A Plea of Insanity

by Priscilla Masters

  She faced the good-looking guy sitting opposite her, twenty-six years old, dark, neat hair, large eyes with ice-clear whites, a tanned, smooth complexion, an easy smile.

  How appearances can lull. The temptation was to excuse this man with the honest eyes which looked straight into hers with such frankness and assurance.

  But it was this very confidence which made her finger the panic button beneath the desk as she started to question him.

  This was a young man used to getting his own way, accustomed to charming his route out of trouble.

  The vibrations were taut enough to be an inaudible treble but she knew they were there.

  Bourne had inflicted serious, unprovoked damage on his own girlfriend – not on a stranger. All because she had delayed him for a few minutes, according to witnesses. His anger had erupted like a sudden spring out of dry ground. The prosecution had made much of that plus the fact that he had spent the night clubbing armed with a penknife in his pocket. When asked why by the prosecution he had merely shrugged. Her instinct sympathised very much with the prosecution.

  The defence, on the other hand, put the case forward that much attention should be paid to the fact that he had been under the influence of a rather odd drug to be peddling around a nightclub, an anti-psychotic, and argued that had he not been under the influence he would not have been a threat to his girlfriend at all. What interested Claire was the fact that he had been admitted here when he should have gone straight to prison.

  Reading through the notes she almost slapped her thigh and said Hah. Because it was the old turkey. As the Haloperidol had worn off Bourne had claimed he had heard voices telling him his girlfriend would not bleed.

  The trouble was neither the prison service nor the hospital service quite knew what to do with these people. They were tossed from one to the other like a rogue card in a game of Brag. As much of an embarrassment as a ‘Q’ without an accompanying ‘U’ in a game of Scrabble.

  Instead of launching straight into the interview Claire jotted down just one of the questions she wanted to put to him. When she looked up his eyes seemed smaller – to have shrunk. She stared at him, fascinated at an impossible physical change.

  She introduced herself to him and they shook hands. They could have been any couple meeting socially.

  But they weren’t.

  ‘I just want to get a few facts straight,’ she began. ‘You took the Haloperidol thinking it was Temazepam?’

  The gaze never faltered. ‘That’s right, Doctor,’ he said.

  They are always polite – until. Until you rumble them. ‘How often did you take recreational drugs?’

  ‘Couple of times. Maybe twice, three times before, always when out clubbing and I needed a bit of a spark. Bit of E, the odd spliff. You know.’

  She nodded.

  ‘And the girlfriend …’ She searched the notes for the girl’s name. ‘Stephanie?’

  ‘She weren’t nothin’ serious. Just a bit of skirt to go out with.’

  Her toes were beginning to tingle.

  ‘And how is she now?’

  A faintly arrogant smile which he tried to hide behind a fake cough. ‘She’s OK. Bit of a scar, my mate told me.’

  ‘So you don’t see her any more?’

  ‘No. Like I said, she was just someone I was with a night or two.’

  That was not what Stephanie had told the police. ‘He – were – my – steady,’ she had wheezed from her hospital bed.

  Maybe she had assumed if she didn’t press charges Bourne would gravitate back to her or maybe he had threatened her if she didn’t stick up for him. The police might have believed her insistent story – that it had all been an accident – had not a crowd of clubbers who had witnessed the entire event said otherwise, that he had slowly drawn the knife from his pocket, deliberately opened the blade, stroked it and driven it hard into his girlfriend’s chest.

  It did not sound like an accident or a psychotic incident.

  Claire thought quickly.

  She was too intelligent a psychiatrist to ask the obvious question. It would provoke the obvious reply. Bourne was not stupid. He knew he would be released only if he displayed remorse whether fake or genuine and promised he would be a good boy in future.

  She closed his file and he looked cheated – disappointed.

  ‘Look,’ he said.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Doctor,’ he tried. ‘It’s time I was let out of here. I’m not a nut. Someone just slipped me the wrong stuff and I flipped. That’s all.’

  The trouble was that it wasn’t.

  Bourne was a sociopath. A psychopath. He had been a time bomb waiting to go off. And he would go off again.

  ‘I don’t think it’s quite time,’ she said, ‘for a review. It’s early days.’

  She saw the ugly side of him then – before he buried it again deeply. ‘I’m not a nut,’ he said savagely. ‘I don’t belong here. You should recommend my release. You can keep some sort of supervision order going.’

  He knew all the jargon.

  Conscious that behind each set of notes lay a story she worked steadily all afternoon. By five she was through and had only one more task before she could call it a day. She had to travel to the outskirts of the city to do a domiciliary visit on another old regular of Greatbach, Harry Sowerby, fifty-seven-year-old manic depressive – or to use the current terminology, bipolar affective disorder. When on a low he was wont to cut his wrists, threaten to throw himself off a bridge, lie on railway tracks. But it was when he was in a manic phase that he crossed the line into criminal activity and attracted the real attention. Buying Porsches, throwing parties, trying to board planes without tickets, extravaganzas in expensive restaurants, movie star style – all on a pension. This time he was doing a striptease in the middle of the Potteries Shopping Centre and when hustled off by the security staff he had insisted that the Queen herself had commissioned him to do it, fumbling in his pockets for Her Majesty’s letter and cheque, postmarked Buckingham Palace, so he said. He had manfully fended off the police until they had restrained him and then, not knowing what to do next, they had contacted the duty psychiatrist, her.

  Nice one.

  It was difficult not to like Harry – wrapped in a grey woollen blanket, humming the notes of The Stripper, arms flinging wide, little National Health glasses. Not cowering in the corner of the police cell but making a splash, hailing her with a welcoming hoot.

  The custody officer gave her a broad wink. ‘Hope you’ll not be too shocked, Doctor.’

  She grinned back. ‘Nothing shocks a psychiatrist,’ she said. ‘They train the emotion right out of us.’

  Harry giggled at this and dropped his blanket, revealing a wrinkled frame.

  ‘How do you do, Harry?’ she said, holding out her hand. ‘I’m Doctor Roget from Greatbach.’

  ‘Excellent,’ he said, rubbing his hands together. ‘I hoped they’d send a blonde. Real blonde, are you?’

  She nodded, amused – not embarrassed at all.

  ‘I think maybe things have got a little out of control here, Harry?’

  ‘But if they’d only waited I know Her Majesty would have wanted to attend herself then everything would have been all right.’

  ‘I’m sure it would, Harry, but today is a bit cold. And the shopping centre didn’t seem to understand what you were doing.’ She smothered a smile. ‘Or really appreciate it. Let’s leave it for another day, shall we. In the meantime I think you should have a nice, restful time at Greatbach for a couple of nights until things quieten down a bit. Don’t you?’

  Harry looked suddenly tired. ‘If you say so, my dear.’

  A mega dose of Lithium and in a day or two Harry Sowerby would be back to his flat, his mood stabilised into an unemotional self.

  The real problem was, why had he veered out of control? Had he been defaulting on his medication or was his condition worsening?

  Time to assess that in the future.

  For now – ho
me.

  For him. For her.

  Chapter Three

  It was a long, slow drive back home. A new underpass was being built underneath the so-called D road, the A500 which links junctions 15 and 16 of the M6. She threaded miserably through the city, nose to bumper all the way, moving alongside the Trent and Mersey canal for a while before turning off towards Burslem. She was pleased to see that the warehouses on the towpath side of the canal were still being used as pottery storehouses, even though the wares were no longer being transported along the canal in horse drawn or steam driven barges. Here and there, through Stoke, as in many towns and cities in Britain, history is waiting silently for you to notice it.

  It was the smell of paint which greeted her for the second time that day as she pushed open the front door. Grant was emulsioning the hall. Again. She shoved aside an aluminium ladder. He was in jogging pants and a baggy vest, a paintbrush in one hand. He planted a lager-scented kiss on her cheek. ‘Hi. How’s the new job? Take-away for tea?’ He stood back to admire his handiwork. ‘Well – what do you think?’

  Her taste was more for the simple, understated, Oriental. Bonsai trees and the palest of peppermint greens. His for vibrance, warmth, splashes of wild colour. Colours like Raspberry, Tango, Zest, Citron. She hated it and he knew it. She’d put a cross on Dove Grey. He’d bought Dining Room Red.

  She smiled and said nothing. It was not worth the conflict.

  But she hadn’t admired his handiwork so he was offended. ‘Come on, Claire. Look a bit more enthusiastic. Please. It’s taken me all afternoon.’

  What was the point?

  Grant had been a mistake from the beginning but she was only now realising just how big a mistake at the very same moment as it was sinking in how difficult it was going to be to extricate herself from this particular error.

  They had lived together for almost two years, moving in hastily after meeting at a friend’s wedding. Claire had been going through an emotional time. Weddings brought out the worst in her and she had spun towards Grant, attracted by the wide smile, bright teeth and extrovert manner, the roguish, pirate look in his black eyes and thick dark curly hair. Besides – she had enjoyed seeing the look of envy her married friends had given her and the overheard comments that Claire had ‘pulled something really tasty’.

  But she had a habit of doing this, picking up on the wrong men, choosing the wrong types, these superficially attractive men who were stuffed full of impractical ideas, never really listened to her point of view and bowled along in their own way, doing their own thing while she tagged behind, never really comfortable with them but avoiding open confrontation.

  Until she moved out, leaving always on the same note, that it ‘wasn’t going to work out’, or they were ‘incompatible’. Nothing too aggressive.

  She wouldn’t have minded so much had it not always been the same tired phrases, the same worn out excuses.

  And then after a few months’ celibacy she veered back towards the same disaster all over again.

  The pattern was set and she could not seem to break the cycle.

  Maybe it was part of her training – this compliance and avoidance of horn-locking. Grant was simply the latest in a succession of similar disasters and she felt cross – not with him – but with herself. She was a psychiatrist, for goodness sake. She should be able to weed out these unsuitable types, recognise them a mile off and take evasive action. And yet she did not. She went for the same type all over again and it exasperated her, made her irritated and angry with herself – which bordered very near to self-dislike. A feeling of being out of control of her own life, of losing this important fist-grasp of her destiny. Empowerment.

  It was the buzz phrase of all young, professional women in the first few years of the twenty-first century.

  So why couldn’t she achieve it when she was dishing it out to her friends like orange smarties? Why couldn’t she fall for some steady, professional guy who did a nine-five job in the city, wanted two-point-four kids, would mow the lawn at weekends and whose ideas did not owe all to Walt Disney? Her eyes brushed over the Dining Room Red walls while she acknowledged the answer with a small, secret smile.

  Answer – because she would find him predictable and boring. And that was the biggest of sins – to be boring.

  OK then. Why couldn’t she fall in love with someone just a smidge less unsuitable?

  This one she didn’t even attempt to answer.

  Grant was looking at her with a sweetly quizzical expression. He scratched his bristly chin, smearing enough of the red paint to look like a wounded pirate who hadn’t even shaved today. ‘Indian or Chinese?’

  And just to be perverse and stake her independence she said, ‘Thai’ and went upstairs to run a bath.

  Actually Grant wasn’t as bad as her usual prototype. At least he had a job. He was trouble-shooter to the local sixth form college on computer affairs. They called him in when they had a problem with their computers and he was also involved in writing the programmes for their timetables. This made him entitled to long holidays and almost non-existent term-time work. He earned little more in a year than she did in a month.

  She went upstairs and was luxuriating in the Stress Buster bubble bath when he poked his head around the door. ‘Green Thai curry,’ he said, ‘with noodles. And it’ll be here in ten minutes.’ Then he flung a red dragon dressing grown at her. She caught it just before it hit the water.

  Grant was one of life’s charmers who get away with doing what they want to do. And all around them people are sucked into supporting them. She might have loved him. He was easy to love. Affectionate, romantic, good looking in a hunky, roguish sort of way. But she had learned to delve beneath the surface, question his integrity – and found it wanting.

  She didn’t quite trust him.

  Fifteen minutes later she was eying him across the dining room table – a smoked glass affair from their Habitat days.

  ‘So,’ he said warily, ‘how is the new job?’

  She responded enthusiastically. ‘Good. Interesting. A challenge. It’ll be a challenge.’ She forked in some of the green curry, a few noodles sliding back to the plate on the way, like pale, small worms. ‘And how was your day?’

  Only a week before the college went back. She would have thought there would be plenty of preparation to do. ‘You didn’t have to go in?’

  He gave an exaggerated yawn, arms flinging out. ‘Give me a break. I felt a bit …’

  But not too exhausted to paint the hall Pillar Box Red or Dining Room Red or whatever, she thought crossly.

  But then Grant would always have the energy to do what he wanted to do.

  Never mind responsibility. He and the ‘R’ word did not quite hit it off.

  She finished her curry keeping one eye fixed on him, observing him. But oh, he was easy on the eye. His black eyes regarded her back and he raised his eyebrows. She inhaled a long, deep breath.

  She fancied him.

  So was it simply lust?

  Maybe.

  He put his fork down. ‘What are you smiling at?’

  ‘You.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Look,’ she said, waving her own fork at him. ‘I’m the psychiatrist. I’m the one who asks why.’

  He teased her back with his eyes for minutes before returning to the curry. His – red – to match the hall. Hers green – the traditional colour for envy.

  ‘So tomorrow?’ she ventured.

  ‘Tomorrow – I finish the hall.’

  ‘I see.’ She resisted the temptation to ask him when he would be going in to work and finished her meal recalling their holiday in India last year when he had attracted so much attention, striding across the beach, day-glo orange Bermudas, Oakley wraparounds glinting in the sun, Reebok sandals on his feet. She had seen women follow him with their eyes and known what they were thinking. So when he had suddenly turned towards her, pulled her close, put his arms tightly around her to kiss her full on the lips, his body almost
part of hers, she had known he was simply playing to the gallery.

  She had been conscious of the women behind her, their emotion.

  Envy.

  She had revelled in it.

  They spent an evening typical for them, stretched out in front of the television, making desultory conversation and finally making love in front of the fire.

  Rolf was in early the next morning, a minute or two after her, well in time for the nine o’clock meeting, so she had a chance to ask him about a few of the patients she’d seen yesterday.

  ‘Mavis?’ she ventured. ‘I wondered about sending her on a home visit. Surely it’s time she was discharged?’

  He eased his long, bony frame into the armchair and steepled his fingers, the tips brushing against the Van Dyck moustache. ‘That’s probably the problem. We’re always being asked to consider discharge but in Mavis’s case it’s the discharge that sends her hurtling back here.’

  ‘Enlighten me.’

  ‘She has a brutal husband,’ he said. ‘An ex factory worker who drinks a fair bit. He’s got no time for Mavis. If it was left to him we really would throw away the key. Maybe if she was one hundred per cent OK they might just about manage but as it is it’s a pathological situation and without being pessimistic I’d say it is not going to improve – not ever.’ He looked troubled. ‘There is a daughter who lives a couple of streets away. Poor woman. She’s always the one who finds Mavis after these suicide attempts. It’s invariably on an afternoon when she’s due round. Basically Mavis lasts a day or two outside then something snaps. Suicide attempts are her way of gaining readmission and safety. She’s never tried to kill herself while she’s an inpatient. There’s little point discharging her, Claire,’ he advised. ‘She’ll be back in within the week. Unless, of course, one of these days she succeeds.’