Doctor Cevier’s office was large and bare. The high ceiling and wide floor space dwarfed his plastic desk. A few framed pictures and certificates were marooned on the cheerless orange walls. Two shaped plastic chairs sat by a low coffee table set with a tray holding two steaming cups from the vending machine. Five cakes were set out on a plate. Eva took one seat, Doctor Cevier the other. He was a well-built man in his early thirties, his thinning hair looking damp and smelling faintly of shower gel. Doctor Cevier always looked as if he had just left the gym. He tapped his ultra-slim executive model console to set it recording and then relaxed in his chair.
“Well, Eva. Two weeks now. How do you feel?”
“Tired.”
“That’s not surprising. How much sleep are you getting? In an average day, I mean.”
“I don’t know. Fifteen hours?”
Doctor Cevier tapped at his console.
“More like eighteen, according to this. Why do you think that is?”
“What is there to get up for?”
Doctor Cevier said nothing in reply. Instead he picked up one of the cups and took a sip.
“Mmm. Delicious. How do they manage it? Every cup tastes different. Aren’t you going to try some?”
Eva stared at the other cup and said nothing. Through the wide window she could see out across the ragged lawns to the circle of limes. Their leaves rippled and danced in the sunlight.
“I’m sorry?” Eva said.
“I didn’t say anything,” said Doctor Cevier. “Tell me, how are you settling in here? Do you feel comfortable?”
“I suppose so. When are you going to let me go?”
Doctor Cevier took another sip of his drink. “Wonderful. You really should try some. It will help you relax.”
“How? Is it drugged?”
Doctor Cevier laughed a little and tapped at his console again. Eva looked around the empty office. If this were her room, she thought, she would buy some rugs and hang them from the walls, arrange standard lamps and statues around the edge of the room and throw mats and carpets on the floor. Anything to break the dull monotony of the surroundings. Anything that would make the room look less like a waiting room and more like an office, even a bookcase, filled with cheap second-hand books. Doctor Cevier wasn’t speaking now; he gazed at Eva with a half amused expression. Eva ignored him. She looked across at the plastic desk and wondered if Doctor Cevier ever sat behind it. The few books and papers that lay on its surface were facing in her direction.
“Have you given any thought yet on how you got here?”
“No,” Eva said.
“You were very lucky, you know. They thought you were dead when the train pulled into Marseilles.”
“Well, there you go.”
“Well, there you go,” repeated Doctor Cevier, “as you say. Two doctors pronounced you dead, as did a Diagnostics Expert System at the Marseilles Area Hospital. And those things are never wrong.”
“Except in my case.”
“Except in your case. They pulled you back from the dead, Eva. I’ve read the report. Not my field, you understand, but still pretty convincing. If it wasn’t for the fact you’d probably disagree with me, I’d tell you to your face that you were dead.”
“No one can be right all of the time.”
“Very true. You know, at some point we’re going to have to go over what happened that day. But not today.” He tapped at his console again. “This isn’t the first time you’ve been in here, is it?”
“No.”
“Maybe we can talk about your brother sometime.”
“Why not?”
“Why not, indeed?” Doctor Cevier picked up his cup and finished his drink. Eva pointedly left hers untouched.
The rest of the session passed in silence. Doctor Cevier was waiting for Eva to speak. Eva wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. The worst thing was, she didn’t really know why. She knew that he was here to help her; she had even looked forward to this meeting. Now that it had arrived, she felt a sudden surge of obstinacy. Maybe it was the realization that Doctor Cevier represented just another branch of Social Care. He may have a big desk, he may have his doctorate, but he was just the same as those people back in South Street who used to poke their noses into her business. They didn’t really care about curing her, they just wanted the warm glow of validation one got from helping others, whether they wanted helping or not. It was the mention of her brother that had made her realize all this. How dare he mention her brother?
When her time was up, Eva rose from her seat and walked to the door.
“Eva?”
“What?”
“I didn’t say anything,” said Doctor Cevier.
Eva took a bath. It was something about the Center: things that she used to accomplish in a few minutes in the outside world could fill up a whole day here. You could spend an hour making a cup of tea; you could spend two hours deciding whether or not to have a biscuit with it.
The bathroom didn’t have a lock on the door. Every so often a nurse would come in to look for a towel or to check that the water was warm enough. Eva gave them a wry look as they smiled apologetically at her. She had taken four months planning her suicide attempt. She was hardly likely to try anything in the bathroom, was she?
The sound of Alison, Nicolas, and Katie returning caused a bit of a stir. She heard Alison’s voice first, slurred and indignant.
“So what if we’re drunk? It’s a free country, isn’t it?”
Eva walked into the corridor to find Alison squaring up to Nurse Dyer. The nurse was small; she had to tilt her head back to gaze into Alison’s eyes, yet she stood her ground without heat or concern.
“No, Alison,” she said gently, “it’s not a free country. Not for you anymore. Anyway, didn’t you stop to think about poor Katie? Didn’t you think about her feelings, having to mix with all those strangers?”
Katie had wrapped her arms tightly around herself. She gazed down at the floor, silent. While Nurse Dyer remained distracted by Alison, Nicolas sidled up to Eva.
“Hello, Eva,” he whispered, his breath sweet with the smell of alcohol. “You should have come with us. The people in the pub in the village buy drinks and leave them on the table for us. They kept saying they were on our side. They love to get one over on Social Care and these bastards at the Center.”
“Oh. I thought the Center was here to help us.”
Eva pulled her white robe closer around her chest and walked into her room. Nicolas unthinkingly followed her in.
“Excuse me,” Eva said. “I’d like to get changed.”
Nicolas’ eyes widened at the sudden realization of what he had done.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. I just wanted to talk,” he stammered. Eva gazed at him as he stumbled to the door. She knew he didn’t mean anything. He was just a sad geek who didn’t know how to get along with people. Just like her, really. Her attitude softened.
“That’s okay,” she said. “Look, let me get changed and then we can talk. Why don’t you go to the common room and wait for me?”
Nicolas smiled delightedly.
“Okay. I’ll meet you there.”
The common room was a profoundly depressing place. Like everything else in the Center, it was just too big for its sparse contents: a few boxes containing board games, scratched video consoles, several chipped mugs half full of cold coffee standing between the legs of the comfy chairs that faced the viewing screen. The shabby items were lost in the cheerless orange expanse of the room.
Two patients sat facing each other across a low table, playing cards with a Braille deck, calling out the values of their hands as they laid them down. They both twitched and stuttered as they played; one kept pausing as if to listen to sounds in the room. He turned nervously in Eva’s direction.
“It’s okay,” she reassured him, “I’m a patient too.”
He seemed to relax a little. Eva felt sick. Everyone knew that stealth weapons were a terrible thing, but it had turned into a sort of game. Those in power denied their existence; people like Eva waved the evidence in their faces and watched them squirm. She remembered her arguments with DeForest and felt embarrassed. Laser weapons mounted on planes which could blind pedestrians. Targeted psychopathic drugs. Both were horrible concepts. Here was the reality: Eva was looking at the human cost of such weapons.
Nicolas was sitting on a chair looking out through the broad window at the wide lawn leading across to the sparse woodland that surrounded the Center. She could see the tops of the limes bobbing in the breeze.
“Hello, Nicolas,” Eva said.
“Eva.” Nicolas blushed. “Look, I’m sorry about earlier. I didn’t mean anything. I just wanted to talk. I didn’t think about you being, well…just getting out of the bath, and I…”
“That’s okay.”
“No. Thank you, I mean…You’re just being polite, but honestly, I didn’t mean anything. We’re not supposed to have relationships while we’re in here, you know, so I wouldn’t have wanted…well, not that you’re…”
“That’s okay, Nicolas. I understand. You just weren’t thinking.”
“I mean…I have enough trouble just getting out of bed some days. I need to get my life sorted out before I even think of…not that I’m saying you’re not pretty, but…”
Eva sat down in one of the comfy chairs.
“What’s happened to Alison?” she said, interrupting Nicolas’ monologue.
“Oh, she stormed out of the building. She said she was going back to the pub. She’ll be looking for, well…”
He looked embarrassed. Eva made no comment.
“It’s a pity Nurse Reed isn’t here. She could calm her down. Nurse Reed knows how to handle Alison.”
“Oh? Which one is Nurse Reed? I still haven’t learned all their names.”
“She’s the one with the short red hair. You know, the French-looking cut? It’s her week off.”
Nicolas looked around the room, searching for something else to say. Eva noted the frayed trouser cuffs that came too far up his leg, the greying dress shirt that he habitually wore with the collar buttoned down. She broke the silence first.
“What did Nurse Dyer mean when she said that you shouldn’t have taken Katie with you?”
“Katie gets nervous around people. She can’t handle being spoken to by strangers.” Nicolas gave a yelping laugh. “She’s not even very good at being spoken to by her friends.”
“Oh.”
Nicolas lapsed into silence. He seemed to be struggling with what to say next, desperate to fill the conversational gap.
Eva spoke for him. “She looks familiar, doesn’t she? Katie, I mean. I’m sure I’ve seen her somewhere before.”
Nicolas gulped once, twice.
“Well, erm, well.” He gulped again and changed the subject. “What about you, Eva? We all saw you the night that you were brought in. I’ve never seen anybody with so many drug feeds attached. What had you done?”
“Tried to commit suicide. I almost succeeded, too.” Eva heard the pride in her own voice.
“Suicide? That’s impressive. Social Care usually picks up the signs well in advance. Why did you do it?”
“I’d rather not talk about that.”
“Fair enough,” Nicolas said. “Still, suicide. How did you arrange it?”
“Loaded my teddy bear with Panacetamol over the course of several months and then took them all at once. I thought nobody would think it odd that I’d fallen asleep on a train. Obviously someone did.”
Nicolas frowned. “Panacetamol? I didn’t think they could reverse that. I thought that once you’d taken enough that was it. All they could do was sit back and watch you die.”
Eva shrugged. “It would appear not.”
Nicolas placed one hand on her shoulder in what was probably meant to be a supportive gesture.
“Never mind that now. Look, we all stick together in this place. If you ever feel bad, come and see us. We’ll try to help.”
Eva managed not to shudder at the feel of Nicolas’ hand on her shoulder.
He doesn’t mean anything,
she thought,
he’s just socially inept.
She struggled to hold on to that thought as his gaze wandered down to her breasts again.
In the corner, the blind card players came to the end of a game. One of them twitched and gazed sightlessly around the room as the other fumblingly shuffled the deck.
Eva had slept with her curtains open since she had come to the Center. It was nice to look out into darkness and not the orange glow that filled the night back in South Street. As she lay down, she heard the voice.
“Katie does look familiar, doesn’t she? I’m sure we’ve seen her before.”
“Who are you?” Eva whispered into the darkness. “Why do you keep talking to me?”
But there was no reply.
Someone was shaking her shoulder. Someone was screaming, and as she struggled to consciousness, Eva had a horrible feeling it might be herself. She rolled over in the bed to see Katie staring down at her, an anxious expression engraved on her thin face. Her tiny piggy eyes slid this way and that to avoid Eva’s gaze.
“Come and help. Alison’s in a bad way. Please come and speak to her.”
The words came out in a rush. The screaming was still going on, and Eva realized that it came from somewhere down the corridor. She struggled to a sitting position.
Katie had taken her hand from Eva’s shoulder and had gone to stand in the middle of the bedroom, wrapping her fingers around each other and staring at the floor. Eva brushed the hair from her face and yawned. The sky outside her rain-streaked window was a uniform dull grey; the cheerless orange walls of her room did nothing to lift her spirits. The screaming from down the corridor outside stopped for a moment, then a stream of barely coherent swearing began. Eva recognized Alison’s voice.
“What’s happened?” Eva pulled her trousers from the back of the chair. The belt caught the paperback lying facedown on her low bedside table, flipping it to the floor.
Katie gazed around the room, still looking everywhere rather than at Eva.
“Alison shouldn’t be let out when she’s on a high. She gets drunk and then lets all the men in the pub sleep with her. She hates herself the next day.”
“What?” Eva said, struggling into her trousers. “Then why did Nurse Dyer let her get away last night?”
“Nurse Dyer can’t stop her. Besides, Nurse Dyer doesn’t like Alison.”