‘That’s what they all say.’
What a liar he was! He had a nerve expecting me to believe that even one of the inmates wouldn’t admit to being an alcoholic. It was as plain as the red bulbous noses on their broken-veined faces. But something was telling me that if I didn’t calm down and speak rationally to him, I would get nowhere.
‘Please listen,’ I said, in a much less hysterical tone of voice. ‘There’s no need for us to fall out over this. But I only agreed to come here because I thought it was like a health farm.’
He nodded. Encouraged, I continued.
‘And it’s not like a health farm, at all. When I signed that contract saying I’d stay for three weeks, I signed under false pretences, do you see? I should have told you that I wasn’t a drug addict, I can see that now.’ I pleaded at him. ‘And it was wrong of me to come just for the gym and stuff, but we all make mistakes.’
There was silence and I stared hopefully at him.
He finally spoke. ‘Rachel,’ he said, ‘contrary to what you think, it is my opinion and the opinion of other people that you, in fact, are an addict.’
The Birmingham Six flashed into my head. The Trial by Kafka. My life was taking on the appearance of a nightmare. I was being convicted without due process of law for a crime that I didn’t commit.
‘What other people?’ I asked.
Dr Billings waved yet another piece of paper. ‘This was faxed from New York half an hour ago. It’s from a…’ he paused and looked at the page ‘… a Mr Luke Costello, I believe you know him?’
My first thought was delight. Luke had faxed me! He was in contact, that must mean that he still loved me, that he’d changed his mind.
‘Can I see it?’ I held out my hand, my eyes shining.
‘Not yet’
‘But it’s for me. Give me my letter.’
‘It’s not for you,’ said Dr Billings. ‘It’s for Josephine, your counsellor.’
‘What are you fucking talking about?’ I spluttered. ‘Why would Luke be writing to Josephine?’
‘It’s Mr Costello’s replies to a questionnaire we faxed to him on Friday’
‘What kind of questionnaire?’ My heart was pounding.
‘A questionnaire about you and your drug usage.’
‘My drug usage!’ I was hot and shaky. ‘What about his fucking drug usage? Did you ask him about that? Well did you?’
‘Please sit down, Rachel,’ said Billings, in a monotone.
‘He takes loads of drugs!’ I shrieked, even though he didn’t.
‘The thing is, Rachel – no, please sit down – the thing is, Rachel, is that Mr Costello isn’t the one in a treatment centre for drug addiction.’
He paused. ‘And you are.’
‘But I shouldn’t fucking BE HERE!’ I was in despair. ‘It was a FUCKING MISTAKE.’
‘It most certainly wasn’t a mistake,’ said Billings. ‘Haven’t you given any thought to the fact that you nearly died when you took that overdose?’
‘I didn’t nearly die,’ I scoffed.
‘You did.’
Did I?
‘It. Is. Not. Normal. Behaviour,’ he spelt out. ‘To find yourself in hospital having your stomach pumped because you took a life-threatening amount of drugs.’
‘It was an accident,’ I shot back at him, barely able to believe how dense he was.
‘What does it say about your life?’ he asked. ‘What does it say about your self-respect? When you find yourself in that position? Because you did it, Rachel, remember. You put those pills in your mouth, no one forced you.’
I sighed. It was pointless trying to argue with him.
‘And these replies from Mr Costello confirm what we already knew. That you have a chronic drug problem.’
‘Oh please.’ I tossed my head. ‘Lighten up, for God’s sake.’
‘According to this you often took cocaine before you went to work in the morning, is that right?’
I felt myself shrink, and mad anger rushed through me at Luke. The fucking bastard! How could he betray me like this? How could he hurt me so? He used to love me, why had it all gone so wrong? My nose began to quiver with the onset of tears.
‘I’m not going to answer that question,’ I managed. ‘You know nothing about my life, about how hard my job was.’
‘Rachel,’ he said gently. ‘No one has to take drugs, no one’s job is that bad.’
I should have been thumping the table and standing up for myself, but I wasn’t able. I was too devastated by Luke’s betrayal. Later the anger would return, and I would vow over and over again to get him back. I’d put his limited edition Led Zeppelin Houses of the Holy into the microwave where it would warp into Daliesque uselessness, I promised. I’d tear up the napkin that Dave Gilmour from Pink Floyd once signed for him. I’d throw his biker boots into the Hudson. While he was still wearing them.
But for the time being, I was a limp rag.
In a good cop/bad cop move, Billings sent for Celine, the nurse. And she took me into the nurses’ room and made me a cup of sweet tea, which I didn’t dash back into her face and which, to my surprise, I drank and felt comforted by.
24
‘You see, Luke isn’t a very nice person,’ I was saying. ‘He was always shallow and disloyal. Quite evil, actually.’
It was later in the day of the joint Questionnaire/No Gym disaster, and I was in the dining-room surrounded by inmates who hung on my every word. I was bitterly glad to have a platform to trash Luke on. And trash him I did.
I didn’t so much imply that Luke was a thief, as just plain say it. What did it matter? None of these people would ever meet him anyway. Of course, Luke hadn’t really stolen the money from his six-year-old niece’s money box. The money she’d been saving up to buy a puppy. In fact, Luke didn’t even have any nieces. Or nephews. But who cared?
I went too far, though, when I said he’d stolen a blind man’s fiddle. The lads looked at me suspiciously and gave each other sidelong glances. ‘He stole a blind man’s fiddle?’ Mike asked. ‘Are you sure? Didn’t that Irish saint fella do that? What was that his name was…?’
‘Matt Talbot,’ someone supplied.
‘That’s right,’ said Mike. ‘Matt Talbot. He stole a blind man’s fiddle to get money for drink when he was still on the piss.’