Scott Norton Taylor
Therapy
Jenna walked down a street dwarfed by massive tower apartment blocks put up by the government in the early seventies to supply cost-effective, high-density housing. The cement paths and driveways leading to parking lots with an array of surprisingly expensive cars crowded out any garden. The blocks were grey prefabricated cement and set the atmosphere of the street. The windows of the tower blocks provided a moving patchwork across the face of each building as random curtains were permanently blown out and flapping.
Jenna quickened her pace as she walked past the cyclone wire fence providing security for and from those inside. At the back of the grounds, there was a laneway and a border fence that marked the start of Kylie’s hospice. It was a freestanding turn of the century house and had been, at one stage, an impressive family home boasting considerable wealth and standing. The garden was overgrown. The building was white, although much of the paint was being shed, revealing a dirty yellow undercoat. A sign stood in the front garden, barely legible and partially obscured by a nearby shrub. It read, ‘Lady Meredith House’. Jenna walked to the front entrance, crossed the mosaic marble tiles on the veranda and rang the old brass bell. A moment later a man in his early thirties wearing a light blue nurse’s uniform answered the door.
“Yes?”
“Hi, I’m a friend of Kylie Harding. She had some things delivered to my boyfriend’s work, and I was wondering if she’s staying here at the moment?”
“She’s in her room.”
“Could I see her, to give it to her?”
The nurse looked at his watch.
“Yeah, why not? It might do her good.”
The man swung open the heavy front door.
The renovated inside of the building hardly resembled anything near a family home. Its high ceilings, decorated arches and wide corridors set an opulent, functional tone. Jenna knew she was in a hospital and not a halfway hospice. It had the hollow echo and an unmistakable smell, a mix of bleach and disinfectant. The nurse took Jenna to a front desk.
“Sign here.”
Jenna signed. She was starting to feel uncomfortable.
“I haven’t seen Kylie for a while?”
“She’s been having some problems.”
Jenna nodded. She didn’t feel she had any right to ask for details.
“This way.”
The nurse began walking down the long corridor. The stairs at the end were old and made of stone. They were far wider than they needed to be and lay below a wooden bannister that snaked back on itself as it turned to go up to the second floor. Jenna walked in time with the nurse as they climbed to the third floor. The nurse stopped at the door to a small room and ushered Jenna through.
The room was bare, except for a single metal bed and a small bedside table with a metal water jug and glass. There was a window letting in just enough light to see. Kylie lay asleep on the bed. Jenna reeled back in shock. Kylie’s ankles and wrists were cuffed with padded leather restraints firmly attached to the bed. There were bruises all over her arms and legs.
“What happened to her?”
The nurse moved forward and checked on Kylie.
“Why is she strapped down?” Jenna asked.
“In case she wakes in the same mood she went down.”
Jenna stood staring at Kylie who looked gentle as she slept.
“Kylie,” the nurse said as he lightly shook her. Jenna became concerned.
“You don’t have to wake her.”
The nurse paid little attention.
“She’s never had a visitor before. I think it’s important to get her up. Let her know someone cares, apart from us.”
“No-one else comes to see her?”
“Not since I’ve worked here.”
The nurse checked the chart hanging at the end of the bed and looked at his watch.
“Doesn’t she have family?” Jenna asked.
“They gave up on her a while back. She spent all her credit when she was using. I guess it’s hard to trust someone who’s let you down so many times.”
The nurse moved to Kylie’s shoulder and rocked her again.
“Kylie?”
Kylie lolled her head slightly and then opened her eyes wide with a start and a deep, sharp breath. She tried to bring her arms to her face but couldn’t. The bed clattered slightly. Each wrist strained against the thick leather cuffs, and the cuffs rattled the frame of the bed. She relaxed and let her head sink lower into the pillow as she remembered how pointless struggling was. Then she saw Jenna and lost all hope of waking to a better day.
“What’s she doing here?” Kylie’s eyes were wide with shame, staring at Jenna.
“She’s come to visit.”
“Hi,” Jenna said, with a sympathetic smile as the nurse undid Kylie’s restraints.
“I’ll leave you to it.” With that, the nurse headed out the door.
“Do I just leave when I’m finished?” Jenna called after him.
“You’ll need to sign out downstairs, same as when you came in.”
Jenna nodded, and the nurse disappeared. His footsteps could be heard on the hard linoleum floor as he walked back towards the stairs.
Jenna went to the window and looked out. She couldn’t see the ground as the window was too high, but she stayed there for a moment collecting her thoughts.
“Beautiful day.”
Kylie sat on her bed without a word.
“Are there many people in this place?”
“Changes.”
“They seem nice.”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
Jenna came back to the bed, not sure what to say. She remembered the package she was carrying and handed it over.
“Someone left this for you at the store.”
Kylie ripped the package open to reveal a book. She held it by the spine and wiggled it. Cash fluttered out from within the pages. Jenna didn’t say anything as Kylie collected the money. She took a small purse from the bedside table and put the money away.
“How’s college?” Kylie asked.
“Great! I mean, hard, but you want it to be challenging. You know what I mean?”
“Completely. Nothing’s worth nothing if it’s not hard.”
Kylie swung her legs off the bed and stood up. She began stretching herself out into a giant star, loosening up a body that had remained in the same position for many hours. She lifted her nightgown slightly and looked at her legs.
“Jesus.”
Kylie gave a little shake of her head with every new bruise she found. Occasionally she’d find an open wound or an area rubbed raw from her struggles.
She went to the small mirror hanging above the bedside table and looked into it. She saw a face weary from its battle with life; blood red eyes and fine purple lines under her skin, like thread, that meandered across her nose to one of her cheeks. She’d lost a couple of teeth over the years through drug use, and the ones she had left were more off white than white. Her gums looked puffy and irregular, ranging from light healthy pink to violent, angry red.
“How old do you think I am?” she asked out of the blue.
Jenna was uncomfortable. This was a loaded question. She thought Kylie looked the other side of thirty-five, but if that were too high, it would spell trouble.
“I don’t know, thirtyish, thirty-one maybe.”
“I’m twenty-six.”
Kylie began to cry as she looked at herself in the mirror. Jenna came to her and put an arm over her shoulder. Kylie turned and hugged her back. It had been a long time since someone had bothered to visit, even longer since someone held her.
They stood like that, bound together, not moving, for the next five minutes. Finally, Kylie pulled her head out of Jenna’s shoulder.
“Look what I’ve done to your jumper.”
“Don’t worry about it. Are you okay?”
Kylie nodded.
“It’s great you came to see me.”
“I needed your advice. Who else would I go to?”
Kylie broke into a broad grin and laughed.
“Right,” she blurted out sarcastically, before realising Jenna was serious.
“You want advice... from me?”
“About Bailey. You’ve known him longer than me. We had our first real fight. I said all the wrong things, but he’s never opened up to me before about anything, so I didn’t know I was saying the wrong things. Did you know he graduated from uni?”
Kylie nodded.
“When I first met him … I was working up to doing something bad. And he was so worried about me. There was no reason he should be. Not when everyone who should have cared didn’t. He’s about the nicest person I know, the way he lets me hang at the shop when I get lonely. Not many people would let someone do that.”
Kylie climbed back onto the bed and slipped her feet under the blankets as she sat at the top end like a child waiting to be tucked in.
“What did you fight about?”
“Stupid stuff. He holds everything so tight, so I’ve never really been able to get inside his head and find out what’s going on. I thought it was an act. Like a first date, him trying to impress me with how nice he was.”
“It’s not an act.”
“I know that now. But he keeps what he’s thinking to himself. I think a lot of it’s pretty dark – the stuff about him anyway. I’m only just starting to realise how down on himself he is.”
“He deals with things by not dealing with them,” Kylie said.
“Has he ever talked to you about personal stuff?”
“Never. We talk about me all the time, but when I ask about him – time to mop the floor or stack cigarettes.”
“How do I make a relationship work when he’s like that?”
Kylie stayed silent.
“I can’t, right?” Jenna asked.
Kylie put her chin on her knees, peeking out over her stretched nightgown. Jenna waited. When no response came, she looked to Kylie and saw her staring like a child with a secret. She obviously had something to say.
“What?” Jenna pushed.
Kylie shook her head with tiny little shakes.
“You won’t like it.”
“If you know something, tell me.”
“He’s trying to stop you from finding out.”
“Finding out about what?”
“He thinks he’s a loser because he can’t get ahead. He thinks it must be his fault. He does the right thing; he’s honest, keeps his word and he still never gets anywhere. He grew up believing doing the right thing would get him somewhere. He still thinks good things happen to good people, so...”
“He’s about to turn twenty-four. He must have realised the world doesn’t work that way by now?”
“He’s one of the new ones. Spoilt, privileged, only ever told he could be what he wanted. Got everything handed to him. Told he could rule the world and told the world’s fair. Don’t lie, don’t cheat and you’ll go far.”
“My parents brought me up the same way and I’m not like that?”
“But your parents are divorced.”
“So?”
“You know life doesn’t always work out. You saw that with your own eyes and you learnt the lesson. I bet you get on great with your parents, right?”
“Just normal.”
“Do they treat you like a kid or a friend?”
“I don’t know, a bit of both.”
“Choose one, friend or parent?”
“I guess... friends.”
“And who loves you more, your Mum or Dad?”
“They both love me different.”
“Do they go out of their way to prove how much?”
Kylie had Jenna’s attention – proving their love had become Jenna’s parent’s obsession since their divorce.
“It’s how it works; the law of happiness and divorce. No-one has time to raise kids anymore until they get divorced. Then they become real parents again because the kids have to choose sides. They become part of the settlement. Maybe it’s not possible to have two generations from a middle-class family who are happy anymore. Maybe it has to jump a generation.”
Jenna was quiet, thinking over Kylie’s theory. She wasn’t sure Bailey’s problems all came from how he was brought up and his Disneyesque view of the world, but it gave her something to consider.
“How do I get him to open up to me?”
“Praise him when he does something good and let him see you’re not perfect once in a while.”
They sat a while longer in silence.
“I just want him to stand up for himself.”
“He’s a mover,” Kylie said, making no sense what-so-ever.
“What?”
“When people walk down the street, some expect others to move; some do the moving. Considerate, decent, thoughtful people take a lot longer to walk down the street.”
Jenna stared at Kylie who was suddenly making a lot of sense. That was exactly Bailey. He moved at every opportunity, and people knew it and took advantage of him. She mentally vowed to toughen Bailey up and stroke his ego in the process. Her first step would be to get him to do something about his job.
“If he could just get out of that shitty job. He hates it. He has a degree, and all it got him was a smock with a name tag and a job that pays what you’d pay a sixteen-year-old. That’s why he thinks he’s a loser. It’d change everything if he got a decent job. Maybe I should ask around for him; maybe my dad knows someone. Bailey wouldn’t even have to know I asked.”
“I could help,” Kylie offered, seeing how desperate Jenna was to bring about change for Bailey. "I can ask around the people I know, see if there’s anything going."
Jenna smiled, happy to let Kylie try, but Kylie was the last person Jenna ever imagine being able to help change Bailey’s life for the better.