Talking to Myself
The boat is called The Maid of the Mist. I stagger and sway alongside dozens of others, as we edge towards the Falls. We wear our tourist-issue blue, plastic capes. But it’s hot. Stiflingly hot. In my cape, I can guess how cling-filmed cheese might feel. I tug down the hood and let the spray from Niagara soak my hair. Why cross an ocean to do this one thing and be cocooned from the experience?
I hear all nations around me. French. Japanese. Spanish. Yet the language of “Wow!” unites us. Grabbing for handholds, we meet each other’s eyes and laugh. We’re awed by the crashing water and jagged rocks.
The boat’s engines strain against the current. The powerful Niagara wants to sweep us away, but we’re determined. We’ve paid our dollars to be shaken and stirred. We must make our pilgrimage so we can go home and say, “I went to Niagara Falls.”
And it doesn’t matter who I am or how I got here. I’m the same as the other blue-caped tourists. No-one can tell my pilgrimage is of a different kind. A way out of darkness. A way of surviving.
I hadn’t been myself since what the Police called ‘the incident’. I suffered flashbacks and horrible thoughts that I couldn’t control. They bubbled up everywhere. In the office, out shopping, in the car. Especially in the car. So I’d closed down my life, piece by piece. Stopped eating. Stopped sleeping. Stopped talking. Stopped, full stop.
One day my sister called at my flat to find me hiding behind the sofa, silent and terrified. She phoned the doctor and somehow I ended up in hospital.
For the first three weeks I lay staring at the wall. When my bones ached, I’d turn over and stare at the faded covers on the opposite bed in the twin room. I was locked away, too deep for anyone to reach. And then…
“Got some company for you, Cass,” said the nurse. “Her name’s Delilah - apparently.”
“What’s it to you?” barked the woman. “Can call myself what I want, as long as it’s not for fraud.”
She was tall, with a greasy, black ponytail of hair. In her layers of clothing she looked like a Russian peasant. She wasn’t much older than me. Late twenties, perhaps. But she had the weathered skin of someone living rough. The kind of person I imagined sleeping in doorways, or under the arches of the Peace Garden. Bundled up against the elements. Against the world.
“Cat got your tongue?” she demanded, glaring at me. She yanked the bed curtain across the middle of the room so the rail wobbled.
From behind the curtain came stomping and swearing. I tried to shut her out by studying my bit of wall. After three weeks I’d got to know it pretty well. The shiny pink paint highlighted the bumpy plastering job. There was a plaster island the shape of Australia. Next to it, the nibbled Norwegian coastline met the teardrop outline of Sri Lanka. As if our overheated planet had melted, making countries slide and drift.
But in the background was the incessant babble, babble, babble of Delilah. She was over the top in every way. Single-handedly, she reduced the ward to chaos. Phoning out for takeaways. Making amorous advances to the porter who came to collect the laundry. Disturbing my silence.
“When I get out of here I’m going to run the London Marathon,” she bawled. “And I’ll go to Downing Street to complain about the hospitals. Then I’ll throw a party on the Thames for the homeless.”
When she couldn’t provoke a response from me, she’d tear off down the corridor, slamming every door. Any respite was temporary. She returned, prodding me with her finger.
“Cass. Cass.” She thrust her face into mine. She smelt of cigarettes, from smoking where she shouldn’t. “When I get out I’ll walk across Niagara Falls on a tightrope. Like that man. What was his name? Cass. That man. What was he called?”
I had to get rid of her. I couldn’t stand her so near. From the depths of my mind I dredged up a name. “Bleriot,” I murmured. I knew immediately it was the wrong name. But Delilah had caught hold of it and was chanting it over and over.
“Bleriot. Bleriot. Bleriot.” She leapt off my bed and hurtled out of the room, hitting the door against the sink. “Changing my name to Bleriot,” she went yelling down the ward.
“Ain’t that girl flying enough already?” I heard the nurse say.
Guilt washed through me. My first word in almost a month and it was the wrong word. I was stupid. And I’d made Delilah look a fool too. I hated myself. I wished they could take my life and give it to someone who’d make better use of it.
Later, I woke in a panic to “No. No. Please.” I thought it was Delilah shouting, but it was me. She’d heard me though, and in a second this mad, wild person was sitting on my bed, hushing me like a child.
"What is it, Cass? Did you have a nightmare?”
“The gun,” I sobbed, shaking. “It was right in my face.” And for the first time in a long time, I cried. Cried properly, until I was breathless and exhausted. And then I told her what happened.
I was driving to the office on an ordinary day. Sitting at the traffic lights on the ring road, where it goes down past the mosque, into a dip, and back up again, the Peace Garden just visible through the building works. I was wondering whether my latest boyfriend was serious and if I should suggest a holiday together.
And then the car door was wrenched open. A man reached in, waving a gun. My seatbelt was on. I couldn’t get free. I thought he’d shoot me. I undid the belt and tried to pick up my bag.
“Leave it,” he ordered.
He pulled me out and threw me in the road. Like I was nothing. No-one. A worthless piece of rubbish. Then he roared off in my car.
People were kind. They helped me up and rang the Police. But in those few moments, my old life had ended.
The credit cards were cancelled. Locks changed. Eventually the insurance replaced the car. But whenever I drove it I could see that dark-sleeved arm coming towards me. I stayed home a lot. It was the one place I felt safe. The boyfriend lost interest. Nobody knew how low I was until my sister discovered me, paralysed with fear, crammed into the smallest space possible.
“Poor baby,” said Delilah, with such feeling that it brought fresh tears.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“What for?”
“I told you the wrong name. The man on the tightrope was Blondin, not Bleriot.”
“I knew that,” said Delilah, with a blasé toss of her head. Once she’d soothed me, her babbling started again like a long, rambling lullaby. “We’ll get out of here and go to Niagara together,” she said. “We can both walk the tightrope.”
“Not too good at heights,” I said with a wry smile.
“Ok. I’ll do the tightrope. You go on the boat and watch out for me. I’ll be there, above the mist. With spangly tights and feathers in my hair.”
“You’re crazy,” I teased softly.
“In the best place then, aren’t I?” And suddenly she looked sad and wise and not crazy at all. She sat on my bed the whole night, me propped against her, wrapped in her arms.
I’d told Delilah more than I’d told anyone. The weight that had pressed upon me felt a fraction lighter. Gradually, my awareness expanded and took in the world again. I remember hearing the staff sing Happy Birthday in their office. A high-pitched chorus of nurses and ward clerks.
Outside the window, visitors searched for change for the car park. Taxi drivers drank from polystyrene cups between fares. Everyday scenes, but amazing to me having been imprisoned inside my own head.
As the days passed I spent time in the lounge instead of in my room. I managed tentative conversation with my sister and I could see she was pleased by my progress.
But as my mood improved, Delilah’s came down. It was as if we were two lines on a graph. My line was curving steadily upwards as hers was sinking. Her attitude grew sober. She was subdued with the nurses and took her tablets rather than arguing. Even the porter lost his attraction. I think he was quite relieved.
One afternoon the nurse put on some music. Clair de Lune, she said it was called. A sweet piano melody that made me feel wistful and uplifted. Delilah sat with her chin on her hand, looking unusually calm. Briefly we hit the same level as Clair de Lune balanced us out. Afterwards, she began talking about Niagara and I expected more of the tightropes and feathers and spangly tights. But this time it was different. This time it was the real Delilah, telling her story in exchange for mine.
She’d been in care. Her name was something else then, but she wouldn’t say what. Her mother had been a drinker. Her father, God knows where. Delilah kept running away. Went to one kids’ home after another. But then her luck improved. She was sent to a foster family with two children of their own.
“I was no angel,” she admitted. “I skipped school a lot. Nicked things from shops. My foster parents always had the social workers round.”
“Did they send you back into care?”
“Not right away. They tried to help. They were good people, really. But my foster dad got head-hunted by some big firm in Canada. So it was toodle-oo Delilah.”
“What happened to you?”
“Back to the kids’ home. But I was fifteen by then. When I ran off, no-one bothered. Ever since, I’ve been in hostels, or sleeping on friends’ floors, or in and out of hospital. The Council gave me a flat one time, but I only lived there six months. Things kind of went a bit… haywire.”
“Didn’t anybody look for you?” I asked. “Your mum or the social services?”
“Why would anybody look for me?” she grimaced.
“But what about your foster family? Didn’t they keep in touch?”
“Oh, sure,” she sighed. “They wrote a couple of letters when I first went back into care. Sent some photos. One of this cute little place they lived in. Oakville. Dinky clapboard houses with lush gardens, right on the lake. Another photo from Niagara Falls. The four of them lined up along the wrought iron railings. The perfect family.”
“Oh, Delilah,” I murmured. “So that’s why you want to go there?”
She shrugged and turned away.
“You could go,” I said, grasping her hand. “You could settle down. Have a normal life.”
“A normal life?” she repeated. “What’s that? They all want me to settle down. Take the tablets, Delilah. Fit in, Delilah. But when I do, life gets boring. I get bored with myself. What’s the point in living like that?”
“But if you were well you could do anything,” I told her. “When we get out of here we could both go to Niagara. Ok, not the tightrope bit. But we could go.”
She looked at me as though I was the one who was flying. Perhaps I was. Tasting what it is to have fantastic, hopeless dreams.
For the rest of the day she was distant. As though she’d told me too much andwas regretting it. I tried to ask her more about her family, but she was as difficult to pin down as a Will o’the Wisp. When I woke next morning, she was gone. The staff looked worried, saying this person or that person should have been watching her. I felt hurt that she’d left without telling me.
At the next ward round, they said I could go home. My sister collected me and stayed at my flat while I got back on my feet. I felt I’d been absent from the world for a long time. As if I’d travelled to the moon and back, and because of that journey my life could never be as it was before.
To begin with, I kept ringing the hospital to see if Delilah had turned up. But there was no news. I peered into the Peace Garden to see if she was sleeping out, but in daylight it was empty and I wasn’t brave enough to go back in the dark. I searched the face of every beggar, every Big Issue seller, still clinging onto the notion that Delilah and I were friends.
When I went for my outpatient appointment the doctor said I should move on, not dwell on the past. He asked what my plans were. So, to humour him, I said the first thing that came to mind. “I want to go to Niagara Falls.”
He looked surprised, perhaps wondering if he had another Delilah on his hands. But he seemed to decide that in my case going to Niagara was reasonable. I wasn’t talking about tightropes, after all.
Once I’d spoken it aloud, the idea became an intention. To afford the flights I had to go back to work. It was a battle, navigating the ring road every day. But with Clair de Lune on the CD player, I overcame the memories.
In hospital they taught me some technique with a fancy name, but it’s only a case of talking to myself. I learned to control my thoughts instead of them controlling me. The man with the gun had imprisoned me for long enough. And now that time was over, I could go forwards. I could cross an ocean.
Preparing for my trip, I read about Blondin. He didn’t just cross the Falls on a tightrope. He rode a bicycle. He pushed a wheelbarrow. He cooked an omelette, high in the sky. How mad is that? I longed to tell Delilah. She’d have shrieked with laughter. But of course, I never found her. How could I? She hadn’t even trusted me with her real name.
So, here I am on the Maid of the Mist. Being thrown about and getting soaked. Exchanging “Wow!” with people who don’t speak my language. I look up and almost expect to see Delilah with feathers in her hair, so vivid was that vision she shared.
When we’ve been as close to the torrent as we dare, the boat begins to head for calmer waters. And with the other tourists I disembark, stuffing my plastic cape into my bag as a souvenir. I follow the crocodile of people to the road. And we, who have been on this pilgrimage together, disperse like the spray from the Falls. Scattering into life. Into brightness. Into Freedom.
*
