Pulse(13)

‘I said that you’d had to stay at the hospital for an emergency.’

‘How did you know that I hadn’t?’ I asked.

‘I woke just before five and you weren’t in the bed. I tried calling your phone but you didn’t answer so I called the hospital. Someone told me you hadn’t been working and you’d been sent home at seven o’clock last night. That made me desperately worried and very frightened.’

Now he was in tears.

‘Please take me home,’ I said.

‘I can’t. We have to wait for the doctor.’

‘I’m perfectly OK. I don’t want to see another doctor.’

‘Darling, you’re not OK. You just tried to commit suicide.’

‘I did not,’ I said indignantly. ‘If I had tried, I would be dead already. I admit that I did think about it but I didn’t do it. I’m fine.’

He shook his head. ‘Chris, you are not fine. You’re just skin and bone. You won’t eat. You don’t sleep. You don’t talk to me. You’ve cut yourself off from all our friends. You don’t even speak to your mother any more. You need help.’

‘What I need is to go home.’

We did go home but not until the afternoon, after I’d been seen by not one but two doctors.

Both of them recommended sending me to a psychiatric hospital.

‘Why?’ I asked them.

‘For your own safety.’

‘But I am perfectly safe with my husband looking after me.’

However, my husband wasn’t so sure.

‘Maybe it would be for the best to do as the doctors ask,’ he said.

‘No. I want to go home.’

The doctors had a conference between just the two of them.

I was worried.

I was all too aware that they had the ability to detain me against my will under the terms of the Mental Health Act. I had even occasionally used the powers myself for seriously disturbed patients, especially those brought in after self-harming. It is known colloquially as being ‘sectioned’ because it refers to the various ‘sections’ of the Act that allow for compulsory hospital treatment for individuals considered to be a danger to themselves or to others.

‘Don’t let them force me to go,’ I said urgently to Grant. ‘You are what is officially known as my Nearest Relative and you have the power to prevent it.’ I could tell that I was putting him in a difficult situation. ‘I promise not to do anything like this again.’ I grabbed his hand. ‘Darling, please!’

He looked at me.

‘But you don’t keep your promises,’ he said. ‘You’re always promising that you will eat something but then you don’t. So why should I believe you this time?’

‘You must.’ I was almost begging. ‘I didn’t do anything, did I? I would never do that to the boys.’

Grant shook his head and, not for the first time, I wondered if he was on my side.

The doctors finished their discussion.

‘It is our joint opinion,’ one of them said, ‘that you should be in hospital. Are you prepared to be admitted as a voluntary patient?’

‘No,’ I replied.

‘Then we consider that you should be detained for assessment under Section 2 of the Mental Health Act.’

‘My husband is my Nearest Relative and he disagrees.’

I stared imploringly at Grant and he looked long and hard at me then turned to the doctors.

‘I am prepared to take Chris home with me and look after her there. I will ensure that she sees her psychiatrist as soon as possible.’

The doctors would have known as well as I did that the patient’s Nearest Relative could discharge a patient detained under Section 2 unless there were overpowering reasons why they should not. I couldn’t think that any such overpowering reasons would exist in this case. It wasn’t as if I’d threatened to harm any other person.

‘I didn’t actually attempt to kill myself, did I?’ I said quickly. ‘I accept that I did think about it, but then I decided not to. So I am clearly not a danger to myself or anyone else.’

They didn’t look particularly convinced but the doctors and police finally agreed to leave me in Grant’s care provided we signed some paperwork to the effect that we had both noted their advice and decided not to follow it.

Grant drove home mostly in silence, no doubt worrying if he had done the right thing.

‘Thank you,’ I said.

He didn’t reply. He just shook his head slightly and appeared to concentrate hard on the road ahead.

I had been expecting the third degree, starting with Why weren’t you at work last night?, but there was nothing. In truth, he must already know. The complaint had only been the catalyst. The real reason was the mental health issue and Grant knew from experience to tread carefully around that.

We stopped only once, at a motorway service station, to pick up a late lunch – a ham sandwich for him and a lentil salad for me that I didn’t really want, or eat.

‘What about my car?’ I asked as we turned back onto the motorway.

‘I brought Trevor with me from work. He picked it up using the spare keys.’

My Mini was already in Gotherington when we arrived but it wasn’t the only vehicle waiting for us outside our house. There was also a police car parked on the road and a man in civilian clothes climbed out as we pulled into the driveway.