by Ron Elliott
He studied her. Eventually said, ‘Good night, Iris.’
‘Thank you for coming, Frank. I do appreciate your concern.’
She waited until she heard the front door close before she collected the glasses and the fallen rose petal. She put the half bottle of very good shiraz on the counter for Mathew and put the note in the kitchen bin. He must not have heard about the school or he would have called. Unless he’d tried her mobile. That’s how she’d get her purse. She’d call her mobile in the morning and have it sent to the practice. She retrieved the bottle of wine, took it upstairs, into the shower with her.
Chapter four
Iris woke. Her clock radio showed six-thirty, the news was all school explosion. Eleven dead. Mathew was not in bed although his side had been slept in. Iris felt heavy-headed. Her back was sore. She wondered if it was some kind of referred pain connected to the school explosion or her reaction to it. She found the empty wine bottle in the bathroom bin.
Mathew read the newspapers as he finished his morning smoothie. It had berries, coconut water, protein, yogurt whirred into a delicious violet. He was in his riding gear, blue and black lycra. On Monday he’d take enough suits, shirts, ties into the office so he could ride to work each day when he didn’t have a trial on. He had fewer trials now, though. More strategy stuff. He was in pretty good nick for a sixty year old. Lean, muscular, tanned. His hair was dyed a convincing shade of black.
‘Good morning,’ she said as she went to the fridge to find her smoothie.
‘Morning.’ He studied her.
She smiled, reassuring. ‘What time did you get in?’
‘Elevenish. You were zonked.’
‘Yes. Whoops.’ She would have liked to have said “Frank started it”, but this would only make matters worse.
‘What have you done to your head?’
He pointed above his own left eyebrow.
Iris reached up to touch the plaster she’d put on. ‘Banged into something. Clumsy me.’
‘Anything to do with the wine bottle I found in the shower stall?’
Iris sat at the table, unsure about his smile. ‘Perhaps. One glass became more than one.’
‘Hard day?’ He had already gone back to the newspaper. ‘There’s been an explosion at a school. Did you know?’
‘Yes, I knew.’ Iris didn’t want to reach for the papers. She didn’t want to read anything about the school.
‘Did you know anyone involved?’
‘I expect so,’ she said. She saw the station officer signalling, arms up in the flash. She couldn’t see his face. She said, ‘Will you still be able to read newspapers when you’re a judge?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, you know they don’t let juries near the media so they won’t be tainted by the false stories.’
‘We’re hardly in the same category. But no, I’d probably steer away from anything I was presiding over.’
He examined her again. Added one plus one, and got three. ‘You mustn’t be upset by this. There’s nothing you could have done. I’m glad you’re out of it. You know that.’
‘Yes,’ she said, wan smile.
He stood, patted her on the shoulder. She tried to pat his hand but found herself rubbing the shoulder where his hand had been.
‘I’d better be off before it gets too hot. Have a good day.’
‘Yes. You too.’
Mathew clattered on the tiles in his cycling shoes. She watched him through the French doors, carrying his helmet and backpack around to his racing bike in the garage.
She should have told him about the school.
*
Iris crept into the practice, managing to avoid everyone except Mary. ‘Patricia said you weren’t coming in.’
‘I’m not. I’m not here. Just writing up, Mary.’ Iris put her finger to her lips.
Mary retrieved a handbag from a desk drawer and held it out to Iris. ‘It came from the hospital.’
Iris shut herself in her office and got to work on Hannah’s file. They’d made poor headway, although it had only been the second visit. Neither was compliant in the treatment, she noted. Hannah resisted telling. Donna resisted giving up control of Hannah. Then, of course, the police had interrupted everything.
Until Iris could convince Hannah to talk about her life with ‘the problem’ she could not naturally externalise the problem in order to ‘beat it’. Iris could see patterns, which wasn’t the point. Hannah needed to see the patterns, want better ones she could believe in. An early step was to identify how not eating was a negative. Iris would explore the metaphors she’d read concerning useful approaches to anorexia. It erodes parts of life. It eats away friends and joyful experiences. Anorexia likes to divide families. It likes to isolate. Ed was a bad guy.
On the other hand, Hannah’s eating disorder might not be ‘the problem’. It might be the result of another problem. At first, Iris thought Hannah was trying to punish her mother, making her dance to Hannah’s sickness, triumphing over the over-control or demanding attention from a busy working parent. However, Iris detected an enabler in Donna. Both, perhaps. The two had developed a loop. Hannah might be trying to please her mother. Donna’s internal story: Look what I do for you. Hannah: Yes, mummy. Look how I need you. Look how I’m a child. Donna: Naughty, good girl. Be my child.
Further exploration of attachment theory might be useful. Insecurity of both. Hannah had physical health issues as well as her mental causes. Donna had fears for her child and of losing her child. Iris could help these two women. She was sure of it.
If they’d let her. If they came back. They may well decide that the storytelling was not for them. Iris still had trouble trying to sell it to people, even though she thought it could work for Hannah and Donna. Iris had lost patients already since stepping in for Dr Chew. She’d gained some too, especially those seeking help with post-traumatic stress disorder, police and firefighters loyally following her from her previous life to get counselling that had nothing to do with narrative therapy. Perhaps everything was to do with everything.
Next, Iris wrote notes regarding a client who was a retired athlete. He’d lost physical shape, developed a problem with prescription drugs, ones he’d used in competition to help him sleep before big games. He’d become addicted to the drugs, using them now to numb depression as he failed to cope with no longer being famous. In fact they were feeding his depression. Iris had recommended a discreet drug-treatment centre not offered by the practice, and was also working up ideas in which to enter into re-authoring conversations. Iris was confident he could be nudged back on track with his new life, if they could discover what direction he wanted to embark on.
When she heard the knock on the door, she ignored it. The door opened anyway.
‘Iris. Thought I saw you sneak in.’
It was Gillian, a particularly loud clinical psych. Gillian had unwieldy red hair, meaty arms that were bare under a black kind of smock. She carried two coffee cups and pushed the door shut with her ample posterior. Her make-up appeared to have been put on by a four year old child who was behind in mastering his scissor skills.
‘Brought you a cuppa. No milk. I never asked, but you look like a no-sugar, no-milk kind of gal.’ Gillian liked to enter the lunch room saying things like, ‘It’s a madhouse out there. Absolute bedlam.’ Gillian also liked to say, ‘The problem isn’t the problem. I’m the problem.’ Iris thought she did it to annoy the other psychologists. Her specialty was public health, Iris recalled, especially dealing with the families of the mentally ill.
Gillian put one of the mugs down on Iris’s desk. She peered at the plaster over Iris’s left eyebrow. ‘You have pissed off your god mightily, haven’t you? Seriously.’ Gillian could say exactly the wrong thing for a therapist to say, yet get it, therefore, entirely right.
‘Yeah, well, his aim remains sloppy.’
‘Him, eh. You sure you’re not mindlessly repeating a dominant male-created cultural imperative, sweetie?’<
br />
Iris felt her smile strain now. ‘I’m fine, Gillian. As I say, he missed again.’ Iris held up the report she was working on. ‘Well, thanks for the coffee.’
Gillian said, ‘I saw Meredith Marsh for you yesterday.’
‘Oh yes. Thank you.’
‘Um, I wasn’t trying to white-ant you. Trying to help with a holding pattern.’
‘Thank you, I owe you one.’
‘The thing is, she has set up another appointment. With me.’
‘Oh.’ Iris was shocked. While Iris had inherited Meredith from Dr Chew, she felt she’d been making small progress with her in addressing her shyness, especially in regards to how it affected her in her workplace. She would have thought Gillian was exactly what Meredith did not need.
‘You’re pissed. I can tell her no.’
‘I’m surprised. Fine. Mary will send you the casenotes, I’m sure.’
‘I’ll make it up to you.’
‘No need. Look, I’m really …’ Iris indicated the notes on her desk again.
‘You’ve lost a patient, I’ll give you one.’
‘Gillian, there’s really no need.’
‘Me.’
‘What?’
‘Can I be your patient? Client. Whatever we’re calling them, us, me this year.’
Iris blinked at her. ‘But Gillian, it wouldn’t be appropriate. We’re in the same practice. Colleagues. It would be a dual relationship.’
Gillian let her ‘hail fellow, well met’ smile fade a moment to allow a little truth. ‘I really need some help.’
‘I’ll refer you. Give me some time to come up with someone.’
‘Okay. No worries. I’m sorry if I compromised you. I just didn’t want a fluffy warm-fuzzy one is all and you seem … anyway, onward and upward to infinity and beyond. Sorry about Meredith.’
Gillian hustled out, possibly mortified at the rebuff, if anything could mortify her. Iris pondered for a moment how much help Gillian might need.
*
Later Iris drove to Biara Prison to visit one of her more troubling clients.
Lisa and Kimberly had attended the practice during Iris’s first week of replacing Dr Chew. Seven year old Kimberly was exhibiting troubling personality changes. A sudden return to bedwetting, trouble sleeping, reversal of good school results and disruptive behaviours in the schoolyard. Her regressions and the acting out could arise from many causes, so Iris sat on the couch with Lisa, asking questions while Kimberly emptied the toy box.
It transpired Kimberly’s grandmother was sick and Lisa was spending extra time helping with her mother’s care.
Iris thought she’d start there. ‘Kimberly, tell me about your grandmother.’
‘She’s sick.’ The child kept playing with the doll, pushing it into the rug.
‘Do you help Mum look after your grandmother?’
‘I stay home.’
‘You often come with me. We take her dinner, don’t we?’
‘I stay home.’ She was staring at the floor.
Lisa shook her head.
Iris began to think of ways she might approach the child’s fears about her grandmother’s sickness, perhaps ask what she most liked or disliked about visiting her grandmother.
The girl said, ‘I help Daddy.’
‘Good girl, Kimberly. Do you help him cook dinner?’
‘I’m his nurse.’
‘Are you your grandmother’s nurse too?’
‘They’re not home. They’re away. It’s just us.’ Kimberly was intent on the rag doll she’d lain on the floor.
Lisa said, ‘Darling, you come most times. Only not when it’s too late on a school night.’
Iris watched what Kimberly was doing with the doll, the way her finger was rubbing between the doll’s legs. She felt a chill. She knew her next questions must be carefully done. She must not lead and she must not plant and she must not hurt innocent, loving relationships. She made sure her tone was light with no implication of blame.
‘What do you help Daddy do?’
‘It’s a secret.’
‘Do you have lots of secrets?’
‘What are you doing?’ asked Lisa.
‘Are there secrets you can tell? That you can tell your mum?’
Lisa looked from Iris to Kimberly, concerned but not alarmed.
‘No. Specially not.’ Defiance again. Anger directed towards her mother.
Iris laid her hand on Lisa’s arm. ‘Has your mum been bad?’
‘Daddy says she won’t do it, so I have to.’
‘Do what?’
Kimberly was struggling with the images in her head and promises she’d made. She wanted to tell, yet she was miserably compromised by counter-instructions and deep confusions.
‘This is ridiculous,’ said Lisa standing.
‘I want to go home,’ said Kimberly, also standing.
‘You’re putting disgusting ideas into her head,’ shouted Lisa.
Kimberly howled, ‘Something bad is going to happen. I said don’t come.’ She started to cry and her mother rushed to her.
‘Mrs Fitzmorris, I’m sorry. I have certain doubts. They really need to be investigated. I have no option. I must inform …’
‘Stop it. We came here for your help. You’re being crazy.’
Iris opened the door to the waiting room and called, ‘Mary, do we have a GP here today?’
‘You mustn’t tell,’ screamed Kimberly.
‘Kimberly, what are you doing?’ said Lisa in alarm.
Iris turned to see Lisa step back as Kimberly stood on the mat, wetting herself. She stared down at the spreading wet patch and the urine dribbling down her legs. ‘You mustn’t tell.’
Iris did tell. There was no choice. She was legally bound to notify authorities. Like all health people, her first duty was to protect the child. Above all else, protect the child.
Patricia convinced Lisa to have the health check, merely as a precaution. She assured Lisa it was probably nothing. The medical examination found evidence of sexual activity: bruising and thrush around Kimberly’s genitals and her mouth. It set in train a series of procedures which included alerting Child Protection. They convinced Kimberly to give up her secret about cleaning Daddy’s dingle till it squirted. The police became involved and Kimberly’s father was charged and remanded to Biara Prison. His name was Rodney.
Lisa and Kimberly discharged Iris’s services immediately. Clearly, Lisa felt betrayed by her. She continued to believe her family had been ambushed and was not yet ready to believe Rodney’s guilt. Then Rodney engaged Iris. The logic of this continued to give Iris considerable pause.
*
The last visitors of the day were leaving the carpark when Iris arrived at Biara. A woman and two children in their Sunday best, handmade and over-washed, were getting into a faded Cortina. Two men with big beards climbed into a massive green Dodge. Prison carparks were strained, desolate places, hope overcome by the dry, dull glare of another hot afternoon.
Iris showed her card and was buzzed in. She sat, was moved forward, sat again.
Iris suspected Rodney’s plan was to win her over somehow and somehow (Rodney was a long-term thinker) persuade her not to testify against him. After much discussion with Frank, amongst others, Iris’s plan was to turn Rodney into a decent human being.
So far, Rodney had mostly refused to take responsibility for his actions. Iris had been trying to work with Rodney on breaking down the stories he told himself to justify his abuse of Kimberly. She had been attempting to get him to admit to himself that the sexual acts with his seven year old daughter were not reciprocal or appropriate. The behaviour was not justified or excusable, with awful consequences for his child.
‘I looked after them. I looked after Kimberly and Lisa and Lisa’s mum. Nothing was too good for them. You know that don’t you.’ This is a story male abusers tell themselves. The Father Christmas story.
‘Lisa was being a bitch. Once her mum got sick, I’m cut off. “I’m
looking after my mum so you can get stuffed.” After all I’ve done.’ This is the Wicked Witch story.
‘Kimberly. She started, you know, kind of coming on to me. In a basic way she was flirting and wriggling.’ Lolita.
‘It wasn’t even sex, per se. You know. Affection. We were both lonely. We both needed affection. A cuddle that went too far.’ Denial. Projection.
Iris worked hard to establish empathy, not for Rodney, but on Rodney’s part towards his child.
Iris could get Rodney to the threshold of accepting responsibility for the awfulness of his actions, but at the doorway he’d slip away again, discover and practise new excuses for the next visit, as though it was merely an argument, one he hadn’t quite mastered yet. The minimising, denying, justifying, blaming, deflecting, avoiding, false appeasing and negotiating seemed endless.
Iris was keyed through another door at Biara to the visitors room gate.
‘Rodney Fitzmorris,’ said Iris, showing her credentials again and a copy of an email the prison medical officer had organised.
The prison guard checked an authorisation list then telephoned. She came back carrying a clipboard. ‘Bringing him over from Special Wing.’
Iris was surprised. Rodney had been within the general population.
‘Are you aware of a prisoner awaiting psychiatric assessment?’ she said. ‘Picked up in Candonin?’
‘The death-ray Martian.’
‘Maybe. Death ray?’
‘He’s already set fire to a cell. Apparently, on his way down from Candonin, he set fire to the police van as well. I hear he death-rayed a whole motel complex in the desert. If you want to see him, he’s locked in the Crisis Centre.’
‘Oh, I don’t have permission.’
She waved the clipboard at Iris. ‘Yes you do. Says you’re going to assess him in the next couple of days.’
‘What? Who?’
‘Dr Frank Silverberg and Iris Foster. Assessment of prisoner on remand.’
Son of a bitch, thought Iris. Frank had made assumptions. Iris was annoyed he’d read her so easily.
‘Don’t piss him off,’ said the prison officer.
‘What?’