Mrs Scunthorpe drives Nandi towards the doctor’s rooms. Nandi is wearing her warm winter jacket – not bright pink, but charcoal black.
Merv had taken her to the mall. “Choose a warm jacket, Nandi. Any one you like. Don’t worry about the cost, petal.”
But Nandi walked past the rails of pink jackets and turquoise jackets and golden yellow ones. She pulled out a charcoal-black one. It felt right for her. Black for loss, black for grief.
Mrs Scunthorpe, and Nandi in her black jacket, drive past the house of the Padayachees. Mrs Padayachee is at her front door, dressed in bright emerald green – the only colour amidst the greyness of rain and concrete and tar. Mrs Padayachee and her family of four children are the only other brown people Nandi has seen in this part of town. They come from Pakistan or Sri Lanka or somewhere.
Nandi wants to scream at her out of the car window: “Are you crazy, living here? Take your children back to your real home! Back to your land of sunshine. Take them away from this terrible place.”
The doctor is old and has a bad cough. He and Mrs Scunthorpe discuss Nandi as though she not there.
“What am I supposed to do?” Mrs Scunthorpe demands. “She barely eats. At night she wanders around and I can’t sleep worrying that she will do something dangerous. Like unlock the door. Or switch the stove on!”
The doctor blows his nose loudly.
“Yes, lack of appetite, sleep disturbances. Those are classic symptoms of depression. I think what we have here is a case of SAD. That’s short for Seasonal Affective Disorder. It’s caused by lack of sunlight. Quite common, in fact. Even people who are used to our UK winters can fall prey.”
He writes a prescription for sleeping tablets and for a course of antidepressants. Then he sends Mrs Scunthorpe out of the room so Nandi is alone with him. He leans across his desk.
He speaks slowly. Carefully. “This is important, what with all this human trafficking going on. I need you to answer honestly. Did you marry of your own free will, my dear? Did you travel to the UK of your own free will?”
Nandi nods. The doctor lets her go.
***
Tell us: Did you know that SAD is a real mental condition some people suffer, caused by not receiving enough sunlight?