In The Garden Of Stones

by Lucy Pepperdine

  “Is it something you came up with all by yourself?” Grace asks.

  “Actually, no. It’s something I read about in an obscure magazine a couple of years ago. It really piqued my interest, but until now I haven’t had the opportunity to try it out.”

  “So I’m still some kind of guinea pig to be experimented on?”

  “Not at all. I’m simply looking for the best treatment for you, to help you, and I think this will turn out to be ideal. What are you doing?”

  Grace is on her knees picking biscuit fragments out of the rug’s patterned pile. “I spilled crumbs on your rug. I’ve got to pick them up.”

  “It’s okay. Leave them.”

  “You know I can’t. One ruined rug is more than enough.” She teases the last of the crumbs from the rug’s pile and scrambles back into her chair with them in her hand as if she were cradling a baby bird, and tips them out onto the plate.

  “All done. Where were we?”

  “I want to know your observations on the idea,” says Mal. “So… what do you think?”

  What do I think?

  Is he really asking her opinion? He can’t be. Nobody ever asks Grace Dove what she thinks. They tell her what to think, what to say, how to feel and what to do and when to do it, and she goes along with it. That’s the way it’s always been.

  Dr Pettit is leaning forward in his chair, eyes sparkling with boyish enthusiasm, and she can see from the look on his face, from his body language and the way he runs his fingers through his hair and licks his lips in what some might take as eager anticipation, that he wants her to do this. Whether it’s truly because he wants what’s best for her, to help her, or to make use of her experience to write an insightful paper for a professional publication in order to further his career, she doesn’t care. Her opinion is important to him, what she has to say matters.

  So what if his crackpot idea is untried and unproved, there’s a first time for everything, and really, what harm can it do? Nothing else has worked and they might be doing each other a favour.

  She sighs. “Well…”

  The briefest shadow of disappointment dulls the keenness as he expects her to turn him down flat.

  She stretches out the pause just a little bit further, teasing him some more.

  That’s enough, Gracie. Put the poor sod out of his misery before he has apoplexy.

  “I think it sounds a most intriguing exercise and … I’d very much like to try it,” she says, and grins at him.

  A full toothsome smile divides his face, and behind his neatly trimmed goatee and his rimless spectacles she sees the relief wash across his face. “Splendid!”

  “However –”

  The smile drops. “Here comes the big but.”

  “You leave my backside out of this.” Nope. Right over his head. “It all sounds very good in theory,” she says, “but I’d like to sleep on it if that’s alright? To work out the implications fully in my mind?”

  The smile returns. “Yes. Do. Of course. Take as long as you need.”

  He picks up her folder from the coffee table and opens it, flicking through to the first blank page. “I tell you what we’ll do. I’ll pencil you in for another appointment at eleven tomorrow morning. How will that do? You can have a good long think about it overnight and then we’ll have a really good in depth chat, and if you’re still agreeable, we’ll sort it all out and get you going, eh?”

  “Okey doke. No pressure though?”

  “No. None. Absolutely not.”

  “I can change my mind if I want?”

  “Certainly. At any time.”

  “That’s alright then.”

  He holds out his hand again. “Perfect!”

  It would be churlish to reject him a second time, she thinks, and takes it. A perfunctory shake, and then, without thinking, she wipes her hand down the leg of her trousers.

  Oh God! What’s he going to think –?

  “Erm … it’s not a germ thing if that’s what you’re thinking,” she says. “I once shook hands with someone and it was like grabbing a handful of dead fish - cold and wet and slippery, and it made me want to vomit. Ever since then, shaking hands with a stranger just makes me…very uncomfortable. It’s nothing personal.”

  “There’s no need to explain. I understand completely –”

  “You have nice skin, soft and smooth and warm, not at all fishlike –”

  “Glad to hear it –”

  “And we’re not really strangers are we? Any more?”

  “Not really –”

  “But it’s still … skin. No offence?”

  “Absolutely none taken,” he says. “And thank you.”

  “What for?”

  “For making the effort. I can appreciate how hard it must have been. Well done.”

  From anyone else that ‘well done’ might seem patronising, but not from him because she knows he means it.

  She doesn’t know what else to say and so stays silent, although she can feel an uncomfortable hot redness creeping up her neck. That’s all she needs, to turn tomato and make a complete fool of herself. She should leave while she has some dignity intact, but not before she asks one last question.

  “When can I go home?”

  Mal pulls on an exaggerated faux pained expression. “You want to leave us already?” he says. “What’s the matter? Don’t you like our five star en-sweety accommodation with twenty-four hour room service?”

  She smiles. “I’d like it better if the food was actually edible, or if you had a pool.”

  “Can’t do anything about the food I’m afraid,” he says. “It’s been rubbish since they contracted out to that private caterer, that’s why I bring my own, but there is a hydrotherapy pool down in Physio you might be able to use after hours. It’s not huge, but it’s warm and they have one of those continuous current systems to swim against. There’s a jacuzzi too, and if you ask him nicely Steven might give you a massage.”

  “You make it sound like some kind of private club.”

  Mal put his fingers to his lips. “Shhhhh. Members only.” They laugh together until seriousness crosses his face. “Give it a few days more, Grace. Just to be on the safe side, eh? We’ll talk some more tomorrow and see where we need to go. We can’t rush these things. Try and be a patient, patient. Okay?”

  His hand touches the small of her back to guide her to the door.

  Her escort, Nurse Candice, is waiting for her in the outer office. She breaks off her conversation with the secretary Denise, puts down her magazine, smiles a greeting to Grace and walks with her to the lift which will take them back up three floors to Grace’s temporary home: Ward 12 – Secure Psychiatric.

  Chapter 3

  The woman in the next bed is flat on her back fast asleep, mouth wide open, driving them home.

  The one in the bed opposite has her sheet drawn up over her head, moaning and groaning as she masturbates herself to a climax. The fourth bed is empty, but as it’s a full moon tonight it is almost guaranteed to be occupied by morning.

  Grace is lying on her bed in the small side ward, staring at the shadows dancing on the ceiling, trying to block out the disturbing noises around her, thinking back over her chat with Dr Mal and the bundle of lies she told, because if you can’t lie to your therapist…

  The real reason she aborted her baby had nothing to do with business or timing. She did it because her lying cheating boyfriend ordered her to, because he didn’t want his offspring to be tainted by her mental deficiencies. And he didn’t rely entirely on cruel words either. Grace knew full well that if she hadn’t agreed to the abortion, he would have beaten the baby out of her, and then made damned sure she could never have any more… for the child’s sake of course.

  And then he left her, claiming the stress of living with the equivalent of an unexploded emotional bomb with the fuse ticking had driven him to seek comfort in the ever open legs of the perfectly normal Natalie.

  Luckily for Grace both the business and th
e flat were in her name, and she had all the rights and the deeds, else he would have been the one to throw her out and sell it all out from under her, leaving her penniless and homeless, her punishment for being … defective, disobedient, different.

  Two weeks after his departure, in the fruit and veg section of Sainsbury’s, she had a full on breakdown and had to be taken home in the back of a police car.

  A year on and everything is gone; the flat, the business, the baby, the future, all safely beyond Connor’s grasping reach, beyond hers too now, leaving behind nothing but a formless pile of inadequate uselessness watching shadows on the ceiling in a psychiatric side ward.

  Is it any wonder she tried to kill herself after all that? What sane person wouldn’t?

  Don’t look back … you’re not going that way.

  Where did that thought spring from? She has no idea, but it sounds fair.

  “Here and now is what counts,” she tells herself. “As for tomorrow… we’ll have to wait and see what we can conjure up.”

  She shifts on the bed, makes herself comfortable, closes her eyes and tries to concentrate on somewhere far away from everything and everyone, aiming for somewhere nice and quiet, tranquil, harmonious to the soul. An image begins to form in her head. Soft dappled light, cool mist, the smell of honeysuckle and roses.

  What is this place? A cemetery? God no! Too depressing. Who wants to go to a cemetery? She wants a lovely beach with soft white sand, palm trees, and gently lapping turquoise waves.

  In the distance a bird caws. A parrot maybe?

  “Grace? You okay?”

  A talking parrot?

  “Grace, love.”

  No. It is definitely human, and close by. She opens her eyes and gazes up into the round chocolate brown face of Nurse Muriel looking down on her.

  “Are you okay, lovey?” she says.

  Grace nods. “Yeah.”

  “You were lying there so still for so long, I was beginning to worry.”

  Grace sits up and looks at the clock on the wall. Twenty minutes have passed during which the snorer has turned over and gone quiet, drooling from the corner of her mouth, and Miss Sexaholic has fallen into a post orgasmic stupor.

  “I’m fine,” she says, and pats the bed. Muriel takes a seat.

  “So where did you go? Anywhere nice?” she says, her broad smile so wide and white in her face that it looks to be illuminated from within.

  Grace rolls her neck feeling it pop and crackle. “Nowhere in particular. Just trying to find a quiet place.”

  “Did you find it?”

  “I was getting there.”

  “I envy you, being able to shut yourself off like that. How was your meeting with Dr Mal?”

  “He was pretty good … as psychotherapists go.”

  “I don’t know how you managed to get in to see him so quickly. Dr Mal is an amazing therapist and usually he has a waiting list a mile long.”

  “Perhaps he had a last minute cancellation.”

  “Perhaps.” Muriel leans close. “You should count your lucky stars you didn’t get the other one.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “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. “Fantastic!”

  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 sil
ly. 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,