The car turned the corner into a slim tarred driveway
leaving behind the row of closely stacked cottages it had passed on the way
there. The houses were pretty and quaint, individual in character, looking out
over busy roadways where children played soccer in the streets and people
strolled the pavements pushing baby strollers, chatting to neighbours, and
walking to spaza shops to buy groceries and catch up with goings on in the
neighbourhood.
The wheels of the car (that was not from the area) stopped a
short distance ahead before a dull grey building in a great cement parking lot
that was at least half vacant. It was a dismal vision, except for a row of
green plants growing splendidly along the entrance which was the only sign of
flourishment in the immediate vicinity of the building.
The driver pulled up the handbrake and put his hands on the
steering wheel turning to the passenger beside him, a young looking woman,
gawkish, with too slim arms and cheeks that sank so deep into her face it made
her cheeks appear hollow. She sat awkwardly strapped under her seatbelt with a
demeanour that had the whiff of fear in it, blended with anxiety. She trembled,
but it was soft, her posture slouched under a semi-bent back, looking down at
her feet as if she would disintegrate if her eyes caught sight of the daylight
– or the stare of another human. Her fingers grasped at a particular purple
button on her cardigan, fixing it in place earnestly in case it might fall off.
The driver did not seem to notice this but a stranger observing her may have
found the woman too delicate or pitiable in stature, perhaps especially for her
true age.
Other than the buttons, everything she wore was black, a
spaghetti strapped vest beneath her jersey, a worn jeans and a cowboy boot with
a metal studded toe and heel on it. Her hair hung just past her chin and was
black as pitch also, but with a maroon henna gloss that shone through it
translucently under the glare of the sun. Her eyes were rimmed with an overly
thick layer of kajal pencil emphasising a darkness that partly hid her. She was
not altogether a dark character, always friendly and nice, too friendly even,
as people became when they had been hurt very much, so there was a side to her
that she kept still and it stirred her.
“Righto, We’re here,” the shrill voice said, looking over at
the woman who you would not guess was equivalent to her 32 years.
“Do you want me to come in with you?” the man said, and the
girl shook her head feebly. She was conscious of feeling too needy and was
trying not to lean too hard on everyone else. This had become foremost in her
mind, the way she was too needy. She had felt quite sick of herself and how
much of a burden she had been. It was a nauseating feeling that rose up in her
tangibly like a brick or a stone lodged in the pit of her stomach and it had made
her feel ill enough to sleep too much, and to eat too much, or shut her down
and kept her from talking.
“I’ll help you carry your bags,” the man said again,
ignoring what the woman had just indicated.
He lopped two small suitcases out of the back of the car and
turned to her, “That’s the entrance over there.”
The woman climbed out of the car clasping her handbag, which
was slung over her shoulder, and held tightly between her hands, and she said
again, “I can do this on my own. I’m not a child anymore,” was what she said
and the man gave her a deep stare before letting go of the handles of the
suitcases standing on wheels on the tarmac.
“I’ll wait out here until you’re settled in. Just come back
out in 15 minutes and let me know if everything’s ok,” the man said, climbing
back into the driver’s seat. He turned the radio on and tapped his fingers nervously
on the steering wheel as the sound of a jumuah
sermon on combating your nafs blared
out. The young woman walked towards the entrance dragging the suitcases behind
her.
She opened the door.
Behind the windowed white-painted frame was a nook filled
with light and potted plants all along the windowsill bringing in streaks of
sunshine in bright beams. In between this were handmade, child-like ceramic
works of art painted in colours and shapes.
It was a luminescent area with halo streaks spilling in
across a couch and two chairs set in the far corner. It composed a cosy nook
and the young woman as she passed it could picture herself sitting there
reading a book, and a sense of contentment came over her.
Leading on from this was an alleyway sprouting offices and
doors, and on the left there was a winding staircase. She entered the first
open room she found and there was a woman sitting there who smiled politely
from behind a desk filled with sheets of paperwork and a landline telephone. She
asked if she could help.
“I’m Radia,” the young woman said, sticking out her hand to
introduce herself. “I spoke to Nurse Matthews on the phone… about staying here
for observation for a month.”
“Radia, Radia,” the woman repeated questioningly, “yes I
think I recall her mentioning your name, you have to fill in this form,” and
the woman handed her a form.
Radia fumbled in her bag for a pen but could not find one. Since
she stopped working she didn’t have it in her bag anymore, and she’d stopped
carrying her journal with her so she didn’t need it as much, and embarrassingly
had to ask the woman to borrow her one.
The woman in her neat clothes and office manner rummaged
through her desk drawer and finally handed Radia a black pen so she could fill
in her details. Radia tapped the pen against the page and as she filled it in
she chewed the back end of it, an old nervous habit. From under the lids of her
eyes the woman ogled Radia and then Radia smiled and the woman returned it
affectedly.
“Soon as you’re done, Nurse Matthews will be in to show you
to your room. You’ll be sharing with 2 ladies.”
“I’ve just got to go outside and tell my Dad he can leave,”
Radia said.
The lady smiled another affected smile and Radia decided she
didn’t trust her. She was too polite and it didn’t feel genuine.
Outside Radia’s father had stepped out of the car and was
walking alongside it to and fro. When he saw her his face beamed a bit but
it lasted only a moment before he asked, “Everything ok?”
“It seems fine,” Radia said, “I’ll be ok here, visiting
hours are on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 5 to 6, that’s what it said on the
form.”
Radia’s Dad looked nervous, and he took his hand and
tentatively put it on her shoulder and gave it a small squeeze. “I’ll be here,”
he said, “just let me know if you need anything, you have my number, check that
it’s on your phone.”
“I definitely have it,” Radia said.
Her father looked at her without saying anything and the two
of them stood there like that for a few moments before he patted her on her
shoulder again, tentatively.
As he drove out the gate closed behind him and in his rearview
mirror he could see the sign above the barred entrance, “Fairview Sanatorium.”
He turned the radio softer so that he could hear himself
think, and with a heavy heart he took the corner to head away from where he had
left her.
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