The Sacrificial Man by Ruth Dugdall

me?”
She doesn’t reply immediately. “That depends. What is it you want?”
I wake to a cold morning.
     
I’m alone in this hospital room that is really a cell. Through the small glass window on the door I see the glare of a fluorescent light. I can hear the night staff in the community room watching some chat show, they don’t bother to control their laughter. The staff laugh more here than in other workplaces. I’ve never seen staff laugh so hard that tears course their cheeks in shops or supermarkets, but these nurses and social workers, even the auxiliaries who do nothing more than wipe food off the floor or shit off the walls, find laughter easy. It’s hysterical, almost, and I wonder if this is how they survive their own incarceration, their own institutionalisation.
I’ve been at St Therese’s for two nights.
I count in nights, as that’s the hardest time, without the distraction of doctors or activities or mealtimes. And although I managed a nap yesterday afternoon, I can’t sleep at night. Being alone makes me feel angry. It makes me feel ugly.
I’ve no books. My top is old and stained and I’m eager for this afternoon, when Cate Austin will bring my clothes, the skincare products that I asked for. But I forgot to ask for a book. If I had one now, anything would do, I could transport myself from here. I could feel at peace.
My headache has returned, and the dizziness forces me to lay down. It must be the environment, pressing down on me until it feels like my skull will crack. If this continues I’ll be forced to ask for stronger painkillers and it was hard enough persuading them to give me two Nurofen. I don’t want to ask for anything. I won’t be beholden to anyone when I’m here against my will.
I’ll be in Cate Austin’s debt, but who else could I have asked to go to my home and pick up my things? Not my parents. It would be beyond them, to think of their Alice in a madhouse. There’s always Lee, who’ll be confused by my sudden absence. We’d planned to meet today, at my house, and I know that Lee will arrive on time, will wait. I could’ve phoned, I have a mobile number, as well as the number of the barracks in Colchester, but I was afraid. I don’t want to say that I am here. I don’t want to find out if Lee has read anything of the court hearings in the newspapers. There is only one thing I want to know, that I am loved, and Lee tells me over and over again. I know it’s true. Meagre though it is I don’t want to destroy that love, when it may be all I have left.
So I chose Cate. I believe that she won’t snoop. That she will do nothing more than I have asked.
I trust her, then. I find the revelation a surprise.
A single knock and Shane, walks in. “Come on, you,” he says, staring at my body, my bare arms. I wish I had a jumper.
I follow Shane down the hallway, past other patients, men and women who pace like tigers, prowling around each other in the corridor that serves as their territory, all of them concentrating on not touching, looking down at their feet. One woman is wearing kitten heeled red slippers, but she drags them, and they make a sloppy sound with every step, sipping on a carton of squash as she goes. She stops as I walk past and angles her head like I’m an animal in a zoo and she is the other side of the bars. Her teeth are stained purple.
I’m taken to another corridor, and led to a door that says Occupational Therapy. My heart twitches as Shane herds me into the room, where a middle-aged man in a smart shirt sits on a high-backed chair. Around him, in a circle, are five other patients.
One guy is in pyjamas, which hang low on his body. From where I stand I can see his part-naked buttocks. The only other woman in the room has a long flowing skirt and a nervous smile. She must be one of those middle class neurotics who steal compulsively. The man in the smart shirt rises from his chair and comes to me, putting a hand on my shoulder, “Greetings! I’m