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Barbara

Ian Inglis

Yesterday, I saw a woman in the park who reminded me of Barbara. The woman’s hair – jet-black, cut with a short, spiky fringe – and her clothes – yellow tee-shirt, faded denims and open-toed sandals – were almost identical to Barbara’s. The way she held herself, the way she walked, the way she scanned the landscape around her were so familiar. Even the travel-stained backpack slung casually across her shoulders seemed the same. Relaxed and restless: an impossible combination, but one which had intrigued and enthralled me throughout our brief time together. The similarity was so striking that I rather foolishly followed her for a while. It was only when I realized that I might be accused of stalking the young woman that I stopped. I felt a little ashamed, a little embarrassed, and found a wooden bench to sit on until she had disappeared into the distance.

She wasn’t as beautiful of course. How could she be? Barbara was the first person I met who could be defined, uniquely and unconditionally, by her looks. Her beauty was so sublime, so exquisite, that others might have been forgiven for resenting or envying her. However, in Barbara’s case, that never happened. Perhaps it was because she didn’t seek to take advantage of her appearance, to flaunt it, or to do anything that suggested she was even conscious of her looks. Her behaviour was never disingenuous, nor did she assume a false modesty. Her beauty was startling…but it was only a part, never the whole, of who she was.

I sat on the bench for some time. I was in no hurry. I walked slowly back to my apartment and searched for the copy of Walt Whitman’s Leaves Of Grass that I never had the opportunity to give her. There it was, my dedication already written: For Barbara. All my love, Tom. I took Al Stewart’s Year Of The Cat from its place in my dwindling collection of LPs, carefully lowered the needle on to the title track, and was immediately overcome, as I always am, by the impossibly delicate piano introduction that filled the space around me, pulling me back into a distant land, an antique land, a country where they turn back time …

We’d met in Istanbul, in The Pudding Shop, the small café near the Blue Mosque that for many years was the unofficial departure point for young men and women seeking to follow the Hippy Trail to Afghanistan or Kathmandu. I’d arrived on the overnight train from Bucharest to Istanbul’s Sirkeci Station. It was mid-morning and we were the only two customers. Ella Fitzgerald’s Live In Berlin was playing – the one with the improvised lyrics to “Mack The Knife” – and we smiled at each other across the tables as the singer’s words became more and more inventive.

‘That’s so good,’ she said to me, as the track finished.

‘Fabulous,’ I agreed. ‘It’s hard to think of anyone else who could pull it off.’

She nodded at my rucksack.

‘You just arrived?’

‘Yes. You?’

‘I’ve been here for a while. You got anywhere to stay?’

‘Not yet.’

‘I’m in a hostel the other side of Sultanahmet Square. It’s mainly single-sex dorms, but, you know, it’s clean and cheap enough. The Green Parrot. They don’t do breakfast, which is why I’m here. I’m headed back there in a few minutes. Do you want to come?’

‘Thanks.’

She told me her name was Barbara Fisher and that she’d been travelling for several months after dropping out of her Chemistry course at Sheffield University.

‘Who wants to spend their life in a lab, surrounded by test tubes and Bunsen burners? How about you?’

I explained that after three years as a junior reporter on a weekly paper in the Midlands, I’d understood that my chances of becoming the BBC’s foreign correspondent or the political editor of The Times were as remote as ever, and decided to leave. “What next?” was a question neither of us thought to ask nor would know how to answer.

I checked in at The Green Parrot and, with a few other people from the hostel, we spent the next week or so visiting the obligatory tourist destinations in and around the city: Topkapi Palace, the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, the Basilica Cistern, the Grand Bazaar. Not that we thought of ourselves as tourists; we were travellers, as Barbara often reminded us. We wandered across the Ataturk Bridge to explore the Beyoglu district of Istanbul, where we climbed to the top of the six hundred-years-old Galata Tower, and visited The Peri Palace, the hotel of choice for passengers arriving from Venice on the Orient Express. On a dilapidated paddle steamer, we sailed up the Bosphorus Strait between Europe and Asia to the Black Sea, and slept on board when the engines failed on the return leg. Gradually, most of our companions (German Max, Joni and Greg from Canada, Big Al and Little Suze from California, the French sisters Sophie and Nadine, Greta from Finland) left the city to resume their separate paths, but Barbara and I remained.

‘Tom and I are going to stay for a while longer,’ she told Swedish couple Bjorn and Astrid and their two young children, as they climbed into their converted bus to continue the journey to Ankara. ‘We like it here.’

I noted the we and understood that the pronoun was both an invitation and a declaration. On the one hand, I was thrilled beyond measure by the prospect of being admitted into her life. At the same time, I was aware that she’d made her decision, confident in the knowledge that I’d readily agree to whatever she suggested. And, of course, I did. She took my hand in hers and kissed me, and whatever tiny doubts I might have had were swept away by the exciting realization that we were now a couple.

We lingered on. We managed to move out of our separate dorms into one of the few private rooms at the hostel. Two weeks turned into two months. We loved Istanbul. We loved the people, the architecture, the pace of life. We loved the fact that we were living in such a strange and colourful environment. We loved each other. The Pudding Shop was our regular breakfast venue, from where we would plan our daily activities, and work out how much money we needed to exchange. I was fortunate, in that during my time on the newspaper, I’d been able to save a sizable amount. That, plus the cash I’d received when I sold my car, meant that I had enough to last me for several months.

‘How about you?’ I asked.

‘I’ve got my student grant.’

‘Don’t you have to repay that if you drop out?’

‘Not if you’re ill.’

‘You’re not ill, are you?’

‘No. But I told them I was on the edge of a nervous breakdown, brought on by the pressure of the course. They took pity on me. And then, there’s always my parents,’ she added.

‘What do they do?’

‘My father’s a vicar. And my mother’s a vicar’s wife. So…Christian charity, you know.’

‘You don’t seem like a religious person yourself,’ I said.

 ‘I’m not.’

‘Do they mind?’

‘No. I’m not anti-religion. There are some things about the Church I really like.’

As we were talking, the adhan, the traditional Muslim call to prayer, echoed around the city, from the minarets of Istanbul’s mosques.

‘Like that, for instance,’ she continued. ‘At home, in Shropshire, I love the sound of church bells. Especially on a Sunday evening, in the Summer. Before Evensong. Meadows, hedgerows, the scent of wild flowers. And the bells. It’s a lovely sound. It adds to the texture of the countryside.’

She sat quietly for so long that I half-wondered if she’d fallen asleep. I looked at her closely. It was almost impossible not to. I could see Sophia Loren, Audrey Hepburn, Vermeer’s Girl With A Pearl Earring, da Vinci’s Lady With An Ermine…but there was something else written there that was harder to read – a tenacity, a nonchalance, an odd mix of innocence and sophistication that I had never encountered before. I thought how much my life had changed: from compiling the Births, Marriages & Deaths columns in an overcrowded newsroom thick with the stale, flat smell of cigarette smoke, to spending my days and nights in an exotic land thousands of miles from home with young people from around the world. And Barbara. She saw me looking at her and smiled.

‘We’ve been in Istanbul long enough,’ she announced. ‘It’s time to move on. Where shall we go?’

After some discussion, we decided to go to Greece. We would catch the overnight bus to Thessaloniki, and from there hitch-hike down to Athens. The principal sites of the Acropolis – the Parthenon, the Temple of Nike – would take no more than a day or two to see. After that, we could spend as long as we wished island-hopping, using local ferries to criss-cross the Aegean Sea, visiting places whose ancient names conjured up images of golden beaches, crystal waters, lush forests and white-washed villages: Hydra, Spetses, Mykonos, Santorini, Naxos. It was Barbara’s idea, but I needed little persuading. I’d recently read John Fowles’ The Magus, and its pervasive sense of mystery and romance only added to my enthusiasm. In comparison, my own initial preference – to head south to some of the new resorts on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast, such as Bodrum, Marmaris and Antalya, before they became over-commercialized – seemed uninspired.

We agreed to spend a final two days in Istanbul revisiting some of our favourite places. We bought the bus tickets in advance, and on the afternoon of our planned departure we split up, with a promise to meet back at The Green Parrot no later than six o’clock. Barbara wanted to return to the Grand Bazaar to barter for some earrings she had seen. I had several postcards to write, in which I told friends and family of my brave new world and its wonderful cast of characters. Coming across an English bookshop, I bought Leaves Of Grass for Barbara, and Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird for myself. I got back to the hostel just after five o’clock; the young man behind the desk waved an envelope at me.

‘Ah. You are here. Your friend is gone. She leaves this.’

Changed my mind. Sorry.

I stared at the single sheet of paper, as if I expected the words to suddenly rearrange themselves into another kind of message.

‘I don’t understand. My friend, Barbara. When did she give you this? Is she here?’

‘She is gone. This afternoon.’

‘Did she say anything else? Do you know where she’s gone?’

‘No. Just give you this.’

It made no sense to me. Why would she change her mind? It had been her idea. And what exactly had she changed her mind about? Travelling to Greece? Or being with me? If she had doubts, why hadn’t she talked with me about them? Had I done something wrong? Was I being punished? I’d heard of such things: “Dear John” letters, brides left standing at the altar, deathbed confessions. But they only happened in movies. Didn’t they? Perhaps she was in some sort of trouble. I stared again at the sheet of paper, and thought of Hemingway’s six-word novel: For Sale. Baby shoes, never worn. It seemed I had a four-word novel.

▪

I STAYED ON AT The Green Parrot for a while in case Barbara came back. I knew she wouldn’t, of course, but I had no idea what else to do. None of our friends who were still in the city had seen her, and I dismissed the idea of searching for her. Where would I start? One woman in the whole of Istanbul, the whole of Turkey, the whole of Europe. The excitement and optimism I had felt during the last few weeks evaporated, to be replaced by a grinding emptiness. My days became things to be endured rather than enjoyed. It was as though I’d fallen into a pit and climbed out feeling ridiculous, useless. I had no energy. In the mornings I stayed in bed, until eleven, twelve o’clock. In the afternoons, I wandered aimlessly around the streets and markets. In the evenings, I ate alone, or sometimes not all. After ten days, I realized that I needed to leave. A party of Dutch students, travelling back to the Netherlands from Nepal in two camper vans, offered to take me as far as Trieste, and I accepted gratefully.  As we drove away from Istanbul, Lucas, a philosophy student at the University of Groningen, introduced me to the central principle of Occam’s Razor: “the simplest explanation is usually the correct one.” Barbara’s note had told the truth, he persuaded me. She’d had second thoughts and decided that going to Greece with me was a bad idea. Maybe she’d begun to tire of me. Maybe she’d met somebody else. Either way, there was no riddle: she’d simply changed her mind. I should accept it. We spent that night on a small campsite just outside Tekirdag, overlooking the Sea of Marmara, and celebrated the Dutch national holiday of Koningsdag, or King’s Day, with bottles of cheap red wine and large bowls of Stamppot, a mixture of mashed potatoes and vegetables, topped with smoked sausage. I ate and drank far too much, but despite my headache the following morning, I felt a little happier.

I parted company with my Dutch friends at Trieste. While they turned north toward Innsbruck, I hitch-hiked the hundred miles or so to Venice, along the Adriatic coast. A single lift with an Italian couple driving to Milan in an open-topped sports car got me to the outskirts of the city. Although I’d never been there before, I felt I knew it well, through countless television documentaries, extensive media coverage of the devastating floods of recent years, and films like Don’t Look Now, Death In Venice and Summertime. I found cheap accommodation in Ostella Serenissima in the Dorsodouro district. In the first few days, I got lost repeatedly in the bewildering maze of alleyways, piazzas and bridges, but somehow always managed to find my way back. Gradually, the shape of the city and the location of its principal sites began to reveal themselves to me.

Venice was readying itself for the Biennale, the six-months celebration of contemporary art and architecture held through the Spring and Summer. A flyer in the hostel announced that the festival organisers were seeking to recruit additional English-speakers to cope with the expected influx of foreign visitors, and having no other plans in mind, I applied for and was offered a job as an assistant information officer. The work was straightforward enough: much of my time was spent giving directions, answering simple questions, and providing maps and brochures. The disappointment I felt in Istanbul still persisted, and I was grateful that the constant daily interaction with others left me little time to dwell on it. But despite my best efforts, I was conscious that when I was walking to and from the Biennale at the start and end of every day, I was surveying the crowds in Piazza San Marco and along the waterfront in the vain hope that I might see Barbara’s face among them.

Slowly, of course, the pain of my betrayal (for that was how I chose to define it) did begin to recede. I continued to stay at Ostella Serenissima, and gladly surrendered to the pleasures of new friends, new conversations, new romances. In September, the Venice International Film Festival brought thousands of additional tourists to the city, and for two weeks, I left the Biennale’s main locations in the Arsenale and the Giardini to perform similar duties at the Lido. To my amazement, on my first day there, I met Sophie and Nadine who had been with us in Istanbul. They were at the Film Festival with their father, a cinematographer on one of the French entries. That night, the three of us went out for a meal at a small pizzeria beneath the Rialto Bridge, and I told them about Barbara. They were surprised and sympathetic, but not as shocked as I would have expected.

‘I think she has secrets,’ said Nadine.

‘What do you mean?’

‘In The Green Parrot, we would hear her, in the dormitory, at night. She was crying.’

‘Did you ask why?’

‘I asked her,’ said Sophie. ‘She said it was just bad dreams. But nobody has that many bad dreams. Another time, I saw her standing in front of the mirror. Just standing there, not moving, staring at herself. For many minutes. As if she was looking for something.’

They had no further information, and could throw no light on why she would have changed her mind at the last minute. To them, as to everyone else, Barbara had been a good friend, kind and generous.

‘And so very beautiful,’ Nadine added.

‘Too beautiful for me, I suppose?’ I asked, jokingly.

‘No. But perhaps too beautiful for herself.’

The Film Festival ended, the Biennale drew to a close, and in November I went to Rome. Sophie and Nadine had given me the address of their brother Benoit who was hoping to follow his father into the movie industry, and was completing a postgraduate diploma in Editing at the Roma Film Academy. There was a temporary vacancy in the flat he shared with other students in Trastevere, and they were happy to let me stay with them for a while. But as it turned out, I was there for less than a week. Christmas was approaching, it had been nearly a year since I left England, and although I sent my parents regular postcards I had had no direct contact with them. I decided to phone them.

‘Oh, my goodness! How on earth did you know?’ said my mother.

‘I don’t understand. Know what?’

‘Your father. He’s had a heart attack. Isn’t that why you’re calling?’

I managed to get a seat on a flight the following morning, and was back home by late afternoon. My mother and I went straight to the hospital. Visiting hour had finished, but when we explained that I’d just flown back from Italy, the ward sister allowed us in for a few minutes. There was a Christmas tree at the end of the ward, decorations hanging from the ceiling, and a medley of Christmas hits was playing in the background. My father was sitting up in bed and grinned at as we approached.

‘I knew this would bring you home,’ he said.

 ‘How are you, Dad?’ I asked.

‘Fine, I’m fine, now. It wasn’t so nice at the time. They’re keeping me in for observation, but there’s no need to worry. They tell me it was a relatively minor attack. So now I’m on various medications, and I’ll be home in a week.’

‘Where he’s going to rest and take things easy,’ interrupted my mother. ‘He needs to lose weight the doctors told me. So, no more drinking. No more smoking. No more fried breakfasts.’

‘No more fun. I think I’ll stay in here! But never mind me. I want to hear all about you, Tom. All the places you’ve been, the things you’ve seen, the people you’ve met.’

I saw the sister heading in our direction.

‘I’ll tell you tomorrow. Get a good night’s sleep.’

Both my parents were in their mid-fifties, and for much of the evening my mother ran through more of the changes she planned to introduce into their lifestyle: more exercise, a strict diet, more fruit and vegetables, taking up healthy pastimes like birdwatching and fishing, avoiding stressful situations, and so on. On the flight home, I’d imagined my father on his death-bed. The realization that his heart attack had been a warning rather than a tragedy was a huge relief and I was content to let her do most of the talking, while I sat and listened. Eventually, the conversation turned to my own situation. Was I going to continue travelling? Did I plan to stay in Rome? Did I think I’d ever return to journalism?

‘I can’t say,’ I told her. ‘There are still lots of places I want to see before I settle down. But I’ll stay here until Dad’s back on his feet.’

There was a pile of mail waiting for me in my bedroom. Whenever we said goodbye, it had become routine to exchange home addresses with fellow travellers, and several of my friends had sent letters and cards as they moved around towns and cities in Europe and beyond.

‘How about phone calls?’ I asked, when I came downstairs.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Nothing important. Everybody knows you’re away. Oh, there was one, two or three months ago. I remember, because she rang twice. A funny girl. She said she’d met you in Istanbul and wanted to know if you were back home yet. I told her you weren’t, but the next day she rang again. “Didn’t you ring yesterday?” I asked her. “Did I?” she said. “Oh no, that wasn’t me. ”But it was her. I recognized the voice. Sounded pleasant enough, but a bit confused, a bit odd. The whole thing was a bit odd. What was her name, now …?’

‘Barbara,’ I said.

‘Yes, that was it. Barbara. You do know her, then?’

▪

THE FOLLOWING MORNING, I went to the reference section of our local library and asked to see the current edition of Crockford’s Clerical Directory. Because we had never said goodbye, Barbara and I had never exchanged addresses, but I knew the surname and the county. How many clergymen called Fisher could there be in Shropshire? The answer was one. Rev C. K. R. Fisher. St Luke’s Parish Church, Ludlow, Shropshire. Back at home, I stared at the telephone for several minutes before picking up the receiver and dialling the number. A man’s voice answered.

‘St Luke’s Vicarage.’

‘Is that Rev Fisher?’

‘Speaking.’

‘Hello. My name’s Tom Quigley. I’m a friend of your daughter, Barbara. Is she at home?’

There was a surprisingly long silence.

‘I do apologise, but I don’t think I recognize the name, Mr Quigley. Tom. Were you at university with Barbara?’

‘No, we met earlier this year. In Istanbul.’

‘Ah.’

‘Yes,’ I went on. ‘Apparently, she tried to ring me some time ago, but I’ve been away. Can I speak to her?’

There was another long silence.

‘Are you here in Ludlow, now, Tom?’

‘No.’

‘That’s a pity. I’d much prefer to talk to you in person.’

I remembered my father’s car.

‘But I’m not too far away. I can drive over easily enough.’

‘Tomorrow morning? Around eleven o’clock?’

 ‘Yes, that’s fine. And will you tell Barbara I rang, please?’

‘Till tomorrow, then.’

The underlying note of caution in his voice I put down to what I supposed was the benevolent concern clergymen were expected to show to their congregation. But it was harder to interpret his obvious reluctance to answer any of the questions I’d asked about Barbara. I had little time to dwell on what it might mean; my mother and I went back to the hospital in the afternoon, where I gave my father a potted version of the past few months. We were told not to tire him, and although he listened attentively, it was evident that he was finding it difficult to concentrate, and we left before the hour was up.

The journey to Ludlow took less than two hours and I arrived at St Luke’s Vicarage just before eleven o’clock. Barbara’s parents came to the door together to greet me. They introduced themselves as Charles and Margaret. I could see clear traces of Barbara in her mother’s face, and was reminded of something my grandmother used to say: “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

We sat either side of a broad oak table in the kitchen, a freshly-brewed cafetiere of coffee between us.

‘Thanks for inviting me over,’ I said. ‘Is Barbara here?’

Charles Fisher said, ‘It’s important, Tom, that we understand the nature of your relationship with Barbara. And it’s important, no, essential, that you’re honest. We’re not here to judge you. Will you be honest with us?’

Perhaps it was my experience as a reporter that had taught me to allow people to reveal things in their own time.

‘Yes, I will,’ I nodded.

‘Thank you, Tom. And we’ll be honest with you.’

‘You were with her in Istanbul,’ said Margaret.

‘Yes. I met her, and many other people, when I arrived there earlier this year. We were all living in the same hostel and we got to know each other, and spend time together.’

‘What did she tell you about herself, about her travelling?’

‘Well, she told me that she’d left the Chemistry course at Sheffield. She’d realised it wasn’t for her, and she wasn’t enjoying it. But because she convinced them that she had to leave on medical grounds, that she was ill – stress, and so on – she didn’t have to repay the student grant. And so she was using what was left of the money to travel.’

‘You were together for how long?’

‘Maybe three months. Some of the others moved on after a few weeks, but Barbara and I stayed. We enjoyed it there.’

‘And you saw a lot of each other?’

‘Yes.’

‘Were you sleeping together?’

I was surprised by the directness of her father’s question, but saw little point in lying.

‘Yes.’

Her parents glanced at each other, as if my answer confirmed something they already suspected.

‘And then?’

‘And then, we decided to travel to Greece, to the Greek Islands. But on the day we were set to leave, she didn’t turn up as we’d arranged, and instead I got a message saying she’d changed her mind.’

‘Were you worried about her?’

I took my time before answering.

‘No. Not worried. Puzzled. And…upset.’

‘And what made you get in touch with us now?’

‘I left Istanbul and I’ve been in working in Venice for the last six months. But I decided to fly back home for Christmas, and my mother told me that Barbara had been trying to contact me. That’s it, really.’

‘Thank you, Tom. We appreciate your honesty. I’m sorry if this feels like an interrogation. As I said, it’s important for us to know as much as we can.’

We sat in silence for a while and I understood that they were waiting for me to speak. I was unsure what lay behind their questions, but the fact that they hadn’t referred directly to Barbara made me slightly uneasy. While they didn’t look or act like grieving parents, it was obvious that their curiosity went far beyond the usual interest in a daughter’s boyfriend.

‘Is Barbara here? I’d really like to see her again.’

‘No, she’s not here, Tom,’ her father replied.

For a moment, I feared that “not here” might be a Christian euphemism for death.

‘She’s alright, though?’

‘You can see her after lunch. We all can. She’s at St Winifred’s.’

‘Another church?’

‘A psychiatric hospital.’

We left her father’s car in the car park and walked on a gravelled path through precisely manicured grounds to the imposing stone entrance of St Winifred’s. A male nurse was waiting for us.

‘How is she today?’ asked Margaret Fisher.

‘No real change. She had a quiet night…that helps.’

He spoke to me.

‘I’m not sure how much you’ve been told,’ he said. ‘Barbara is rather confused. She may or she may not remember you. The main thing is not to press her – for answers, for details, for explanations. Some days she can’t stop talking. Other days, she won’t say a word. If she does talk to you, some of the things she says may strike you as irrational, illogical. Don’t try to correct her. Just go with it.’

She was sitting alone in a corner of the lounge, staring out of the window toward the trees at the rear of the house.

‘Hello, my love,’ said her mother, leaning in to kiss her. ‘We’ve brought someone along to see you.’

I sat down on the empty chair next to her. Margaret and Charles stood on either side of me.

‘Hello, Barbara,’ I said. ‘It’s me. Tom.’

She turned her head slowly toward me. She was thinner, paler than she had been, and the navy-blue dressing-gown hung loosely, unflatteringly, around her body. She glanced at me briefly before returning her gaze to the grounds.

‘Tom,’ she said, eventually.

‘That’s right. Tom. From Istanbul.’

‘Tom,’ she repeated.

I felt I should keep talking, to hold her attention, to fill the silence before it grew too wide to repair.

‘I wanted to see you again,’ I continued. ‘We had such a special time in Istanbul. You and me, and all our friends. You were the very first person I met there. You know, the first morning I arrived. In The Pudding Shop. And you took me to The Green Parrot, and introduced me to people, and helped me to feel at home. You were so kind to me. You were so kind to everyone. You remember Nadine and Sophie? From Paris? I saw them a little while ago. They send their love. Everyone does. They all send their love to you.’

‘Istanbul,’ Barbara murmured. ‘The boat stopped.’

For a moment I was thrown off balance. Then I remembered.

‘Yes, it did. You’re right. The engines failed. We had to sleep on deck. All of us, together. We had no food. We were so hungry! And when we got back we had mackerel sandwiches, down on the seafront.’

I looked to her parents and they nodded in encouragement. I carried on in the same vein, easy, inconsequential talk, avoiding direct questions. After several minutes, the nurse who had met us approached and spoke quietly to Barbara’s parents.

‘Dr Hames wants to see us, Tom,’ said her father.

I made to get up, but he shook his head.

‘No, not you. Just Margaret and I. You stay here and keep talking to Barbara. You’re doing fine.’

When they had left us alone, I pulled my chair closer to hers.

‘Barbara,’ I began.

‘Mirrors,’ she said, looking around her as if afraid of being overheard.

‘What?’

‘In the mirrors.’

I waited for her to continue. She shivered and pulled the dressing-gown around her.

‘It’s cold here,’ she said.

‘In Istanbul, we complained about the heat!’

She looked at me directly, and I saw a spark of recognition in her eyes.

‘Tom? You’re here?’

‘Yes. I came to see you. I’ve missed you.’

‘Mirrors, Tom,’ she repeated.

‘What about them?’ I asked.

‘Mirrors. They keep the image of everyone who’s ever looked into them. Did you know that? Every face is still in there. And sometimes, when you look into a mirror, you can see one of those faces, looking back at you. Talking to you. Telling you what to do.’

‘Have you seen them? Are they here?’

‘Not here. No.’

‘In Istanbul?’

‘Yes. In Istanbul. A woman.’

‘What did she tell you to do?’

‘She warned me.’

I remembered the nurse’s advice not to question Barbara, or press her for details. I knew that if her parents were to overhear our conversation, they would think I was deliberately abusing their trust. But it seemed that Barbara was about to divulge something, something important, and I decided to carry on.

‘Warned you about what?’

‘About you, Tom.’

‘About me?’

‘She told me to leave.’

She looked at me apprehensively.

‘You won’t hurt me, Tom, will you? Not here.’

There was nothing I could say. I reached across to take her hand – just as she had done to me in Istanbul – and we sat silently, watching small flurries of snow blowing haphazardly across the lawn. When the nurse returned to take Barbara back to her room, he asked me to join her parents in the doctor’s office. Somewhere in his mid-thirties, Dr Hames was younger than I might have expected, and his appearance and professional mannerisms corresponded more to my idea of an athletics coach than a medical man.

‘Mr and Mrs Fisher have asked me to explain Barbara’s condition to you, Mr Quigley. And also, to answer any questions you might have.’

‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘Although St Winifred’s is a psychiatric hospital,’ he continued, ‘I’m not a psychiatrist, or a psychoanalyst, or any of the other terms you might have come across.  I’m a clinical psychologist. The people I see have illnesses. Mental illnesses.’

He stood up and walked around the room.

‘At their most basic level, mental illnesses are either functional, where there’s no identifiable physical disorder, or organic, where there is a physical disorder such as brain damage or a tumour. Barbara’s illness is functional. The functional can be divided into neuroses and psychoses. Neuroses are generally an exaggeration of normal behaviour – depression, anxieties, phobias – and the patient has insight. By that, I mean that he or she recognizes that there is a problem.’

He paused.

‘OK so far?’

I nodded.

‘Good. I know all this might seem irrelevant, but it’s important that you understand Barbara’s situation. Psychoses are more serious, and are qualitatively different from normal behaviour. Typically, the patient loses contact with reality, and is unaware of his or her illness. The most common type of psychosis is schizophrenia – thought disturbances which occur when an individual feels himself or herself to be externally controlled; auditory hallucinations which involve not just hearing voices at random, but hearing a running commentary on one’s actions; and primary delusions – false beliefs in the face of contradictory evidence. Barbara is suffering from schizophrenia.’

‘The faces in the mirrors,’ I said.

‘Yes. The faces in the mirrors.’

‘Can it – can she – can Barbara – be cured?’

‘Schizophrenia can be treated, managed. There are anti-psychotic drugs, but here at St Winifred’s, we try to avoid medication wherever possible, and concentrate on various forms of therapy, particularly Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.’

I’d heard the phrase, but had no idea what it meant.

‘What exactly is that?’ I asked.

‘It’s a form of counselling, to offer support and help. Our goal is to focus on helping patients cope with their symptoms, rather than trying to convince them that their experiences and beliefs are wrong.’

‘And Barbara?’

‘It’s early days yet.’

‘When Barbara left Sheffield University,’ said her father, ‘she didn’t pretend that she was having a nervous breakdown, as she described it to you. She did, in reality, go through a sustained period of mental turmoil. Living at home again with us, she seemed to recover. We thought it had passed, and we agreed to let her travel abroad. When she returned, suddenly and unexpectedly, and clearly in distress, we realized we were wrong.’

‘She seemed so happy in Istanbul,’ I said.

‘I’m sure she was, for a time.’

‘Was it my fault?’ I asked.

‘Not at all,’ said Dr Hames. ‘The demands of maintaining a relationship, of meeting its expectations and obligations, of understanding her own emotions – particularly if they were heightened – may have been difficult for her to take on. But it was nobody’s fault.’

‘What happens now?’

‘She’ll stay here with us for the foreseeable future. Rest, calm, building trust are the best therapies at the moment. Your visit today has been useful, but on another day it might over-excite her. Let her find herself. I’ll contact Mr and Mrs Fisher if and when I think it would be beneficial for you to visit her again.’

▪

UNDER MY MOTHER’S GUIDANCE, my father made a swift recovery and was, amazingly, able to go back to work within six weeks. The urge to resume my travels grew stronger. Before I left, I telephoned Barbara’s father and he promised to contact my parents if her situation changed. I hitch-hiked through Spain and Portugal, worked as a travel courier for a package holiday company on Majorca, and spent several months visiting the Greek Islands, as Barbara and I had planned. Eventually, my money started to run out, and I fell back on my training as a journalist. I applied to various news agencies – Associated Press, United Press International – without success, before obtaining a temporary post with Reuters in Marseille. The work suited me, and over the next few years, I worked on short-term contracts in Paris, Berlin, and Amsterdam. I made occasional brief visits back to my parents, but there were no telephone calls, no messages from Barbara’s parents. I did write them one letter, asking about her progress, but received no reply.

Eventually, I was given a permanent position and a choice of location: Istanbul or New York. The temptation was strong, but I chose to follow Nick Carraway’s advice to Jay Gatsby – you can’t repeat the past. I came to New York, and have been here ever since. I work long hours, for which I’m grateful. I live alone in a small, third-floor apartment in a brownstone building on West 86^th Street, a few minutes’ walk from Central Park. I have an on-off relationship with a television researcher called Janey, who lives on the Upper East Side.  We go to restaurants, we go to the theatre, we go to the art galleries. For both of us, the relationship is a diversion, an entertainment, rather than a binding commitment, but it suits us, and meets our needs. At the moment, the relationship is very much on. And yesterday, while I was walking back across the park to my own apartment, I saw the woman who reminded me of Barbara.

▪ ▪ ▪

Ian Inglis was born in Stoke-on-Trent and now lives in Newcastle upon Tyne. As Reader in Sociology and Visiting Fellow at Northumbria University, he has written several books and many articles around topics within popular culture. He is also a writer of short fiction, and his stories have appeared in numerous anthologies and literary magazines in the UK and US, including Prole, Popshot, Litro, Sentinel Literary Quarterly, Riptide, East of the Web, The Frogmore Papers, and Bandit Fiction. His debut collection of short stories, The Day Chuck Berry Died, was published by Bridge House in 2023. Read the author’s commentary on his story.

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