Neurotica

by Sue Margolis

  The room was small and bright. The off-white walls were covered in paintings, mainly abstracts done in vivid reds and greens or brilliant purples slashed by black. French doors overlooked a pretty and well-tended walled garden and let in the early-evening sunlight. In the middle of the room, two black leather high-backed armchairs stood facing each other about six feet apart. At the side of one of the chairs was a small, square aluminum-and-glass table. On this stood a thin white vase containing half a dozen yellow freesias. Next to the vase was a box of tissues and a small digital clock.

  Virginia indicated that Dan should take the chair nearer to the table.

  They both sat down. Virginia sat bolt upright in her chair, her feet placed precisely together in front of her. Dan noticed she was wearing brown lace-up walking shoes. She placed her hands neatly in her lap, but remained silent. It was clear she was waiting for him to start. After his initial clumsy outpouring in the hall, Dan couldn't think of a thing to say. Virginia sat patiently. As a therapist, she was perfectly at ease with long silences. As a neurotic, Dan was not.

  “So,” his blustering began, “you're partly Freudian then, but I bet you're still Jung at heart.” Dan laughed nervously at his own weak joke. Virginia's hard, chiseled features showed no emotion. When she spoke her tone was quiet and solemn.

  “Sometimes people spend their lives making jokes so that they don't have to confront their emotional pain,” she began. “If they are too busy laughing they don't have time to cry or get angry. Perhaps the reason you have come here is because you have reached a point in your life where you feel strong enough to face your pain and begin to deal with it.”

  Dan decided this was therapist speak for shit or get off the pot. He took a deep breath and began.

  For the next hour he told Virginia Livermead everything about his imaginary illnesses, his umpteen visits to Harley Street specialists, his nonexistent sex drive and how scared he was that Anna might leave him.

  Virginia made the occasional note on a foolscap pad as she listened to his story. After a while she began, as Dan had predicted, to ask him questions about his childhood. He told her how terrified he had been of his mother, how desperate he had always been for her approval and how she had never given it, but instead had done everything she could to humiliate him. He found himself telling Virginia about how she made him sit on the bucket of chicken soup.

  “You must be feeling such anger towards your mother,” she said when he had finished. Her voice was full of empathy and caring.

  Dan said he occasionally got furious with her, but he never allowed the feeling to last very long. Getting angry, he said, seemed pointless. She was dead. It was too late to tell her how he felt.

  Before Virginia had a chance to reply, another dreadful incident involving his mother, one that Dan had probably kept buried deep inside him for well over twenty years, leaped into his mind.

  It must have happened, he said, when he was about twelve. He'd just experienced his first wet dream. The next day when his mother was stripping his bed she found the evidence of her son's spilled seed. She stopped dead in her tracks, pulled off the bottom sheet and sat staring excitedly at the semen stain.

  She remembered reading an account somewhere of how the servants of the young Louis XIV found his semen-stained sheet and realized the stain was shaped like the map of France. They decided this was a sign from God that he would become a great and powerful king. The sheet was put on public display and great rejoicing and jubilation followed.

  When Lilly looked more closely at Dan's stain, there was no doubt that she could see a map of the Middle East with the Negev and the Dead Sea quite clearly outlined. Was it possible that she too was being sent a sign from the Almighty and that Daniel, her Daniel, who with his B pluses and A minuses was never going to be the academic genius she craved, was actually destined for great things? Could it be that she, Lilly Bloomfield, had given life to a future prime minister of Israel?

  Dan took his handkerchief from his trouser pocket and blew his nose. Virginia Livermead reached across and touched his hand. Behind her severe silver-rimmed granny glasses, her eyes were nearly bulging with excitement.

  “I can feel so much repressed rage coming from you,” she said, clenching both fists in front of her bosom. Her voice was deep and trembling, making her sound like some third-rate Shakespearean thesp. “I think over the next few months we need to start working towards bringing this to the surface.”

  With that she glanced at the clock and said that unfortunately their time was up. She went on to say she would be happy to see Dan at the same time next week so long as he felt sure they could work together. Dan said next week would be fine. As he got up he handed her the fifty-quid check in a white envelope.

  Dan pushed the plunger to the bottom of the cafetière and poured his coffee. He had his second appointment with Virginia Livermead in just over an hour. He'd told Anna he was going off to interview the chairman of the Bank of Bolivia in town and would be back just before nine in time to read to the kids. He picked up his mug and went upstairs to e-mail the piece he had just finished writing and get changed.

  As he did up the cuffs on his denim shirt, Dan realized he was looking forward to his next session with Virginia. He had to admit she was a bit earnest and seemed to lack even the slightest vestige of humor. He also wasn't sure he trusted her when she put on her caring, full-of-empathy face. Nevertheless, she was easy to talk to, she listened and she'd reassured him that he wasn't going insane.

  Dan dropped his keys into his jacket pocket and went downstairs. He yelled good-bye to the children, who were in the living room glued to Cartoon Network, promised them he would be back in time to read them a story, then poked his head round the kitchen door. Anna and Brenda were still sitting at the kitchen table talking Tory bastards. Gloria appeared to have volunteered to stay and make supper. She was busy chopping onions for a bolognese sauce, and managing at the same time to go through the fridge checking the dates on all the packets and throwing almost everything she picked up into a black dustbin liner. Anna hadn't noticed because she was on to her third glass of red wine. Dan said his good-byes and asked Anna to leave him some spag bol and he'd heat it up in the microwave when he got home.

  Dan got back just after nine. He barely spoke to Anna—Brenda was already in bed—simply said goodnight and went straight upstairs. Once again Anna could see the tense, preoccupied look on his face. She wondered whether perhaps Dan hadn't been off doing an interview and instead had been seeing some specialist who had just given him bad news.

  In fact Dan's facial expression owed more to physical and mental exhaustion than anything else. He had spent most of his hour with Virginia in tears as he revealed more and more excruciating stories about his mother. By the time he put his key in the door, his brain was still swimming with emotion. All he wanted was a glass of Scotch and sleep.

  The children, who had been sitting in bed waiting for him to get back so that they could have the story he had promised, heard him come upstairs, go to the loo and put himself to bed. He hadn't even come into their rooms to give them a goodnight kiss.

  Both Bloomfield children possessed a highly developed sense of justice and fairness. That very evening Amy had gone to bed crying because Anna had refused to buy her a Britney Spears backless minidress. She had taken her mother's decision particularly hard as she was still trying to come to terms with not being allowed to have her ears pierced.

  “Look, Amy,” Anna had said re the ear-piercing, realizing, but suddenly not giving a damn, that she was about to sound like so many of the other snotty middle-class mothers in Richmond, “the kind of girls who have their ears pierced at your age live in public housing where the Alsatians drink Special Brew and the streets are full of Y-registered Sierras with Confederate flag bumper stickers.”

  Amy, being eight, had got lost round about “Special Brew.” She gathered, nevertheless, that her pierced-ears application had been denied.

  Josh took grip
es with his parents particularly seriously, and kept scrupulous mental records, going back years, of all the crimes they had committed against him. These included still, even though he was ten, being bought Marks and Spencer tracksuits with pictures of Disney characters on the front, and being forced to eat from the children's menu in restaurants. The last time a waiter had asked him whether he would prefer mermaid or nuclear-submarine-shaped fish nuggets, he had jumped up from the table in disgust and sat out the rest of the meal in the gents.

  His worst grievance also involved food. It went back to an evening just before Christmas, when Anna had insisted he eat lamb casserole, which he detested.

  Josh had invited a friend over for tea. Anna had said that in return for him agreeing to finish everything on his plate, she would allow the two boys to eat sitting on the floor in Josh's bedroom. They leaped at the offer because this meant they didn't have to break off from building Lego antipersonnel mines. This, in turn, gave them a brilliant excuse to destroy Amy's pink plastic Barbie and Ken trailer.

  Several weeks later, the man from Rentokil came to investigate the nasty smell in Josh's room and discovered a mound of putrefying lamb casserole behind Josh's wardrobe. As a consequence, Dan stopped his pocket money for three weeks. Josh's reaction was to thump his father repeatedly on the back and scream all the swear words he knew.

  “Mum knows I think lamb's puke,” he'd howled in between throwing punches at Dan. “If I'd eaten it I would've thrown up and she'd have punished me. I only hid it so's not to make myself ill and not to get into trouble for getting sick all over my room.”

  He then accused Dan and Anna of being wicked and evil for stopping his pocket money. They refused to listen, concerned only with their son's dishonesty, the Rentokil man's call-out fee and the cost of new wallpaper and carpet for Josh's bedroom.

  Tonight, Josh was almost as angry as he had been over the casserole fiasco. It wasn't simply that he was annoyed with his father for breaking his promise about reading them a story; the truth was he felt Dan was severely neglecting him and Amy.

  His father never seemed to make time for them anymore. He was either too tired, too miserable or too ill. His mother was behaving strangely too. Sometimes she seemed very happy, almost in a sort of dream. Then she would suddenly get snappy and irritable. She also seemed to be working more than usual. He couldn't remember the last time she'd cooked a roast dinner. All they got lately were microwave packets or supermarket pizza.

  Josh toyed with the idea of waking his father and demanding an explanation for the broken promise, but decided against it as it carried a significant risk of attracting one of his father's rare, but heavy-duty, bawling-outs. He decided it would be safer to remonstrate with his mother.

  Josh pushed back his Manchester United duvet with his feet, heard his Thousand Best Jokes for Kids thump onto the floor and then went charging downstairs into the kitchen, where Anna was stacking the dishwasher.

  “I hate you,” Josh shouted at her from the doorway. “You two are the worst parents in the world. You are bloody bastards and I don't want to be your son anymore.”

  Anna turned round, looking more startled than annoyed. “Josh, calm down. What on earth is the matter?”

  “You know what the matter is. You and Dad have never got any time for us anymore. You never do anything with us. You're always too busy and he's always too ill. I hate you. I hate you. I don't want you for parents anymore.”

  By now, Josh had got himself so worked up that he was red-faced and sobbing. Anna put down the dirty plate she was holding and walked over to him. She tried to put her arm round him, but he punched it away.

  Anna was barely aware of the blow. All she could feel was the familiar sensation of descending guilt. Nevertheless she managed to retain a semblance of parental authority.

  “Look, Josh, I'm not prepared to speak to you while you are being so foul. You either calm down and we have a proper discussion or I am simply going to ignore you.”

  Threatening to ignore Josh usually calmed him down in an instant. The thing he hated more than anything was losing his audience.

  Anna was about to suggest making them both some hot chocolate when she heard Amy thumping down the stairs.

  “Christ, now the other one's here,” Anna hissed to herself.

  The next moment a drowsy-looking Amy was standing next to them in her ancient, faded Pocahontas nightie.

  “Mummy, shut Josh up,” she whined. “I was almost asleep. Why didn't Daddy come and say goodnight? I wanted to tell him about how me and Thomas Cooling snobbed in the playground.”

  “It's snogged not snobbed, you baby,” said Josh in a nerna-nerna ner ner voice. “See, even Amy hates him.”

  “I don't hate Daddy. I love my daddy and he loves me. You're just a big fat poo. And Mummy does do things with us. She takes us swimming, and Daddy takes us to the roller disco.”

  Before Anna had a chance to intervene, Josh was shouting again.

  “Everybody else I know has parents who do proper things with them like camping trips and going mountain-biking together. It's abuse, that's what it is, not spending time with your children. You and Dad are bloody child abusers, that's what you are, and I hate your bloody guts. I want to be adopted. Bloody child abusers. I'm phoning Childline.”

  With that Josh picked up the cordless phone from the worktop and stomped out of the kitchen, heading upstairs.

  “Right, you do that. You bloody do that,” Anna screamed after him. “Arrogant little jerk.”

  Anna couldn't decide whom she wanted to thrash more, Josh or Esther fucking Rantzen. Every time she and Dan told him off, Josh ended up phoning Childline for a second opinion. Josh had become such a regular caller that he even had a counselor he asked for. Claire.

  Anna always listened in on the extension to Josh's conversations with Claire, who, thank the Lord, was a frightfully sensible young woman. From the moment Josh had started phoning Childline, which he clearly perceived as grievance procedure for when he couldn't get his own way, a sort of junior ACAS, Claire had somehow grasped immediately that he wasn't being buggered, beaten or emotionally violated. Although she always listened to everything he had to say, she invariably managed to make him see that he had been a naughty boy and that maybe his parents had a right to be annoyed with him.

  Deciding to leave Josh to his own mad devices and hoping Claire would calm him down as usual, Anna took Amy back to bed and read her a few pages of Roald Dahl. This was followed by a frantic search for Amy's favorite Beanie Baby, without which she could not possibly go to sleep. They eventually found it wedged between the bed and the wall. Finally, clutching the Beanie Baby, Amy gave Eminem, who was Blu-Tacked to her headboard, a long, lingering snog, before sliding down under the duvet. As Anna plumped it round her, she gave her a goodnight kiss and a hug. She found it almost impossible to believe that the three-year-old who had once asked her if fish fingers could swim was now puckering up to repulsive, tattooed pop stars.

  Anna switched off the light, said a final “Night, night” and gently closed Amy's door. As she walked along the landing towards Josh's room, she expected to hear her son on the phone to Claire at Childline, going through a litany of Bloomfield parental misdemeanors. Instead, there were two voices: Josh's and Dan's.

  The bedroom door was open a crack. Anna stood outside and listened.

  “So, Dad, do you absolutely promise, cross your heart and hope to die in a cellar full of rats, that you aren't going to die?”

  Dan ignored the internal paradox of Josh's request. “Josh,” he began gently, “you're old enough to understand that nobody can make those kind of promises. But I promise I'll do my best.” He sounded truly regretful; as if it had come as a shock to him that his hypochondria had even been affecting the children.

  “And will you promise to at least try to stop feeling ill all the time, and when the weather gets a bit warmer can we buy a two-man tent from Milletts and go camping for a few nights, without Amy . . . just you and me?
”

  “I promise.”

  “And next time Mum gets one of her big checks from the Sun or the Mirror, can I have a Sony X-Box?”

  “Josh, you've got a lot of apologizing to do to Mum before we even think about buying presents. . . .”

  “But will you think about it?”

  “Yes.”

  “And if I say sorry for the things I said to Mum and am really good from now on, will I probably get it?”

  Dan sighed. He knew Josh had the energy to go on nagging all night. “Probably. Now go to sleep.” He bent down and kissed him.

  Josh fell asleep thinking that for child abusers his parents were, nevertheless, total pushovers.

  Thanks for calming him down,” Anna said as she and Dan got into bed.

  “ 'S OK. When I heard him having a tantrum downstairs, I realized I'd messed up. It wouldn't have killed me to have at least gone in and said goodnight to the kids.”

  “Don't beat yourself up over it. We all break promises to kids now and then.”

  “S'pose. At least I dealt with it rather than letting that Claire woman do it. God knows what she must make of us. . . . I've gotta go to sleep. Turn off the light when you've finished reading.”

  Dan turned over, his back towards Anna.

  Anna propped herself up on her elbow. She decided the time had come to confront Dan and find out what was worrying him.

  “Dan, don't go to sleep yet,” she said, poking him between the shoulder blades. “There's something I want to talk to you about.”

  Dan grunted and made a swiping motion with his hand, but didn't turn to face her. Anna poked him again.

  “Dan, come on, turn over. Please, I need to talk to you.”

  Dan didn't move.

  “Right then,” she said, getting irritated, “I'll talk to your back. I've been getting really worried about you. You've been behaving strangely for over a week and I'm beginning to think that maybe this time you're really ill only you're too frightened to tell me because you think I won't be able to handle it or else I won't take you seriously. Dan, if you're ill I must know, otherwise I can't help you. . . .”