by A J Waines
‘But…he’s gorgeous…’
She tugged my arm and pulled me to one side. ‘Sam, listen to me. Your relationships are always the same; fabulous sex at the start, then weeks when you’re scratching your head trying to work out what on earth you’re doing with the guy.’ She discreetly checked over her shoulder. ‘What about Giovanni? I thought you two were getting on really well.’
‘We were,’ I avoided her eyes, ‘but there’s no umph.’
‘Don’t give up so fast!’ she hissed. ‘Can’t you try being friends first – give it time and see if the magic happens later? Do you at least like the guy?’
‘Yeah. He’s…’ I struggled to find something remarkable to say, ‘interesting…’
She tutted at me. ‘Interesting is one of those bland words, Sam. Try a bit harder.’
‘The problem is I’ve met loads of guys like Giovanni who seem, on paper, like they’re a perfect match, but it rarely seems—’
‘You’re hopeless,’ she groaned, but didn’t walk away.
‘You’re spot on,’ I conceded. ‘I’m supposed to be an expert in psychology, paid to counsel others on affairs of the heart amongst other things, yet I’m a complete fraud when it comes to my own love life.’
She nodded with enthusiasm. ‘Yes, you are, Willerby…yes, you are.’
I leant against her, the alcohol causing havoc with my ability to stand upright in high heels. ‘One of these days I’ll get myself into therapy again – get someone to sort me out.’
‘That’s the best idea you’ve had in ages, Sammie,’ she said, putting her arm around me. ‘You’re still bloody gorgeous and I’m truly blessed you’re my best mate.’
I felt myself flush and my thoughts led me back to Con. I fell so hard for him at the start. The sex had been brilliant and I’d loved feeling desired; just being in his presence seemed to heighten all my senses, but the rest of our relationship had been out of kilter. As well as his possessiveness, he didn’t really ‘get’ me as a person. I’d tried to understand and respect him, but it felt like a one-way street.
Things came to a head between us when I got close to someone special at St Luke’s, although I never stepped over the line while I was seeing Con. I’m loyal like that. Nonetheless, it was enough to show me how much emotional intimacy was missing between Con and me, and after that it was hard to make the relationship work. It was a shame and I missed him. The world had felt different when we were together; brighter, fuller, more alive and exciting, trembling with possibilities.
‘Why is love such a minefield?’ I said, with a sigh. ‘I know “companionship” and “compatibility” are essential qualities for a lasting relationship, but in the heat of the moment, the chemistry takes over with me. My brain wants one thing, my body wants another.’
‘Because there are so many kinds of love,’ Hannah said gently. ‘It gets mixed up with attraction and sex and family patterns…’
‘You see, I know all that. If a patient came to me in my situation – you know, lust obliterating common sense every single time – I’d conclude they were damaged in some way.’ I looked into her face. ‘Am I damaged?’ I tottered slightly and she kept her arm around me.
‘We’re all damaged, if you want to use that word,’ she replied.
‘What word would you use?’
She shrugged. ‘I’d say we’re all still learning.’
I thought about it and smiled. ‘That’s a much better way of looking at it.’ I grabbed her hand. ‘I’m going to miss you like crazy when you go,’ I added.
At that point, Hannah was swept away by a colleague with an album of wedding photos, so I helped myself to the buffet.
Shortly afterwards, the singer took a break from his set and I watched him weave his way around the room, stopping to chat to people, nodding and smiling, hands in his pockets. His messy hair fell in long blond layers over his forehead – it probably took him ages to create that unkempt look. His skin was immaculate, so smooth that perhaps he hadn’t even started shaving yet. Inwardly I cringed. Sonny (that was his stage name) was way too young.
He saw me and I felt my cheeks prickle. A raw desire ignited inside me, but after my brief chat with Hannah I was determined not to act on it. If he’d been interested I could easily see myself jumping into bed with him, but I knew it wouldn’t lead anywhere and I’d regret it the next morning. He’d have left by first light, back to Leeds, anyway, without so much as a nice knowing you.
Instead, I slunk back to Hannah and tried to look interested in the wedding album. Would I ever manage to sort my own love-life out?
Sonny was beside the fondue fountain by then, talking to a woman around my age wearing tight leather trousers. When I looked up again, they’d gone.
Chapter 9
Sam
Rosie came hurtling in to her next session, her hair in a cartoon frizz as though she’d been plugged into an electric socket, her eyes panda-black with smudged mascara.
‘I can’t come any more,’ she gasped between sobs. ‘Work won’t let me. They won’t give me any more time off. I can’t believe it. It was all going so well. What am I going to do?’
‘Hold on. Slow down. What’s happened exactly?’
She flopped into the chair. ‘My boss thought I was only going to need a couple of appointments, like physiotherapy or something. I thought they understood!’ She dropped her face into her hands. ‘I can’t see you anymore. It’s a disaster.’
Knowing Rosie’s fractured background, I could see how this could, indeed, feel like a catastrophe to her.
‘You don’t work weekends…or after hours, do you?’ she asked looking up, her face suddenly hopeful.
‘I’m afraid not.’
Her shoulders sank. ‘What am I going to do?’ she repeated, she had a finger in her mouth and began chewing from nail to nail. ‘I don’t know how I’m going to cope…’ She put her head to one side. ‘You don’t work in another clinic, do you? Or privately?’
I hesitated. No, I didn’t, but there was, in fact, no reason why I couldn’t work from home. I’d thought about it many times. All I needed to do was set up the insurance.
I was about to explain this to Rosie when I stopped myself. I could almost hear the blare of a loudhailer in my head shouting, Don’t do it! I knew exactly why. I’d come across clingy patients before. Was Rosie likely to be one of them? Would I regret inviting her into my own personal space? She’d already turned up ‘coincidentally’ at the spa. Did I want her knowing where I lived?
‘Listen, I’ll give our sessions some thought. I’ll contact you – but I can’t promise anything, okay?’
‘Okay…’ she whispered, with an undertone of defeat. Her cheeks puffed out into a pout as she dropped her eyes to the floor.
I waited.
‘Are you ready to try a memory exercise?’ I asked softly.
‘Er…yeah,’ she said, shuffling in the seat, as if she’d forgotten why she was there.
I invited her to lie down and get comfortable on the low chaise longue I use specially for this kind of therapy. I unfolded a blanket, laid it over her and pulled it up to her chin.
‘I’d like you to close your eyes and visualise exactly where you were before the crash. Choose a moment when you were in the van, before it left the road. Can you do that?’
‘Mmmm,’ she muttered, her eyelids fluttering.
‘Now keep that image in your mind and really imagine that you’re there. Step into the scene as if it’s happening now. Notice the temperature, the quality of light and what you can feel under your hands…’ She stayed still. ‘Try to recall the taste in your mouth, what you can smell, whether anything is touching you and what’s going through your mind. Can you do that now?’
She dipped her chin a fraction, without a sound.
‘Try to keep all your senses alive as we proceed.’
She made a little sighing noise and held out her hand. ‘I want to keep part of me here in the room with you,’ she murmured, her e
yes screwed firmly shut.
I took it, allowing her fingers to wrap tightly around mine. It wasn’t unheard of for patients to reach out for support as they sent their minds into the darkest recesses of their past.
‘Tell me where you are,’ I said.
Rosie wriggled for a moment, then settled. ‘I’m sitting hunched on the wheel hump…’ she muttered. ‘It’s dusty and I can feel a layer of grit under my hands…’
‘Good…’ She had tuned into the exercise straight away. ‘What else?’
‘The windows aren’t open. Why not?’ she mumbled, squirming. ‘It’s stuffy inside the van. I’m sure Richard had his window down when we came up from London.’
‘Okay, stay with it. Focus on what you can see out of the back of the van…the road…how fast you’re going…’
I stayed quiet, watching her face as she began reliving the horror of what happened next.
‘I tip to one side as we go round a bend, then we seem to be going really fast all of a sudden. I’m getting thrown around and I’m trying to stop the instruments from getting bashed about.’
She winced. ‘There’s a rough jolt.’ She squeezed her eyes tighter, scrunching up her face, gritting her teeth. ‘We’re falling forward and the instruments are sliding towards the front seats. Whoa…I can hear a splintering sound…we’ve broken through a fence. There’s another thud...’ She squirmed, her hand sticky now, holding on for dear life. ‘Oh, God, it’s coming in. The water. Really fast. It’s covering the floor, swooshing over my legs…’ She tried to sit up, her eyes still shut, but I gently eased her back down again.
‘It’s okay, Rosie, you’re safe,’ I said. ‘Try to stay with it. What else can you see?’
‘I don’t know…f-figures in the front seat.’ She snatched a breath and her skin whitened a shade. ‘Stephanie’s throwing herself across Max, hammering at the door. She’s yelping like a dog. Max is swearing. He’s shouting out something about the seatbelt. They’re both wrenching at the straps and the plastic sockets. I can’t remember Richard. The water’s getting higher. Hurgh…’
She sounded like she was about to be sick and reared up, opening her eyes. ‘I’ve got to get OUT…’
‘It’s okay – you’re at the hospital. Let the pictures fade for now and take some deep breaths.’ I peeled my hand away from hers and held out a glass of water.
We left the exercise there. I was astonished: Rosie was a natural. Most patients took weeks before they could relax sufficiently to relive a traumatic incident like this.
I brought her fully out of the trance state and she sat with her knees pulled in towards her chest, still under the blanket. Revisiting a shocking event brings its own level of trauma, so I gave her a few moments to establish that she was back in my office and out of danger. She returned to her original seat soon after and we discussed what she’d remembered.
She looked grave. ‘I think there was a problem with the seatbelts. I don’t think Max or Steph could unfasten them. They were trapped.’ She sat up holding her throat and I thought she might be about to heave again. I ran for the waste bin.
‘I’m okay,’ she said, patting her chest.
‘When you travelled up from London were you in the front of the van?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you have any problems with the seatbelts, then?’
‘They were a bit stiff…’
‘Did the windows have winders or were they electronic?’ I’d been meaning to ask this question for a while.
‘There were buttons. I remember fiddling with them on the motorway and Richard told me off.’
In reading up about the crash, I’d come across reports of similar accidents where the central locking had gone haywire underwater. One driver, having escaped from a submerged car, had gone back down inside it to find his wallet. Without warning, the windows and doors had locked – the system jammed shut – trapping him inside.
‘You think someone messed with the controls so we couldn’t get out?’
‘It’s more likely that the central locking system shut down underwater. I’ve read that can happen.’
‘But what if someone wanted us trapped down there so they could get their hands on Max’s violin? I mean that’s the obvious motive, isn’t it?’
‘I really don’t know, Rosie. It’s probably best not to jump to conclusions.’
‘Max certainly wasn’t shy about telling everyone how much it was worth.’ She stroked her earlobe absently. ‘Such a terrible risk, though – deliberately sending the violin into the water…it doesn’t make sense.’
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know much about musical instruments, but if anyone did try to sell it, wouldn’t it be recognised straightaway?’
‘Well… it would be pretty impossible to pass it on through traditional routes, but I’ve heard of high-profile instruments going underground through the black market.’ She fiddled with the buckle on her belt. ‘It could end up stashed away in a dealer’s vault or in a villa on the Cayman Islands. I can send you links to articles about that kind of thing, if you like?’
‘Well…I’m not sure that’s necessary, just now.’
She rubbed her eye, then picked at a scab on her hand, constantly fidgeting.
‘I forgot to say,’ she went on. ‘The girl who lives in the flat above mine works at Rothman’s Auction House in Wigmore Street. I find out a lot of stuff from her. Dawn mails out catalogues to customers and gets listings for all the big auction houses in the UK.’
‘Go on…’
‘After the crash, I asked if she’d keep her eyes open for any musical instruments that came up for auction and she added me to the mailing list. I mean…as I spoke to her, I knew it was a long shot…but I thought I’d keep checking, anyway. Like you say, no one in their right mind would try to sell a stolen instrument as distinctive as Max’s Guarneri on the open market. It would be spotted a mile off. For one thing, it’s so distinctive – the tail-piece is inlaid with mother of pearl and the pegs have little sapphires in the ends.’
‘Still, it was a smart thing to do.’
‘Thanks!’ Rosie’s face melted into a smile, then tightened into a frown. ‘Maybe there was another motive I don’t know about,’ she said slowly.
‘Let’s stick with what we know, shall we?’ I didn’t want her to get side-tracked speculating.
In our remaining five minutes, I asked about Rosie’s friends, to find out who was looking out for her. She was vague and unforthcoming. It seemed she had ‘acquaintances’ at work and a few regulars who said hello at the local library, but no real friends or family. No one had been to see her when she was in hospital after the crash.
‘I send Christmas and birthday cards to a few people – Auntie Doris, and another lady who took me in for a year when I was thirteen – but I don’t get many back. No one seems to remember my birthday. I think it’s one of those difficult dates…you know?’
I waited for her to explain.
‘It’s in a few weeks’ time, actually, on November 30th, but everyone’s already thinking about Christmas by then, aren’t they?’
I gave a faint nod. This was the justification she’d used to convince herself over the years.
‘So, I’ll see you again, outside office hours somewhere, next week – you’ll text me?’ she said when our time was up.
‘I didn’t say that exactly. Something might be possible,’ I said, laying heavy emphasis on the ‘might’. ‘But I can’t give you any guarantees right now…I’ll let you know.’
‘You’ll try your best, though?’ she pleaded, rubbing the door handle as if it was the hand of someone she couldn’t bear to be parted from.
After she’d gone, I stood for a while with my back against the door. The same raw sadness I’d felt when I first met her sucked at my stomach. I let it tug for a while, then jotted down a few notes:
Rosie’s initial response to the memory techniques is very positive and we’ve started to recover lost fragments from the traumatic eve
nt. She believes there’s a lot about the accident that remains unexplained and is very keen to unravel the mystery. My view, ultimately, is that she won’t gain a sense of control and stability until she can piece together more about what happened…
I stopped writing. If the best way forward for Rosie was to find answers, then continuing our memory therapy was crucial.
As I put down my pen, a vision of Joanne came to mind, falling as a heavy shadow across my shoulders. Her pale young face scrunched up with desperation, her voice fighting back tears. It made me wince, bringing with it an abrupt reminder of what can happen when a patient hands over their trust and a professional fails to follow through when it mattered most.
Was I going to deny Rosie my support because she might be a handful? Rosie was vulnerable after the accident. Wouldn’t I be in a similar state if I’d had such a close brush with death? And wasn’t dealing with loneliness and isolation part of my job? Surely, I was experienced and professional enough to handle this kind of situation. Only a few days earlier I’d taken a private oath to do all I could to support her.
In the last few moments before my next patient was due, I scribbled a note in my diary reminding me to fix up indemnity insurance. I didn’t have an option; it was my duty to carry on seeing Rosie and the only way we could do that was if she saw me privately.
I scanned the impersonal space I used as my office, with its built-in alarm system and team of professionals an arm’s length away. The next time I saw Rosie she’d be stepping across the threshold of my flat. Into my home.
I focused on the positives: she was keen to work hard, she was fully engaged with the process and was making headway. Hot on the heels of that thought came another: one I didn’t want to hear that sent an icy shiver down the back of my neck.
Chapter 10
Rosie