Entangled (11 page)

‘Wobbly’ was an understatement. Leoni’s legs felt like jelly. Still, at the bathroom door she insisted that she would manage the rest of the operation by herself. ‘No,’ said Melissa. ‘You have to be supervised.’

‘What for?’

‘Suicide watch. You’re under twenty-four-hour supervision. Dr Sansom’s orders.’

Leoni was so embarrassed at having an audience that she couldn’t urinate. ‘Look, give me a break’, she protested, ‘I’d like a bit of privacy.’

‘Sorry, sweetie,’ said Deirdre. ‘Can’t do that. But don’t worry. In cases of shy bladder syndrome we usually catheterise.’

‘On the other hand you could just unclench and pee,’ added Melissa.

The two of them were still beaming, but it wasn’t nice.

Twenty minutes later, humiliated and furious, Leoni finished in the bathroom. She allowed Deirdre and Melissa to help her to her bed and was halfway across the floor, with her ass sticking out of the open back of her hospital smock, when a big man walked in. ‘Hi there, Miss Watts,’ he said. ‘I’m Dr Sansom. I’m in charge here.’ He ogled her as the two nurses lifted her onto the mattress and placed her between the sheets. ‘You can go,’ he told them.

Sansom was a tall, florid Texan in an expensive business suit. He was aged around sixty, Leoni guessed, and had the authoritative, domineering air of a man used to getting his way. His hands, which were enormous, were rough and calloused – the hands of a labourer, not a physician. A spider’s web of broken blood vessels decorated the bulbous tip of his nose.

‘Welcome to Mountain Ridge Psychiatric Hospital’, he said. ‘Do you know why you’re here?’

‘Because my parents have paid you to say I’m mad?’

‘Quite a paranoid answer, Miss Watts, but then we get used to that sort of thing. Your parents love you very much and they are
very
concerned
about your mental health. Your persistent drug abuse, your rampant promiscuity’ – he leered – ‘your fantasies about your father ̴’

Leoni stared him down: ‘I don’t know what you mean. I have no fantasies about my father.’

‘I think you know exactly what I mean. False memories, crazed accusations. All this, culminating in your suicide attempt, amounts to obviously delusional behaviour.’

‘What suicide attempt?’ Leoni gasped.

‘You took an overdose of OxyContin. You would have died if your parents hadn’t rescued you in time—’

‘Bullshit. It wasn’t even my parents who rescued me. It was Conchita, our housemaid. If it had been up to my parents they would just have let me die.’

‘Paranoia again, Miss Watts. Frankly, the more I hear the more certain I am your overdose was a suicide attempt. That’s why you’ve been involuntarily confined at Mountain Ridge under section fifty-one-fifty of the California Welfare and Institutions Code.’

‘Confined here for what? I don’t get it. Why have I been confined?’

‘For your own good, of course.’

‘I can’t believe this is legal. Last night I was a patient at UCLA Med Centre recovering from a drug overdose, this morning I was sedated, kidnapped and imprisoned here. How can that be right?’

‘
Kidnapped
, Miss Watts?
Imprisoned?
Just more paranoid delusions. Your mother and father were worried – rightly, in my view – that you might make a second attempt to kill yourself. They decided it was irresponsible to leave you in an open-access hospital without the best psychiatric care and a suicide watch round-the-clock. So they went through due legal process and had you committed. Your declaration was written up by an accredited LA county clinician in the normal way. It allows us to hold you here at Mountain Ridge for seventy-two hours to evaluate your mental state and make sure that you aren’t going to pose a danger to yourself in the future.’

‘After seventy-two hours I can go?’

‘In your dreams,’ Sansom boomed. Suddenly he leaned closer and lowered his voice to a confidential whisper: ‘Between you and me, when the seventy-two hours are up I’m certain we’ll have no shortage of reasons to renew the hold and keep you here for … well … as long as we want to. I’m looking forward to treating you for several years at least.’

‘Not a chance, asshole. I’m out on bail for drug and driving offences. There’s going to be a court hearing in a couple of months so you can’t just make me disappear.’

‘Already dealt with. California Highway Patrol have dropped the charges against you. They agreed with us that the stress of a court appearance might just make you crazier. So it looks like we really do have you all to ourselves. I think you’re going to be a very challenging case.’ He pressed a buzzer by the bed and moments later Deirdre and Melissa bustled into the room.

‘Restrain the patient again, please,’ Sansom ordered, and left without a backward glance.

Leoni’s next human contact came when Deirdre delivered her lunch and removed her restraints to allow her to eat it. Half a dozen pills of various sizes and colours had also been set out on the tray and Deirdre made her swallow these when she had finished her meal. Finally Leoni accepted the offer of another toilet visit and then was strapped down in her cot again.

The pills made her sleep. When she awoke it was dusk and a weedy, weaselly man with thinning grey hair and stained teeth was hovering over her bed like a wraith. She recoiled and gasped – ‘Ugh!’ – and he flapped his arms and fluttered his pale little hands in a gesture that fell far short of being reassuring. ‘Who’re you?’ Leoni croaked.

‘Er … ah … Dr Grinspoon. I’ve come to ask you some questions.’

‘I don’t want to answer questions. I’m tired. Go away.’

‘It’s part of your psychological evaluation, Miss Watts. It’s not optional.’

Grinspoon turned on all the lights, removed her restraints and had her sit up in bed, propping her back against a heap of pillows. He then handed her a pen and a huge sheaf of paperwork attached to a clipboard. ‘This should take you no more than ninety minutes to fill out,’ he said.

‘Ninety? What is it?’

‘It’s called the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. There’s … let me see … five hundred sixty-seven test items …’

‘Whaddya mean, five hundred sixty-seven test items?’

‘Ah … er … five hundred sixty-seven questions. Each one you answer either true or false. It’s extremely straightforward and if you’re honest it’ll give us a clear snapshot of your mental health problems.’ He smiled, exposing his rat teeth. ‘It’s a
good
thing, Miss Watts. Once we know what’s wrong with you we’ll be able to treat you and get you well again …’

Leoni couldn’t help herself: ‘This is such bullshit,’ she hissed. ‘You guys aren’t “treating” me. You’re keeping me prisoner here’ – she indicated the straps and buckles that Grinspoon had just freed her from. ‘I’m a prisoner! Admit it … I’m not even allowed to take a piss without somebody watching me.’

‘Well, this is because you are on suicide watch, of course. When we’re satisfied that you’re no longer a danger to yourself these restrictions can be lifted. I know that Director Sansom wants you to be comfortable here … Now, please fill out the questionnaire.’

A cellphone began to croon the Brahms Lullaby and a furtive look crept over Grinspoon’s face. He fumbled in his pockets. When he found the instrument, after some pantomime, he answered in a low voice and scuttled from the room, leaving Leoni unrestrained.

Her first impulse was to run at once, but that made no sense. She could hear Grinspoon mumbling right outside the door but even if she could evade him, or any other staff who might be passing, she had no idea which way to go. If she was going to escape she needed a plan, possibly allies, preferably a knight on a white charger to come to her rescue.

Like John Bannerman, for example. Leoni’s beautiful saviour from the emergency room had seen how things were between her and her parents. Surely he’d be suspicious – wouldn’t he? – about her sudden overnight transfer from his care. He was interested in her experiences and he hadn’t for a moment seemed to think she was mad or a danger to herself, so she hoped that even now he might be moving heaven and earth to get her out of Mountain Ridge. Having witnessed him in action she didn’t think all the Watts lawyers and money would be enough to divert him if he wanted to help her. On the other hand, if he was going to help her then why wasn’t he here now?

With a sense of the inevitable, Leoni plumped up the pillows behind her back and began to go through the questionnaire that Grinspoon had given her.

Whatever she said it was obvious that Mountain Ridge were going to spin her answers to prove she was mad: ‘I see things or animals or people around me that others do not see.’ True or False? ‘I commonly hear voices without knowing where they are coming from.’ True or False? ‘At times I have fits of laughing and crying that I cannot control.’ True or False? ‘My soul sometimes leaves my body.’ True or False?
‘At one or more times in my life I felt that someone was making me do things by hypnotising me.’ True or False? ‘I have a habit of counting things that are not important such as bulbs on electric signs, and so forth.’ True or False?

Other questions seemed much more ordinary but also had to contain hidden lures and traps: ‘I am bothered by acid stomach several times a week.’ True or False? ‘I am easily awakened by noise.’ True or False? ‘I like to read newspaper articles on crime.’ True or False? ‘I am neither gaining nor losing weight.’ True or False? ‘I have never been in trouble with the law.’ True or False? ‘I am inclined to take things hard.’ True or False? ‘I get all the sympathy I should.’ True or False? ‘I never worry about my looks.’ True or False? ‘People generally demand more respect for their own rights than they are willing to allow for others.’ True or False?

After half an hour of this Grinspoon reappeared at the door. He folded his cellphone, advanced towards Leoni’s bed and stood over her: ‘Is all clear on the questionnaire, Miss Watts?’

‘It’s OK,’ Leoni replied, ‘I’m getting it done.’ Out of the corner of her eye she noticed he had not yet pocketed his cellphone and sensed an opportunity: ‘But there’s one thing you could really help me with. Would you hold these for me for a moment? I need to scratch an itch.’ She pushed the clipboard and pen into his hands, making him juggle them with the cellphone. He grunted with surprise and tried to thrust the objects right back at her. Leoni squirmed away and, as he lunged again, she grabbed his wrists. His jaw dropped, his eyebrows shot up and in the moment of fumbling confusion that followed she palmed his cellphone along with her clipboard and pen.

Her heart was hammering in her chest – she couldn’t believe she was doing this – but the horrible little man had become so flustered he didn’t notice the loss. To create a further distraction Leoni now dumped all three items on the bed, taking care to cover the cellphone with the clipboard, turned round on her knees and pointed her bare buttocks at the doctor. ‘I just need to scratch myself here,’ she grunted, letting her smock drop forward and reaching for a point between her naked shoulder blades.

Grinspoon looked at the ceiling and then at this feet. ‘You’re out of line, Miss Watts,’ he spluttered. ‘Cover yourself, please.’

‘Oh, come on, Dr Grinspoon – you
are
a doctor, aren’t you? – haven’t you ever seen a woman’s ass before?’

‘That’s irrelevant. Now, please, get back under the covers or I’ll have you restrained again.’

Leoni shrugged, arranged her pillows, manoeuvred herself into a decorous seated position, picked up the clipboard and pen where she had left them and hoped that she had managed to conceal the cellphone in a fold of the bed sheets in the process. Not daring to look down to confirm this, she returned to the questionnaire and ticked ‘True’, ‘True’, ‘False,’ ‘False,’ ‘True …’