The Moneychangers by Arthur Hailey Page A

McCartney."
    After a moment or two a male voice, quietly firm, inquired, "Where are you, Alex?'
    "In my office. I was sitting here wondering about my wife."
    "I asked because I intended to can you today and suggest you come in to visit Celia."
    "The last time we talked you said you didn't want me to."
    The psychiatrist corrected him gently. "I said I thought any more visits inadvisable for a while. The previous few, you'll remember, seemed to unsettle your wife rather than help."
    "I remember." Alex hesitated, then asked, "There's been some change?"
    "Yes, there is a change. I wish I could say it was for the better."
    There had been so many changes, he had become dulled to them. "What kind of change?"
    "Your wife is becoming even more withdrawn. Her escape from reality is almost total. It's why I think a visit from you might do some good." The psychiatrist corrected himself, "At least it should do no harm." "All right. I'll come this evening."
    "Any time, Alex; and drop in to see me when you do. As you know, we've no set visiting hours here and a minimum of rules." "Yes, I know."
    The absence of formality, he reflected, as he replaced the telephone, was a reason he had chosen the Remedial Center when faced with his despairing decision about Celia nearly four years ago. The atmosphere was deliberately non-institutional. The nurse s did not wear uniforms. As far as was practical, patients moved around freely and were encouraged to make decisions of their own. With occasional exceptions, friends and families were welcome at any time. Even the name Remedial Center had been chosen intentionally in preference to the more forbidding "mental hospital." Another reason was that Dr. Timothy McCartney, young, brilliant, and innovative, headed a specialist team which achieved cures of mental illnesses where more conventional treatments failed.
    The Center was small. Patients never exceeded a hundred and fifty though, by comparison, the staff was large. In a way, it was like a school with small classes where students received personal attention they could not have gained elsewhere.
    A modern building and spacious gardens were as pleas ing as money and imagination could make them.
    The clinic was private. It was also horrendously expensive but Alex had been determined, and still was, that whatever else happened, Celia would have the best of care. It was, he reasoned, the very least that he could do.
    Through the remainder of the afternoon he occupied himself with bank business. Soon after 6 P.M. he left FMA Headquarters, giving his driver the Remedial Center address, and read the evening paper while they crawled through traffic. A limousine and chauffeur, available at any time from the bank's pool of cars, were perquisites of the executive vice-president's job and Alex enjoyed them.
    Typically, the Remedial Center had the facade of a large private home with nothing outside, other than a street number, to identify it.
    An attractive blonde, weari ng a colorful print dress, let h im in. He recognized her as a nurse from a small insignia pin near her left shoulder. It was the only permitted dress disti nction between staff and patients .
    "Doctor told us you'd be coming, Mr. Vandervoort. I'll take you to your wife."
    He walked with her along a pleasant corri dor. Yellows and greens predomin ated. Fresh flowers were in niches along the walls.
    "I understand," he said, "that my wife has been no better."
    "Not really, I'm afraid." The nurse shot him a sideways glance; he sensed pity in her eyes. But for whom? As always, when he came here, he felt his natural ebullience desert him.
    They were in a wing, one of three running outward from the central reception area. The nurse stopped at a door.
    "Your wife is in her room, Mr. Vandervoort. She had a bad day today. Try to remember that, if she shouldn't…" She left the sentence unfinished, touched his arm lightly, then preceded him in.
    The Rem edial Center placed patients in shared or single rooms