Rachel's Holiday
Page 45

‘Er, that’s right,’ I backtracked hastily. ‘I meant to say Luke stole from The Blind Man’s Fiddle, a bar on West 60th Street where he worked.’
‘Aaaahhh,’ they breathed. ‘From The Blind Man’s Fiddle.’
A close run thing. They turned to each other and nodded reassuringly, ‘From the Blind Man’s Fiddle. From.’
I had spent the afternoon with Celine, in the cosy nurses’ room. Despite the cosiness of the room, the benign, motherly presence of Celine and the staggering array of chocolate biscuits, I was almost hysterical with agitation. Suffering the agonies of the damned as I wondered what else Luke had put on the questionnaire. He knew far too much about me.
‘Have you seen it?’ I asked Celine, as my heart banged in my chest.
‘No.’ She smiled.
I didn’t know whether or not to believe her.
‘If you have seen it, please, please tell me what he’s written,’ I implored. ‘It’s important, this is my life we’re talking about.’
‘I haven’t seen it,’ she said mildly.
She doesn’t understand, I thought in mute frustration. She has no idea how important this is.
‘What do people normally put in them?’ I asked tremulously. ‘Is it usually terrible stuff?’
‘Sometimes,’ she said. ‘If the client has done terrible things.’
Despair and nausea filled me.
‘Cheer up,’ she said. ‘It can’t be that bad, have you murdered anyone?’
‘No,’ I snorted.
‘Well then.’ She smiled.
‘When will I be allowed to see it?’ I asked.
‘That’s a decision for Josephine. If she thinks it’s pertinent to your recovery she may read it out in group and…’
‘Read it out in GROUP?’ I shrieked. ‘In front of the others?’
‘It wouldn’t be much of a group if it was only you, now, would it?’ Celine said with another of her warm, yet completely impartial, smiles.
Panic bubbled up and fizzed over.
No bloody way would I be sticking around to be subjected to such treatment!
But I remembered that Dr Billings had said the gates were locked. It was true. The day I’d arrived Dad had had to introduce himself over an intercom before they opened them. And the walls were high. Far too high for a clumsy lump like me to climb.
How, in the name of Jesus, did I end up in this situation? I wondered. This must be just how Brian Keenan and John McCarthy felt when they found themselves chained to a radiator in a concrete basement in an unfashionable part of Beirut.
‘It’s not that bad,’ Celine said, as if she really believed it. She gave a comforting smile that did nothing to comfort me.
‘What do you mean?’ I almost shouted. ‘This is the worst thing that has ever happened to me!’
‘Aren’t you lucky then that you’ve had such a worry-free life?’ Celine said.
I couldn’t get it through to her how truly catastrophic this was.
My skin goosepimpled every time I thought of the questionnaire being read aloud to the other people in group. I would have given anything to know what Luke had written.
Or would I?
Did I really want to hear Luke condemning me?
I couldn’t win. It was agonizing not knowing, but it would be excruciating if I did. I knew I’d read it with my face almost turned away, wincing with each cruel word.
I would have killed for a mood alterer. Anything. It didn’t have to be Valium. A bottle of brandy would have done.
In mad agitation, I made to get up and go to confront Dr Billings and insist that he read it to me.
‘Sit down,’ Celine ordered, suddenly very firm.
‘Wha… at?’
‘Sit down, this time you won’t be able to bully your way into getting what you want,’ she said.
I was dazed by the implication that I’d been a bully on other occasions.
‘You’re too used to instant gratification,’ she went on. ‘It’ll do you good to wait.’
‘So you have seen this questionnaire?’
‘No, I haven’t.’
‘Well, why are you talking about me and instant gratification?’
‘Everyone who comes in here has spent most of their adult life seeking instant gratification,’ she said, reverting to her mild, motherly manner again. ‘It’s a fundamental part of the addict’s personality. You’re no different. Although I know you’d like to think you are.’
Fucking, smug bitch, I thought, with a flash of hatred. I’ll make her sorry. Before I leave here, I’ll have her on her knees apologizing for being so mean to me.
‘But by the time you leave you’ll be agreeing,’ she smiled.
I stared sullenly at my lap.
‘Have another cup of tea,’ she offered. ‘And some biscuits.’
In silence I accepted them. I wanted to show her how disgusted I was by not eating a thing, but a chocolate biscuit is a chocolate biscuit.
‘How are you now?’ Celine asked after a while.
‘I’m cold,’ I said.
‘It’s the shock,’ said Celine.
I was pleased with that. It meant it was OK to feel as dreadful as I did.
‘I’m sleepy,’ I said a while later.
‘It’s the shock,’ Celine repeated.
Again, I nodded with satisfaction. Correct answer.
‘It’s your body trying to cope with something unpleasant,’ she continued. ‘Normally you’d use a drug to get you through the pain.’
Sorry, I thought, I’ll have to deduct points for that.
But I didn’t react because I reckoned it was her job to say it. For a few minutes, I ate my HobNobs and drank my tea and I thought I’d reached a plateau of calm. But as I finished the last biscuit the churning anguish returned as bad as ever. I was baffled by Luke’s cruelty. It stung like a slap on sunburnt skin. First he ditched me, then he got me into tons of trouble. Why?
And that wasn’t all I had to contend with, I realized, shifting my focus to the first shock I’d had. That the Cloisters wasn’t the celebrity-packed, luxury hotel I’d expected. In the great horror of the Luke questionnaire drama, I’d briefly forgotten about it.
I was in a dirty, shabby dump of a treatment centre full of ugly, fat, rough alcoholics and drug addicts. There was no longer any celebrity sheen, no gymnasium gloss to distract from what the Cloisters really was.