‘You can’t give an example, though, can you? You make these claims, but you’ve got nothing to back them up with.’
He waits, but she offers no response.
‘Well?’ he says.
‘Her birthday. You must remember Lucy’s eleventh birthday? Your mum didn’t remember it, though, did she?’
He is looking at Karen with that expression he wears so well, a sneer on his lips and a demeaning laugh behind his eyes. ‘It was just a birthday. And there was a lot going on at the time.’ He turns back to her. ‘You know there was a lot going on.’
She holds back what she wants to say, fearful that if she allows herself to lose control, she will say too much and lose everything. ‘She never forgot James’s, did she?’
Josh sighs. ‘She loved them the same,’ he says, looking up from his hands. ‘She always did. Whether you chose to see it or not is your problem.’
‘Is this something that Lucy has spoken to you about?’ Karen asks.
They answer at the same time: Lydia replying with a yes, Josh with a no.
‘Please take these words as they are intended,’ Karen says. ‘Josh’s mother is no longer here. Regardless of what either of you may have felt towards her, how she behaved can’t be changed now. This is another thing you need to draw a line under, which may mean agreeing to disagree. I’m sure she wouldn’t want to see the two of you falling out with one another in this way. If anything, I’m sure she would want you to be happy.’
‘She told you that, did she?’ Josh says coldly.
Karen’s eyes widen.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says, putting a hand to his forehead. ‘I didn’t mean that. I shouldn’t have said it. I’m sorry. I still find it hard to talk about her.’ He stands and goes to the window, looking out onto the garden with his back turned to the room.
‘You really might want to consider grief counselling,’ Karen says. ‘I know it’s hard, I really do. There are issues here that will keep recurring if you don’t resolve them properly.’
‘No one can bring her back,’ he says, still looking out through the window. ‘It can’t ever be resolved.’
Karen looks as though she is beginning to feel sympathy for Josh, but Lydia can’t allow this to happen.
‘You know when you had us write things down, about how the allegation against Josh had affected us both?’ She waits for Karen to nod. ‘Well, I was just wondering if … Do you ever offer sessions with just one person?’
Josh turns from the window and looks at her questioningly. Realising what she wants, he shakes his head at the suggestion. ‘Anything you want to say, you can say in front of me.’
‘I know that, it’s just …’ She chews the edge of a thumb. ‘I can’t really, though, can I?’
She waits for him to argue with her, but he doesn’t. Instead, he moves from the window and sits back on the sofa. ‘Do what you like,’ he says with a shrug.
‘Is that okay with you?’ she asks Karen.
‘Of course, if you think it will benefit you.’
‘I think it will definitely benefit me.’ She smiles gratefully before turning the smile on Josh.
Seven
Karen
I am saying goodbye to a couple I have met with this morning for the second time when I see Josh walking along the pavement just a few doors down from my house. There is no sign of Lydia. I think about going back inside, closing the door and pretending I haven’t seen him – ignoring the doorbell as though I’m not at home – but it is too late for that: he has seen me. This is an unscheduled visit; we have planned for Lydia to visit me alone, but Josh gave no indication that he wanted the same. Suspicion creeps through me like a chill. What is he doing here?
The email I received a fortnight ago is still at the front of my mind, its limited contents enough to make my sparse sleep even more unsettled. Is Josh responsible for sending it? It makes no sense that he might be in some way involved; try as I might to work out what his intentions may be, I am unable to fathom how the message is relevant. The word ‘bitch’ seems so personal, so driven by hatred. He doesn’t know me well enough to despise me with such a passion.
He steps onto the driveway and approaches me casually, as though it is perfectly normal for him to be here without his wife. As he nears, I notice how different he looks. He is dressed far more casually than usual, in tapered running trousers, trainers and a black zipped hoodie, and he is clean-shaven, taking years off his already youthful face. The thought that he will want to come into the house fills me with unease, so I begin prepping my excuses for keeping him out here on the doorstep.
‘Josh. I wasn’t expecting you today.’
I don’t know why I say this: he knows I wasn’t. He shoves his hands into his pockets and shifts from one foot to the other, not meeting my eye. He seems uncharacteristically nervous, and I am struck yet again by the mess of contradictions this man appears to be. Each time I think I have worked him out, something new about him arises, knocking any previous character assessment off balance.
‘Can I come in?’
I remind myself not to be too confused by him. His contradictions are evidence of an act, and increasingly I believe that there are two of him: the version of Josh here in front of me now, and the one who exists behind the closed doors of the couple’s home; the one I have seen glimpses of during these past couple of weeks. There are those who can keep their true selves hidden from the outside world, but I don’t believe that Josh is one of these people. He may have done well up until now, but the mask will slip at some point.
‘I have clients coming in half an hour,’ I lie. The truth is that my next appointment is not for another two hours, but if I encourage this unscheduled visit then I run the risk of unwittingly inviting others. I have been nursing a particularly aggressive headache all morning, one I had hoped I might be able to sleep off before my next clients arrive. The prescription I was given to help me with my insomnia hasn’t done a thing to benefit my night-time sleep, yet where the days are concerned, I could easily catnap whenever and wherever I find the opportunity.
‘That’s fine. I can pay you for your time.’
The promise of a nap is snatched from me; it occurs to me that no matter what excuse I make, Josh is intent on coming in. I wonder if this is about his mother. There are issues here that I don’t believe he has ever addressed, but if he wants to give his marriage any hope of survival, he is going to have to find a way to deal with the things it appears he has tried to push to one side. Though Lydia’s views on the woman appeared unexpectedly insensitive, it is obvious Josh is still grieving, and not everyone is equipped to deal with living with someone who is struggling like this. Not every relationship can survive a loss that is felt so keenly.
I’m not sure what Josh wants from me. I’m not a grief counsellor: that requires a whole different set of skills, ones I don’t possess. Since losing Sean, the last thing I feel I can bring myself to do is to listen to the pain of someone else’s grief. It is still too raw. I know it always will be.
‘This isn’t about money, Josh. Look … what we spoke about last time … I really think you should consider it. I’m not a grief counsellor. I wish I could help you, but you need someone who’s an expert in this area. I can put you in contact with somebody.’
He shakes his head. ‘It takes a long time for me to trust someone – I can’t talk to a stranger about it. Please, Karen. I don’t want to do this in front of Lydia – she doesn’t understand.’
I remember this feeling well. When Sean died, it seemed to me that nobody else appreciated what I was going through; that nobody could possibly begin to imagine the weight of loss that I was dragging around with me every day, all the while plastering on a fake smile and dropping empty phrases such as ‘I’m fine, honestly’ into conversation; words that spared other people the awkwardness of having to try to find a way to cope with my misery. There were no children to share those painful weeks and months with; no family to help break the awful silenc
e that fell over my days. Sienna was suffering her own loss, which I knew was completely different to mine, and she had her own family to think about: a young daughter who needed her attention; her mother to support her through her grief.
‘I wish I could help you, Josh,’ I say again, and there is an element of truth in my words. Despite everything I suspect of him, no one has a single side to their character. I’ve seen enough of Josh to believe there is good in there, kept hidden behind the nonchalance and the hostility. There is goodness in most people, though in some it is harder to find. True evil only occurs where there is no goodness at all. I have met with evil in my life only twice, experiencing it once with Damien Hunter and for a second time in the husband of a woman I tried to help. Any trace of goodness in these men was merely a mask for the cruelty that lay hidden beneath it. They were both ruthless and without remorse, and no matter what Josh might be – regardless of the characteristics he might have demonstrated during his sessions with Lydia – I don’t believe he is a match for either of these people.
He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t move to leave either. He is still looking down, shifting from side to side, and then his hands come out of his pockets and he is staring at them, working the fingers of his left hand across the palm of his right as though trying to massage out a pain. I think for a moment about the accusation made against him – about what those hands are apparently guilty of – then try to remind myself that he was found innocent. It hasn’t been easy to dismiss the knowledge from the front of my brain, where it has rested as though the experience is mine and not his.
He looks at me as though he is about to speak, but then does something I am unprepared for, something I never would have expected of him and am not sure how to deal with. Standing on my doorstep, Josh starts to cry. His tears escape him in a sudden rush that appears to take even him by surprise, and he looks away from me, embarrassed by this show of emotion. I find myself responding in the same way, checking either side of me to make sure none of the neighbours are around to witness what is unfolding.
This is London: people pass each other daily without ever really taking notice of what anyone else is doing, too busy with their lives to ever pay much attention to those of others. Usually I am grateful for this, though it strikes me sometimes that should something ever happen to me – if I was to die in my sleep one night, alone in bed – there would be no one to notice anything amiss. I could lie here, just beyond the locked front door, with no one aware of my need for help. It would be so easy to be the same as everyone else, to turn a blind eye and pretend I haven’t noticed the scene that is unfolding in front of me, but if I do that, what exactly does it say about me? Ignorance is the easy option, but it is rarely the best.
With the echo of Sean’s voice still in my ear, I step to one side to allow Josh into the house. I am not a fool – I have seen too much and experienced enough darkness to know when someone is playing a role – and though I remain uncertain of who Josh is, I need no convincing that this show of emotion is a very real one: one he seems embarrassed by, almost ashamed of. I know what it is to grieve, and I understand the way this particular kind of pain takes hold, vice-like, until it feels as though the lungs are being squeezed and breathing is impossible. There is so much of Josh I fail to comprehend, but his grief for his mother is at least one part of his character that I am able to empathise with. And if I start with this, perhaps it will open a path for me to get closer to what is happening with Lydia.
He stands in the hallway as I close the front door. When he looks away, glancing down towards the consultancy room in expectation of being taken there, I reach to the drawer in the hallway table and retrieve my mobile phone, slipping it into my pocket. Should I need it, help is just a phone call away. I think of that email, repeating a reassurance in my head that convinces me Josh cannot be involved. I believe it. Though doubt about his behaviour is rooted firmly in my brain, the email doesn’t seem like something he would do. If he wanted to call me a bitch, I imagine he would be more likely to do so to my face.
He waits for me to lead the way. When I push the door open, standing back for him to enter before me, he is wiping his eyes with the back of his hoodie sleeve as though attempting to hide any evidence of the tears I have already seen. I think about his outburst here during our last session, of how he seemed so close to hitting his wife. I remind myself not to forget the incident, though it would take far more than a few tears for me to erase the memory of his potential for violence.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he says. ‘How embarrassing.’
‘There’s no need to be embarrassed.’ I follow him into the room and gesture for him to take a seat. I feel sure that once he has composed himself, he will be keen to get away from here and will return next week as though nothing happened, having failed to tell his wife that he came here alone. He is certainly not the type of man who will admit to having been reduced to tears in front of a woman who is little more to him than a stranger.
‘Here.’ There is a box of tissues on the sideboard; I take one and pass it to him. He accepts it silently, wiping his eyes dry before putting the tissue into his pocket.
‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry. I feel like such an idiot. She gets so frustrated by my grief, I feel as though I’m not allowed to talk about it. This is what I meant when I said she expects me to agree with her on everything. If she’s okay about things, I’m supposed to be the same.’
I think about the way Lydia reacted to Josh’s first mention of his mother’s death. She seemed so cold that I almost didn’t recognise her as the same woman who has sat in this room every Thursday for the past six weeks. She appeared to have little sympathy for her husband’s loss, which makes me wonder how she got on with her mother-in-law. It’s a relationship that can often be strained, yet regardless of how bad it might have been, her response seemed unnaturally insensitive.
Is she really that cold, or is she attempting to be the stronger of the two in order to support him during this time of grieving?
‘She never seemed affected by Mum’s death,’ he continues. ‘Not in the way I was.’
I take a seat. ‘No matter how close you might be to them, losing an in-law isn’t the same as losing a parent of your own, not if you had a good relationship with your mother.’
He looks at me, his eyes still glazed. ‘No,’ he says, with a shake of his head. ‘Of course not.’ He sighs. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be saying all this to you, not after what you’ve been through. She told me,’ he adds. ‘About your husband. I’m sorry.’
I have made no secret of my loss: there is a tribute to my late husband on my website. I am proud of our marriage; I am proud of all the things we achieved during our twenty-seven years together, even those things we overcame before our wedding vows were recited. Experience is the best qualification I have in offering advice to others.
‘I miss her so much. Sometimes it catches me by surprise, this feeling of emptiness – it just comes from nowhere.’
And when it does, it knocks you sideways, I think. Another feeling I am all too familiar with. It has been almost three years since Sean passed away, and though people rely on the cliché of time being a great healer, I understand now that those words are trotted out to offer a sense of hope in a situation where there would otherwise be nothing but darkness. My grief hasn’t faded; it has merely morphed into an ever-changing part of myself, something that will age and alter with me, that will stay with me and die only when I do.
‘This frustration you say Lydia feels towards your grief,’ I say, avoiding any further focus on my own personal life. ‘Do you think it might be frustration with herself in some way? Perhaps she wants to help you but is unable to do so because she hasn’t been in your situation.’
Josh smiles. It is a smile I haven’t seen from him before; not his usual sarcastic, nonchalant sneer, but a real smile that changes his face, softening its hard edges. He holds the look for a moment more than is comfortable. ‘How do y
ou always do that?’
‘Do what?’
‘Try to see the best in people.’
I wonder if he is mocking me. We both know this is far from true – life has made me cynical in so many respects, and he is clearly aware what I think of him. He demonstrates an array of narcissistic tendencies: a lack of remorse or acceptance of any blame, an inflated sense of his own importance, and now, a charm that might easily sway me if it wasn’t for my experience and knowledge of men such as him. I have been accused in the past of being sexist, which is entirely untrue. It is a proven fact that a great majority of narcissists and sociopaths are men; it is also a fact that the victims of these men’s personality traits are generally the women in their lives.
And yet where his mother is concerned, Josh shows a capacity for love that doesn’t fit the outlined characteristics of a true sociopath. Speaking about her now, he seems so different to the man who has sat in this room while his wife has been present. And yet there are others who have managed to disguise themselves behind similar shows of feigned sensitivity. In his case, is it faked? I’m not so sure.
‘You have to try to find good in this world where you can,’ I tell him, attempting to make the statement sound as casual as I can. ‘It would be a pretty depressing place otherwise.’
‘I find that difficult a lot of the time.’ He stretches out a long leg and turns his body towards me. ‘She doesn’t understand me. She thinks she does, but she doesn’t know me that well, not really. Not like I know her. I feel … I don’t know. I want to be able to talk to her about things, about Mum, but she just shuts off the subjects she doesn’t want to discuss.’
‘Have you considered the grief counselling I suggested? I mean, properly thought about it? I mentioned counselling to Lydia too, and I know it might not seem that appealing an option, but it could help. You should try it.’
‘Did it help you?’
The Divorce: A gripping psychological thriller with a fantastic twist Page 10