Don't Be Afraid Read Online Free PDF

a child-sized one, and that was the beginning. Music was in my veins; I was genetically hardwired for it – I could never imagine doing anything else. But it was also a way to escape a fractious family life, my parents’ unhappy marriage and my mother’s domineering ways. I was sent to boarding school and then I went straight to Glasgow to study music. Torcuil stayed behind, too sick with asthma and allergies to go to boarding school, and then he was tied to home by my father’s long illness. As much as I wanted to be near my father and Torcuil, playing my violin always came first – I suppose that was selfish, but I couldn’t help it. I still couldn’t help it. I’d made so many sacrifices for music, it had become second nature, as necessary as breathing.
    Sometimes, to my shame, I thought that maybe even Bell had to come second sometimes, compared to the privileged place the violin had always had in my life, because when she was slowly sinking into depression, and I could see it happening, I was still away most of the time. I was in denial. Being away for work so much, for gigs and tours, had never been a problem before; we both pursued our passions, and she was perfectly happy to live as a musician’s wife, with all that entailed. But when her illness began, she tried to keep me at home.
    Bell was proud, and it was hard for her to show her vulnerability that way. And still, I didn’t listen.
    I wished I had.
    And so we created our sick, bizarre routine, revolving around Bell’s phobias. She didn’t get out of the house, not even into the garden, so when I was away, Morag, our neighbour – a no-nonsense, practical woman who seemed pretty much unfazed by Bell’s illness – would check on her and bring her groceries. I phoned Morag every evening to make sure everything was okay. Bell never called me; she was scared of the phone for some reason, but not of emails or texts, so that was how we communicated. It troubled me, to know that she wouldn’t answer the phone if I called, but in a way, it helped to keep some distance from her when I was gigging. I knew that if I heard her voice, if she told me what was going through her mind, I wouldn’t be able to concentrate, I would just drive straight back to her.
    What she did changed everything, of course. Maybe, thinking about it, something was bound to happen, to disrupt the weird, unhealthy life that had been slowly suffocating us. Maybe the pressure had been building up all around us, waiting to erupt into something terrible, something life-changing.
    The day before, the sky had fallen on me. Morag called my mobile and said that Bell was in hospital, that they wouldn’t tell her exactly what happened because she wasn’t a close relative, but that she could guess. She didn’t spell it out to me, but I understood. I kept the phone to my ear for a long time without saying anything, with Morag saying my name over and over again to see if I was still there.
    â€œI’m here,” I said finally. “Tell her I’m on my way.”
    â€œThey won’t let me see her,” Morag said, her voice shaken. It was so strange to hear the normally unflappable Morag sound so vulnerable.
    â€œI’ll come as soon as I can.”
    A few hours later I was at Bell’s bedside. She was asleep, peaceful, no sign of illness or pain on her body – except for a line in her hand and the pallor of her face. She was so white, her hair loose on her pillow, so thick it made another pillow itself, one hand resting, open, on her chest. I noticed she wasn’t wearing her wedding ring. There was a hospital bracelet around her wrist.
    I sat beside her bed, mute, frozen with pain and disbelief. I had never thought it would come to this. I realised how naive I’d been – how stupid, even – to never imagine that she would want to take her own life. I knew she wasn’t taking her medication;