The Story of You by Katy Regan Page A

zigzag of corridors, before we got to the lift that took us to the main entrance outside. The walls were filled with pictures of dodgy, replicated beach landscapes, in an attempt to brighten the place up. Grace gave me the lowdown as we were walking.
    ‘Room Five. That’s Harry. Hasn’t said a word in two months. Spends all day watching DVDs about polar bears … All right, Harry?’ She popped her head around the door. I could just see a large, white-haired man, sitting in a chair, staring straight ahead. ‘Those polar bears behavin’ themselves?’
    I waved at Harry but he didn’t wave back.
    ‘Room Seven, Winnie – conked up to the eyeballs, bless her. Tried to hang herself on a curtain last week.’
    ‘I know,’ I said, ‘I heard in the office.’
    ‘And that’s Rebecca’s room,’ she said as we passed room 10. ‘Now
she’s
a sandwich short of a picnic.
She thinks she’s a millionairess
,’ she whispered as we turned down another corridor.
    ‘Maybe she is,’ I said. ‘You want to get in with her.’
    ‘You’re joking, aren’t ya? She lives up at the Elephant in a council one-bed, like me. Day she came in, she’d blown three grand in Harvey Nicks; hired a security team and everything, just in case she was kidnapped, she was so convinced she was loaded.’
    ‘So what happened?’ I said. ‘In the end?’ This story hadn’t yet made it back to the office, but I knew it would.
    ‘Driver clocked, didn’t he? Whilst she was having a champers lunch at The Ritz, no less. Story goes, he managed to get hold of her phone, called up her sister, who confirmed she was mad as a box of snakes, and she came to collect her. That was three weeks ago,’ she said, holding the door open so we could go outside.
    And that’s the thing about this job, I thought. Just when you think nothing can surprise you, something does. Manic shopping sprees we’d had, but hiring security? This was a league above.
    The smoking area’s not such a good place for a ‘private’ chat in a mental hospital, since for 99 per cent of the patients it’s their favourite place on the premises, possibly the world.
    We sat together under the plastic shelter. The red-brick chimneys of south London were arranged, against a slate-grey sky, in perfect sloping lines, up in front of us.
    I watched as Grace lit a cigarette.
    ‘That’s a long one,’ I said.
    ‘Vogues,’ she said. ‘More fag for your money. I may be in the loony bin, Robyn, but you’ve got to retain some of your glamour.’ She inhaled and gave a throaty laugh. I smiled. Grace amused me.
    We sat in silence for a while as she smoked. The city looked quite beautiful from up here. I wondered what thoughts had gone through the muddled heads of people sitting in this shelter: what fears, what hopes? How had the world looked to Grace during her months in hospital over the years?
    She stuck out the packet of Vogues in my direction.
    ‘No thanks, Grace. D’you know, it’s one vice that’s never, ever done it for me,’ I said.
    ‘You’ve more sense than me,’ she sighed, lighting another one. ‘Worst decision I ever made – and I’ve made a few. I bloody well need it here, though.’ I noticed how her fingers were shaking now, with the meds, or anxiety, or the cold – probably a combination of all three. ‘These people don’t help.’
    On the lawns opposite, two old women were shuffling along, hunched over. A guy who looked like he hadn’t put his teeth in was staring at us from across the way.
    ‘You must be looking forward to getting out,’ I said, and she laughed. ‘Wouldn’t you, after being in the nuthouse all summer?’
    ‘What you looking forward to most?’ I said, and this smile spread, slow and wide, across her face.
    ‘Talking to my daughter,’ she said.
    ‘You’ve a daughter?’ I said, even though I knew she did from reading her notes, but I wanted her to tell me the story herself.
    She reached inside her pocket and drew out a plastic cardholder