In The Garden Of Stones (5 page)

“
Dr Phillipson.”

“
I know that name,” says Grace. “He was here years ago, when
my mum –” She stops. There’s no need to drag up ancient, painful
history. “Is he still here? I thought he died.”

“
Phillipson? Oh yes, he’s still here,” says Muriel with
barely disguised disdain. “He’ll be here for ever that one.
Unfortunately he’s one of those old school jobs for lifers, a
dinosaur and way past his usefulness, he should have been put out
to pasture long since. He still thinks the treatment for migraine
is a leech in your ear and an ice cold bath. I’m sure his books are
printed on papyrus. Why they keep him on, I have no
idea.”

Why
indeed would they keep on someone who damaged more patients than he
cured? He certainly didn’t do anything for Grace’s mother apart
from make her worse, labelling her neurotic and hysterical, filling
her full of pills and telling her to pull herself together. The
only reason she was alive today was because Phillipson happened to
be on leave when she needed help and she got someone who treated
her properly.

“
Dr Mal on the other hand, he’s bang up to date, knows his
stuff and gets some brilliant results,” Muriel is saying. “He’s
been a real coup for this hospital and has probably saved quite a
few lives over the time he’s been here. Of course being so damned
good looking must work in his favour. He has that sort of face that
oozes confidence and compassion, and when he smiles it makes you
want to do anything he says, just to please him.” A mischievous
sparkle comes into Muriel’s eyes and she fans herself with her hand
as if suffering an attack of the vapours. “Oh, if only I were
fifteen years younger –”

“
Muriel! You minx!”

The two
women laugh together like schoolgirls fawning over a pop star.
Muriel’s hearty chuckle ends with a pat to Grace’s leg, and Grace
tries not to flinch.

“
So what did you and Dr Mal talk about?” says Muriel, back
on topic. “Was he helpful?”

Grace
narrows her eyes. “Isn’t that supposed to be strictly confidential,
between him and me?”

“
I don’t want any details. It’s just us chatting. You don’t
have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

Grace
interlaces her fingers, squeezing them together until her knuckles
go white. “He wants me to try a new therapy,” she says. “It’s a bit
weird, and I’m not sure about it, so I said I’d think about it
overnight and let him know at our session tomorrow.”

“
What sort of therapy?”

“
I’d rather not say. It’s a bit off base and you might get
the wrong idea, and I don’t want to put Mal in a bad light for
being a bit adventurous.”

Another
pat to the leg. “He’s a good man, Grace. He cares. So whatever he
suggests for you, you can be sure it’s for your benefit and nothing
else. You can trust him.”

“
I got the same feeling.”

Muriel
rises from the bed. “I’ll leave you to your thinking then. What
time’s your appointment tomorrow?”

“
Eleven.”

“
Just in time for coffee. I don’t know where he gets it, but
he serves the best coffee I’ve ever tasted, and I don’t even like
coffee … and before you ask, no, I am not one of his patients. We
have team meetings in his office every month. Coffee and biccies
included. Must be going. Talk later, eh?”

“
Yeah. Sure.”

Grace
watches Muriel’s ample white clad backside sashay out of the ward,
smiles to herself, and then lies back down on her pillow to try and
return to her secluded beach with its white soft sand and rippling
blue water, and perhaps lie in the sun for a little
while.

Chapter 4

Dr Mal
ushers Grace into his office, and when she glances over her
shoulder she can almost see poor Muriel’s deep brown eyes turn
emerald green with envy at being left behind in the outer office
with Mal’s faithful factotum, Denise, and a pile of five year old
magazines.

Grace
and her therapist have coffee and biscuits while they chat, and
it’s all very relaxed, but it’s obvious from the outset that he’s
itching to know whether she’s going to agree to be his test
subject. She takes her time, and a second biscuit, before giving
him the answer he is so desperate to hear. Yes, she’ll do it. What
has she got to lose?

He
virtually puffs with pride, beaming at her.
“Fan-tastic!”

For the
next week they meet every day at the same time, three o’clock in
the afternoon, drink coffee, eat biscuits and talk for an
hour.

As Dr
Mal doesn’t work weekends, her next appointment is set for the
following Monday. Except when Monday arrives and she’s almost ready
to make the trip downstairs, he comes to see her on the ward
instead. He has news. In his considered opinion, the only one that
counts he says, she can go home tomorrow.

“
What will happen then?” she says. “When I leave here will
you no longer see me as Grace Dove the person? Will I merely become
a case number, Talking Therapy #1?”

“
Don’t be silly. You will always be Grace to me, never just
a patient or a case study. Yes, you’re going to be my first talking
therapy case, but all that means is that I’m going to be following
your progress extra carefully. But rest assured, if for one minute
I think the study is getting in the way of your personal progress,
that’s it. Finito. We’ll forget it altogether. I
promise.”

He looks
sincere and she believes him. “So, what happens next?”

“
Tomorrow you’ll be let out into the real world again, and
that is when things will get really interesting,” he says. “That’s
when we’ll see the therapy in action and how well you manage it in
light of whatever distractions come along. Better still, how well
you let it manage
you
.”

“
How will you know?”

“
I’ll still want to see you regularly, twice a week at
first, then weekly, then monthly, then, if everything goes well,
we’ll put it on an ad hoc basis. How does that sound?”

“
What if I need you between times?”

“
Just pick up the phone.” He pauses, chewing on the inside
of his cheek. “This is going to work for you, Grace. I feel it in
my bones.”

“
Me… or you?”

His
shoulders drop a little and he smiles tightly. “I… I won’t deny
it’s… it’s a controversial therapy with no proven track record of
success –”

“
And you’re about to put a whole load of eggs, your
professional integrity and personal pride among them, in one very
rickety basket with a loose handle?”

A
nervous laugh. “Am I that transparent?”

“
Yes,” she says, and sticks out her hand, small and neat and
steady as a rock, her ultimate gesture of confidence. “I will do my
very best for a good outcome for you, Dr Pettit. You have my
word.”

He
smiles down on her proffered hand, takes it and encloses it in both
of his. “Thank you.”

A
career, gratitude, faith and trust, expressed in two words carried
on a low soft whisper. What the hell has she just signed up
for?

Next
morning she’s in a taxi and on her way back to the flat she shares
with Alec, the best friend a girl could ever have,

She’s
only been gone three weeks, she’s had longer holidays, but she
knows there will be flowers, and chocolates and hugs to greet her
as if she’s been away for six months.

Grace
also knows Alec is going to be an utterly unbearable fusspot,
clucking about her like a mother hen, shadowing her every move,
asking her every thirty seconds if she’s okay, and she will have to
bite her tongue and tolerate it until he gets it through his head
that she really is fine and she really will be safe to leave on her
own all day while he goes to work.

Hopefully, for both their sanities, it shouldn’t take more
than a couple of days, a week at most.

There
are indeed flowers, and chocolates, and a bottle of fine red wine,
and Alec greets her with a bear hug so tight she fears for her
ribs.

She
doesn’t mind him touching her. Alec is the most unthreatening
person she’s ever known. He radiates only warmth and love, and it
comes from his heart and his soul, the only man who understands
her.

Enclosed
in his arms, tight and safe, she can’t help but burst into tears,
and sobs against him until her chest aches and her throat
burns.

He pecks
a series of small kisses to her forehead and holds her at arm’s
length to look into her prickling wet eyes set in a pale blotchy
face.

He’s
been crying too, and his eyes are all watery and red. He presses
his palms flat against her hot cheeks.

“
You silly bitch! What were you thinking? You scared the
living FUCK out of me!”

A solid
berating, tempered a little by being delivered in his sweetly
effeminate tone and with a petty stamp of his foot.

“
I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t want … I wasn’t supposed to –”
She breaks away from him and goes to stand at the window, to look
out over the mass of grey slated rooftops. “I thought it would be …
peaceful. I thought I would just fall asleep and that would be it.
I’d just drift away.”

“
Got that wrong though didn’t you, baby?”

“
Yeah.”

He
places his hands on her shoulders, a heavy comforting weight, and
rests his cheek against her hair. “Why couldn’t you talk to me,
Gracie? That’s what best girlfriends are for, right? Why did you
feel you had to bottle everything up until –?”

“
Because it would mean unloading my problems onto you, and
that old saying about a problem shared is a problem halved is just
bollocks. It simply means more people have more
problems.”

She
grabs his hands and pulls his arms across her chest like a solid
shield and they stand together staring out of the window at the
traffic in the street below.

He
kisses the top of her head. “Love you, babe,” he says.

“
Love you too.”

And she
does. Alec Simpson is the only man Grace truly loves and trusts
with her life. He has, after all, been her saviour on more than one
occasion, despite having problems of his own.

Granite
city, granite attitudes. No room for namby pamby poofters here, ye
ken?

Even in
a modern city like Aberdeen, old fashioned prejudices rear their
ugly heads, and so when he goes out, although always dressed and
groomed to perfection, he strives to maintain a low profile, makes
an effort to act 'straight', to fit in, because he doesn’t want to
risk being dragged behind the bins again and given another
beating.

“
Do you think these shiners make me look
too
butch?” he said through his split
lip, squint nose and swollen cheek.

Behind closed doors, however, free to be himself without
danger of reproach or judgement, his gayness shines, both
Julian
and
Sandy reincarnated into one body. As camp as a row of pink
tents, he is flamboyant and eccentric with a penchant for the
Polari, he calls Grace 'ducky' and 'sweetie' and wears pink
Marigold gloves to do the washing up. He always has time for a
girlie chat, a cuddle and a glass or three of wine.

“
So what happens now?” asks Alec. “Have you been chucked out
to fend for yourself … like last time?” He affects a shudder. “I
don’t think I could cope with that again. All that
bleach!”

Grace holds onto his hands.
“No. Not like last time.
You have no need to
worry.”

Alec blows out a wet raspberry. “Now where have I
heard
that
one before?”

“
I mean it this time. I have a new
therapist. Everyone has nothing but good to say about him. He’s
young and keen, and open to new ideas, and we’re going to try
something new. He thinks he’s found a way for me to … to deal with
things in a way that works with me rather than against
me.”

“
He’s not going to try and put you on
any drugs is he? You know what will happen. They’ll turn you into a
zombie –”

“
No. No drugs.”

Alec slaps his hands to his cheeks in a decent impression
of the Home Alone kid. “Oh dear God, please not ECT, don’t let them
–”

She pulls his hands from his face and holds them together,
prayer-like in front of him. “No. Definitely no ECT either. No
zombies or brain frying. His strongest prescription is for camomile
tea and meditation.”“

“
So what’s left?”

“
Just … talking.”

Alec curls his top lip. “Talking? Who to? To him? What
about?”

“
Anything and
everything.”

“
What’s so radical about
that?”

“
I have to do something special, something
a bit odd.”

Alec’s eyes narrow and he looks at her down his nose. “Oh
yes.”