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      Patient FJ

       Recovery Diary 2

      The bastards. My friends, those bastards. And at least one bitch of a wife could be involved, almost certainly my first, as I’m pretty sure the second one wouldn’t go along with something like this. Unless someone managed to convince her she’d be doing the right thing, and genuinely helping me in some unfathomable way. That’s always been the trouble with Paula: she’s far too trusting. But there again, she’s not naïve, and people who assume her sweet nature is a sign of gullibility are making a big mistake, especially if they try to use her to hurt me. But they might have convinced her to play along, the people responsible for putting me in here, whoever they are. My friends, colleagues, rivals, enemies – all of the above, or none – this is their doing. The bastards.

      Okay, I accept that both those other times, when it was all over, I could see they’d been right. I hated it at the time of course, especially the first one, when the whole concept of an intervention made me physically sick as they cornered me in the kitchen, in my pyjamas, and explained it to me. I was probably going to be sick anyway, given my condition, but ever since then I can’t hear that word, intervention, without feeling the bile rising in my throat. I stood there with my back to the sink, gazing at them like some poor, dumb, bewildered badger about to be torn to pieces by a pack of slavering hounds who’ve somehow learned to speak a special smug, sanctimonious language all about denial and responsibility and co-dependency.

      But they were right. It probably really did save my life. Especially the first time, when I woke up in what turned out to be The Priory. The second time was a bit different, as I knew what was happening and where I was being taken (which turned out to be a less expensive facility, because I wasn’t selling so well by then, and the TV series hadn’t been recommissioned, and the screenplay had been given to someone else, to be ‘improved’ in the way that a heretic is improved by being burned at the stake).

      But that was rehab. This time the bastards have put me in a fucking nuthouse.

      Why? I’m not nuts. I’m not even drunk any more. Clean and sober for five years. During which my behaviour has been exemplary, by my standards. It’s been a long time since I had a fight or broke something valuable, like a Ming vase or a marriage, or caused a major embarrassment in public or told someone what I really think of them. I’m still a cunt but that’s just me. In fact there’s a good case for not giving up any of your bad habits, because when you do you’ll discover you’re just the same only now you’ve got nothing to blame it on. However, I gave it all up, and whatever makes me intolerable now isn’t drink or drugs. And not mental disorder, either. I’m probably the sanest person I know. So what’s all this about? Who has put me in here and why?

      After my encounter with Hatchjaw I went back to sleep.

      When I surfaced again I had no idea how long I’d slept. My mind was a blank.

      I decided not to panic. I’d tried that before and it had never worked.

      Slowly I began to remember a couple of things. Unfortunately it didn’t help much, because the couple of things I remembered were that I knew very little about where I was except that I didn’t like it, and I knew nothing at all about what the hell was going on.

      I became aware that it was daylight and I was starving. I hadn’t been fed, and I expect they thought it was the easiest way to lure me out of my room.

      No one was loitering outside my door so I set off down the passage in the same direction as before. An easy choice, as my room is the last one in the corridor so they didn’t exactly need to lay a trail of cheese. I walked past doors on either side of me that were identical to my door, all painted blue, and all closed. I reached the point where I’d turned back last time. I paused to listen for telltale sounds of confessional drivel, which is what had stopped me in my tracks on my first expedition. I didn’t hear anything this time so I carried on.

      The corridor led to a doorway. The door was open. I walked through into a large room, tastefully decorated, mainly in blue. Some big French windows were letting in a generous helping of daylight and fresh air. All very pleasant. But you could strap me into an orange jumpsuit and deprive me of all sensory stimuli, like some trembling peasant suspected by the CIA of harbouring unwholesome thoughts about democracy, and lead me into a room like this and whip the bag off my head, and I’d know exactly where I was. It takes more than a few coats of Dulux Blue Lagoon and some rubber tree plants to disguise an institution. There’s something in the DNA of a building like this, whether it’s a school, a prison or an old people’s home. Bad vibes.

      I looked around. I couldn’t see any food but I could smell something cooking somewhere. There were three doorways out of the room, including the way I’d come in, and the French windows. A faint scent of something I recognised but couldn’t name drifted in from the garden and mingled with the aroma of distant cooking. The food smelled good and I wondered which was the quickest route to its source.

      I became aware of someone breathing heavily behind me. I turned to see a burly, grizzled man slumped in an armchair near the door I’d just come through. He was glaring at a woman who was sitting as far away from him as she could get while still remaining inside the room. She was about 40, with big eyes, and she looked tired. She was studiously ignoring him. The grizzled man, who had a scrubby beard and looked as though he might have mislaid a trawler somewhere nearby, turned his gaze slowly away from the woman and looked up at me. I thought for a moment there was something familiar about him, but when he spoke I could hear he was American, and I don’t know any Americans who look like him – although I know a Scottish barman with similar facial hair and the same mottled, rosy complexion of someone who likes to get drunk quickly and uses spirits to do it. The American squinted up at me and shaded his eyes with his hand as if I were an enemy aircraft coming out of the sun. He growled at me:

      ‘How is it going with you?’

      ‘I’m rather hungry.’

      ‘That’s a good sign.’

      The woman on the other side of the room gave a clearly audible snort. The American glared at her again. He seemed to lose interest in me. I heard a cough, and I noticed

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