As I entered the court this morning, nobody acknowledged my presence.
I wasn’t in the mood for doing one of my ‘good morning’ experiments. So I sat down in an empty row around the middle of the court behind two women. The usher, a thin, hook-nosed man with gentle light blue-grey eyes waited for me to take a seat before he made slow, steady steps in my direction.
‘Is there anything I can get you madam? Madam. It sounded odd, surely he could see my pronouns are loser, wanker, waster, asshole. I had a go at smiling.
‘A double whisky wouldn’t go amiss.’ I took it to full decibels. No one takes me hostage with their silence these days. Not even Dolly’s family.
One of the women in front of me was of large build with frizzy, blond, shoulder length hair. The other had a short, black crop and a dolphin tattoo on the back of her neck. When the dark one turned her head to talk to the other one, her profile started several chemical reactions in my body all at once, making me feel like a test tube. Only once before, a year ago, at the Chapel of Rest, did I come anywhere so close to Dolly’s living and breathing genes and it was kind of weird. If this was the same sister she must have died her hair. The pair of them were studying paperwork in bulky, black, ringbinder files. In the second row from the front was a stocky, grey haired man and in the front row was a slim, blond woman in the kind of suit which doesn’t mess around. Without a doubt one of the briefs. At the end of the front row on the right was a darker woman, slightly incognito, dressed in a style that was very deliberately impromptu. I had noticed her as she had passed me on the way in. Then there was an older woman, with short cropped greying hair in the seat next to her.
After a couple of warnings from the usher, the coroner entered the court through a door at the front. He was beefy, around early sixties, thick, woolly, grey hair, one of those wide, rugged noses which is all nostrils. He had thick Denis Healy eyebrows, sprouting out like those random clumps of grasses that grow between patches of mud after too much rain.
Everyone stood up on the call to rise. The jury entered through a side door on the right. By the time I made it out of my chair the whole lot had sat down again, so I gave up the effort.
The first person called to give evidence was Dolly’s G.P. He had one of those faces you can’t remember even while you are looking at it. Nothing to hook on to. The eyes, the nose, the mouth, too blended in with the turf. It was hard to spot anything there whatsoever. There’s tons of those types wandering about in the outside world. There’s been times when I’ve found the whole high street littered with them. It makes me crack up. I make a point of looking down on those occasions so the tell tale snorts exploding out of me don’t look like they are aimed at any specific point on the compass.
Turns out this GP didn't know Dolly at all. Only met her once, on admission. He pissed me off straight away by saying he weren’t aware of any history of anorexia and there were no signs of any eating disorder. You could tell he’d not really looked at her medical records.
It was a gradual thing. I don't remember when she first started telling me she’d stopped eating, but it’s gotta’ve been three months before she died. She wanted to eat, that’s what she made out, but the staff were bastards. Wouldn’t let her. They insisted meals were supposed to be eaten in the dining room. And off plates with knives and forks and all that crap. Her point was that she was scared of going in there, coz of bullying by the other girls. So she was asking to eat in her room. They weren’t having none of it though.
She kept on about it. How much weight was dropping off her. It spun me a bit, mainly coz I approach these things like a typical bloke would. She had it all. She was a big girl. But just the right amount of big. And she was pretty skilled at presenting all that. The low cuts, cleavage, suspenders, heels, the lot. She knew exactly what she did to men. And how to get the mugs locking horns over her. While playing innocent. I don’t know why she was starving herself but she hated Radford. She claimed she was being bullied by the other girls, or one patient in particular. Things had started to look up though. She had been offered a place in a recovery unit in Plymouth, not that far from where I was staying. The bed was actually there waiting for her. The sticking point was the MOJ snails in their cabbage patch. They had to okay it. While we were waiting though, in those last few months, Dolly was disappearing, bit by bit. The cleavage and soft rounded buttocks, went at lightening speed, followed by the rosy fleshy cheeks and generous thighs. I was getting edgy then. If I’m honest, what was really bugging me deep down was that the whole lot would be gone before we could be together for real. On any level. She’d made a point of how anorexia had just about killed her once. Boasted she’d been three and a half stone. It was bollocks, but enough to scare the crap out of me. I couldn’t picture that. That wouldn’t be Dolly.
My fears were confounded when she sent me her Facebook profile. I was confused as to why she had posted an old picture of herself as a schoolgirl. She looked around 13 or 14 years old. Until she told me that was a recent picture, taken at the hospital. But Dolly was 29. And very much a woman.
I was scared then. For selfish reasons. And she knew that. She weren’t stupid. It was very possible that she starved herself even more to test me. I hurt her. And she cut deep. There’s no denying that.
The last thing her GP mentioned was that she had just had sertraline, an anti depressant added to her medication. The coroner then turned to the front row and nodded towards the smart, slim, blond brief.
‘Counsel for Mr. Kneely, do you have any questions for the witness?’
She stood up. ’No Sir’. I could only guess that Mr. Kneely was the stocky grey-haired man in the second row and that he must be Dolly’s dad.
The coroner then asked the same question of the other lawyers present and they had no questions either. He then nodded towards the frizzy haired, blond woman directly in front of me.
‘Ms. Carrigan. Do you have any questions for the witness?’ She stood up. She had a large frame, like Dolly, but her backside was flatter and shoulders slightly rounder.
‘No I don’t sir.’ Even from behind, I could tell she wasn’t the woman from the funeral who I’d mistakenly had down as Dolly’s mum. The family hadn’t introduced themselves to me that day, nor approached me at all, so it was guesswork. I got blanked before and after the service, except by Dolly’s sister, Lottie, who briefly acknowledged me.
Dolly’s mother sat down again. I was itching to see her face now. Her back didn't appear distorted or lumpy, the way a monster should have. It weren’t fitting the character I knew only through Dolly's bitter words. It looked too human. The coroner turned to me.
'Ms Wheeler, do you have any questions?' The ‘ms’ made me cringe. I forgot to stand.
‘No.' I also forgot the ‘sir’ bit or ‘your honour’ or whatever the protocol is.
It is hard to let people know how to address you when you haven’t yet worked out who you even are. I thought I’d twigged it once. But that’s bull. There’s me and me and me and me and flippin god knows how many more mes in other places. I do know one thing though. Not one of those bastards could really fit in the category ‘woman’. Yeh we’re all in a female body but that’s about it. And more to the point, my family have never met any of them. It did come dangerously close once to one of mes breaking loose on the phone to a frail ninety year old, disabled woman. e. Strange, init, what old age can do to hominids. The last time I spoke to her she’d been to lunch with an old neighbour, Tania, who she reckoned had asked after me, and I asked her what she’d said.
‘Nothing really. Just that you were fine.’
‘Right. So nothing about my partner just dying then?’
‘Tania doesn’t want to know things like that.’ I could feel my blood starting to boil.
‘What. You mean Tania doesn’t want to know I’m gay?’
‘People don’t want to know those type of things Stephanie.’ I lost it then.
‘You know what, I’m not Stephanie. I’m not even Steph. My name is Casey. And get this. I never want to see you again.’
It was a landline I was on. An old GPO phone which I’d bought for back up when the satellites go down. When I slammed it down I could hear the bells suffering. The victory didn’t last long though. After I’d cooled down, it was obvious that it didn’t look too clever screaming at a ninety something year old woman on the phone like that.
Two weeks later, she did something that blew me away. Sent me a cutting from a paper about a trans woman. All about her life and how difficult it had been. I cried then. All the rage went.
Those tugs still happen. On those strings. From time to time. Old dears don’t just drop them as they age. They reinforce them with steel or fibre optic cable straight to their control panel. The ultimate camouflage. Who knows how much advanced weaponry is tucked away behind that frame or that scooter thing as they charge along the pavements scattering pedestrians.
The second witness was an agency nurse called Joan Brilier. She had been working over the weekend before Dolly died. She explained that she had observed Dolly in the communal areas before Dolly took leave from the ward on the Sunday. She weren’t concerned about anything and she reckoned Dolly presented (one of their buzz words) as stable in mood. She reported that Dolly had gone straight to bed when she came back from leave, claiming she felt ill. The nurse had left her shift at 6pm.
The slim blond, introduced herself to the witness as Ms. Tyler Jones, counsel for Mr. Kneely, Dolly’s dad.
‘Would you mind telling the court, Nurse Brilier, whether it is not correct and standard procedure to assess a patient before they go out on leave?’
‘Yes it is.’
‘Was Ms. Westerley assessed before she left the ward on the Sunday?’
‘That would be done by one of the senior nurses.’ Ms. Tyler Jones is looking down at paperwork.
‘I have a copy of the section 17 leave paperwork here for the period of leave Ms. Westerley took on Sunday 10th January.’ The coroner held his hand up and addressed the nurse.
‘Could you explain to the court what section 17 leave paperwork is?’
‘Yes I can Sir. It is the form that is filled out when a patient detained under the Mental Health Act is granted leave.’ The coroner nodded.
‘Thank you Nurse Brilier.’ He turned back to the brief.
‘You may put your question to the witness now Ms. Tyler Jones.’
‘Thank you sir.’ She picked up the piece of paper.
‘Ms. Westerley’s name is here and the date and time but there doesn’t appear to be anything filled in regarding her state of mind or suitability for leave and the form is not signed. Do you know why that is the case?’
‘I don’t know. It was not my duty to assess Ms. Westerley.’
‘Thank you. I have no further questions.’
Dolly’s mother didn’t have any questions for the nurse so it was my turn next. I stood up this time.
‘You said you observed Dolly on the Sunday morning and she appeared stable, but did you speak to her at all?’
‘Not directly, no.’
‘So how can you be so sure of someone’s mood if you don’t ask them?’
‘Behaviour is a good indicator.’
I stalled a moment on how to come back on that and the coroner was in there.
‘Thank you Ms. Wheeler.’
Behaviour is a good indicator. Not when people know they’re being spied on by the health police. And Dolly was a good actress.
I know how these people make simplistic assumptions. And I am sick of being ‘known’ from the outside. By wankers who know jack shit. They review books by scanning the cover. And then assume they understand the plot.
During the tea break it was Dolly’s mother who broke the ice. She stood up and turned around to face me. No shadow of animosity. Just a very human being.
'Casey, did Dolly ever …. did she ever ... you know say anything like ...you know …like’ her voice trailed off.
I rate her for that. For ditching her pride. Offering an olive branch. We’re never gonna be friends, but there’s no pay out for either of us if we remain enemies. We both want the same thing, the truth, and we both know that there is no guarantee that we are going to get it.
Layla continued .. ..’ like …’ she took a deep breath ‘...did she say much about me?’ I paused but knew I couldn’t leave too great a gap.
'Not really.' I was lying. To buy time to work out what to say. 'No, the thing is …I mean she did, sometimes, just that .. you know ... you didn't really kind of … get on that well.' Dolly hated her mother. She was no doubt was well aware of the sort of words Dolly used to describe her.
'She loved me really you know. It was just when she was in one of her blaming moods….’
I could have said something like ‘can’t imagine where she would have go those from?’ But I didn’t. I had been on the receiving end of the blame for Dolly’s death, via texts from her mother, a couple of days after the funeral. And I had put my hands up to it. I’ve got at least a Phd in scapegoat skills.
Dolly’s mother shook her head slowly.
‘Look I know you loved her, I’ve read your letters, I didn’t mean to ..’
'It’s okay. It doesn’t matter now. I know exactly what she could be like. She weren’t easy'.
She turned back round to speak to her daughter in a lower voice. As she did so Dolly’s sister glanced at me and the same feeling hit me as it had a year ago. I know her well without knowing her at all. Lottie has Dolly’s eyes.
Mother and daughter flicked through the bulky file in front them, together. Of course it was Lottie. It was just that her face had dimmed in my mind. At the Chapel of Rest she had had blond hair. She’d been clutching the rusty ring that Dolly had been wearing when she died. The one that Dolly had insisted on wearing just because I gave it to her, even though it was way to small for her her ring finger and had caused it to swell and turn blue. Lottie had asked me if I minded if she kept it.
I looked down at the two black ringbinder files in front of me. They contained Dolly. In the eyes, ears and noses of the mental health system. I knew it would be a warped version of Dolly. If my own file is anything to go on, truth would be in short supply. Dark thoughts would be marked as threats, justifiable anger must be aggression, healthy mistrust would be paranoia and and positive efforts forgotten, or ignored.
I flicked through Dolly and landed on an entry about her shoes.
Dolly was dressed provocatively this morning in the day room. Xxxxxxx asked her to get changed into something more suitable but she refused. Later she took off her high heeled shoe and stabbed another patient with the heel. The heels have been taken off her now and locked in the patient’s storeroom.
I couldn’t help smiling. We had pissed ourselves when they ransacked her room to confiscate all the heels. Dolly was back on red then. There was this stupid RAG system which meant RED AMBER GREEN. It was like snakes and ladders. You had to climb to the top to reach green and then you got privileges like being able to go in the garden for ten minutes. If you slid down to the bottom you were on red. That was the naughty corner. ON red you had everything taken out of your room. No furniture, or CDs or anything. No OT, no smoke breaks, nothing.
That’s the forensic system for you. Locked up with no time limit and bribed with measly carrots at the top of a poxy ladder. One hundred percent biased towards bods with legs. So the fuck ups don’t stand a chance. If they make it to amber by some kind of fluke they soon slide down again. There’s no justice. Why would there be? Justice only ever has to be seen to be done.
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