The Therapist

by Helene Flood

  I take the other chair. As it happens, Christoffer and Vera like to sit in different chairs, so now I’m sitting in the chair that’s still warm from Vera’s body.

  “Right,” Christoffer says, with a grin so broad it shows all his white teeth, from the molars on one side to those on the other. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”

  He could almost have winked at me. He doesn’t, but it wouldn’t have surprised me if he had.

  “How are you, Christoffer?” I say. I’m aiming for neutral: friendly, but restrained. Trying not to be taken in by his grin.

  “Yeah,” he says, “I’m just marvellous.”

  The face that surrounds his huge row of teeth is unshaven; his fringe, parted at the centre, falls almost to his chin. His hair is dyed black, and around his neck is a row of studs I can only describe as looking somewhat like a dog collar. Christoffer has taken off his leather jacket and sits there in his T-shirt, the tattoos on his arms visible and with similar studded belts around his waist and wrists. I wonder whether anyone has ever tried to hug him. He’s an attractive, likeable boy, only in this outsider position because he’s chosen it for himself, and I assume that girls, if not swarming around him, are at the very least interested. But to hug him, with all the spikes?

  “School?” I say.

  “Yeah. I’m kinda scraping the bottom of the barrel, haha. But I’m not failing anything. Thumbs up, right, Sara?”

  “And at home?”

  Christoffer’s grin broadens further still to reveal the spaces where his wisdom teeth will erupt in a few years’ time.

  “Brilliant. Pappa’s in Brazil and doesn’t want to come home, and Mamma’s trembling with fear because of all this.”

  He taps one of the spikes of his collar with a knuckle.

  “You should hear her.” He puts on a falsetto, his face becoming that of an animated fool, the corners of his mouth drawn down in a comical expression. “Christoffer Alexander, are you really going to go to school with that around your neck? You look like a common whore.”

  I suppress a smile. Christoffer throws back his head and laughs heartily.

  “And that pleases you?” I say.

  “Of course it does,” he says, his voice smug.

  “Listen,” I say. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate all the effort you put into your personal style. But don’t you think you could find a way to irritate your mum that’s a little less associated with, you know, self-harm?”

  Yet more laughter escapes Christoffer’s throat.

  “That’s what I like about you, Sara, I must say. All the effort I put into it, yeah, you could say that. I suppose that’s true. But I have never self-harmed.”

  “I know,” I say, looking at him, serious now. His grin has re-duced by a third. “But there’s a hint of it in the very style itself.”

  “On that I think we’ll just have to agree to disagree,” he says.

  Christoffer sometimes lapses into adult ways of speaking. He has looked like a devil-worshipper for the six months I’ve known him, but right below the surface is a polite young boy waiting to break free. The first time we met he shook my hand, gave me his name, and said it was nice to meet me. Christoffer is in therapy because his mother thinks it’s necessary. His parents divorced with teary-eyed, door-slamming, resounding drama a couple of years earlier, and this clothing and music style, along with a certain insolence and a sharp drop in his grades, shook his mother out of her post-divorce stupor with a jolt. She called me in hysterics, and explained that her son was in need of immediate help.

  This is a qualified truth – since our very first session I have been convinced that Christoffer will be just fine. He will continue with his rebellion for as long as it upsets his mother, and perhaps in the hope that it may worry his father so much that he’ll return home from Brazil in sheer astonishment. But one day in the not-too-distant future, and well before his final exams, Christoffer will throw out his black clothes and studded belts and chains, put on ordinary clothes, go to school as if nothing has happened and make up for lost time. He’ll leave secondary school with grades good enough to enable him to do whatever he wants in life, and he’ll be absolutely fine. I know this, and Christoffer knows it, too.

  The only person who doesn’t know it is Christoffer’s mother, and therein lies the dilemma. If Christoffer doesn’t really need therapy, isn’t it unethical of me to give it to him, week after week? On the other hand, I need all the patients I can get. Christoffer, for his part, is happy to come. We have a good rapport, and I would hazard a guess that being in therapy appeals to him – fortifies, in a way, the style he’s trying out. Christoffer’s mother, waiting outside in her B.M.W., no doubt sleeps better at night knowing that he’s being “taken care of”, as she puts it, by me. Is this not then an arrangement that benefits everyone involved?

  I did once attempt to end the treatment, if not as resolutely as I should have. But Christoffer’s mother called me in tears that same evening.

  “Sara,” she wailed, “you mustn’t give up on him. You’re our only hope.”

  This was just before Christmas. It was snowing, and sitting in the chair Christoffer is sitting in now I looked out into the darkness and thought: if I keep him as a patient – what harm will it do? I applied professional terms to it, for myself – there was no-one else to justify it to. I’m offering him an “emotional corrective”, I said to myself. I’m a “safe adult” with whom he can explore his identity. These are the kinds of things I wrote in Christoffer’s notes, consoling myself with the fact that, since I operate privately, I’m not using taxpayers’ money but rather that of Christoffer’s wealthy father. And from what I’ve understood from telephone conversations with Christoffer’s mother, taking that asshole’s money is nothing to feel guilty about.

  Sigurd has called me. He left a message on my answering machine when I was halfway through my session with Vera. I’m now in the kitchen eating lunch: a tuna sandwich and apple juice. I play his message on speakerphone, the mobile on the kitchen worktop beside me, and listen as I eat.

  “Hey, love,” he says in his typical Sigurd way; the warm, melodic sound of him. “We’ve made it to Thomas’ cabin. Here it’s, oh, it’s good to be here, I . . .”

  The telephone crackles, and I hear the grin in his voice, a couple of bubbly stutters.

  “It’s just Jan Erik, he’s messing around with some firewood, he looks like a total idiot, I . . . I should probably go now. I just wanted to let you know we’re here, and, yeah, I’ll call you later. Be safe. O.K. Bye.”

  I have almost finished the sandwich. I sit there with the final crust in my hands as my husband speaks and feel something push against my diaphragm: I miss him. What a stupid thought – he’s only been gone for a few hours. I’m actually quite happy being alone. Going to the gym; eating food he doesn’t like. Watching films he thinks are stupid. Drinking white wine – which, according to Sigurd, is only for bridesmaids and old ladies. Going to bed early. Getting plenty done with my days.

  It’s only his voice on the answering machine. I’ll call him after work. I eat the last of the crust, wash it down with water. My next patient is Trygve. I have time for a coffee while I read his notes.

  Trygve comes at two o’clock on the dot, always on time, never a second too early. But unlike Christoffer he makes it absolutely clear that he does not want to be here. He doesn’t sit down in the waiting room but stands with his back to the front door, folding his hands across his chest when I open the door to let him into the office.

  “Come in,” I say.

  He walks past me, wearing a severe expression, lips clamped together so that they’re almost invisible.

  Trygve always chooses the same chair as Vera, but never sits down before I invite him to. When he does take a seat he doesn’t settle back into the chair but remains sitting upright at its edge, ready to get up at the slightest provocation.


  “So,” I say. “How has your week been?”

  “Fine,” Trygve says in a flat voice.

  “Your schoolwork?”

  “Fine.”

  “Have you done what you’re supposed to do?”

  “Yep.”

  “Have you been gaming at all?”

  “A bit.”

  “Have you been gaming more than within the times we agreed on?”

  Now he looks at me. He has sandy hair and brown eyes, straight features, nothing unusual – he actually looks conspicuously inconspicuous, if I can put it like that. His facial expressions are eerily controlled, and only very rarely, if he becomes irritated enough, for example, does a non-calculated movement escape censorship. When I first met him, I thought it wouldn’t surprise me if he turned out to be a serial killer.

  But Trygve isn’t coming to me because he has murderous aspirations, or because he’s too controlling or because he finds life meaningless. He’s in treatment because he’s addicted to playing “World of Warcraft”, or, more precisely, because his parents made his getting treatment a condition of his continuing to live at home. He’s twenty, older than most of my patients, and dropped out of school seven months before his final exams because it was getting in the way of his gaming. Trygve’s parents are worried, and they have good reason to be. We have agreed that I will call them if Trygve doesn’t show up for treatment. Trygve himself has also agreed to this – only, I imagine, because it would take too much time away from his gaming should his parents throw him out and he be forced to find a job to keep a roof over his head.

  “I’ve almost stuck to the quotas,” he says.

  “When have you not kept to them?”

  He suppresses a snort, like someone trying not to sneeze.

  “Two nights. Sunday and Thursday. Otherwise perfect.”

  His mouth is straight and stiff, his jaw tense, and there’s something about his reluctance that makes me tired, that makes me want to throw in the towel and say, “Wonderful, almost perfect, shall we leave it at that for today, then?”

  “So, how much time did you run over by on those days?” I say.

  “A little.”

  I sigh. With Trygve, I know that I have to be specific.

  “Let’s see. On Sunday you can game from seven until ten. When did you start?”

  “Seven.”

  “And when did you stop?”

  A pause. A muscle bulges along his jaw – that’s how hard he’s clenching his teeth. His jaw is strangely rectangular – that, perhaps, is a little conspicuously inconspicuous. I’ve read that men with a broad jaw are often regarded as attractive, but on Trygve such a strong jawline only adds to the impenetrable impression. Normal, perhaps, but even this expression – his grey, flat, ten-a-penny expression – seems calculated. It isn’t impossible that Trygve has grand plans for his life, but if anything is certain it’s that not a soul in the real world knows what on earth they might be.

  “After midnight.”

  A blatant euphemism.

  “How long after midnight?”

  A new bulge at his jawline.

  “Three.”

  “O.K., three, and on Thursday, that is, yesterday – on Thursdays you can game from seven until eleven. How long did you game for?”

  Another pause.

  “Until three.”

  “O.K., I understand. So by my calculations you’ve gamed for, let’s see, eight hours more than agreed this week.”

  He’s silent, his expression closed.

  “What do you think about that?”

  Trygve shrugs.

  “Is it a good thing, do you think?”

  He shrugs again, looks at his watch, places his hand back on the armrest, then looks at his watch once more. There’s no way around it with Trygve – all I can do is push back with force against force, steering us into the discomfort he creates for us.

  “Because I noticed you used the word ‘perfect’ when you first came in here, Trygve.”

  “I said ‘almost perfect’.”

  “Yes, I remember. I’m wondering what made you choose that word?”

  He exhales, quickly and loudly – not really a sigh, more in the way that a steam engine releases steam.

  “I don’t know, Sara,” he says, and now he’s seething, just below the surface. “Maybe I chose that word because I don’t think it’s much fucking fun to sit here every week and have to lay out all my private habits for you.”

  And there it is, his irritation – I realise that it’s more explicit today than it usually is. Perhaps this thought occurs to him, too, because it’s as if he recollects himself – he stops, his expression with its frowning brow and twisted mouth hanging there in thin air for a moment. Then it’s as if he erases it, replaces it with neutral mode.

  “Yes, I agree,” I say hastily – perhaps I can reach him before he clams up again – “I think that you find our sessions very uncomfortable. Can you say a little more about how you relate to that discomfort during the week, when you’re not here?”

  Another shrug.

  “Dunno. I don’t really think about it.”

  “Let’s take an example,” I say, trying to be specific again. “Yesterday evening, at eleven o’clock, when you should have stopped gaming, what did you think then?”

  “How did you feel?” is what I should have said – I have to avoid falling into the trap of becoming reason-focused.

  “Dunno. Nothing.”

  “Because you knew I’d ask you about it today.”

  “Didn’t think about it.”

  “I’m wondering, Trygve, whether you’re really motivated to try to keep to the schedule we’ve set up?”

  “Dunno. Well, yeah. I’m trying.”

  “Because I don’t think I can force you to stop gaming – and nor can your parents, for that matter. You have to want to stop for yourself.”

  “Yeah. I do want to.”

  The morning’s weariness rolls over me again, a hundred times stronger than when Vera triggered it. It’s right that if Trygve’s going to change he has to do it himself, and it’s glaringly obvious he can’t be bothered to. Patients who end up in therapy always have a motivation, or ambivalence, the textbooks say, and I know what they advise – get a hold on what’s there, Trygve wants to keep his home, build on that – but my toolbox feels empty and useless. Maybe the problem is that Trygve’s desire is so instrumental: not to maintain the relationship with his parents, not to stay at home because it’s safe, but simply to keep a roof over his head, an electricity supply for his computer. And if I’m being honest, I’m not sure what will help Trygve. Many gamers play away years of their lives, just as Trygve seems determined to do. He’s carved in stone, and part of me thinks that as long as this is what he wants, there’s not much that can be done about it.

  But it’s Friday afternoon. I don’t have it in me, another pseudo-conversation in which Trygve says whatever he needs to say in order to follow our agreement.

  “O.K.,” I say, “but what do you think you need to do in order to stick to our agreed times next week?”

  “I’ll try harder,” Trygve says through clenched teeth.

  “Good,” I say. “Then we’ll try that. Shall we say the same time next Friday?”

  Before I go to the gym I call Sigurd, but he doesn’t pick up.

  I’m on the T-banen on my way home when my mobile rings. The train winds its way up from Ullevål, its couplings clattering. It’s dark outside, the light in the carriage yellow, the seats occupied by tired businessmen and women with briefcases and smartphones, the odd skiing fanatic wanting to get the most out of the winter heading to the countryside. Otherwise, there’s just me, my sweaty body causing the windowpane beside me to fog up. The mood is sullen and silent apart from the jangling of the carriage. The humming vibration of
the telephone in my bag breaks the silence, Jan Erik’s name lighting up the screen.

  “Hello?” I say in a questioning tone, as if I don’t know who it is.

  “Oh hello, Sara, it’s Jan Erik.”

  His voice is unstable, flippant, as slithering as the carriage in which I sit. I stifle a sigh. Are they drunk already? Have they sunk to an even lower level of childishness than usual – are they making prank calls?

  “Yes,” I say, sharply, as in “get to the point”.

  “Yeah, we just . . . Thomas and I are wondering whether you’ve heard from Sigurd?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Outside, the ascent becomes steeper – we’re approaching Berg, only two more stations before mine. The houses are like models, black lumps with illuminated rectangles on them. They don’t look real – I can’t believe that people live in them.

  “No, we just . . . We were just wondering . . .”

  He clears his throat, and I think this is unusually idiotic, even for him.

  “What are you wondering about, Jan Erik?”

  “Just . . . when he’s coming.”

  “When he’s coming?”

  There’s a pounding at my temples – first Trygve, then my spinning class and now Jan Erik. All I want is a shower, a glass of white wine and my chicken salad.

  “Yeah. I mean, he said he’d be here around five, and now it’s after seven, and we just, we can’t get hold of him, so, haha, well, we didn’t know – but we thought you might? Know, I mean? Or have heard from him?”

  There’s a mumbling behind him – Thomas’ voice. I straighten up in my seat.

  “Yeah, I’m sure there’s nothing wrong,” Jan Erik says now, almost shrilly, it seems to me. “We just wanted to check.”

  Thomas is more sensible than Jan Erik. I’m not sure whether I like Thomas, but I certainly prefer him to Jan Erik.

  “Listen,” I say, in a low voice so the rest of the train won’t hear me but loud enough that Jan Erik will, “Sigurd called me at around nine-thirty this morning and said that you were all there already. I haven’t heard from him since.”