Dead Writers in Rehab. Paul Bassett Davies
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what room? And how do I know it’s four in the morning?
All I really know is that it’s very dark.
The darkness persisted.
Perhaps I’d gone blind, which had happened before. Sometimes I just assumed I’d gone blind, when there was another reason why I couldn’t see anything. On one occasion, several years ago, I opened my eyes to what seemed like darkness but was in fact a light so bright it was black. After a moment I realised I was lying on my back in a field looking up into the sun. Birds were singing and the meadow around me smelled sweet. I stood up carefully, checking for broken glass, and looked around. It was a lovely midsummer day somewhere in England. I was wearing a white tuxedo and a green bow tie. I appeared to be completely alone in the open, rolling countryside. Then I caught a faint bark of laughter and made out some little figures in the far distance, loading things into the back of a big truck. There must have been a road there.
I set off through wild grass that swished gently at my knees. I knew I was about to undergo a brutal transformation as my senses came to their senses. Sure enough, a thundering brandy-and-cocaine hangover, one of the meanest of the tribe, erupted inside me like an enraged alien foetus. Once the pain had settled down to an agonising throb data began to assemble itself.
I’d been at a wedding reception in the grounds of a big manor house that was presumably not far away, tucked into the undulating landscape, probably just over a slight rise to my left. There had been marquees and a stage with lighting and a PA system, which was probably what was being loaded into the truck in the distance. It was my first publisher’s second wedding. He was a Canadian who’d hit the UK just in time to surf the 1980s alternative comedy boom, and help some of the performers understand they could make a lot of money from a cheap book and still be terrifically alternative. Now, having divested himself of his first wife (the word ‘outgrown’ was used, earnestly by him, mordantly by her), he was marrying the posh, well-connected woman he’d been living with for a while. She was a nice, sensible type, pretty in a wispy blonde English way, but not as sexy as his personal assistant, who wasn’t a sensible type. She was the one he did drugs with and fucked in hotels when they went to literary festivals together. But he was an ambitious player in a fundamentally conservative industry, and when it came to getting married he made the obvious choice. The sexy assistant spent half the party in tears and the other half with me, doing coke in various places, the last of which was an elaborate temporary structure housing the women’s toilets. Like everything else at this wedding reception, it was the best that money could buy and it was cleaner and more attractive than many of the flats I’d lived in. We ended up in one of the cubicles, where she decided it was time for us to fulfil the sexual promise that had always simmered between us, despite her being in love with her boss. We were just getting into it when she changed her mind and decided that one more good, loud session of hysterical crying would do the trick for her. A guy we both knew was passing the toilets and heard her. He came in and found us half-dressed, me trying to do up my clothes, hers in disarray as she sank to the ground, howling with what the guy, who’d always fancied her himself, chose to interpret as trauma caused by my unwelcome sexual advances. I didn’t remember much after that, except for some shouting. In the morning, as I trudged through the field, I wondered what would happen when I got back to London. Nothing much, as it turned out. For a while I got a few more pitying looks than usual, but at that stage I was pretty much immune to anything more nuanced than a punch in the face.
Why was I now thinking about that incident from 20 years ago? I have a tendency to relate everything that happens to me to some specific disaster in the past. My third book was called Everything Reminds Me of Something Bad. It had been inspired by an experience I was having at the time with meat. I still have it. I always line my grill pan with tinfoil. And certain types of meat, especially lamb chops, produce a cloudy yellow fat that pools on the tin foil in a way that reminds me of how freebase cocaine – and heroin, if it’s pure enough – will liquefy when you chase it down a strip of foil with a lighter under it. For two or three years after I’d given up drugs for the final time – the final time – the trigger was so powerful that I had to call my sponsor at NA, who was a sweet, long-suffering man. After a while he got used to it, and if I called him any time after six in the evening he’d pick up the phone and ask me how the lamb chops were doing.
Triggers. There’s always something, even if you’re not conscious of it. And now I thought I knew why the memory of that wedding reception had been playing out in my mind so vividly. Even though I was still in the dark, literally and metaphorically, I was convinced that whatever room or space or place I’d woken up in was somewhere in the countryside. That pigeon outside wasn’t a pigeon. It was a dove.
From the desk of Dr Hatchjaw.
Re: Patient FJ.
Admission Note 1(b).
The patient FJ has emerged from the primary stage of detoxification, during which he remained asleep for most of the time, with sporadic episodes of wakefulness when he exhibited signs of confusion, melancholia, hysteria, disorientation, incoherence, anxiety, fatigue, mania, depression and incontinence. He appeared unwilling to prolong these episodes, and relapsed into unconsciousness. This may suggest a tendency to regression and womb fixation. Even at this early stage it is clear that he uses avoidance as a denial tactic. He appears docile.
We may assume that he remains ignorant of his status and whereabouts. He has not yet opened the window in his room, or the curtains, and may be unaware that the room has a window, or curtains, or that he is in a room as, at the last observation, he was found to be lying underneath his bed. This may also explain his delusion that he has lost his sight, which he has expressed during intermittent periods of verbalisation. Observation has been constant, with no intervention. The standard precautions will be taken when he emerges from his room but I am inclined to allow the patient to undergo his own orientation and to become cognisant of his circumstances without undue interference. If he exhibits any signs of trauma or aggression at any stage of the process, I will zonk him.
From the desk of Dr Bassett.
Memo to Dr Hatchjaw.
Wallace, thank you for patient report FJ1b. May I make a brief point? Once again I detect a tendency to overdiagnose. The fact that the patient showed some reluctance to wake up and exhibited signs of confusion, anxiety, etc., when he did, hardly justifies the inference that he wants to regress to the womb, interesting though the observation is, and doesn’t necessarily imply avoidance as a tactic. The behaviours and symptoms you describe are all consistent with a very bad hangover.
Also (sorry to niggle) I feel that the use of the expression ‘zonk’ in a formal report is a little inappropriate. However, perhaps I’m just being old-fashioned.
Eudora
From the desk of Dr Hatchjaw.
Memo to Dr Bassett.
Dr Bassett, naturally I accept your rebuke concerning my report, and I note your assertion that I have a tendency to overdiagnose. I am a professional, and I strive to serve the interests of my patients and of this facility to the best of my ability. If that ability is deficient in your estimation, or if my efforts fall short of the standards which you profess to hold, I can only apologise and attempt to improve my performance. However, I cannot help feeling that your criticism is part of a strategy – conscious or otherwise – to remind me at every opportunity that, technically, you are the senior practitioner at this facility. Perhaps you are overcompensating for some insecurity you feel as a woman in a position of authority over a male colleague. Whatever the reason, I assure you I am well aware of your superior status and need no reminding.
‘Zonk’ was intended as a joke. Obviously it was ill-advised. I realise that I am attempting to ingratiate myself with you, and compromising my professional judgment in doing so.
NB: I would prefer you to use my title and surname in any communications. Casual use of my first name in these matters strikes me as patronising.
Dr W. Hatchjaw BA, RCPsyc, DDSB
From the desk of Dr Bassett.
Memo to Dr Hatchjaw.