It was then that I accepted that maybe the doctor was right, and it was time to go home. I did not want to die here in Oxford, alone, fighting a voice in my head that felt as real as a floral wreath atop a coffin.
It no longer mattered that I was not yet ready, that I didn’t have money left, and that I would have to ask my parents to help, and asking them for help would worry them.
I know now that Ian was right—it is worth worrying your parents over certain things, and this was one of them.
My friend Libby got me home; Libby and her mother Madeleine, who was visiting, and their friend, allowed me to stay with her until the flight left.
At first, after I asked for help, I was so ashamed that I begged Libby not to tell anyone. And then, as I deteriorated further, I wasn’t even ashamed anymore. All I knew was that I needed to get home.
Madeleine drove me to the airport.
The last thing she said to me echoed what Matt had also said: ‘Clare, you will write songs about this one day. That is what you need to do.’
I couldn’t imagine it then—couldn’t imagine I would ever write another song, or another word, ever again.
My life, said my head, was over.
I don’t remember much from the flight home. I certainly didn’t pack my own lunch. I doubt I ate at all, in fact. I remember that just the thought of eating—the thought of the battle of it—was too much.
I know that I sat by a window, that my hands shook as we took off, that I put them over my eyes, that the bad voice in my head told me You are going to die, and that I believed it.
I wanted to sleep, but I couldn’t, my head told me, in case something went wrong. It might, you know.
I wore earplugs to block out the noise.
There were televisions in the plane, up high, attached to the roof. When the news came on, I slipped low in my seat. I didn’t think I could handle any more sadness.
In my head, I had my own horror movie running, 24/7, the one about how we never made it to Melbourne, because we all died in a plane crash. I’d see it in my mind, imagine the feeling of the plane falling, freefalling, nose down into the ocean below, my skin so thin I imagined I could feel it already, feel the cold as we plunged into the water. I imagined I heard a mother screaming, a child crying, felt the cold horror again as the water came in, the lights went out. I would see our bloated bodies, our bones underneath, a time lapse, now the breaking of the fibre of our clothes, the fish eating our bodies, and there we were, just skeletons in seatbelts, never found.
I had other stories too, worse than that—dozens of them. The worst of all was the one where I didn’t just get hurt, I also hurt everyone else around me. If I was not very careful, said the voice in my head, I might lose control of my mind, my body, might, in my madness, run to the plane doors and release them, mid-air, and all the lovely people sitting around the doors would get sucked out after me, and I would be so so sorry, and yet absolutely unable to take back the thing I had done. That was the most insidious story of all: that if I allowed myself to relax, to drop my guard for even a second, I would put innocent people in danger.
All I really remember from the flight are that those stories came to mind again and again, and, along with them, wave after violent wave of horror ripping through my body, a cold whoosh in my knees, shoulders, head and toes. I tried to sing the songs of my childhood, just quietly to myself, but was too tired to remember the words. The hum died in my throat. I needed very badly to go to the toilet, but refused to leave my seat. In case. I did not want to walk past any of the plane’s doors. Can’t trust yourself. There was nothing for me to do but hold on, and pray to the hope of the existence of God: a God I both needed and resented.
How pathetic, said the voice in my head. All these years you’ve been quietly mocking your mother and father for the strength of their faith, and now that you’re all in a tizz, what’s the first thing you do? Pray.
When I finally saw the early-morning lights of Melbourne, felt the tilt of the plane, the racing of my heart (We are going to die, we are all going to die), the bounce of the rubber on the runway, and heard the stewardess tell us we were in Melbourne, I could hardly believe this was real. I was alive! The thought of my parents waiting to see me acted like an invisible string that drew me up and out of my seat, hopeful for the first time in what felt like forever. This would all be behind me soon.
I must have collected my backpack, my guitar, must have put them on a trolley and pushed it right through Customs, but the only bit I really remember, and still sometimes weep
