THE REST CURE

It had barely been a moment before I was awake again. There must have been some glitch. I had had serious reservations in the first place and this just clinched it. I wanted out. Then Dr Ramsey wandered in, brushing between the curtains that surrounded my bed. The place had the feel of NHS with the price tag of BUPA.

“Doctor,” I said, raising myself partly on my elbows. “You’re fucking this up a bit. I think I want my money back.” I was surprised to find I had a broad grin on my face. This wasn’t funny.

“How do you feel?” the Doctor asked in his broadest Irish.

“I feel great!” I replied. It was supposed to be sarcastic, but he dusted it away with a simple and satisfied “good.”

“We did some tests on you while you were out,” he continued. “All the indicators are normalised. You should be feeling 100%.” There was a short pause while I said nothing. I’d arrived for the procedure feeling hysterical.

“On the verge of a nervous breakdown,” my GP had said. But now I felt fine. More than fine. Embarrassingly, even my libido seemed to have returned. Part of me knew the procedure must have been completed, but the rational part wouldn’t believe. Had two weeks really passed in the past 30 seconds? “By all accounts,” he continued, “you’re flying.”

I lay back and closed my eyes. I could feel the tears starting to well up inside me. I slid my hand down between my legs to feel if the implant was still there, but it had gone.

“I must be off the Sonambulate,” I thought. The Doctor had left me to it. Suddenly I wondered if he was still wearing those hideous, grey, patent leather slip-ons. Maybe I’d like him better if he wasn’t. He was smug and arrogant. I got out of bed and put on my clothes. They, and some possessions, had been placed on a chair next to me. There was a new mobile phone and an A5 desk diary along with my keys and wallet. I flipped the diary. It was full of my own writing. Almost unconsciously I opened the phone and an image of a dog appeared on the bright new screen. It was mine.

“OK,” I thought. “Right!”

The stress from the death of my mother and a hundred other sores that had reopened with the trauma, had pushed me to the edge. It was only my sense of duty toward Simba, my mothers’ dog, that had kept me getting up in the morning, even though the dog was to blame for the accident, running out in front of my mother like that. But my mother had loved that dog so much and it had meant so much to her that I couldn’t do anything but take her in. I suppose it was the hound too that led me to this type of therapy. She was in mourning too and I just didn’t feel I could leave her in kennels while I went on respite or took a holiday or whatever it was I thought I needed.

“Two weeks gone and what have I done?” I wondered. Maybe I’d find the mutt dead on my kitchen floor. Maybe I’d find myself fired. I left the bed and walked across to reception to book a follow up appointment. Then I went out into the street and walked the three miles home. Since when had I taken to walking?

The dog was fine. I walked with her down to the coffee shop on Cleveland Street where I usually got my breakfast before work. There was an old man talking with a small boy, maybe his grandson. He spoke in some Indian type language while the little boy replied with the occasional earnest “yes” in English. Sometimes the boy would shake his head a little before saying “yes” and I wondered if he was really saying “no” to the old man. I suppressed a smile and flipped open my new diary.

I was a popular guy it seemed. In the past two weeks I’d obviously been painting the town red. I’d even drawn smiley faces next to a couple of dinner dates, one at a swanky place in Soho and the other at somewhere I’d never heard of. The smiles took me back to my dim and distant past where I’d used them to indicate a successful fuck. I wondered if I might have reverted to the adolescent script. Had I got laid in the last couple of weeks? And I was thinking that dry spell would never end. I checked the names in the diary. Had I had sex with Hilary and/or Vanessa? If I had, then I had no idea who they were or what they looked like. I scrolled down the phone book to H and found a Hilary. A picture of her popped up with her details. I did the same for V and there she was too. Vanessa. I recognised them both from work. Other departments, different buildings. I flipped through the diary further; out into the future. Improbably, I had a promotion interview the following Wednesday. On the Monday before that, in three days time, I had a meeting with someone called Bob. “Pick up script,” it said. Pick up script? I thought it best to investigate and popping a B into the phone found Bob’s number. No photo.

“Bob,” came a voice after a couple or rings.

“It’s Niles,” I said, hoping that would mean something to him.

“Miles of smiles Niles,” he said, but I didn’t recognise the description of myself. “Hellooooooo…” he intoned.

“Hi,” I replied.

“You’ll be wanting your Sonambulate prescription for that job interview,” he said matter of factly. “I’ve got it now, if you want,” he offered helpfully. I didn’t say anything. I could think of nothing to say. After what felt like an eternity, I hung up. It struck me then that there were implications. They made me anxious.

“No granddad,” the little boy must have been saying. “I don’t what to.”