As the retreating rear of the W.P.C. disappeared around the end of the bay and out of sight, Beryl heaved a sigh.  Mixed emotions swirled within her, leading her first to one and then another, only to whisk her away to confusion again.

 

Of course there was relief.  Anth had dominated her life in a way that no one has a right to.  Then there was guilt.  Guilt for surviving when he had died and guilt for not feeling grief at his death.  But what she hadn’t expected was that tiny thread of insecurity that was sitting in the corner whispering “What now?  We have no-one to look after us, what are we going to do now?”

 

That tiny thread of fear didn’t really have free reign, though, until mid afternoon, when a short, plump, middle aged woman with short fair hair bustled up to the bed with a cheery “Good afternoon, Mrs. Cartwright, I’m Shirley  James, and I understand that you have a few little problems about getting home.”

 

Beryl just looked at her.  She had broken into a daydream and Beryl was still trying to collect her faculties and had missed most of that. 

 

“Sorry?”  She said “Sorry, I missed that.”

 

“Do you mind if I sit down?” The woman asked.  “They are particular about people sitting on the beds – but it’s easier than hunting down a chair.”

 

“Mmm?  Oh yes, help yourself, its fine.”

 

Shirley thrust out her right hand, offering it to Beryl.  Beryl shook it.

 

“I’m Shirley James.  I solve problems for people (or try to).  I’m here to try and help you when you leave the hospital.  I understand that your home was damaged in a fire and won’t be ready for when you leave here?”

 

“That’s right.”

 

“Who’s your landlord and I’ll try and arrange temporary accommodation for you while it’s fixed.”

 

“I don’t know – I think Anth owned it.  He handled everything like that.”

 

“O.K.  How about clothes, money, things like that?”

 

“Nothing.  Everything I owned was in the flat, and I never had money – Anth did all that.  I never left the flat.  I wish I had never left the flat at all.”

 

THAT was the moment when she realised that she was on her own with the burden of all the little things that most people take for granted – like shopping, budgeting, taking the bus.  How was she ever going to leave her flat again?  Anth had spent so much time and effort teaching her that if she went out, something terribly bad would happen, and now she had gone out and the very worst thing had happened.

 

She deflated.  Sinking back into the pillows and shaking with sobs.

Shirley sat back quietly, mentally put back her next job an extra half hour and waited for the storm to pass.

 

Eventually, the sobs died down, Beryl calmed and looked around for a tissue.  Shirley handed her one and reached out and took hold of the back of her hand, waiting for her to gather herself together ready to talk and lending strength to her.

 

“Now then,” she said.  “What triggered that?”

 

“I dunno.  I think it was suddenly realising that I can’t go home!”

 

“That’s alright, don’t you worry about that, we’ll help you find somewhere.”

 

“No, you don’t get it, I can’t go home.  If I go anywhere, I can never leave it again.”

 

“I don’t understand.”

 

“O.K., O.K., how can I make you understand?”

 

“Well, why don’t you tell me about it?  Where the feeling came from, how it got so strong, and why you can’t beat it.”

 

“I don’t know where it came from.  I didn’t feel this bad about it a week ago.  In fact a week ago I was climbing the walls with boredom and would have given my eye teeth to go out.”

 

“O.K. then, let’s start from there.  Why were you climbing the walls like that?”

 

“Because Anth would never allow me to go out.  If I did, then he would always find out, and make things hard for me.  It just wasn’t worth it.”

 

“He doesn’t have the right to do that to you.  How did you get into that situation?”

 

Beryl closed her eyes and thought, looking back into her short history with Anth.  He was fine while they were courting.  There was no sign of that sort of thing at all then.”  Winding the clock forward, she realised that it had started as soon as they had moved into his flat.

 

“I guess it started with small things,” she said.  “Before we were married he was the perfect gentleman.  He didn’t like it when I wore pretty clothes when we went out together, and if another man spoke to me I got hustled away, but that was about it.  Until we got married.”

 

“After that, it was almost as if someone had flipped a switch.  At first we still went out sometimes, but he got insanely jealous if anyone spoke to me, and it was always my fault.  Even if it was someone I had known from school, it was my fault for not dressing down enough, for making eye contact, for not disappearing into the background, so he stopped taking me out.”

“If he left me at home, I had to stay there.  If I didn’t answer the phone straight away when he rang, he went orbital.  I couldn’t talk to anyone else on the phone in case he called while I was doing it.  It would always have been a man, you see, and that’s when he said that if I was going to behave like a whore, seeing men behind his back, he would treat me like a whore.”

 

“I hadn’t been outside the flat in over a year until this last time.  Not even to stand on the balcony and breath some fresh air, just in case one of his mates (they live in the houses opposite our flat) saw me and told Anth.  He always thought I was displaying my wares.”

 

“I just gave up and stayed inside.  Didn’t dare have any contact with anyone.  Not even my family.  Even that would plunge him into a rage.  I think he enjoyed it – looked for excuses to hit me.”

 

Shirley was nodding gently as Beryl spoke.

 

“So what made you leave the flat this time, if you were so afraid to?”  She had heard enough to get a picture of what was going on.  Councillors got paid for listening like this, she could not afford to get too involved with it.

 

Beryl was staring up, past the ceiling into the far distant reaches of her own mind.  Her answer this time was un-emotional.  “I got a phone call.  My Uncle was very ill and wanted to see me before he died.  He was in hospital in Birmingham and someone was kind enough to come and fetch me.”

 

“So, you found the courage to go out that day.  Why are you so sure that you can’t go out again?”

 

“Uncle Tom always fascinated me.  He was exotic, strange, always full of tales of adventures and bringing us gifts from all over the world.  If I hadn’t gone, I would have lost my chance to say goodbye.  I would never have found out what he wanted.  It was a spur of the moment thing, if I’d had longer to think about it, I might not have been able to go.”

 

“I still don’t understand why you feel that you can’t leave your home now, though.”  She was beginning to lose patience with this game.  She had other jobs to do today and this one had already taken long enough.

 

“Look what happened when I did.”  She whispered.  “Look what happened.  I killed my husband and nearly died myself.  All because I broke the rules and left the flat.  How can I ever go out again?”

 

“It wasn’t your fault, you know.  From what I know about this case, it was Anths actions as much as anyone’s that caused the fire.”

 

“Everything was my fault.”  She turned away, looking towards the curtain at the other side of the bed, silent tears streaming down her face.  “Even when I wasn’t there, if it went wrong, it was my fault.”

 

That was it!  Shirley had had enough of this self pity. 

 

“I’ll tell you what we’ll do.”  She said, firmly.  “I’ll get someone from psych to come and talk to you, and in the meantime we’ll start the ball rolling to get you on your feet again.

 

She stood briskly and offered her hand again, but Beryl was still staring into the distance and didn’t respond, so she walked away, her report already written in her head, just waiting to be formalised.