In The Garden Of Stones (30 page)

“
Who indeed.”

He
sighs. “I know I’m going to regret it sooner rather than later, but
I’m going put my job, my reputation, my very sanity on the line and
give you the benefit of the doubt. I won’t deny something peculiar
happened in that room, that something very, very strange is going
on between you two, but as you don’t seem to have done Colin any
harm–”

A shrill
urgent peeping breaks into his speech and he swears as he takes a
small electronic device, a pager, from his breast pocket. He reads
it and frowns.

“
Ach! Bloody staff meeting in the dining room. Should have
been there ten minutes ago. I’ve got to go.”

“
And so do I,” says Grace. “I’ve got a bus to
catch.”

They
walk together back down to the foyer.

“
I told Colin I’d come and visit him again soon,” she says.
“Perhaps in a day or two? Thursday is good for me? Will that be
alright?”

“
Should be. Only limitations are on Fridays. That’s when the
consultants make their rounds before they swan off to the golf for
the weekend. Make your intentions known at the desk before you go.
Get it down in writing and you should have no trouble getting in.
If you do, I’m on duty ten ‘til six. Ask for me and I’ll make sure
you get in. After that I’m off until the following Wednesday, if
the professional standards panel don’t call me in before
then.”

She
waves a dismissive hand. “Ah, sod them. What do they know? What
time do you have lunch here?”

“
Er .. .half twelve-ish.”

“
Great. I’ll bring a picnic. Colin would like that. He’s
looking a bit on the thin side. He needs feeding up. I’ll ask if
it’s okay for me to come then. Don’t go away.”

Before
Gibbs can say a word, Grace strides over to the desk to speak to
the receptionist, hands over her card, exchanges a few words, and a
few keystrokes and a nod of thanks later, she has her card back and
a wide smile on her face.

“
Thursday it is,” she says.

Gibbs
walks with her through the foyer and out through the sliding glass
doors. Once outside, she bobs up on her tiptoes and pecks a light
kiss to his cheek.

“
Thank you Simon, you’ve been an absolute if somewhat
befuddled angel.”

With
lightness in both her heart and step, she walks away down the
driveway toward the main road to catch the bus back into town, and
Gibbs watches her on her way, shaking his head.

“
As crazy as a bag of squirrels.”

He looks
down at his trainers, then up at the sky. “You had a hand in this,
didn’t you Big Man? Give you a giggle did it? Well done, mate. Well
done.”

He turns
back into the building to attend his tedious staff meeting,
deciding on the way that it might be best for all concerned if he
says nothing to anyone about what he witnessed during Grace’s visit
with Colin McLeod, or what he and Grace talked about afterwards,
lest he be given a matching backward fastening jacket and take a
ride in the same white van to La La land with her.

“
Make that two steps beyond crazy.”

Chapter 30

“
It was wonderful to see you yesterday,” says Colin, as he
and Grace stroll through the herb garden. “Ye’re much prettier in
the flesh. I like the colour of yer hair. Canna say I’ve known many
redheads afair.”

“
This is Scotland you divot. Every other person here is a
redhead.”

“
Ach, ginger’s more orange than red. It doesn’t count. Yours
is nice. It suits you.”

“
Thank you, but don’t get used to it. Next week it might be
blue … or green.” A pause. “You could have warned me.”

“
Fit ‘boot?”

“
Being so thin and pale, all those tubes and … so frail
looking. I hardly recognised you.”

“
I’m sorry if I didn’t live up to your
expectations.”

“
E
xpectation is the root of all heartache, so wrote William
Shakespeare,” she says. “And I have adopted those wise words as one
of my primary life rules. I have none of the former, thus sparing
myself the latter.”

“
And how is that working out for you?”

She
sweeps her hand across the upright purple heads of the lavender,
releasing their perfume.

“
If it’s a nice day on Thursday when I come and see you
again, I’m going to ask Simon if I can take you outside. You need
to get some sun on your skin.”

“
Simon?”

“
Charge Nurse Gibbs. He’s that nice young man who’s been
looking after you, the one who let me in to see you even though he
could have lost his job.”

“
Och, aye. He’s okay. Disna treat me like a
cabbage.”

“
Nobody is treating you like a cabbage, Colin. They are all
doing their best for you.”

“
And it would make their job a lot easier if I’d co-operate?
Is that what you’re saying?”

“
Your words, not mine.”

He
pauses to pull off a stalk of rosemary and holds it to his nose,
taking in its fragrance. “I dinna ken why they bother,” he says.
“There’s far mair trying cases than me that deserve their support.
I’m jest–” He shrugs. “I’m jest a lazy selfish bastard who taks up
their time and resources.” He sticks the sprig of rosemary in his
breast pocket. “Be better for all concerned if I made a quick and
dignified exit and saved them all their trouble.”

“
Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t discharge yourself. Who
would look after you, because you certainly can’t take care of
your– Oh, you mean–?”

“
Aye. I do.”

“
No. Absolutely not! Don’t even think about it.”

“
Why no? You did. What’s sauce for the goose.”

“
Totally different.”

“
Why? The second that bomb went off and ripped me apart, the
rest of my life was taken out of my hands. One false step, one
split second and any control over ma ain future went up in smoke
and blood and shattered bones. What’s left is the best it’s ever
gain ta be from now on, with no end in sight except a pine
box.”

“
Don’t talk like that. There’s always–”

“
Hope? Don’t make me laugh. Ye’ve seen fit I’m like, fit
I’ve bin turned inta, that empty mindless shell in the chair, a
limbless useless lump of burned flesh being fed by a tube up its
nose, another up its dick to piss inta. Wearing nappies ta crap
inta like a baby. It’s never gain ta get any better, Grace.
I’m
no gain ta get any
better. The only time that body is gain ta leave that place is feet
first … only it doesn’t have any–!” He pulls his mouth into a thin
line beneath which his chin trembles.
“Don’t talk to me aboot
hope.”

His eyes
shine with tears. Too proud to shed them, he dashes them away with
the back of his hand and marches away, swearing. “Why the fuck
couldn’t I have bin blown to pieces like the others?”

Grace
gapes after him, speechless. When she recovers her voice, it is
angry and she has forgotten everything the books and Dr Mal told
her.

Don’t be critical or negative, cast no blame. Always try to
be positive...

She chases after Colin and grabs him again. “How dare you
say such things! How DARE you give up like that? And stop referring
to yourself as an
it
.
You’re not an
it
,
and like it or not, you are still alive.”

“
No' any more I’m no'. What I am now is a statistic. A
casualty. Deid but no deid. A number, a tick in a Government
box–”

“
Bloody rubbish! You are a living breathing human being, in
a poor state at the moment, granted, but that could change with a
little work. You have to make the most of what you still have. You
can still see, hear, think, speak, you have both your arms and
hands, and fully functioning innards. Yes, some pieces are missing,
some damaged, but not the parts that count. This–” She touches a
finger to his forehead. “And this.” She lays her hand on his chest,
at his heart. “As long as you’ve still got those, everything else
we can deal with.
Nothing
is impossible.”

Silence.

“
Colin?”

He’s not
looking at her, choosing to focus his eyes somewhere over her head
and away to the middle distance instead, where her words cannot
reach.

“
You’re not even listening to me, are you? Fine. Okay. If
you want to cripple yourself with self pity as well as your
injuries, which I have to say, are not as serious as some I’ve
seen, you go ahead and choose not to live. I’ve seen pictures of
some poor buggers who are in a far worse state than you. Young men
who have been blown limb from limb, blinded, disfigured, burned
down to the bone, but they–” She pokes him sharply in the chest.
“They
HAVE
NOT
given
up–” Poke. “They’ve fought back and made an effort to make the most
of their lives. They have families–” Poke. “–children–” Poke.
“–made fresh starts.” Poke. “Fought back against tremendous odds,
and you can too. You’ve got off lightly all things considered. A
lot of your problems are of your own creation. Hiding away here and
absenting yourself from reality is a coward’s way out and it’s not
doing you any favours at all, in fact, it’s probably making matters
a whole heap worse.”

Colin
maintains his distant stare, but from the barely discernible
twitching of his tense jaw she thinks something might be getting
through, and even though tears of frustration are close and her
voice is shaking, she presses home her point.

“
If
you
can’t make the smallest effort to try and come to terms
with what’s happened to you, to face up to how you feel instead of
running here to hide and hoping it will go away in the meantime,
why should anyone else? You have to acknowledge your problems, not
deny them. Nobody else is going to do it for you. The first step
towards recovery from anything, drug addiction, alcoholism, being
disabled, is acceptance, and only you can take that step. All you
have to do is say two little words, Colin.
Help. Me.
Once you have, you’ll have all you
need to help you move on.”

Silence.

“
Right, I’ve said my piece and now I’m going home to feed my
cat.” She turns, takes two steps, then comes right back. “But
before I go, I have just one more thing to say. Look at
me–”

She
grabs the front of his sweater and gives it a shake. “Look - at -
me - Colin.”

His eyes
shift focus onto her.

“
I might be a miserable, selfish, suicidal, manic depressive
plagued with obsessive compulsive disorder and panic attacks,” she
says. “But I don’t make an issue of it. I’m dealing with my
problems and doing okay thank you very much. It’s been hard going,
it’s going to be hard for a long time to come. That’s why I come
here, to help me deal with things. I don’t come to wallow in self
pity or look for sympathy. I don’t need either, but if it’s what
you’re after, tough, don’t look to me for it. Get a dictionary
instead. You’ll find it between shit and syphilis, where it
belongs. So until you’ve decided what it is you
do
want, I’ll bid you goodbye, Captain
McLeod.”

She lets
go of his sweater, turns and walks away from him, gravel crunching
under her shoes, willing with every step for him to call her
back.

Colin
doesn’t see her go. He can’t. His eyes are so full of tears that
everything is blurred and out of focus.

When he
realises she’s not there any more, it’s too late. He puts his hand
to his chest where she poked him, a dull knife cutting into his
heart, and deep within him something hot stirs.

It
writhes and squirms in him, tendrils of rage reaching out to take
in fear and fury and wrath, and his breathing becomes ragged and
laboured as heat builds within him.

And then
the hot thing inside him grows claws and drives them deep within
his reason, tearing at it, shredding it, forcing his hands to
snatch up his scythe from where it rests against a rowan sapling,
and with a roar like a wounded beast, swing it and decapitate his
first victim.

Grace
knows she’s in the wrong and feels terribly guilty about what she
said to Colin, ripping into him and lecturing him like she did, but
it had to be said, even though it went against all the advice she’s
been given, and handed to him on a plate every cause he would need
to never want to see or talk to her again.

Her
relationship with Colin McLeod is over and it’s all her
fault.

“
I won’t see or hear from him again, won’t be going back to
the garden of stones. Something else in my life I’ve well and truly
buggered up.”

Why then
does she jump every time the phone in her hip pocket buzzes against
her like an angry wasp, slumping with despair to see it’s only a
text from Orange telling her she hasn’t set up her magic numbers
yet?

She is
sitting on the kitchen floor now staring at the device she has in
one hand while the other clutches onto the neck of a wine
bottle.