In The Garden Of Stones (33 page)

A huge sigh of dejection pours out of him, and
the pair of them
sit slouched against the headboard, mutual despondency oozing into
the room.

“
Good God, we’re a right pair of happy little monkeys today
aren’t we?” Grace says. “All this talk of death and dying. It’s
bloody macabre. Good job we’ve seen sense and changed our minds
isn’t it?”

“
Have you?”

“
For today at least. You?”

“
For today.”

She
rests her head against Colin’s shoulder. “What I said the other
day, in the garden, about you pulling your socks up and making the
best of things, I meant it, although I didn’t mean it to come out
as it did, all preachy and high handed. It’s something I can’t
always control and it gets me into trouble sometimes. It’s one of
the curses of the manic mind, running off at the mouth before my
brain has got into gear and had a chance to catch up. It’s like
being on a see saw. Can’t get a word out one minute, like a verbal
Gatling gun the next, particularly if I’m upset or–”

She
shrugs.

“
Ye certainly can talk, I’ll gi ye that,” says Colin, the
corners of his mouth just about turning up. “Drives me mental
sometimes the way ye blether on. I jest want ta yell at ye ta put a
sock in it fer God’s sake. Ye ken though, once the tide of pish had
ebbed away, there was this wee nugget of sense left behind, and now
I’ve had time ta think aboot it, to study the nugget, I ken now fit
ye were trying to say. It was a metaphorical application of the
boot of knowledge to ma seat of learning, an inspirational speech
aimed at getting me to shift ma arse into gear and get moving
towards getting better, even though ye ken I’m a lost
cause.”

“
You see! Nothing will ever be achieved with that mindset.
You are not a lost cause. There is hope for everyone. Look at Ben
Parkinson for example. The worst ever battlefield injuries
sustained in modern warfare to be survived. Yes he’s lost both his
legs and had over forty other injuries, including severe brain
damage. He can hardly speak and needs 24 hour care, but he has a
wicked sense of humour and an indomitable spirit, and with a little
help from his friends and family and some really good
organisations, he lives a relatively normal life now. Compared to
him you have nothing more than a splinter in your thumb. The main
stumbling block to your recovery is in here…” She touches a finger
to his temple. “That’s where the changes have to be
made.”

“
Easier said than done.”

“
And you can do it. But you can bet your back teeth that
once you have, if I even suspect you of falling back into old ways,
you’re going to be on the receiving end of another swift kicking
that will be a lot more shall we say … motivational.”

She puts
her hand on his leg, feeling the muscle beneath the soft corduroy
fabric of his pants go taut and start to tremble, his
hyper-vigilance giving a kick to his fight or flight
instinct.

“
I want you to get your life back, Colin. I want you to get
better. I want you to be able to tell those PTSD demons to fuck off
back where they came from, because you have things to do with your
life and you don’t need them there getting in the way, trying to
screw it up. I want you to leave Pelham on your own two … I was
going to say feet, but you know what I mean.”

“
You want a lot of things … things you might not be able to
have.”

“
I’m going to make it my heart’s work to see that you stride
back out into the world with your head held high, proud of what
you’ve achieved, of the odds you’ve overcome. It’s going to be a
long hard road for sure, but you can do it. I know you can. I have
every faith in you. You can go back to the garden if you need to,
now and again when you need a little quiet 'me' time, but your life
has to be lived outside in the real world, not cloistered behind
the walls of either Pelham Chase or your own garden of
stones.”

Colin
chews on the inside of his cheek, mouth flooded with warm saliva,
stomach lurching, the prospect of leaving his twin safe havens and
facing the real world again making him feel sick.

“
You okay?” Grace says. “You’ve gone a bit …
grey.”

He nods.
“Aye.”

“
We’ll take things gradually, one tiny little step at a
time,” she says. “It’s going to be really tough, even with help,
and it’s going to take a long time, years maybe, but if you are
willing to make the effort, to have confidence that you
can
do it, you
will
do it.”

He wipes
at his face with his free hand. It makes a sound like coarse
sandpaper and the grip he has on her gradually tightens until it
becomes a painful crush. “I’m scared, Grace. What if I can’t do
it?”

“
There’s nothing to be scared of. Just think on this if
nothing else, the one thing you can count on is that I’ll be beside
you every step of the way.”

“
Applying shoe leather at regular intervals?”

“
I’ll buy a new pair of pointy toed boots especially for the
purpose, and if I so much as suspect you getting all maudlin and
miserable again, I’m going to ram them so far up your arse you’ll
be tasting my coconut foot cream for a month.”

He aims for a laugh, but falls far short of target and it
comes out forced and painful, leaving his f
ace corrugated with
anguish.

“
Okay,” he says at last. “I’ll … I’ll try.”

“
That’s all anyone can ask of you, Colin.”

“
What about you? What do you get out of all my hard
work?”

“
I’m going to tag along for the ride, basking in your
reflected success, standing right behind you ready to catch you if
you should stumble.”

“
Sounds like you have it all planned out.” He fills his
chest, looks to the ceiling, then to her. “Okay. What do you want
me to do first?”

“
Us,” she corrects him, and lolls out her tongue like a
thirsty dog. “And the first thing I’m going to do is make a cup of
tea. All that blethering, my mouth is as dry as an Arab's
sandal.”

This
time a genuine smile manages to crawl across his face, broadening
as it goes until it can grow no more, and he erupts in deep
throated genuine laughter.

He
snatches her to him, encloses her in his arms and hugs her,
crushing her against him, his scratchy unshaven cheek against hers.
“Ye’re a daft mare!” He takes her face in his hands, presses a deep
kiss to her cheek. “Thank you,” he says, and kisses the tip of her
nose. “I’m glad we fucked everything up.”

Chapter 33

When her
phone rings out the theme from the Haribo sweetie adverts, Grace
leaves off her search of the situations vacant page in the paper to
see to it.

The
caller display confirms the caller – Malcolm Pettit. She has to
answer it. If she doesn’t, he’ll only ring again, and again, and
leave voice mails, then he’ll text her, and then he’ll probably
send someone round to check up on her, or worse, come
himself.

She
presses the connect button, but does not speak.

“
Grace?”

A long
pause. “Dr Pettit.”

“
Will you come in and see me? I think we need to
talk.”

“
Good to see you, Grace. You’re looking well. Come on in.
Take a seat. Denise will bring some coffee in. Got some of the good
stuff back.”

He tips
a nod to Denise at her desk, who gets up to tend to the
request.

“
I’m glad you agreed to come,” he says, pushing the door
closed. “I thought I was going to have to make another house call,
although I don’t think I would have been very welcome.”

“
Before we start, I have something for you.” Grace slaps her
Pelham Chase visitor’s pass on his coffee table. “There you are.
Proof that Colin
is
real, he
is
at Pelham, and I’ve been to see him. I’m going again next
Saturday and we’re going to have lunch. I’d invite you to come, but
you don’t have a card so they probably won’t let you
in.”

Dr
Pettit picks up the card and hands it back to her without looking
at it. “I know.”

Grace
stares at him. “What?”

“
I know Colin McLeod is real, and I know he’s at Pelham, and
I know now that you were telling the truth all along. I can only
say I’m truly sorry I didn’t believe you.”

“
Oh.” She drops into the armchair. “Well that’s taken the
wind right out of my sails. I wasn’t expecting that at all. I had a
speech prepared and everything. How did you find out?”

Mal
eases himself into his chair. “I used a few professional contacts,
pulled some strings. They couldn’t tell me much, didn’t expect them
to, patient confidentiality you understand–”

A sharp
rap on the door and Denise comes in with the tray. Cafetiere, two
mugs, cream and sugar, and this time two Tunnock’s teacakes and a
couple of jammy dodgers.

“
So how is Colin?” Mal says as he prepares the cups. “If I
recall one of our earlier sessions, just after you’d connected with
him, you gave the impression he was a man with
troubles.”

“
You’d better not be touting for new business.”

Mal
pours coffee into the cups, mouth puckered.

“
Troubles?” Grace says. “An understatement if ever there was
one. He’s a shadow of a man, burned and scarred, languishing in a
wheelchair out at Pelham Chase with his mind so buggered up by
shock and trauma that he’s like a turtle pulled into its shell,
withdrawn so far into himself that he may never find the way out
again.”

Mal
gives both cups a stir and hands one to Grace. “Consensus of
opinion seems to be that you are the only one who can climb in
there with him and show him,” he says.

Their
eyes meet over the mugs. “You’ve been talking to Simon Gibbs
haven’t you?”

Mal sits
back and takes a careful sip from his steaming mug.
“Yes.”

“
He’s a good man, and a great nurse.”

“
What does he know about your … interactions shall we call
them, with Colin?”

“
Everything.”

“
And he’s alright with it?”

“
Yes, and he’s been brilliant. It took him a while to come
to terms with it. His almost exact words the first time we met? As
nutty as a Dundee fruit cake with extra nuts … delusional … very
possibly deranged. Nice eh? Then we settled down for a good long
chat and I wore him down, and now he believes me and he’s keen to
do whatever he can to help.”

“
As do I … now.”

“
I’m glad to hear it, although I am also more than a little
disappointed that you couldn’t trust me from the start, that you
felt the need to check up, to try and prove me wrong just to shore
up your own beliefs.”

“
I didn’t–”

“
Yes you did. I pushed you out of your comfort zone, away
from the safe and cosy realms of your training manuals and seminar
teachings. I presented you with something so far removed from your
own or anyone else’s experiences, something far more complex than
either of us dreamed of, that the sheer scale of uncertainty scared
you to death, not that I might be right, but that you and
everything you believe in might just possibly be wrong. That’s it
in a nutshell isn’t it?”

A pause,
before a quiet admission. “Yes.”

Grace
leans forward in her chair, bum on the edge of her seat, and fixes
him with a wide blue gaze, although her look goes past his eyes and
far inside him, as if she is trying to read his deepest
thoughts.

“
Don’t feel bad, Mal,” she says. “It’s not
all
your fault that you
didn’t understand, probably still don’t. You consider yourself a
professional and have been trained not to accept anything until you
have all the hows whys and wherefores laid out in a straight line
in front of you, everything scientifically provable. A. B. C–” She
makes a chopping motion with her hand. “Only in this instance, the
hows and whys and wherefores don’t matter squat, only that
it
is
.
If you are to fully get to grips with what’s going on here, you
need to forget all your book learning, forget everything you ever
knew, let your mind fall wide open for one minute and think about
how two troubled consciousnesses in need of each other could reach
out across the great whatever-it-is and by some miracle come
together. Yes it is something that none of us fully appreciates,
yes it is something that none of us could ever be prepared for, but
none of that matters. The only thing … the
only
thing that matters, is that Colin is
suffering. He needs help. He needs me. I need him. Helping him is
helping me. Mutual benefit for the common good. Isn’t that what
it’s all about?”

“
Yes, it is,” Mal says.

Grace
drops back in her chair and the surge tide of words ebbs, leaving
Mal stranded on the shore, battered and bruised by the verbal
onslaught.

“
Can I say something now?” he says before she gets a second
wind to pummel him some more.