“No.”
“Then I’ll bloody well do it myself. Get out of my way.”
He leans against the door, blocking her exit. “You’ll be wasting your time, Grace. They won’t listen. Right is on their side. Please, sit down.”
She stands her ground, glaring at him. When his eyes meet hers they are filled with such sincere sympathy and helpless compassion that she feels her rage dissipate. Slowly, she does as he asks, and he tucks Colin’s file back in the drawer.
“If there’s nothing we can do, why did you tell me anything at all?” she says.
“I thought you ought to know… in case anything happened–”
“And I wondered why you weren’t doing anything?”
Gibbs closes the drawer with a soft click and turns the key, locking it. “Yes. But I don’t want anything to happen to Colin any more than you do. That’s why I said if you can do something, anything to reach him, to bring him back, even if it’s just part way, if you can get him to say just one word, there might be a chance, a slim one, of having the order revoked. As long as he remains in the condition he is in, or if the time ever comes when something happens, they won’t do anything to try and save his life … they’ll just let him slip away.” He leans heavily against the filing cabinet. “He deserves better than this, Grace. After all he’s been through, he deserves the chance and you’re the one to give it to him. I know you can do it. You did something extraordinary today. You have a bond I couldn’t see, but I could sense it, and with it you might be the key to saving that soldier’s life.”
Silence.
“Colin obviously knows nothing of this,” says Grace.
“No.”
“So … do you … do you think I should tell him about it?”
Gibbs blows out a deep breath. “I think…you should do what you think best.”
Chapter 37
“How the hell do I tell a man that he’s been condemned to death by the combination of a machine printout, a doctor’s opinion and his own brother’s signature on a sheet of paper?”
Grace has had three days to think about it, to worry about it, to exhaust herself with three nights without sleep and very little food to nourish her, although several bottles of wine have been sacrificed to the cause.
She has actively avoided the meditative state that would take her to garden and Colin, but even caffeine pills and Red Bull have limited effectiveness, and so in preparation for accidentally falling asleep and finding herself where she didn’t want to be right now, she has put together a catalogue of eminently plausible, if not provable, excuses.
Luckily, she hasn’t needed them, but now she’s stayed away long enough and can put it off no longer. If she doesn’t go and see him very soon, now he knows how to do it, he might very well come looking for her instead.
What do I say? Keep it short and sweet and to the point – wake up or you’re going to die? Or do what I said I would never do … sugar coat it? Go all around the houses, take the longest, most tortuous route to a destination neither of us wants to reach–
“Hoy! Be careful will ye.”
Colin’s cry of pain brings her back to the here and now with a start, to find the comb snagged in his hair.
“Sorry,” she says as she eases it free.
He has his arms folded across his chest, his face like thunder as he tolerates her unwarranted fussiness. “If ye have ta do that, keep yer mind on the job will ye. Ye’ll have me bald.”
“Sorry … miles away.”
“Oh aye. Anywhere interesting?”
Okay, here we go.
She opens her mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. She can’t do it. Can’t tell him. She kisses the top of his head, holding it for just that one second too long, which makes him turn to look at her.
The smile she’s trying to form for him doesn’t quite work, it looks forced and painful, and he grasps her wrist and hauls her round to the front of the chair, the hold firm. “Fit’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
He pulls her down to his level, intense brown eyes searching her sharp blue ones. “Aye there is. I can see it on yer face. Come on, spill the beans.”
She swallows; licks her lips. “I… um… I learned something from Simon, about you, your treatment–”
“Talking aboot me again behind my back, eh?” he says. “Ye needn’t have bothered. I know all ‘boot it.”
“You do?”
“Aye. I was here, remember? Those docs have got something lined up fer me. My last chance saloon they said. Canna remember exactly what they called it, three letters, E something-or-other?”
Not what she was expecting. “Are you sure you didn’t mishear,” she says. “You sure it wasn’t a D?”
“Nope. Definitely an E.”
“Well you’ve just had an EEG. It stands for electro-encephalogram. That’s what they did when they wired you up to the machine. Is that what you mean?”
“Nah, wasn’t that. Sounded similar but…” He frowns, squinches one eye shut. “Got it. E-C-T. Aye, I’m pretty sure that was it.”
ECT. Three letters, innocuous enough to those who didn’t know what they meant, but to Grace, who did know, they were guaranteed to make her heart stop in its beat.
A cold feeling grows in her stomach and spreads to all her limbs. She feels her legs turn to water as all the strength leaves them and she has to hold onto the arm of his wheelchair to stop herself falling over the edge of the crevasse opening at her feet.
“You alright?” Colin says, looking up at her staring down at him, ashen faced.
She has to force the word out, doesn’t even try to smile. “Fine.”
“So ye ken fit it might be, this… E thing?”
She nods. “Oh yes.”
“And do I take it from the fact that ye look like ye’re ‘boot ta boak that it’s no a good thing to have?”
She shakes her head, biting her lip to stop it trembling. “No, Colin, it’s not a good thing at all.”
“Right then,” he says, folding his arms across his chest. “I think ye’d better tell me all aboot it, don’t you?”
And so she tells him everything she knows about electroconvulsive therapy, and he stares at her in muted horror, his face blanched paper white.
“I need to speak to Simon Gibbs. Is he on duty?”
The woman manning the reception desk smiles. “Just a moment and I’ll check.” A pause. “Yes, he’s here.”
“Page him for me.”
“Are you alright, Miss. You look a little–”
“Just do it!” Grace closes her eyes, counts to five, takes in a deep breath. “I’m sorry. Please, will you page Simon Gibbs for me? I need to speak with him urgently.”
“Certainly. If you’ll take a seat please.”
“Thank you.”
Grace cannot sit still, fretting and fidgeting. As soon as Gibbs shows his face in the reception area she grabs him and hauls him into the file room.
“Why didn’t you tell me they’re going to give Colin ECT?” she demands. “For days I’ve been torturing myself with how to come up with the best way to tell him about the DNR order, almost got to it too, and then he knocks the wind right out of my sails by telling me about the visit from Charlie Chaplin and his oppo, and their–” She makes quote bunnies with her fingers. “Last ditch effort. They want to fry his brains, Simon! What the hell are you people thinking?”
Gibbs eases the door closed, shutting out the curious eyes of a cleaner and the rhythmic whop whop whop of her floor polisher.
“Calm down, Grace–”
“Don’t you dare tell me to calm down! Do you have any idea what ECT does to someone’s mind? Are you trying to kill him?”
“Of course not–”
“So why didn’t you tell me what they were planning?”
“I didn’t know!”
“It must have been in Colin’s notes, or on your fancy whiteboard. How could you not know?”
“Because I’ve been off duty f
or the last two and a half days and I only found out myself when I came back this morning to find my plate pretty much overflowing. I haven’t had time–”
“You should have made time!”
“Tell me when! A patient killed himself this morning and I’ve been running around like a blue arsed fly ever since. I-haven’t-had-the-time.”
Grace claps a hand over her mouth. “Oh, that’s awful. I didn’t know. I’m so sorry. What happened?”
“He hung himself in his bathroom. Ripped up a sheet to make a noose and fastened it to the towel rail.”
“Oh my God! The poor man.”
“Yeah, well…” Gibbs shrugs. “It happens. It’s one of the crappier parts of the job, especially when it’s not expected. He was doing so well. Just goes to show, you never can tell what’s going on in someone’s mind.”
She puts her hand on Gibbs’ arm. “No, you can’t.”
Silence.
“What the hell are we going to do about Colin, Simon?” Grace says, quietly. “You should have seen his face when I told him about what they were going to do to him. He’d never heard of ECT before so I’ve had to explain it all to him, and now he’s so horror-struck he’s probably going to withdraw even further, which might hasten the instigation of the DNR notice.”
“There really isn’t anything we can do. I don’t have the authority or seniority to object, and you don’t have any say in the matter at all. As far as consent for treatments is concerned, you don’t even exist. Remember what we talked about, the release Lucas signed as next of kin when Colin first got here, giving us carte blanche to do whatever we deemed necessary? It applies to this too.”
“A quiet death is one thing, but if he’d known it would ever involve this level of barbarism, this … torture, he would never have agreed to it. We have to get it overturned.”
“We - can’t.”
Grace hides her face in her hands. “This could kill Colin just as surely as if you put a pillow over his face and suffocated him.”
“Unlikely. The recorded incidence of death following ECT is about one in ten thousand. Statistically–”
“Fuck the statistics and the procedure. What about the anaesthetic? That’s the dangerous part. Colin’s too frail for it. Any ‘expert with half a brain should be able to see that.”
“Fair point.”
She paces back and forth across the small room. “When are they planning on doing it?”
“Some time next week. Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on the availability of the specialist. I’ll see what I can do to delay them, fiddle his charts or something, make out he’s sick again, but if I were you I wouldn’t hold my breath. My money is on it going ahead, so I think you did the right thing telling Colin what’s going to happen, even though you did put the fear of God into him. If it goes some way to getting him to wake up, it’ll be worth it, because that’s the only way we can stop this.”
Chapter 38
A quarter to twelve, two days later, and Grace has stopped into the Tesco Express around the corner from her flat. She has just finished loading the last of her groceries onto the checkout belt when her phone rings.
The screen identifies the caller as Simon Gibbs. She tucks the phone between her ear and her shoulder, freeing her hands to load her shopping into her bag as they pass through the scanner. Juice. Milk. Bread.
“Hey Simon, what’s–”
“Bad news, Grace. They’re going ahead with Colin’s ECT today.”
She pauses, a carton of eggs clutched in her hand. “What! Today! They can’t! You said next week–”
“I know. They brought it forward for some reason. I’m really sorry. I haven’t been able to do anything. You were right about one thing, Colin’s not in a good state. He’s not fit enough for the anaesthetic. They shouldn’t be doing it. I can’t see a good outcome from this.”
“Oh my God! I’m on my way. Can you delay them until I get there?”
“No. He’s already been prepped and taken to the treatment suite. It’s going ahead within the hour. Unless you can fly, there’s no way for you to get here on time, and even if you did, you won’t be allowed in.”
“I don’t care. I have to be there. Please do what you can.”
“There’s nothing–”
She’s already hung up on him, abandoned her shopping and is on her way out of the store, thrusting the carton of eggs into another worker’s hands as she does so, throwing an apology back over her shoulder to the checkout operator staring after her in her wake.
She bolts for home, pulls out the kitchen drawer and searches through her collection of menus and business cards, looking for one for a taxi firm.
“Come on, you bastard. Where are you?”
And then she remembers the ad from the radio and the rhythmic telephone number, 878787, snatches up the phone and stabs it out.
They are as good as their word and a taxi picks her up from her doorstep within ten minutes.
“Where to hen?” says the driver. “Radio’s on the fritz. Only got half a tale.”
“Pelham Chase Rehab Centre,” Grace says.
“Where’s that?”
“Kemnay.”
The driver swivels in his seat. “Yer kiddin’ right? That’s a good half hour drive.”
“No, I’m not kidding. Please, just go.”
“That far out of town’ll cost you extra.”
“I don’t care. Just get me there as quickly as you can. It’s a matter of life and death.”
The driver grins. “Always wanted someone to say that ta me. Buckle up.”
Traffic is heavy and they can only progress up North Anderson Drive at a crawl. An accident on the Mugiemoss Road hasn’t helped, backing up traffic all the way to the notorious Haudagain roundabout, jamming up all four of its feeder lanes.
It’s like a snail’s race track at the best of times, now they are gridlocked and the thirty minute trip looks more like it’s going to take forty-five at the very least.
“Panicking won’t get us there any quicker,” Grace tells herself. “Try and relax. Slip back to the garden. Find Colin. Keep him calm. He’ll be scared to death.”
She finds Colin curled up on the floor in the corner of the hut, arms wrapped around his head, rocking back and forth, murmuring and whimpering.
She gets down with him and puts her arms around him. “It’s alright, Colin, I’m here, sweetheart. Everything’s going to be alright. Look at me.”
She takes his hands and eases his arms away from his head, revealing the face of a man terrified beyond reason, eyes wide and gleaming, pupils like dark caves.
“It’s just like you said,” he says, the words carried on racking gulps. “They’re going to burn out my brain.”
“No they’re not. Everything’s going to be okay. Just hold on to me and you’ll be fine. I promise you. You’ll be okay.”
Oh how she wishes she could believe her own words.
Colin gives a little whine. “Help me, Grace. I’m scared.”
She tightens her hold. “I know. I’m on my way. I’ll be there with you. Just as soon as–”
“I need you now–”
“I’ll be there soon.”
I’m going to be too late!
“It’s too late,” he says. “I don’t feel too good. I’m coming apart.”
“You’re okay. Keep talking to me.”
“It’s happening now. I feel weird, like I’m floating …”
“That’s just the anaesthetic. Don’t fight it.”
“Where are you, Grace? They’re doing something.” He grips hold of her hands. “Something’s happening! Something cold … against my head–. Oh God I’m so scared! Help me, Grace. Please!”
“Hold on, Colin! Hold on to me!”
The grip on her hands is like a vice and she can feel the bones scraping over one another. The pain gruesome. She ignores it. Colin’s face distorts into a mask of agony, eyes screwed tight shut, mouth wide open, emitting a cry that cuts through
to her soul.
“Graaayyyyyyce!”
And he is gone. Vanished. Blinked out, leaving behind only the screaming in her ears and the pain in her crushed fingers, her arms extended, clutching at fresh air.
“Colin?” She crawls into the empty space he just occupied. “Colin! Come back! CO-LIN!”
Nothing remains but a smell of burning metal in a void of silence in which she feels her heart contract and the light withdraw from the world. Her head is pounding and her chest aches because she has forgotten to breathe, and it takes her a moment to realise … she is still in Colin’s shack.
If the shot of electricity forced through Colin’s brain had scrambled his mind, short circuited his synapses, rerouted his signals, this place should no longer exist. It was his creation right down to the last blade of grass and so logically, without him to maintain it, it should be gone. But it isn’t, which means that Colin’s subconscious must still be working at some level.
At first glance everything looks as it should be, only without Colin. She throws open the door and steps outside.
Not quite as it should be.
The change is subtle, but definitely there. Colours are not quite so vivid, washed into an insipid sepia tone, like an antique photograph, everything a little blurred around the edges, out of focus. The tree trunks don’t seem quite so solid and the petals on the flowers are faded, their perfume gone. A deathly silence hangs. No singing birds, no buzzing insects, just the sound of her own heartbeat in her ears.
Calling out for Colin in case he is somewhere else in the gardens, she runs the whole way to the gate, heaving it open and throwing herself through it and jolting herself back into her own reality, to see the driver watching her through the rear view mirror. “You okay, hen?”
“Erm… yeah,” she says. “I just nodded off there for a minute.”
“You were making … noises.”
“Sorry. Bad dream. Where are we?”
“Bucksburn. Should make good progress now we’re out of the traffic.”
Friday afternoon at Pelham Chase, and there is no visiting and knowing the cab won’t even get past the main gate, Grace instructs the driver to pull up at the kerb a few yards past the entrance.
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