In The Garden Of Stones (32 page)

In time his crying subsides into choked gasps. He sits up,
clears
his
throat,
and
releases her from his clasp to g
rind his fists into
red, swollen
eyes
. In
silence he clambers off the cot and limps over to the wash bowl at
the window.

While he
splashes his face with cold water, Grace massages her fingers,
urging blood back into their paper whiteness, turning them pink and
blotchy, the fingertips fizzing with pins and needles as the blood
flow returns.

“
I’m sorry,” he says, hanging the rough towel back on its
nail. “That wasn’t a very manly thing to do.” He shoogles the
kettle. “I’ll make some tea, shall I? I think we could both use
some.”

He makes a brave effort of trying to smile, and fails. The
muscles just won’t work and he gives up, too fatigued to try
again
. He
can wipe away the dirt and the tear stains, but not the deep
haunting sadness in his eyes. It’s going to take more than a weep
and a cuddle and a cup of tea to do that.

Chapter 32

Such a
massive jolt to Colin’s psychological state is sure to have
impacted on his physical one, Grace knows, as it did to her when
her stress level built to an intolerable level, and so it comes as
no surprise when she gets a phone call from Simon Gibbs the next
day informing her that Colin is exhibiting some worrying
symptoms.

“
He has a high temperature and everything that goes with it
– rigours, hypertension and agitation. With his immune system not
being quite tip top, we’ve taken some precautionary bloods to rule
out infection. There is a pretty nasty summer cold doing the rounds
so there’s always a chance it could be that, but I’ve been around
cases like this long enough to know what’s really wrong. Ever heard
of stress fever?”

“
Yes, I have,” she says. “I’ve had it myself more than a few
times.”

“
So you know that a few days rest in bed with peace and
quiet, paracetamol and no undue stresses should see him
right.”

“
Yes. Would a visit do some good?”

“
If it were up to me, I’d say yes, come, calm him down … but
it’s not my decision to make. Although, you don’t have to actually
come here to do that, do you?”

“
No.”

“
You know, I don’t think I’ll ever get my head around
that.”
Sigh
. “We’ll keep a close eye on him here, don’t
worry.”

“
I know you will.”

“
And you’ll look out for him … wherever he is?”

“
Yes.”

“
If you can put off your trip out here until next Saturday,
I’ll get a visit penned in–”

“
Thank you.”

“
I’m sorry to mess you about, but … you know–”

“
Don’t worry about it, it’s not your fault. I can wait a few
days more. Thanks for letting me know.”

“
I’ll let you know if anything changes.”

“
Yes. Please do. Goodbye, and thank you.”

She
hangs up and looks across at Colin, who is holding up a pair of her
stark white Markies knickers, more functional than frivolous,
stretching the elastic at the waist.

“
Fit in the name o’ the wee man are these?”

“
Gimmethose!” She reaches for them and he snatches them
away, thrusting them behind his back.

“
My granny had some jest like these,” he says. “Huge great
bags they were. She used ta call them her harvest
festivals.”

“
Huh?

“
All is safely gathered in?” He lets the elastic twang back
to its original shape. “Mind you, she was the size of a barn. These
must hang like a hammock on your skinny backside,
though.”

“
Cheeky bugger. Put them down, or I’ll make
you
wear
them.”

He drops
them back onto the laundry pile as if they are on fire and thrusts
his hands deep into his pockets.

“
That was all very cryptic,” he says.

“
What was?”

“
On the phone. I take it that was your new best friend Simon
Gibbs. Is the corpse ready for burial yet?”

“
Soon will be if you don’t stop being so awful. No, he was
just confirming what we already know, that you are a bit poorly and
you’ll be better soon. Nothing to worry about unduly. You’ve
developed what’s known as a stress fever. It’s not serious. It will
pass. Simon’s going to ensure you get plenty of fluids and
paracetamol and bed rest, so you are excused physical therapy for
the next couple of days. You’re going to be just fine.”

“
Aye, that’ll be shining. Proper pair of Florence
Nightingales aren’t ye?”

“
There’s no need to be sarcy. We’re just looking out for
you. Somebody has to.”

He
smiles self consciously. “Aye, I know.” He frowns.
“What?”

“
Something else I’ve done to you,” she says, gathering up
her discarded panties, along with two other pairs and a couple of
virginal white bras, and stuffing them all into the top drawer of a
set of four – out of sight, out of temptation.

“
I got you all upset and angry by saying those hurtful
things.”

“
You told the truth.”

“
And pushed your stress level off the scale, and look what’s
happened. You had a breakdown, the garden is wrecked and now you’re
sick.”

“
Could all be a coincidence.”

“
No, it’s not. The physical and the psychological are
inextricably linked, one body one mind. Stress one and it shows in
the other, and vice versa. I should know.” She puts neatly ironed
and folded t-shirts into the next drawer. “Maybe I should stay away
from you in future, so it won’t happen again.”

Colin
seizes her by the elbows. “No! Don’t ever think of doing that. You
can’t.”

“
It’s what you’ve always wanted–”

“
I’ve changed ma mind.”

He locks
eyes with her for a moment, the look intense, pleading, needy. Who
is she kidding? She couldn’t stay away from him if she wanted
to.

“
Okay,” she says, and gifts him a small smile of
reassurance. She then returns to sorting her laundry.

“
So, have you ventured here for any particular reason, apart
from rummaging through my pants?”

“
No' really,” Colin says, “apart from feeling a bit under
the weather and looking for a bit of sympathy.”

“
Dictionary, remember?”

“
Didn’t have one ta hand.”

Colin
watches Grace work at hanging shirts and pairing shoes neatly in
the closet.

“
Okay, that’s me done,” she says, and scoots onto the bed,
patting the cover beside her. “Come sit with me where it’s
comfy.”

Colin
climbs on beside her and she snuggles up close to him.

“
I hereby call to order the inaugural meeting of the mutual
misery society,” she says. “There’s a special offer on today for
new members, a buy-one-get-one-free comfort package. We can have
one each.” She leans back against the headboard. “What shall we
talk about? Anything you like. Got plans for the
holidays?”

Colin
sucks in a deep breath, shrugs to the ceiling, and blows out a
steady stream of air.

“
Or we could just sit here in companionable silence and
watch the clock go round,” she says.

Colin
closes his eyes and sighs. “We always seem to be talking about me,
doing things for me,” he says. “How about we talk about you for a
change?”

“
You couldn’t have picked a more boring subject if you’d
tried, but if that’s what you want to do, what do you want to
know?”

He takes
hold of her left wrist, slender and fragile in his large hand,
eases up the sleeve of her sweater and sweeps his thumb over a
criss-crossing network of fine silver lines. “I noticed these
before, but didn’t like to ask.”

“
Oh those,” Grace says dismissively. “I tripped over and
fell on a bag of razor blades. Careless, huh?”

Colin
tugs the sleeve down, stretching the cuff over the fleshy pad at
the base of her thumb, hiding everything. “Sorry. Didn’t mean ta
intrude.”

Silence.

Grace
pushes the sleeve back up as far as her elbow. “I don’t notice them
anymore,” she says. “They are practically invisible unless you get
the light just right.”

She
holds her arm up, turning the inside toward the window, changing
the angle until a series of parallel lines spring into stark
relief.

Colin
takes her arm and lets his fingertip trace the lines, the touch so
delicate as to be barely there. “I can feel them,” he says. “Like
little train tracks. Straight lines across here; little bumps here
and here where the stitches went in.”

Once
again she notices his accent has mellowed, as it tends to when he
risks lowering his defences enough to allow a glimpse of his caring
side.

“
You used to cut yourself didn’t you?” he says.

She nods
slowly.

“
Why would you do something like that to yourself? Spoil
yourself?”

“
I started when I was about sixteen,” she says. “There were
all kinds of things going on all at once – important exams, about
to start college, my mum being… mum, raging teenage hormones, you
name it. A million things piling up and threatening to overwhelm
me, and I knew if I let them, control of my own life would slip
inexorably away and I’d never get it back. The pain, the blood, it
helped me focus,
acting like a kind of safety valve,
releasing all the bad
things
building up inside me like pus in a putrid boil. It would
work for a while, and then the cycle would start all over again.
Once I got to be a fully fledged adult, however, I was expected to
behave like one, which of course brought a whole new raft of
pressures to bear, and the pain and blood routine didn’t work any
more. Eventually I got to the stage where I couldn’t take any more
and there was only one thing left to do”

“
What did you do?”

“
The first time? I kept on cutting. Slashed
open my wrists with a kitchen knife. Didn’t work, obviously,
because I didn’t know you are supposed to cut down from the elbow
and then across a few times to open up the veins. That way you
bleed out really quickly. Messy, but effective. I’d only managed
about half a pint before the vessels spasmed and the bloodflow
stopped… and it really hurt.”

Colin raises the scar ravaged wrist to his lips and kisses it
gently. “Go on,” he says.

“
The second time, this time, I went for
something less dramatic, and less painful. Pills and vodka. Slip
quietly away. No trouble to anyone. Except that didn’t work either.
I puked a fair number of them up on Alec’s fancy Turkish rug. I
hadn’t absorbed enough to kill me, just enough to knock me
unconscious and give me a seizure. Woke up in hospital three days
later and then fell under the care of Malcolm Pettit, my new
therapist. Two failures. Something else to be added to a very long
list of things Grace Dove fucked up.”

“
When did this happen?”

“
Coincidentally, about the same time as you
slipped into your current catatonic episode.”

Colin frowns, considering. “Do you … do you think the two are
connected?” he says. “That your seizure and my … difficulties–” He
brings his hands together in a silent clap.

“
Brought us together?” she says. “Yes. I
do. Absolutely. Your condition’s got them all scratching their
heads by the way. You’ve given them a real puzzler as to what to do
for the best to bring you out of it. When I told Simon that there
was nothing he
could
do, that you were taking a leave of absence in the
garden and you’ll be back when you jolly well feel like it, he
thought I’d gone completely off my trolley.” Sigh. “Unfortunately,
my therapist thinks so too.”

“
He wants you to stop the treatment, doesn’t he?” Colin
says. “Give up and walk away.”

“
Yes, but I’m not going to, because it’s not therapy any
more, at least not the way he intended it to be. It started out
that way even though in my heart of hearts I never thought anything
would come of it. I only went along with it because Mal was so keen
to try it, and because I didn’t really have any choice.”

“
And now?”

“
Now it’s much more than that … it’s been a lifesaver, and I
couldn’t have done it without you. If anything happens to you,
either here or … out there, if you die and I don’t have you on the
receiving end of my bitching and whining and moaning, then it’s
very likely I’ll end up back in the Psych ward, in the nice room
with no windows and the soft wallpaper, or throwing myself off the
North Sea ferry.”

Silence.

“
At least you have the wherewithal and the
opportunities available if and when you want,” Colin says. “I’ve
lost count of the number of times I’ve invited Death to come and
put me out of my misery. Pleaded with him to make one of the nurses
make a mistake with the drugs and overdose me. I’ll go willingly,
make it easy for Him, but He’s not interested. He’d rather take
those who don’t deserve to die, who don’t want to, those who fight
back. I think he likes the challenge. I’ve thought about all the
ways I could top maself, but without someone ta help me do it, I’m
gain nowhere. Nayb’dy’s gain ta risk prison by putting a pistol to
my head and putting a bullet in my brainpan are they? The simplest
way would be to starve myself to death, but I can’t even do that
when I’m being force fed. That’s how useless I
am.”