A Spot of Bother - Mark Haddon [96]
She no longer understood the men in her family.
She sat up and blew her nose on a tissue from the box on the bedside table.
Though, to be frank, she wasn’t sure that she ever had.
She remembered Jamie at five. Going off to his room “to be private.” Even now they would be talking sometimes and it was like talking to someone in Spain. You got the basics. The time of day. Directions to the beach. But there was a whole level you were missing because you didn’t speak the language properly.
And it might have been all right if she could just give him a cuddle sometimes. But he wasn’t the cuddling sort. No more than George was.
She walked over to the window and pulled the curtains back and looked down into the darkened garden. There was a tent somewhere in the shadows under the trees at the far end.
The idea of swapping places with Ray seemed suddenly very attractive, being down there in a sleeping bag with Jacob.
Away from the house. Away from her family. Away from everything.
77
When George came round they’d gone. Jean, Katie, Jamie, Jacob, Ray. He was rather relieved, to be honest. He was exceedingly tired, and his family could be hard work. Especially en masse.
He was beginning to think that he could do with a spot of reading, and wondering how he might be able to get his hands on a decent magazine, when the curtains were opened by a large man in a battered canvas jacket. He was entirely bald and carrying a clipboard.
“Mr. Hall?” He rotated a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles up onto his very shiny head.
“Yes.”
“Joel Forman. Psychiatrist.”
“I thought you chaps went home at five o’clock,” said George.
“That would be lovely, wouldn’t it.” He flicked through some papers on the clipboard. “Sadly, people only get crazier as the day wears on, in my experience. Self-medication, usually. Though I’m sure that doesn’t apply to you.”
“Certainly not,” said George. “Though I’ve been taking some antidepressants.” He decided not to mention the codeine and the whiskey.
“What flavor?”
“Flavor?”
“What are they called?”
“Lustral,” said George. “They make me feel absolutely terrible, to be honest.”
Dr. Forman was one of those men who did humor without smiling. He looked like a villain from a James Bond film. It was disconcerting.
“Weeping, sleeplessness and anxiety,” said Dr. Forman. “Always makes me laugh when I read that under possible side effects. I’d chuck them, frankly.”
“OK,” said George.
“You were doing some amateur surgery, I hear.”
George explained, slowly and carefully, in a measured voice with a little self-deprecating humor thrown in, how he had ended up in hospital.
“Scissors. The practical approach,” said Dr. Forman. “And how are you now?”
“I feel better than I have done in quite a long time,” said George.
“Good,” said Dr. Forman. “But you’ll still be seeing the psychologist at your GP’s surgery, won’t you.” This was not phrased as a question.
“I will.”
“Good,” said Dr. Forman again, jabbing the paper on the clipboard with the end of his pen in a little rounding-off flourish. “Good.”
George relaxed a little. His examination was over, and unless he was very much mistaken, he had passed. “Only a week ago I was thinking I could do with a stay in some kind of institution. Rest from the world. That kind of thing.”
Dr. Forman did not react at first and George wondered whether he had given away a piece of information which was going to change Dr. Forman’s assessment. Like reversing over the examiner’s foot after a driving test.
Dr. Forman put the clipboard back under his arm. “I’d stay away from psychiatric hospitals if I were you.” He clicked his heels together. It was part changing of the guard, part Wizard of Oz. George wondered if Dr. Forman was himself a little unhinged. “Talk to your psychologist. Eat properly. Get to bed early. Do some regular exercise.”
“Which reminds me,” said George. “Do you know