eye.
Instead, perhaps it’s more helpful to see mental health as a continuum – no one is 100 per cent healthy, no one 100 per cent ill – and it’s my belief that we all fall
somewhere within this range. Moreover, individual mental health is dependent on many variables – our age, physical health, economic circumstances, relationship status and so on. The list is
endless and it’s different for each of us – so where we fall on that continuum will change over time.
Let me put this another way:
ordinary people get mentally ill
. Michael, Abby and Karen are not bad people or mad people; they’re just people. As are George and Callum and Lillie
and the rest. They’re people on a continuum, who I hope don’t seem so very different from me or you. And if reading about them helps lift the lid on the subject of mental illness, just
slightly, so that a handful of people feel able to talk a little more freely or others feel a touch more understanding, then the time I’ve spent writing this particular book will have been
worthwhile.
Many people have helped shape this novel. I very much appreciate those who shared their experiences with me: Catherine Newell told me of her Aurora-loving son Axel, my local
florist Ian Graham helped me understand what goes into running a shop, and it was an honour to chat with Natasha Bevington, Kirsten Bicât and Simon Rattenbury. I benefited from the expert
insights of child psychotherapist Dilys Daws (my stepmother), nurse Rhoda McClelland, psychiatrist Sarah Daley, psychotherapist Liz Bubez and the staff at the Priory Hospital in Brighton. Any
inaccuracies about treatment, medication or protocol (both private and NHS) are mine, not theirs.
I am also very grateful to agents Vivien Green, Gaia Banks and Lucy Fawcett at Sheil Land Associates. I suspect many people think ‘all’ agents do is do deals – i.e. sell books,
scripts and so on to publishers, film companies and the like. Yet this is only part of what Vivien, Gaia and Lucy have done for this novel; just as vital was their input as keen readers and wise
critics, thereby helping produce a manuscript worthy of submission.
Next I must thank my friends. It was over coffee with Nicola Oatham that I first discussed the idea, and she and Zoe Hammel encouraged me from the start. A big hug goes to those generous people
who made the time to read the manuscript in advance of publication – Alexandra Addison, Nicola Lowit and Rachel Williamson tackled draft 1, then Mark Dawson and Hattie Gordon gave me
invaluable feedback on draft 2, and Emma Hall went through draft 3.
I must also express my gratitude to Francesca Main, my editor at Picador. She has an eye for detail but equally vital is her appreciation of character development and the overarching story
– skills which immeasurably helped sharpen, shape and strengthen this book.
I’d also like to acknowledge my father’s input, which didn’t come in the form of direct feedback, but instead was, if anything, more profound. My dad, Eric Rayner, is now in
his late eighties, but he worked as a psychoanalyst for almost fifty years. He was dedicated to his patients and campaigned to make psychotherapy more widely available to all. His passionate
interest in mental health rubbed off on me, and his influence permeates every page of this novel.
As with all my books, I’d like to say thank you to my mother, Mary Rayner, for her support and wisdom. Finally, thank you to Tom Bicât, my husband. Throughout the whole process
he’s listened and advised. He says he doesn’t read novels, yet he’s read
Another Night, Another Day
more times than I suspect he cares to remember.
Addiction
www.alcoholics-anonymous.org.uk
Alzheimer’s
Anxiety
Autism
facebook.com/CatherineNewellAndAutism
Bereavement
Bipolar disorder
Depression
PTSD
Suicide
www.samaritans.org
(08457 909090)
Tourette’s
General mental health
General health
Many of these sites also have helplines and are on Twitter and Facebook. Please also see my website,
www.thecreativepumpkin.com/about/recommendedreads
, where I have details of
further reading on mental health.
an exclusive short story
by Sarah Rayner
Until then, Abby had never seriously considered purchasing an umbrella. But there was no doubt it rained more in Manchester than in the West Country, and even when it
wasn’t raining, there was a cloggy dampness in the air that spelled ruin for her hair.
Freshers’ week is make or break, she decided. All those new friends to be made, a big city to discover – it’s vital to give off the right signals from the start. And whereas
being good-looking was, by and large, the luck of the draw, appearing to be at the sharp end of fashion – that
was
within her grasp. To achieve this, frizzy, soggy hair was not an
option, so, on her third day away from the family home, Abby bought her first umbrella.
Maybe it was because it wasn’t a brolly she just happened upon en route somewhere, like others she acquired later – its purchase was the result of a special trip into town. Or maybe
it was because it seemed a subtle reflection of her personality, combining practicality (it folded neatly to fit in her bag) with frivolity (it was bright turquoise with white polka dots). But
whatever the reason, through all the brollies that followed, Abby never found one to match the perfection of that first umbrella.
Although Abby wasn’t conscious of it at the time, a similar desire to balance sense and sensibility lay behind her choice of Manchester Metropolitan University. In it she saw the
opportunity to offset studying art at a respected institution with a new and exciting social life. And so, with her course providing her daily routine, she gradually got to grips with the big
northern city and made friends with students from very different backgrounds to her own. She also discovered how many bottles of brown ale it took to make her sick (six), and threw herself into
wholehearted appreciation of the local indie music scene.
Such wholehearted appreciation would have been untenable without her umbrella. For alongside wide-leg jeans, vest tops and clumpy trainers – a prerequisite for every female indie fan
– was a painstakingly straightened head of hair. Only with this could Abby earn the respect of the elite, who were the focal point of attention in the city’s hippest hangout – an
old pub called the Britons, frequented by local bands.