"(ORGAN VERSION OF JERUSALEM PLAYING ON RADIO)" "Ellen." "Ellen!" "Um, yes, it's Alison Mundy." "Thanks very much for calling back so soon." "No problem, Have you worked for the NHS before?" "Yes, I was an NHS nurse." "Yes, I was.... (HANGS UP)" "Hello?" "Hello?" "Damn." "(PHONE RINGING)" "Hello, um, Mrs Caverhill, I'm sorry I don't know what happened there." "Who is Mrs Caverhill?" "Is that Robert?" "How are you?" "Erm..." "I'm fine, I'm actually in the middle of...." "I'm just calling about our meeting on Tuesday, about the book?" "Oh." "Are we going to call each other tossers again?" "You called me a tosser." "I didn't call you anything." "Well, actually, do you know what, I don't know if it is all right, because I might have a job interview coming up," "All right, well, Wednesday, then." "I'll come to you." "I said, I don't know." "Do you mind if we leave it at that?" "Now, look, do you mind clearing the line 'cause I'm expecting a call any minute and it's important?" "Yeah, but, put it in the diary." "Robert, you just don't get it do you?" "I've had enough of this life, this shit life." "These voices in my head are choking me." "I need to do something." "I need some normality." "Yeah, but what about my book?" "I mean, are you committed to that still, because...." "Yes, of course I am." "But, you know I'm not just the subject of your book, Robert." "I'm me." "Well, I'll hang up, then." "Good luck." "Thank you, bye." "ALISON:" "I was in intensive care for three years, and then I spent five years working in AE," "And what brought you to Bristol, Alison?" "A new place, new start." "New life." "In what way?" "Every way." "I see there's a gap in your work record here, six months." "Yes, I had an accident, a serious one." "So I was in and out of hospital myself for six months, recuperating." "But you're fully recovered now?" "Absolutely." "Good." "Hmm...." "Well, I can safely say, looking at this, we'd be delighted to have you." "Erm, it's a three-week holiday relief placement to begin with, but between you and me, our staff situation is fluid, so if all goes well, we may be able to look at something more long-term." "So, welcome aboard." "ROBERT: (VOICEOVER) Possibly Alison, subconsciously, like other self-proclaimed psychics before her, may be continuing to act out to reward her investigator's interest," "So, the question arises, is it right to continue knowing that studying her might be exacerbating and prolonging her delusion?" "Worked in one of these places before?" "No, just hospitals." "A little change of pace for you then?" "Do you like it here?" "Pays the bills." "Er, TV room." "This is the dining room." "They're cramming some more rooms into the attic." "It's a lot of noise and dust and a headache for us." "We have some wanderers who like to go up there when we're not looking." "For example...." "Cicely, this is Alison, our new carer." "Hello." "Wanderer." "Come on, I'll show you who else is who." "This is Mrs Havers' room, Nora." "Well, it seems a lot nicer here than any hospital I've worked in." "Don't let the soft furnishings fool you." "It's just a hospital with carpet." "Only difference here is that no one goes back home." "This is Jenny's room." "There's no one here." "Another wanderer, I know where she'll be." "I won't be a minute." "Oh, no." "Oh, Josh." "Oh, God." "You've got to put your coat on when you go outside, Jenny, you'll catch a chill." "This is my room?" "Of course, Jenny." "This is Alison." "She's in my room and that's my picture." "Don't worry, Jenny, Alison's our new nurse." "I was looking at your grandson." "I haven't got a grandson." "I'm sorry...." "This is my son." "This is Robert." "Lovely soldiers you do." "Oh?" "I do them for my grandsons." "All right, let's get your socks on." "I can do that." "I can't bend, but I've got a thingy on a stick." "Or, I had a thingy." "Someone's taken it." "Cicely." "Hang on." "Oh, not again." "Woman's a bloody magpie." "They never come you know." "Sorry?" "His grandsons." "That's sad." "No, that's normal." "This place is a garage where nice people park their parents and tell themselves they're happy." "Will you check the day room, see if you can see Cicely?" "Yeah." "I'm just gonna check up here." "She's a bit of a klepto, then?" "Only if it isn't nailed down." "(LOUD THUMPING)" "Cicely." "Cicely?" "(WIND HOWLING)" "(FAST ROCK MUSIC PLAYING ON HEADPHONES)" "(ALARM RINGING)" "Oh, shit." "ROBERT:" "You're looking well, Mum." "Have you seen my dog?" "No." "He's an Airedale, he runs off." "Spike's dead, Mum." "What?" "Has there been an accident?" "He died when I was six." "Nonsense, he was just here." "He must be in the garden." "He's probably outside playing with my son." "(LOUD THUMPING)" "(LOUD ROCK MUSIC PLAYING ON HEADPHONES)" "(THUMPING CONTINUES)" "Can't hear you." "Jesus." "(INAUDIBLE)" "What do you want?" "I'm not taking your job, am I?" "'Cause people aren't usually this hostile toward me till they get to know me a lot better." "Sorry, you just gave me a jolt, that's all." "Are you sure?" "Yeah." "You'll help me finish up here?" "Yeah, sure." "She's hurting." "Her back's crumbling." "She takes Vicodin for the pain." "It's not that sort of pain." "She wants to go." "Start thinking like that, this job'll do your head in." "I just meant...." "I've been looking after Ellen for five years now." "Ellen?" "Who's Ellen?" "Nora." "Mrs Havers." "Look, would you finish up here, I've got a cracking headache." "I want to go get some aspirin." "Coffee?" "Yes, please." "Those aspirins that you went outside to take." "Yeah?" "What were they?" "Valium, Librium, Xanax?" "Ativan." "I get stressed." "They weren't yours though, were they?" "Weren't they?" "So what is it?" "A patient dies and you pocket what's left of their prescription?" "What, so you've been here two days, and you're gonna tell teacher on me, is that it?" "Do you do it much?" "Much?" "No, just enough." "Who's Ellen?" "Jenny needs her insulin." "Do you wanna do it after you've finished your coffee?" "Sure." "Do you want to pretend that I didn't just ask you about Ellen?" "Ellen was a patient." "She was this... valiant, tough person." "Hobbled around on a stick." "Loved everything, apart from her dentures, she hated them." "She was very rude about them." "She especially loved Poppy, her daughter." "The sun rose and set with her." "She was about your age." "She was hit by a police car on a pedestrian crossing." "Killed her?" "All the stuffing went out of Ellen." "Three years wanting to die." "You can't mend a broken heart." "No, but you can survive it." "Which is worse." "Settling in all right?" "Yeah." "It's like riding a bike." "JENNY: (VOICEOVER) My son came to see me yesterday, I'm so proud of him," "What he's become, With his work, with his books," "So clever, such a clever man," "I know." "What do you know?" "Nothing." "(DOORBELL RINGING)" "You forgot our appointment." "Erm, would like a cup of coffee?" "I'm useless until I've had a cup of coffee." "I'd like to get started, I'm running a bit late." "Okey-doke." "I've got things to do, too." "We've discussed the trauma of the train crash." "I'd like to hear a little bit about your earlier experiences of the spirits." "So aren't you going to ask me how my job hunting is going?" "Sorry." "How did it go?" "I've got a job." "Good." "At Lychgate." "And now you're going to tell me you've seen my mother." "Right." "Alison... let me tell you something..." "I know our relationship is psychologist and subject, not doctor-patient." "But there are similarities and there's this thing called transference which means...." "Like when the patient falls in love with the psychiatrist, that kind of thing." "Yeah, exactly." "Don't flatter yourself." "I know what transference is and this isn't it." "I didn't get a job there deliberately." "It wasn't...." "There are other nursing homes in Bristol." "Would you like me to give up my job?" "Yes, actually." "Well, no, actually." "I won't." "Why should I?" "I can't." "She...." "She said that she was proud of you." "Of your writing, of what you've achieved." "Alison, my mother hasn't even recognised me for two years." "She still thinks I'm five years old." "She looks at me like I'm a stranger." "Well, she said...." "No, she didn't." "Listen to me, Alison, it's Alzheimer's." "The body stays healthy and the brain decays." "It's not death." "It's worse than death." "It's a living death." "Then maybe that's the part of her that I'm hearing." "Robert, Josh wanted me to work there...." "Stop right there." "Not only do you claim to be in contact with my dead son but... now you're contacting my dead mother, who, just in case you hadn't noticed, isn't even dead." "See, this is what deluded people do, Alison." "They have feelings in their head and they fit it into their pre-existing mindset." "Which is what you do for a living all the time." "I thought that you wanted to understand what happens to me or is that only when it doesn't affect your own life?" "So, same time next week, then?" "(DOOR BANGING SHUT)" "(THUMPING)" "That bloody woman." "She's just ran off with my shoes." "I saw her, chased her." "Where did she go?" "Up into the bloody attic." "She knows I can't do stairs." "Cicely!" "Cicely, this is out of bounds here." "You might hurt yourself." "Come on." "(CREAKING)" "Cicely?" "Cicely, open the door." "Cicely?" "Hello!" "I'm in the attic!" "Hello!" "No, please no." "I'm sorry." "Please, I'm sorry." "I'm sorry." "Please." "What the hell is going on?" "I saw somebody go in there." "But there's no one there now." "It was Cicely." "What?" "She just ran past me." "She must have doubled back and locked Connor in." "Yeah." "Bag of nerves." "Never used to be." "You need to calm down." "Did you tell her where your mother was?" "I didn't even tell her I had a mother." "Come on, I know about keeping a sanitary cordon between author and subject." "Well, let's apply the rational eye, she lives in the area." "There aren't that many nursing jobs around there." "It's not a wild statistical coincidence." "She's not saying it's a coincidence." "She's saying it's Josh." "What?" "She says she sees Josh." "Where do you live?" "Southville." "You'll freeze to death waiting for the bus." "Come on, I'll give you a lift." "Oh, thanks." "Thanks for not grassing me up to suit boy." "Right." "I'm not a druggie." "Jude's moved on, and that's great and probably healthy and..." "I know the stats on how often couples with an only child don't survive an early, you know...." "Yup." "And of course," "Jude moving on doesn't mean I feel left behind or anything but..." "I do." "Here I am, just here." "The House of Pain." "The House of Pain." "Not a good place." "No." "And she...." "She, Jude?" "She, Alison, keeps talking about Josh and that...." "Stops you moving on." "I still have his Lego." "Bags of the stuff, his skateboard, the Disney videos." "I mean, I've even got his parka." "I don't know why I've still got his bloody parka." "See, I...." "I had this beautiful perfect thing, this... little person, it was my job to take care of." "And I took my eye off the ball for one minute and now I have...." "What do I have?" "You're a good friend, Barb, but I'm buggered." "We're all buggered." "That's why talking helps." "Does it?" "You remember what Freud said about the talking cure?" "He said its purpose was to change hysterical misery into ordinary human unhappiness." "Ordinary human unhappiness?" "Sounds good to me." "Was that Ellen in the attic?" "Ellen's dead." "I know, was that her in the attic?" "Are you on drugs?" "We both know what we saw, Connor." "It's not a gift exactly, because gifts are meant to be nice, but sometimes I see...." "She's gone, okay?" "She's in spirit, Connor, but she's not gone." "Look, I don't want to be rude, but I've gotta go." "No, you don't." "She wanted to die." "She asked me to help, I said no." "And you think that you should have helped her?" "She said it would be a kindness to help her onto the next stage of her journey." "She said that a lot, just like that." "She wore this Saint Christopher round her neck." "She wanted me to have it, I mean, not like a bribe, but because he was the patron saint of travellers... and her journey would be over if...." "Euthanasia." "Ellen meant the Saint Christopher thing kindly." "But it felt like 30 pieces of silver." "She wanted me to... help her go to sleep, in her own bed, in peace... surrounded by her own things, and just... drift off happily." "With no pain, with dignity." "And did you help her, in the end?" "No." "I bottled it." "She did it herself." "Five months ago." "Went out the window of her flat." "It wasn't peaceful, wasn't dignified." "Wasn't a high enough window." "When I got there, she was like some broken doll." "Dress all rucked up, bone sticking out of her leg, underwear showing, blood and piss everywhere, screaming, just screaming in pain." "It didn't stop until the paramedics got a line in." "It took her six more weeks to die in some strange hospital bed where no one knew her." "I failed her." "Is that why she's hurting you?" "I didn't sign up to be a nurse of death, I signed up to help people and to care for them." "You do care." "Maybe you care too much." "Can you care too much?" "Well, I don't know." "You're the one hoarding barbiturates." "You think I'm going to change my mind about the "nurse of death" thing?" "Relax." "I'm not talking about euthanasia, Connor." "I'm talking about self-destruction." "Christ, what are you, the psychic Samaritan?" "I'm not suicidal!" "I got rid of the drugs, I flushed them away after you caught me, all right?" "Are you sure?" "Because I've got a friend, he's a psychologist, he can set you up with someone to talk to if...." "It was making me imagine things." "There was someone there, Connor." "No." "I've gotta go." "Okay, see you tomorrow." "Just get this straight, Jenny, and then would you like a bath or we could go for a walk?" "JENNY: (VOICEOVER) That was Josh's fifth birthday," "That was a lovely day," "Robert made us laugh so much," "Every year he'd learn a magic trick." "Every year a new one." "He'd practise it and practise it." "Just to see Josh's face." "Josh misses those magic tricks." "(FAST ROCK MUSIC PLAYING ON HEADPHONES)" "(PAGER BEEPING)" "Quick." "(PHONE RINGING)" "Robert, it's me," "Jude?" "Everything's okay, your mother's fine, but she's had a fall," "I'm at Lychgate," "I was running when you called." "Is Mum...." "She just slipped." "We've checked her over, and there's nothing broken." "Excuse me." "Thanks, Alison." "Bye-bye." "Jude, I'll be back in a minute." "Alison, what were you doing in there?" "That's my wife, my ex-wife." "Because if you were even thinking of telling her about Josh...." "Oh my God, what do you think I am?" "Josh doesn't need to get to Jude, he needs to get to you." "I'm not this person that goes up to people with an emotional machine gun." "What gives you the right to make these kind of judgements about me, Robert?" "Just because you've got, what?" "Qualifications." "This is unacceptable." "It's unacceptable." "I have to tell you these things because of Josh." "Don't you think that I can see what it does to you every time I mention his name?" "And don't you think that that makes me feel like shit?" "But I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place." "Between this little boy, this lost boy and you." "And sometimes it makes me...." "I'm sorry for getting upset." "I'm sorry, Robert." "I can't even touch her any more." "She stiffens, like I'm a stranger, molesting her." "Sometimes, she lets me touch her when I give her her insulin, but it's only because she thinks I'm some strange doctor or something." "It's some sort of contact, I suppose." "I should make the most of it while...." "Thank you." "What's this?" "Just because Josh died doesn't mean I'm not grateful for the happiness we had." "Ellen." "(BUBBLING)" "Stop it." "Please stop it." "What do you want with me?" "Where did you put them, Cicely?" "Put what?" "The pills, out of the staff room." "The ones in the cutlery drawer." "I didn't." "You take everything, Cicely." "Where are they?" "I didn't." "Where do you hide things, Cicely?" "Oh, brilliant." "Now, who's got a coin?" "Anybody?" "Okay, hold them out like this." "We're going to find the magic one, okay?" "No, not this one." "Not these I'm afraid." "Let's have a look." "No, not these." "Okay, magic coin definitely." "May I?" "And you know what magic coins do?" "They disappear." "You're not impressed?" "It's a bit lame that one." "It's still in your other hand." "Of course, it is." "Okay, you know what happened?" "You knew I'd palmed the coin because it's the oldest trick in the book." "Plus, I told you what to know." "I told you I was gonna make it disappear." "I made you misread the situation." "So, guess what I found?" "The coin?" "No, again, you answered too quickly." "You should've taken the time, I did." "See, you were thinking coin trick, but I was thinking con-trick." "You thought this was the point at which the trick took place." "So you stopped thinking further back than that." "Which is natural because...." "And this is the bit we take down in our notes." "We are designed to think forwards." "The human brain is an anticipation machine." "Knowing that is the key to understanding misdirection." "Don't take yourself down the wrong path." "We have to unpick our assumptions of the facts to the point we've really been deceived." "(PAGER BEEPING)" "Alison, thank you for coming in early." "Connor's gone AWOL." "AWOL?" "He was here, now he isn't." "He left without telling anyone." "Mr Keyhoe had an accident." "(BANGING)" "And what's that?" "What?" "Banging." "There's no banging." "The workmen aren't here today." "Connor?" "(BANGING CONTINUES)" "Connor!" "Connor?" "Connor?" "Connor?" "Connor!" "I'm sorry." "Ellen stop." "Ellen, stop it." "Connor?" "Connor..." "I don't think that Ellen means to hurt you." "It's all right, Connor, it's all right." "She's gone." "It's okay, Connor." "Look... this is where Cicely hides her stash." "That's why Ellen was banging." "She wanted you to come up here and find it." ""Dearest Connor, don't be sad." ""As you will see, I've gone under my own steam." ""I will be with Poppy as you read this." ""I'm sorry I tried to make you act against your convictions." ""You were my last and possibly my best friend." ""Forgive me." "Ellen."" "She died in so much pain." "But she's at peace now." "She's gone." "You have her blessing." "It's done." "Hi." "Hi." "Hi, Mum." "Are you the new doctor?" "Would you mind if I sat with you for a while?" "We were just about to have our jab, weren't we?" "Could I do it, please?" "It's all right." "Thank you." "I'll hold your hand." "You used to do magic tricks for Josh, didn't you?" "She told me that you'd learn a new one every year." "She says that Josh is missing them." "Jenny, let's get your cardigan on?" "They, erm...." "They offered me a permanent job here, but I turned them down." "Because of me?" "No." "There's too many voices here, too many souls." "I'm sorry."