‘Depression and PTSD,’ I said. ‘Nightmares.’ I paused. ‘And drinking.’
Granby Manor was a residential treatment centre, funded by a combination of fees, government grants and charitable giving, which helped men from all levels of society to move on from a substance addiction, whether it be alcohol or some other drug, and also to deal with various aspects of their mental illness.
I’d been here for three days, since the morning after my binge with the Dickinsons’ drinks trolley. Sabrina had fixed it. Some of her friends had been residents here and she’d rung round to enlist their help in finding me a place.
But why she had done it for me, I didn’t know. I would have given up on me long ago.
* * *
On that morning, Jerry had come down to breakfast while I’d sat silently in the dining room, feeling ill, and staring forlornly at the source of my troubles. Then, after he’d gone out to the stable yard to sort the first lot, Sabrina came back and helped me upstairs to my room and then into the shower.
‘How did Jerry not smell anything?’ I asked her.
She laughed. ‘He’s always had a dreadful sense of smell. Ever since he broke his nose in a fall point-to-pointing when he was young, before he got too heavy.’
Over mid-morning coffee, Sabrina had suggested Granby Manor and I had agreed. At that point, I was grateful not to have been thrown out on the street, and would have agreed to anything. And, as she had said, it was time to ‘bloody do something about it’. But I hadn’t realised how long it would take.
‘Six months,’ the admissions registrar said, when I asked him how long I’d be there. ‘That’s the length of our basic programme, but many of our residents stay with us for a year, some even longer.’
‘But I can’t possibly stay that long. I have a job.’
‘We don’t force you to stay at all. You’re not sectioned and we are not a prison. You can leave at any point. But, if you want to get better, six months is the minimum time it will take.’
Six months!
But what choice did I have?
So I’d signed the papers and moved into a room on the ground floor.
The registrar might have said that the place wasn’t a prison but the window in my room would open less than two inches. Enough, maybe, for some ventilation but hardly a means of escape.
Not even wide enough to pass in a bottle of vodka.
* * *
Initially, my time at Granby Manor was pretty grim and full of angry outbursts on my part.
After the first few days of withdrawal symptoms, it was getting used to doing little or no physical activity that I found the most difficult – nothing more than the occasional accompanied walk around the gardens. Instead I spent my waking hours in counselling sessions, group discussions and lectures, mostly on the evils of alcohol and other hallucinogens, as well as in other pursuits normally more at home in nursery schools, such as colouring-in and painting by numbers. Anything, it seemed, that would take my mind off its longing for forbidden substances.
I thought the whole process was pointless and I was quite sure it wouldn’t work, not for me anyway, and I said so.
‘We don’t force you to stay here,’ the admissions registrar had said when I arrived, but he didn’t really mean it. All the external doors were locked and the emergency exits alarmed. One of my fellow inmates, an ex-City commodities trader who was trying to kick a cocaine habit, joked about forming an escape committee and seemed quite serious about wanting to dig a tunnel through my bathroom floor. He even referred to the staff as ‘goons’.
In those first weeks, I found all the restrictions very oppressive and they did nothing to ease my anger and my longing to be rid of the place. But where would I go even if I could get out?
Going back to the Dickinsons’ place was hardly an option, so where else?
The thought of having to live again in the same house as my uncle filled me with horror.
Perhaps I could try to find a job with another stable, but I had to be realistic. My form over the previous six months had been so appalling that no one in their right mind would employ me. I certainly wouldn’t. My riding career was clearly over and I’d better get used to the idea.
And that made me unbearably miserable too, such that, after a month at the Granby, my mood was as low as it had ever been.
In the distance, I could hear trains passing through Didcot Station on the Great Western line from Paddington to South Wales, and I imagined being on the platform and simply stepping off in front of one. I even looked up the times for trains from Swindon to London that didn’t stop, and estimated when they would be passing straight through Didcot at a 125 miles per hour. I’d surely not feel anything. It would just be over.
It wasn’t that I had a great yearning to die. I just wanted to end this constant agony of disappointment and failure.
Only the thought of Rachel kept me from killing myself. Not that it would have been an easy task anyway.
Great care had been taken to ensure the whole place was suicide-averse. There were no convenient points from which to hang a ligature and all electrical leads had been cut very short. The curtains were held up by Velcro so that they couldn’t be used as a noose, and the towel hooks were attached to the bathroom walls only by magnets. Even the knives we ate with in the canteen were round-ended and blunt, and all the glassware was, in fact, plasticware.
But here, unlike in Stalag Luft III, at least we did have access to the outside world through our mobile telephones, even if we were required to lock them into a special cabinet in the main hall during the therapy sessions and also every night from ten o’clock, so they could not disturb our sleep.
And the staff insisted on having open access to all our phones, and at any time. It seems that, in the past, one of the residents had been discovered using his to order a fix of heroin to be delivered through his narrow window opening. After that, the druggies were all moved to the upper levels while the ground floor was reserved for the drunks.
But, in spite of the limitations, my phone became my lifeline.
I spoke regularly to Rachel, who kept asking when I was next coming to Lincoln.
‘Soon,’ I replied.
I hadn’t told her where I was because I was too embarrassed to admit to her what had happened. Instead, I made up reasons why I was too busy.
‘I’ll come down and see you, then,’ she said, and I had great difficulty putting her off. So much so that she asked if there was some reason why I didn’t want to see her. Had she done something wrong?
‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘I’d love to see you, but things are so busy with the horses right now. But I’ll come up soon. I promise.’
Six months!
I was terrified that I would lose her, or already had, and that further compounded my depression.
The trains at Didcot station began to look increasingly appealing.
34
‘Miles, you have a visitor.’
It was Thursday just after lunch and I was in my room, reading through some of the literature I had been given in a therapy session, when one of the Granby staff put his head round the door.
‘Thanks,’ I said.
It had to be Sabrina. She and Jerry were the only ones who knew I was here and I didn’t for a moment think that Jerry would have bothered.
I walked along to the visitors’ sitting room and went in.
It wasn’t Sabrina. Nor Jerry.
I wondered if I was dreaming.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Rachel said, coming over and putting her arms round my neck.
‘I couldn’t,’ I muttered, fighting back tears. ‘I’m so ashamed.’
She had tears in her eyes too.
‘You silly boy. Getting help is nothing to be ashamed of.’
‘How did you find out?’
‘I was really cross about you having to work so hard that you had no time to see me. So I called Mr Dickinson to complain. I still had his phone number from whe
n I called him before, remember, when you spent the night in my hospital last month. But his wife answered.’
‘Sabrina.’
‘That’s right. Sabrina and I have spoken at some length over the past two days. She’s told me everything.’
‘Oh.’
‘She’s very supportive.’
Rachel gave me another hug, snuggling her head into my neck.
‘My God,’ I said, hugging her back with, this time, tears of joy filling my eyes. ‘I can’t believe it. How did you get here?’
‘By train to Didcot. I left as soon as my shift finished at the hospital.’
I laughed, but I didn’t tell her why. The fast trains through Didcot were rapidly fading from my future. Suddenly my life seemed worth living again.
* * *
Over the following months at Granby Manor my alcohol craving diminished and my mental health improved, helped in no small measure by frequent visits from my own personal therapist from Lincoln. Rachel even took a new job to be nearer to me. Having passed her psychiatric nursing exams, she had been accepted for a nurse’s position in the Mental Health Centre at Abingdon Community Hospital, just a few miles away.
Not that my night terrors, or the panic attacks, went away completely, although they became very rare, mostly occurring only when something entirely innocent and unconnected would catch me unawares and remind me of my father, like the day a visitor for one of the other residents arrived in a silver Jaguar identical to the one in which my father had died.
I was outside in the gardens at the time and it was as much as I could do to get myself back to my room in order to lie down and perform the breathing exercises I’d been taught.
One day during my fourth month, Sabrina brought a letter that had arrived for Jerry from the British Horseracing Authority advising him that, in the light of my medical condition and my ongoing residential treatment, the authority had suspended my conditional jockey’s licence until such time that the BHA Senior Medical Officer was satisfied that I was well enough to resume riding.
I noticed that the letter was dated only a few days after my arrival at Granby Manor. Sabrina had obviously withheld it from my sight until she thought I was well enough to cope with its contents.
‘I’m not surprised,’ I said calmly. ‘Does that mean I’ve lost my job?’
Not that I’d been doing any work for months. But my salary was still being paid, even if it went directly to the Granby to offset my treatment costs.
‘We’ll sort all that out when you’re finished here,’ Sabrina replied.
‘I won’t be coming back to Lambourn,’ I said.
‘No, I didn’t think you would.’
I had decided that, for the sake of my long-term mental health, horseracing and I had to part company on a permanent basis, and it seemed that Sabrina agreed.
There were simply too many memory triggers out there.
Plans had recently been revealed to erect a statue of my father at Cheltenham Racecourse and there was even a Jim Pussett Bar at Sandown, with photos of my father’s many triumphs there displayed on the walls.
And it was never going to be renamed the ‘Jim & Miles Pussett Bar’.
Even I could see that.
* * *
It is five o’clock when my flight lands at Gatwick Airport after an uneventful hour-and-a-half hop from Zurich, during which my mind finally sorts out some of the answers to my unspoken questions.
A kind fellow passenger, noticing my right arm in the sling, helps me by lifting my suitcase off the carousel in the luggage hall and I push it on its wheels out into the international arrivals area, not totally sure where I am going to go now. So imagine my delight when someone rushes up to me and throws their arms around my neck.
‘Hello, my gorgeous man,’ Rachel says, giving me a hug.
‘Careful.’ I wince at the pain in my shoulder, but that’s a minor irritation compared to the joy of her being here. We kiss, long and passionately.
‘I’ve missed you,’ she says, taking over the control of my suitcase and holding my left hand in hers as we walk on towards the airport railway station.
‘You could have always come with me. I did ask.’
‘You know I couldn’t,’ she wails in mock annoyance.
She is nearing the end of her training as a fully registered clinical psychologist, three years of two-days-a-week lectures at Oxford University alongside her full-time job as a psychiatric nurse, and any prolonged period away from her studies, let alone a whole month, was simply not possible at such a crucial stage.
‘How did you get the time off today?’ I ask.
‘Easy,’ she replies. ‘I told my tutor I needed to conduct an urgent therapy session with one of my patients, as part of my course practical requirements.’
‘And what sort of therapy session for this patient do you have in mind?’
‘Dinner followed by some intensive sexual behaviour counselling.’
I smile. ‘An excellent choice. Where?’
‘Where would you like? You’re surely not going straight back to the Isle of Wight?’
There is a distinct undertone to her voice betraying the frustration she has felt with me for isolating myself so far away from her for so long. But it has been the only way I could cope. Being on the Isle of Wight has prevented the panic attacks – no memory triggers – but, maybe, things will be different now.
‘Not tonight,’ I reply. ‘I have something I need to do first.’
‘And what is that?’
‘Pay back a debt.’
‘Who to?’
‘Someone in Lambourn. I’ll go tomorrow.’
She looks at me and I know she’s worried.
Lambourn is perhaps the biggest memory trigger of them all.
‘It’ll be fine,’ I say.
‘I hope it’s a lot of money for you to have to go there in person.’
I decide not to tell her it is only ten pounds.
We take the Gatwick Express to London and book into a budget hotel near Victoria Station.
‘Dinner first, or therapy?’ I ask as we go into the room, as if I don’t already know the answer.
‘Therapy,’ she says with certainty. ‘Right now. But I have a feeling you might also need a second session later.’
‘And who am I to argue with a professional opinion?’
But the therapy isn’t as easy as we expect, in spite of our eagerness. Maybe because of it.
A recently dislocated shoulder, even if now back in place, plus a cracked shoulder blade, make for a somewhat awkward and painful experience, with me moaning far more than might be expected. But we also giggle a lot, and finally get everything together or, at least, those things that matter.
‘God, I’ve missed that,’ Rachel says as we lie naked side by side afterwards. Then she turns to face me and strokes my bare chest. ‘I love you.’
I turn my head and look deeply into her eyes.
‘That’s lucky,’ I reply, smiling. ‘Because I love you too.’
It is, perhaps, the first time we have ever expressed our feelings for each other so profoundly, so intently.
She sighs, but it’s not one of contentment, more of concern.
‘Do you really need to go to Lambourn tomorrow?’ she asks.
‘I do.’
‘Then I shall come with you.’
‘Aren’t you studying?’
‘I’ll call in sick.’
‘You don’t have to. I promise you I’ll be perfectly fine.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m positive.’
We get dressed – me with her help – and then go to eat at Santini Restaurant on the corner. It will make quite a hole in my remaining bank balance, but so what? It isn’t every day that someone tells you that they love you.
After a dinner of excellent Italian food – with no wine – we return to the hotel for our second sex-therapy session, more measured this time and less frantic. And altogether more satis
fying for both of us.
‘I rather like your shoulder predicament,’ Rachel says, running her fingers through my hair. ‘Because it means I’m always on top.’
* * *
In mid-February, just three weeks before my six-month ‘sentence’ was complete at Granby Manor, my grandmother died.
I had been looking forward to going up to Yorkshire to see her, just as soon as I was able, and it was therefore a huge blow when I received the brief text message from my uncle early on a Tuesday morning, giving me the bad news.
‘Sorry to say that Mum died in the night,’ it read. ‘Will let you know about the funeral.’
I was greatly saddened by my grandmother’s passing but I shouldn’t have been surprised. In the last few conversations I’d had with her on the telephone, it had been clear that she was becoming increasingly confused. She had also told me how very lonely she was without my grandfather, and she must have simply given up the fight for life.
I only hoped that the end for her had been peaceful, in her sleep, and she hadn’t known anything about it.
Another text message arrived from my uncle at lunchtime informing me that the funeral was set for a week on Friday, at noon, in St Hilda’s Church in Ellerburn, the same place we had gathered for my grandfather’s funeral, and for my mother’s before that.
Did I go? Was there any need?
Would it be too damaging to my mental well being?
My grandmother clearly wouldn’t know whether I was there or not. She didn’t know anything any more. As far as I was aware, my uncle was the only blood relative I had still living, and I didn’t really mind what he might think. There wouldn’t be anyone else I’d know, so why bother?
I went to see the director of the Granby, to tell him the news of the death and the funeral arrangements. I was quite hoping that he would forbid me from going but even he wasn’t that unkind. Instead, he offered someone from his staff to go with me, for support.
I cynically wondered if the ‘support’ he had in mind was simply to keep me away from the cheap sherry at her wake, but maybe that was unfair.
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