Under Andromeda
Celine Silverston, trapped in a psychiatric hospital, talks to the stars. The constellation of Andromeda is her best friend.
She trusts no-one. She has little memory of the recent past, but she knows that someone has been stalking her. Her psychiatrist believes that hypnotherapy may help. Celine is desperate to leave, but she fears what hypnotherapy may uncover.
Celine doesn’t tell Dr Margreiter about many things; the man she met on the beach at night, her conversations with Andromeda, her nightmares, her fractured memories of white eyes, cracked with blood. Until her memory returns, she can never leave.
One morning, a new patient arrives. And everything changes.
Read the excerpt below:
The nurse nodded, but didn’t write anything down on her clipboard.
Andromeda turned away, deliberately, so that I wouldn’t be seen talking to her and further complicate my diagnosis.
Talking to a constellation would not be seen as progress. Neither of us wants me lumped in with those patients who talk to themselves or talk to someone or something they think they see.
Andromeda held back until the nurses had ushered most of the patients in. The skies clouded over, grey upon black. The moon hung like it was the last night of its life and as it slipped behind a dark cloud Andromeda appeared just for a second, her voice fading into the still night. Surrender, she told me. Surrender.
When you surrender, you’ll remember. I started to say something in reply, but she simply turned down her stars, acting as though dawn was breaking and her duty had been done for the night. I haven’t seen her since.
The Inspiration for Under Andromeda
My grandmother used to visit a psychiatric hospital and spend time with men who had returned from the war and were suffering from PTSD. My mother continued the tradition when we lived abroad, visiting ex-patriots and locals who were in hospitals and prisons, so I understood what a psychiatric hospital was from an early age.
When I was eight, a neighbour passed by our house. I’ll call her Betty. Betty suffered from schizophrenia. Betty asked my mother what she thought about the gold sovereigns that were in her hair. My mother told Betty that they were beautiful and shone in the sunlight. I was puzzled and later asked my mother (after I had asked what a sovereign was) why she had gone along with Betty’s weird belief that she had shiny coins in her hair.
My mother said to me, ‘That’s Betty’s reality. Her world is just a bit different from yours or mine, but we’re all in the same world. And you must always remember to treat people like Betty with kindness and respect, just as you want to be treated.’
This incident has never left me. It is as clear in my head as though it happened yesterday. It gave me the inspiration to write Under Andromeda.