‘Asylums’, we used to call them. But this wasn’t one of those foreboding fortress-like prisons, with a stone façade and high-arched windows. It was streamlined and modern, brightly lit and decorated with stiff-looking designer pitchers of flowers. But it was still unnerving.
The cleanliness and gloss, and the bright voices of the nurses couldn’t disguise the blank faces of the few patients who shuffled past the door, or the resigned sobs further down the corridor. A thick carpet minimised noise in the little parlour to which I’d been assigned, but somewhere not far away was the clatter of lunch trays. I waited in silence to meet with Bernadette’s psychiatrist, Dr Sarah Soliman.
I longed for the meeting to be over. It was a bad business, and I felt inadequate to handle it. A part of my co
