We sit on the wooden bench, illuminated by the milky autumn sun. I rub my palms together, out of habit really, it’s not exactly cold. It’s what my mother would call a good drying day, just the right combination of breeze and sunshine. I can imagine her pegging out boil-washed towels and sheets on a day like today, with a bustling efficiency that I have definitely not inherited. It feels good to come outside, an escape almost, and the coolness of the wooden slats beneath my jogging trousers is welcome after the cloying central-heating inside. A black and white cat rubs her messy fur against my ankles, curling and murmuring with delight. Beneath us the muted grey and brown paving slabs form an amateur patio, meeting a well-tended lawn that stretches towards a high row of rose bushes. In the cracks between the slabs, bright green shoots of weeds emerge surprisingly, undaunted by the season.

Kate sees my hands, still rubbing each other, and tentatively moves her right hand to cover mine. A well rehearsed gesture that now scares me somehow. My flesh is numb, flaccid against her soft grip, and I’m conscious that she must have felt me flinch. She persists though, and leaves her hand there, a gentle pressure, containing me, still loving me, despite all this. In a not quite forgotten corner of my mind I remember when her touch sent waves of excitement through me, when I squeezed these same fingers so tight, our arms outstretched above our heads, our bodies pressed so close I thought I would stop breathing. I cannot believe I will ever be so free again. One step at a time, Kate is always saying, as though I am learning to walk. If only it were so simple. I try to take steps out of this darkness, but my steps are random, like a mad dance; I don’t ever seem to get anywhere. I worry that she is waiting for a time that will never come.

‘Right, well visiting hours are nearly over, I’d better go, otherwise they’ll tell me off!’ Kate says with forced jollity before looking at her wrist-watch. She takes her hand back and stands up. Within seconds, a young male nurse appears and I also stand, automatically. Kate places her hand on my shoulder, a strange, unnatural movement, and then turns and walks away to the car park. She can never actually say the word goodbye. I go to open my mouth, but it’s unbelievably dry, as though my tongue is stuck to the roof, and I can’t make a sound. The nurse and I walk together, back inside, and as usual I stare at the brown signs with white lettering directing us to glamorous-sounding venues that don’t match the reality of the bland, functional rooms within; art and craft centre, dining room, therapy suite. The neglected interior, with its peeling grey paint and nasty stains on the carpet, makes me want to run back into the garden, just to feel the air on my skin, to feel alive, but my legs betray me and I slump back to my room. I lie on the bed and this depression covers me again, like a dark, stifling blanket, too heavy to lift.

May 2007