The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
We’d no idea he’d gone to London, where he trained as a chef. And then eventually he ended up in Edinburgh where he met you
Fiona looked across at her companion. “I just keep thanking God that Mrs C gave you my mobile number. She’s never done that before.” “I had to tell her what I was about to tell you, Fiona,” Sam said. “It was the only way.” Dot shook her head and poured the three of them more tea. “So are you ready to tell us about Pete’s past?”
“Yeah, the truth.” Fiona finished her cake. “I mean, how could I have lived with someone all that time and not had a clue who he really was?”
“Well, I mean, more will come out at the trial, if they let him out of the secure hospital.”
“Hang on.”
Dot raised a finger. “He was sectioned under the Mental Health Act after that hellish afternoon.
“Why did that never happen in Australia? There must be a similar law there?”
“He didn’t have to be, his psychosis was always under control.
“He’d been on Risperidone since he was 19, when he had the first symptoms – aggression, agitation, hearing voices tell him to do stuff.”
Medical staff
Sam sank back into the sofa. “The week after Mum died, he drowned my pet rabbit and told me she’d told him to do it.
“That’s when the doctors and medical staff got involved.”
“So did the meds stabilise him?”
“Yeah, he was on them every day. I can’t believe you lived with him for three years and didn’t know.”
“I knew he took pills every day but he said they were for his high blood pressure. Why would I question that?”
“And you never thought anything was, you know, not right, or a bit weird?”
“Nothing physically, I mean he got fatter but he was a bloody chef, it was hardly surprising.”
Fiona sipped her tea.
“And emotionally, well, sometimes I used to think he was a bit heartless, when we talked about Iain, but I just presumed it was his way of preventing me getting all weepy – or him being jealous.
“Now, having read all about the side effects of the meds, it says blunted emotions are part of it. Everyone just used to think he was Aussie cool.”
“Yeah, Risperidone has horrible side effects,” said Sam. “Weight gain, limbs shaking – but his body must’ve got used to them after so long.
“God knows why he stopped taking them – or when.”
Fiona shivered. “And when Martha rugby tackled him to the ground, the first words he said were: ‘They told me to do it!’
“Was that his voices?”
“Suppose so.” Sam shrugged.
“It’s a horrible, horrible illness.”
Fiona sipped her tea.
“I’ve been Googling all about psychosis; it can be genetic too. Was that what your dad had?”
Sam wrapped her hands round the mug. “Yeah. They say you can be predisposed, but a traumatic event can trigger it.”
She looked at Fiona over the rim of the mug. “You know he saw Dad kill Mum?”
Fiona shook her head.
“They reckon that brought it on, so they got him onto the meds.
“The funeral was a month after mum died because the post-mortem took forever. And the day after the funeral I woke up to a note under my door.
“It was from Pete saying he’d had enough and he was sorry to leave me, too, but his life was no longer worth living.”
“A suicide note?”
“Everyone thought so. We tried to track him down but nothing.
Everything changed
“We’d no idea he’d gone to London, where he trained as a chef. And then eventually he ended up in Edinburgh where he met you.
“We presumed he was dead, I even put his name on Mum’s gravestone.
“Then about four years ago, everything changed. I started getting regular payments into my bank account.
“A lot of money, about 50 dollars each time. There was no name but I realised pretty soon it must be him.
“It was his way of kind of saying sorry, I guessed. So when I knew he was alive, I started searching for his name online.
“Then I saw the restaurant review, which he reckoned I’d see, so he decided to come home. The guilt must have been too much.”
Fiona sighed.
“The thing is, Fiona, he wasn’t rational. When the meds were going fine, he could appear so, but he said to me when he was home last summer he still often heard voices telling him to do things.”
“I’m just so relieved Jamie was unaware of the whole horrible thing.
“He thought Martha was playing around, launching herself at Pete like that.”
“That bloody cricket bat’s going in the Tay, once the trial’s over.
“Allie, Martha and I are going down to the shore and we’ll throw it in,” Fiona said.
The door was flung open and Jamie burst into the room.
“Sam, you promised we’d go and play football after your tea.”
“I know, Jamie, just give me two ticks to finish it.” Jamie went to sit beside Dot who enveloped him in her arms and gave him a large noisy kiss.
He pulled himself away, wiped his face with the back of his hand, and rushed towards the window.
“Look, Mum, there’s a train on the bridge.” He glanced up at the wall clock. “It’s the four fifteen from Edinburgh.”
THE END