An Idiot in Love (a laugh out loud comedy) (29 page)

              ‘That makes sense.’

              It did make sense and I was amazed and a little impressed by her reasoning. It was completely wrong of course, but it was impressive nonetheless.

              She looked happy with herself; I was happy for her.

              ‘I think -- inadvertently admittedly -- I may have done the best thing for you by bringing you here. I think this place can do you a world of good.’

              I was a little less impressed now. I had only been here one night and already, after the penis dream, I was feeling far more insane than when I had entered. ‘What do you mean?’

              ‘This place is full of life! There’s no place to hide in here, no place to run!’

              She was intelligent and good at her job, but she wasn’t very reassuring.

              ‘There is no cure
per se,
’ she continued. ‘And we can’t really keep you here for more than a week. I don’t think you pose a threat to yourself or anyone else.’ She paused and tapped her pencil tip against her teeth; the vibrant white enamel gleamed underneath her dark red lipstick. ‘As for the stalking incident, well, I’m sure that was a one-off. You have no history, you didn’t intend to do harm and I don’t think you would do it again, am I right?’

              I thought about this, saying no might have given me an extended stay, but probably not. I reasoned that I didn’t need it anyway; a week was probably long enough for me to work up the courage to ask the doctor out. If I did it at the end of the week I would also be signing off as her patient, thus ridding her of any moral or legal doctor/patient objections she had.

              ‘That’s right.’

              ‘Excellent, I thought so. So why don’t you treat this like a holiday Mr McCall.’

              I couldn’t help but smile.

              ‘Go out there and enjoy yourself, kick back. We’ll keep an eye on you and I’ll be here if you need me. But the best thing for you would be to forget about your troubles, forget about Ally,’ she wiped a hand across the air as if to wipe Ally out of existence. ‘Go and relax! Try not to think about your life back home, about anything that has gone on in the past or about anything that might happen in the future. This is a holiday of complete relaxation, funded by the taxpayer. So I order you to go out there and relax!’

              I smiled and stood up. I offered her my hand and she shook it merrily, her face still alight with joy that she hoped would transfer to me. It did. ‘Thank you Doctor.’

              She winked at me. ‘You’re welcome,’ she was getting carried away with herself now, I felt a little embarrassed for her but retained the smile and turned to leave.

              ‘Oh, and Mr McCall?’ she called.

              I turned around, still smiling. She was scribbling something down on a prescription pad. I sensed what was coming and really hoped I was wrong, I didn’t want her to ruin a successful moment and devalue in my eyes.

              She ripped off the top sheet and handed it to me.

              ‘To be taken every day,’ she stated tritely.

              I looked at the pad, unable to hide my disappointment.  The word
Relaxation
was scribbled in messy doctor’s script; it was even properly signed and came with a suggested dosage.

             
And it had been going so well,
I told myself.

              I sighed inwardly and forced the smile back to my face.

              ‘Thank you Doc,’ I said, holding it up. ‘Will do.’

              In the cold light of a sober day, after an awkward meeting with a woman I realised wasn’t perfection personified, I realised that getting myself locked up in a psychiatric hospital probably wasn’t the best thing to do.

              Like most psychiatrists Doctor Peterson had found the perfect solution to a problem that didn’t actually exist, but in a way she was right. I did feel like I needed a break, not because my life had been particularly stressful -- I hadn’t worked in over two years and had spent my spare time chatting up women with Matthew -- but because I needed a holiday in general. The last time I had been on anything that qualified as a holiday was the trip to the caravan site when I was fifteen.

              Stuck in a state of ambivalence I waddled back to my room and found that Donald was awake and waiting for me again.             

              ‘Lovely,’ I told him as I brushed by. ‘But I saw it yesterday.’

              ‘Keith. Where’s Keith’s?’

              ‘You wouldn’t like mine,’ I ducked and slid into the bottom bunk, it had been disconcerting having Donald on top of me all night and may have contributed to my threatening penis dreams, but there was also a degree of comfort to it. The walls and ceilings were sterilised, dull and spacious, it was good to have them shrouded in darkness or blocked from view.

              ‘Keith. What’s wrong with Keith’s?’

              I sighed deeply. Donald had turned towards me now, and, as the monstrous member swung from side to side a mere four inches from my face, I realised why lying down on the bottom bunk wasn’t the best place to be right now.

              I sat up with a start, wiped imagined penis juice from my face and slid out from under the bed.

              ‘Keith, penis now? Donald wants to see Keith’s penis.’

              I left the room without replying, not quite sure how I was supposed to reply to such a statement.

              A short walk down an empty corridor brought me to a small door that flushed with bright light from a clear day. I pushed it open, expecting it to be locked like a tempting mirage in the dessert. It wasn’t.

              The door led out into the grounds. The day was warm, bright and fresh.

              The outside area was fenced off, but the fence was a few hundred metres ahead and stretched around an expanse of grass, concrete, gardens and recreational areas.

              Within minutes I was smiling again and enjoying a walk in and around a garden. The flowers were all in bloom. The hedges neatly trimmed and well-manicured. The lawn crisp. The gravel chips that wove paths between flower beds and patches of grass were neatly confined within cylindrical wooden borders.

              At the end of the path, around the corner from a bloom of wild poppies, I stepped onto an island of the gravel. The cylindrical lattice wrapped a spherical border all around. Flowers sprung up behind it, gravel sat patiently before it.

              A two seater chair rested at the nearest end of the gravel island, sitting in the shade of a tall tree. A young woman, about the same age as me, sat on its centre, she was smiling at me; she had a warm and reassuring smile.

              I walked over to her, drawn by her beauty and kind features. She had jet black hair which flowed behind her head and disappeared into the shade. Her bright face was alive with a fresh smile, which I gladly returned.

              ‘Hello,’ I said.

              ‘Hiya.’

              I stuffed my hands in my pockets. She moved aside on the chair and gestured for me to sit, I did. There was a foot or two between us, but I could sense her warmth and smell her perfume.              

              I sat in silence for a while, contemplating the peace and beauty of the little garden paradise. Birds sang in the distance; insects busied themselves; patients squabbled far off; but here, away from the hospital and tucked neatly in a this man made Eden, it felt like perfect silence.

              ‘This place is lovely,’ I said after a while.

              ‘It is isn’t it?’ she replied.

              I turned to look at her and caught her eye, she smiled back. At that point I would have usually looked away in awkward shyness, but I felt comfortable, at ease. The garden had such a calming effect on me.

              It was also possibly that they were poisoning my tea with sedatives, but I didn’t entertain that idea for long. They didn’t think anything was wrong with me, and a sedate man might have not run out on Donald and his repetitive ramblings.

             
Why Keith anyway?
I thought to myself.
And why so much? So many times. Keith. Keith. Keith. Keith. Keith
.

              The woman turned to me, a pleasant smile still plastered on her pretty face. ‘What’s your name?’

              ‘Keith,’ I said calmly, looking deep into her blue eyes, slightly greyed by the shade of the tree. ‘What’s yours?’

              ‘Beth.’

              ‘Nice to meet you Beth,’ I said, extending a hand.

              ‘Nice to meet
you
Keith.’

              We smiled and shook, she giggled a little. Then what she had said sunk in.

             
Keith?
I thought dismally.
I didn’t did I? Shit.

16

Keith and Beth

             
My obsession with Doctor Peterson, a woman whose first name I didn’t know, faded as quickly as it had began. She was a beautiful woman and I hadn’t seen anyone quite as beautiful, but she intimidated me, she seemed self-absorbed and if I admitted it to myself -- which I only allowed myself to do when I lost interest -- there was no chance we could ever be together.

              Now I had a new love interest; my dad was right, the perfect woman for me really was a patient in a psychiatric hospital.

              My first meeting with Beth lasted for an hour, from noon till one. We didn’t speak much but we didn’t need to. I didn’t feel awkward in the silence and it seemed that neither did she.

              We talked briefly about the garden; she told me that it was tended to perfection by a patient who had spent his life in the hospital after being institutionalised at an early age. Along with a couple of helpers and tutees, he had created the perfect space where once there had been nothing but grass and soil.

              When she departed I watched her. She disappeared around the back, towards a different block; a different ward. I was a little disappointed to see she wasn’t on the same ward as I was, but I knew I would see her again.

              She told me she was in the garden every day at the same time, so the following day I arrived ten minutes early and waited.

              In the silence of the garden I heard approaching footsteps as they crunched along the gravel path. They slowed when they reached the opening which would bring the foot-stepper into my eye-line and me into theirs. There were a few crunchers of apprehension; I stared, waited, and then she appeared. She was looking straight at me.

              I grinned, she smiled back.

              ‘Hello again,’ she said happily.

              I patted the seat for her to sit down. She did so with an audibly soft sigh, planting her buttocks down an inch or so closer than they had been yesterday.

              ‘Are you stealing my relaxation spot?’ she asked, her eyebrows arched in mock inquiry.

              ‘It’s lovely out here,’ I said impassively. ‘Nothing else to do.’

              ‘Nothing else?’ she looked shocked and pretended to be insulted. ‘There’s
everything
to do here. You can play football, tennis, cricket--’

              ‘Can’t kick a ball; can’t hit a ball.’

              ‘There’s a swimming pool.’

              ‘Can’t swim.’

              She frowned, leaning forward on the chair slightly and looking back at me. ‘How can you not swim in this day and age?’

              ‘I haven’t been able to swim for twenty-seven years,’ I told her bluntly.

              She laughed. She was still leaning forward but I was sure she shifted closer to me. ‘It seems we have something in common.’

              ‘You can’t swim either?’ I wondered, ‘bit hypocritical of you then.’

              She laughed again. It wasn’t an awkward laugh but it wasn’t entirely natural. I thought, and I hoped, its intentions were flirtatious. ‘I mean: I’m twenty-seven as well.’

              ‘Ah, gotcha.’

              ‘And anyway,’ she leant back, looking at me side-on now, a sly twinkle in her eyes. ‘You can always just splash around in the shallow end.’

              ‘I don’t look good in trunks.’

              She pondered this momentarily, either thinking about me in trunks or mentally dressing me in a bathing suit instead. ‘There’s a gym.’

              I shook my head. ‘Working out embarrasses me.’

              ‘
Embarrasses
you?’

              ‘Yeah. Half naked people sweating and grunting in a small confined space. No one talks and men seem to get more out of it then women; it’s like sex, only a lot less fun.’