Heller's Punishment (11 page)

“Felicia!” I
shouted, angry at her antics. What the hell game was she playing
at?

I lost sight of
her for a minute through the trees and suddenly heard a large
crashing noise, quickly followed by some voices, then silence. When
I made my way to her, she was squatting down, carefully peeing.

She looked up
at me angrily. “Do you mind? Can’t I have one fucking minute of
privacy?”

“What was that
all about?” I demanded, seething.

“I didn’t like
that spot. I wanted somewhere more private. Not that it made much
difference anyway. Can’t even piss in private around here,” she
said sourly.

Yeah,
right
, I thought sceptically. This was the woman who had gladly
flashed her privates at Jorge that morning, but now suddenly had a
case of the faints because someone might see the top of her head as
she peed in the woods? I doubt it.

“I heard
voices,” I snapped.

“What the fuck?
Are you insane? I fell over and was swearing my head off. How the
fuck is that ‘voices’?”

She showed me
her hands, which were grazed. I looked around suspiciously, but
nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I hurried her up and we had to
trot after the others to catch them.

The rest of the
walk was uneventful. Felicia trailed behind everyone despite my
urges to keep up. She didn’t converse with anyone and took no
interest in the lively conversation of the other clients. Back
inside, Jorge escorted me back to the room, but reminded Felicia
that she was due for one-on-one counselling. She didn’t look
thrilled at the news.

“Sorry Tilly,
this needs to be strictly confidential between Felicia and her
counsellor. Neither you nor I are allowed in the room at the time,”
Jorge apologised as he led Felicia away and locked the door behind
him.

I settled back
on my bed with my detective novel. I’d reached an intense and
suspenseful part – the spunky female detective was being led into
an abandoned, isolated factory by a man who her colleagues had just
realised was a sexually sadistic multiple murderer.
Why did she
trust him?
I thought anxiously, stopping from biting my nails
only long enough to turn the page. The phone rang and startled me
so much that I dropped the book on the floor and lost my place.

“Oh, damn,” I
grumbled under my breath as I sprang up to answer. “Hello?”

“Phone call for
Matilda Chalmers in Room 212,” said the disembodied voice.

“That’s me,” I
replied. I knew who it was going to be.

“Putting it
through now,” the voice said and then there was a click and I said
hello again.

“Hello, my
sweet,” said a much-loved voice in my ear.

“Heller!”

“You sound
pleased to hear from me for once.”

“I sure am. I’m
so bored here. I’m locked in the room by myself at the moment. If I
hadn’t brought a book with me I’d be going insane. I’m desperate
for entertainment. Tell me
everything
that’s been happening
back there.”

He laughed.
“Nothing’s been happening. You know that nothing ever happens here
if you’re not around. You’re the cause of all the excitement in the
business.”

“Heller,” I
protested, injured. “I don’t think you’re saying that in a positive
way.”

He laughed
again. “I hope your client isn’t causing you more trouble.”

When I replied,
I ordered my priorities right and first indignantly told him about
Felicia’s rude rejection of my jeans. A strange muffled sound down
the phone line made me wonder if he was stifling another laugh.
Then I told him of the group counselling session and the strange
happenings in the wood that afternoon.

“Did you search
her after that incident?” he demanded.

“Why?”

“Matilda! She
could have been up to anything in there. You at least told the
nurse?”

“No,” I said in
a small voice. “She was just peeing, Heller. I saw her.”

“Make sure you
tell the nurse as soon as you get the chance. Promise me.”

“I will, I
promise.” I felt stupid. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,
just make sure you tell someone.” His voice softened. “I was afraid
I’d miss your call later. That’s why I’m ringing you now.”

“You’re busy
tonight?”

“I’m going
out.” I tried not to mind.

“Have a good
time,” I said, forcing myself to sound cheerful and not to think
about him screwing some lucky woman a hundred times in a hundred
different positions tonight.

“You know I’d
rather be with you,” he said easily.

“Sure you
would.” I gave a genuine laugh at that smooth quip. “With me saying
‘no, Heller’, ‘stop, Heller’, ‘what are you doing with
that
,
Heller’.”

He laughed
again. “I miss you so much, Matilda. I don’t know why I keep giving
you these jobs that send you away from home.”

“It’s all about
the moolah, remember? I do it for your retirement fund.”

“For
our
retirement fund, my sweet.”

My stomach
flip-flopped. “You’ll have fired me long before I’m ready to
retire,” I said lightly, glad he couldn’t see my face.

“Probably.”

“You won’t even
remember me. I’ll just be ‘old what’s-her-name’ in your
memory.”

That low growly
chuckle. “As if I could ever forget you, Matilda.” A pause. “I’m
sorry, I have to go. I have another call. Take care. I’ll talk to
you tomorrow.”

“Bye, Heller,”
I said, kind of glad the conversation had ended. I didn’t really
want to know why he thought he’d probably end up firing me at some
point, although I must admit that I didn’t have a great track
record in holding down a job. I returned to my book, flipping
through the pages to find my lost place.

Not much longer
afterwards the door rattled and Jorge brought Felicia back into the
room. She looked as though she’d been crying and went straight into
the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. I put my book aside and
looked over to Jorge, eyebrows raised.

“What
happened?”

He shrugged.
“One-on-one is always quite confrontational for clients. The
counsellors are very skilled. Happily, Felicia’s just shown that
she’s still slightly human after all. She does care about her
parents’ good opinion, even after all of her accusations about
them.”

My eyebrows
rose even further in surprise. Perhaps there might be some progress
for her this week despite her recalcitrance.

Jorge banged on
the bathroom door, reminding Felicia that dinner would be at six.
He threw me a smile and left for the day, back home to his family.
I briefly wished I was him.

Felicia didn’t
come out of the bathroom for ages. When she finally flung open the
door, she was gripped with very strong emotion. She paced around
the room, rubbing the back of her neck, then rubbing her arms, not
being able to settle down for a second.

“They don’t
know me,” she said angrily. “They don’t know
anything
about
me. I
hate
my parents. I don’t love them, not even a little
bit. Fuck! I hate doing that fucking counselling. It’s all just
massive bullshit!
Fuck!
”

“Hey!” I
yelled. “Knock it off. You’re making me dizzy walking around so
fast. What’s up your butt?” Then I giggled guiltily when I
remembered what actually had been up her butt the previous
night.

She stopped
then and twitched her shoulders, but took a deep breath. “I’m cool.
No need to freak. No need to call anyone.” My hackles rose
immediately.

“How about you
watch some TV and calm down? Right now,” I suggested coolly.

She threw
herself on her bed so hard that it slammed up against the wall. I
shot her a glance and reached over to pick up the phone.

“What are you
doing?” she asked me.

“You’ve taken
some more, haven’t you?” I accused, holding the receiver in my
hand, about to speak into it.

She launched
herself off the bed and threw herself onto me. It was an
anti-climax. She was just an unhealthy addict with no real fighting
skills and I saw her coming a mile away. I drew up my forearm in
defence and she stupidly smashed her forehead straight into it,
recoiling backwards onto her bed, groaning. It was the easiest
takedown I’d ever had.

“Room 212?”
asked the voice on the phone. “Room 212?”

I dropped the
receiver on the bedside table and prepared for more trouble as she
roused herself and came at me again. But by the time Dave and the
medics burst into the room, I had her subdued up against a wall,
face pressed to one side, arms behind her back, struggling and
swearing up a blue storm at me as I pressed my body hard onto hers.
She’d hardly caused me to break a sweat, so the level of force I
employed was all rather unnecessary.

“Shit!” said
Dave. “Not again?”

“I think she’s
taken something. She’s been agitated and angry all afternoon. She
tried to attack me,” I informed them.

“Felicia!” he
yelled at her. “What have you taken and where did you get it
from?”

“Fuck you!” she
spat at him, then struggled futilely against me until she exhausted
herself, and slumped loosely, sliding down in my arms.

“I’m losing
her,” I said and they ran forward to grab her off me, forcing her
backwards onto her bed.

“What have you
taken, Felicia,” asked the male medic, shining a light into her
eyes.

“Nothing!” she
replied in frustration. “I haven’t fucking taken anything!”

“What’s the
matter with you then?”

“I’m just
upset, that’s all,” she said, making a huge effort to be calm. “I
had personal counselling this afternoon and it’s made me a little
crazy. I haven’t taken
anything
. Where the fuck would I get
it? This dipshit,” and she nodded in my direction, “is just
paranoid.”

The medics gave
her the once-over and looked down at her suspiciously.

“I don’t know,”
the female medic said. “She could have used or she could just be
over-wrought. Has she ever been hysterical before?”

“Yeah,” Dave
admitted. “She’s cracked up a few times, usually after the
one-on-one sessions.”

The woman
shrugged and packed up her equipment. “Nothing here for us to do
here. If she took a dose it was relatively small, not like last
time.” Then she turned to Felicia. “Take it easy until dinner,
okay? Dave will give you your sleeping medication now, if you need
it to calm down.”

She shook her
head sullenly and the medics departed. Dave walked to the bed and
looked down at her, shaking his head before heading towards the
door as well, promising to pick us up for dinner. When he left,
Felicia fell asleep and snoozed until he returned.

We trooped off
to dinner in the communal hall again and went to sleep early that
evening. We didn’t utter another word to each other, neither of us
now trusting the other in the slightest.

The next few
days passed similarly, with the morning group session followed by
some kind of physical activity in the afternoon and a one-on-one
session for Felicia. She was always agitated and angry after those
sessions, but I didn’t make the mistake of calling the office
again, even though I was convinced that she was up to something.
She seemed to spend a lot of time in the bathroom, but maybe that
was just because she really couldn’t stand to spend a second in the
same room with me. The feeling was mutual, I realised, as she
refused to take a phone call from her mother, throwing the receiver
petulantly onto the bedside table and stalking to the bathroom yet
again.

I picked up the
receiver and gave an audibly upset Mrs Heyne a rundown on the week
so far, not leaving out any of the sordid details about Felicia’s
overdose. She didn’t say anything, but sighed with great heaviness.
She and her husband were desperately hoping that their daughter
would return to their home after the week was over, but I wasn’t
sensing any kind of desire for a rapprochement on Felicia’s side.
In fact, I think the one-on-one sessions were only stoking her
anger towards her parents and increasing her blame of them for her
current problems.

The week passed
slowly for both of us. I’m no professional in the field, but I
struggled to see any evidence that Felicia was benefitting from the
rehabilitation. Every morning we’d troop down to group counselling
where she sat, sullen and bored, not joining in with the other
clients. At breakfast and lunch she would eat barely anything,
instead scoffing cup after cup of coffee. During the regular
afternoon exercise sessions, she trailed behind everyone with a
disinterested lethargy that was impossible to shake except when she
needed to pee, which was every time. I grew bored waiting with my
back turned for her to finish day after day. She always chose the
same spot, behind the same tree. I guess she figured that it
afforded her the greatest privacy from the others.
Maybe you
should stop sucking down the coffees
, I thought with great
snarkiness as I killed time amongst the trees for her yet again,
watching the others stroll off into the distance without us. I kept
my eyes sharp for anything out of the ordinary as I did, not
trusting her for a second.

Her daily
one-on-one counselling left her wired and angry, pacing frantically
around the room afterwards, cursing her parents with increasing
vitriol. The only thing that calmed her down was the sleeping
medication Dave doled out to her each night. She then watched TV
like a zombie until she fell asleep.

Rinse and
repeat for the next day.

I wasn’t sure
why she’d chosen to use behavioural modification to kick her habit,
because she sure didn’t show any appreciation or respect for it.
She’d probably have been better off on a methadone program. And I
knew I was ignorant about heroin treatment, but she didn’t seem to
display any of the overt withdrawal signs that I’d been expecting
like shaking, sweating, cramps or anxiety.