Approached along the long crunchy drive, Second Chances looked like a particularly elegant country house hotel, the sort where guests took high tea and debated which spa treatment to try next. But the eighteenth-century Bath-stone manor house was a very different type of residential property. The front door could only be opened with a master key, the rooms had narrow beds with foam mattresses and the food tended to come from large catering tins, warmed in a vat. You didn’t come to Second Chances for a holiday; you came here because you had no other choice. Its literature described it as a ‘rehabilitation facility’, but this was no overgrown health farm for stressed-out celebrities who’d overindulged on the party circuit. Second Chances was a real hospital, for people with real problems. And for the last three weeks, it had been Alex Doyle’s home.
He could only remember fragments from the first few days of his arrival. He had been isolated and sedated, a nurse monitoring him around the clock. He’d vacillate between shivering, begging for more blankets, then rolling sweats and diarrhoea as the drugs and alcohol left his system. It was a little-known fact – to Alex at least – that withdrawal from alcohol was infinitely more drastic and life-threatening than from drugs such as heroin. Booze could take days, even weeks of physical pain, hallucinations and genuine sickness. Alex ran the gamut. But slowly, very slowly, he had come up for air.
After isolation, he was assigned to share a room with a young man named William – everyone was
paired up with a buddy; no one was allowed to sit and mope alone. Their illness, they were repeatedly told, could be mastered, but only through constant vigilance. The addiction wanted you to be weak, it wanted you to feel sorry for yourself, it wanted you to go and get wasted. So all day and late into the evening, in group sessions and individual one-to-ones, they were told to confront their shortcomings, confess to their transgressions. Alex found he had plenty to say.
‘Don’t rush it,’ said Dr Wilson, the morning of Alex’s fourth week. ‘If you’d broken your leg, you wouldn’t expect to be able to run the hundred metres so soon, would you?’
‘But I do feel better,’ said Alex. ‘I’m not shaking or nauseous and I’m sleeping better than I have in years.’
‘That’s good. But remember, addiction is both physical and mental. Your body may be free of the toxins, but your brain needs time to heal too.’
The trouble was, Alex had never been much good at patience. He had always been anxious to get on to the next thing. He had mastered the piano, so he learnt the violin, then the rest of the orchestra. Then, when he outgrew the music department at Danehurst and was due to go to the Royal Academy, he wanted to jump forward again, so he had joined a band. There was always another peak to climb. The therapists pointed out how ‘enabling’ his choice of lifestyle had been for someone prone to addictive behaviour. Yes, drugs were available in the music industry, sure, but what was damaging was the emptiness of Alex’s life. As soon as he had a nice guitar, he wanted a bigger amp. As soon as he had an Aston Martin, he wanted a helicopter. He had a nice girlfriend, but he wanted a movie star. He was constantly chasing the next high.
Finally, in group therapy one morning, another patient had asked the question he had been avoiding: ‘What are you running from, Alex?’ And suddenly, without warning, Alex began crying, his shoulders heaving with the sobs.
Glancing out of the window of the day room, a glass-fronted conservatory where the patients would sit between sessions, Alex could tell visiting hours had begun. Visitors were strictly vetted – they didn’t want your dealer turning up – and were limited to a two-hour visit twice a week. For someone who had hundreds of so-called friends all around the world, Alex had only managed one short visit from Ted Sullivan, who had filled him in on everything being done to contain the news of his ‘little break’.
Today, however, it was different. Today, Alex had a real visitor and he was as nervous as a teenager going on his first date. Unable to sit still, he walked towards the front door – and almost bumped right into her.
‘Hello, stranger,’ said Grace, hugging him warmly. ‘I love the new look.’
Alex laughed, relief flooding through him. When Grace had written to request a visit, he hadn’t known how he would react, but now she was here, he felt relaxed and comfortable.
‘I thought it was time for a change,’ he said, rubbing his hand over his straggly beard. ‘But you look fantastic.’ She was wearing a cream sweater and a grey pencil skirt – sexy but elegant, Grace Ashford’s signature look, he smiled.
He led her out into the grounds, where the sunshine warmed his face, and they began to walk slowly down towards the water.
‘Well it’s nice to see you looking so good,’ said Grace.
Alex chuckled. There were no mirrors in Second Chances – they were broken too often – but he caught his reflection in the windows at night. His eyes were sunken and his jeans hung loosely around his shrinking waist. ‘It’s kind of you, but I look like shit,’ he said. ‘Is that what they told you to say?’ He nodded towards a nurse who was subtly keeping tabs on the patients.
Grace frowned. ‘No one told me to say anything.’
‘Sorry, it’s not paranoia,’ said Alex. ‘It’s just they have this policy at Chances – no negativity. There’s a guy who was drinking lighter fuel before he came in here. His skin looks like tissue paper and his eyeballs are pink, but everyone keeps telling him how amazing he’s looking.’
Grace smiled and put her arm through his. As they walked, he filled her in on his situation. The blackouts in Soho House, the raid on the off-licence and his frantic call to Miles. From his talk with Ted, he told her how Miles’ lawyer had paid off the Korean and persuaded the police and the hospital he had been taken to not to section him – as long as he came straight to Second Chances.
‘Well he’s done a good job of keeping it quiet,’ said Grace. ‘I haven’t read anything in the newspapers about it.’
‘Apparently David Falk – the guy who owns my record label – was toying with the idea of leaking it to the press. Said the idea of me being sectioned might give me a more edgy image. But Ted and Miles talked him round and they’ve kept a tight lid on it. I don’t want to be seen as a bloody freak show.’
‘Has anyone recognised you here?’
He nodded. ‘It’s kind of hard to avoid – we do nothing but talk about ourselves in group therapy. But people are pretty cool about it and everyone wants to help each other get well. Of course there are plenty of people round here more famous than me.’
‘Really?’ said Grace, wide-eyed.
He pointed. ‘That guy over there told me he was Jimi Hendrix yesterday.’
She punched him on the arm.
‘Honestly, though, they ponce this place up with words like recovery and rehabilitation, but really it’s a psychiatric unit. A nut-house. ’
‘It’s a hospital, Alex, and they’re just here to make you well.’
He laughed. ‘You sound like the doctors.’