by Anne Buist
‘I presume you need to go home?’ Natalie asked, returning from her bedroom wearing a white wrap she’d forgotten she even owned. It was undoubtedly a present from her mother.
Liam was collecting clothes. ‘I guess so.’
‘Where are you meant to be? Actually, no, don’t answer that, I don’t want to know. How many kids?’
‘Two. James is twelve and in his first year of high school. He wants to be prime minister. Megan is ten and probably will be the prime minister, straight after she’s finished writing her Booker-winning novel.’ He spoke with warmth.
‘Sounds like you’re giving them the childhood you didn’t have.’
Liam paused, reflecting. ‘You’re a shrink, so I guess that’s pretty obvious. I don’t want to be the sort of father my da’ was. We’d never have any idea if he was staying or going and if he stayed, whether we wanted him to. I want my kids to know I’m always there, and it’s a safe place to be: them first, no matter what.’
‘It’s none of my business,’ she said. ‘Does your wife care?’
‘She doesn’t know or want to know,’ said Liam, avoiding her eyes.
‘I meant does she care about you? The whole package? The part of you I see?’
Liam buttoned up his shirt and smiled. ‘That bit I’m sure she’d happily give you.’
Natalie figured as much. The perfect wife for a corporate lawyer would have to be…respectable, she supposed.
‘So you allow yourself to be tamed most of the time, and just permit the occasional breakout.’
Liam, now dressed, walked over to her and pulled her up, kissing her gently. ‘Thank you.’
Natalie laughed. ‘Nothing to do with you,’ she said. ‘I’m looking after my own needs, pure and simple.’ She walked him down the stairs, musing that his motives for seeing her had shifted; revenge or bruised ego had been overtaken by pure lust.
‘Then I hope you stay…needy,’ said Liam. He kissed her again. ‘See you Thursday night in Welbury?’
She nodded with a half-shrug.
‘Oh wait.’ Liam stopped. ‘I found this under your door.’
He produced a red envelope from his jacket, handed it to Natalie and turned away too quickly to see her look of shock.
A few moments later at her computer she slotted in the USB, and read the single Word file saying what was now obvious: I know where you live.
Chapter 13
Natalie felt she no longer had a choice. Stalking of the more malignant variety had the potential for escalation; her man was already well on the way. She took the USB sticks into the Fitzroy police station. Waited impatiently in a claustrophobic foyer with missing persons posters and a ‘We know you are there and will be with you soon’ sign staring at her. The duty constable, when he appeared, looked resigned to a day of lost cats. He was hardly able to contain his enthusiasm when Natalie explained why she was there, and handed him a printed list of the threats she had received. He took a long time getting details; enjoying the time away from the cats, perhaps.
‘Could it be a patient?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘You mean none of them or all of them?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘So tell me about your patients.’
‘I can’t.’
The constable sighed. Natalie almost felt sorry for him. He reread the printout she had given him. ‘What does this mean here about mood stabilisers?’
‘Not relevant.’
‘Do you want to be helped or not?’
‘I can’t breach confidentiality.’ Her stalker knew that. He’d warned her about it from the start. Not that she had any names of patients, or anyone else for that matter, she could give the constable as likely candidates. Apart from Travis. She felt she was grasping at straws casting him as the stalker. Surely he had more to worry about than terrorising her? Would he have driven to Melbourne to deliver the first letter and, if so, what was he worried about?
If it was Travis, however unlikely, this was Damian’s investigation. He’d hardly thank her for bringing in any more interference. Liam hovering on the edges was bad enough.
The constable stopped writing. ‘Get someone to stay with you for a while. Make sure your locks are good. I’ll put your residence on the cruise-past list.’
Jessie was subdued. She arrived with a huge bag, and seemed distracted. Natalie figured she’d get to the issue bothering her when she felt safe.
For the first half of the session she went over mindfulness techniques and added some relaxation and distraction to the repertoire: temporary scaffolding, while Jessie took the months or years to process what was driving her emotions and to manage it effectively.
The underlying problem surfaced suddenly, when Natalie was encouraging Jessie to close her eyes and take deep breaths.
Jessie opened her eyes and sat up straight, squirming before saying, ‘I’ve been packing up Dad’s stuff. The doctors don’t think he’ll ever be able to go back home.’
‘Too many memories?’
Jessie managed a wry smile. ‘You didn’t give me a big enough box.’
Natalie met her smile and encouraged Jessie to continue.
‘Jay—my stepbrother’s—helping though, which is good.’
‘How much are you seeing of Jay?’
‘He keeps in touch. Without him I probably wouldn’t have coped with Hannah being in prison.’
‘Is he working? Married?’
‘No. Not married. Works for…’ She frowned then named one of the big consulting firms. ‘Does something to do with computers for them. He’s smart,’ she added.
Sounded promising. Jessie hadn’t held a job at any one place longer than six months.
‘Would he come and see me? As your main support, he might benefit from knowing your crisis plan. I’d see you both together.’
‘Jay? Here? I guess I can ask.’
Jessie rummaged around in her bag and pulled out a notebook computer. There were stickers all over it. Mostly Japanese cartoon figures. One looked like the figure tattooed on her arm.
‘Found this in Dad’s stuff.’ Jessie looked down at it, picking at one of the stickers that was peeling off. ‘It won’t fit in the box.’
‘Would you like me to keep it here until you’re ready to look at it?’
Jessie nodded. She looked relieved but also…scared.
‘We can go there when you’re ready.’ Natalie put the computer into the desk drawer.
Georgia was late. Natalie used the time to check her mail. No red envelope. Rather than being reassured, she felt tense. Would the next one be under her door at home again?
Georgia arrived twenty minutes into her appointment time. ‘I’m so sorry. The tram hit a motor bike and I ended up having to walk most of the way.’
‘Right.’ Natalie took a breath. ‘How have you been feeling?’
‘Good, actually. I’ve been painting the living room. It was that awful mushroom off-white. Drab. It was getting me down.’
Natalie drummed her pen
on Georgia’s file.
‘I’d never painted a whole room before and—’
‘Tell me about Olivia.’
Georgia didn’t appear to hear the question. She rummaged in her bag and found a Dulux paint chart. ‘It’s that one now.’ She pointed to a pale lilac. Natalie kept looking at her until she put it away, zipped up the bag and put it on the floor. ‘It probably wasn’t the smartest thing,’ she said. ‘I got pregnant not long after Genevieve. I hadn’t been on contraception because we wanted a big family. I just didn’t think about it.’
Repetition compulsion? Was Georgia driven by a need to create the perfect family—the one she had not had as a child—but destined never to succeed? Everyone was compelled to repeat patterns. It was only when the patterns were pathological that anyone noticed.
‘We were both so delighted when we found out. It seemed like it was meant to be, that this child was going to help make things right again.’ Georgia stared out of the window.
Natalie forced herself to stay still. A minute passed. She shifted slightly to see Georgia more clearly, wondering if she was dissociating or just remembering. She was startled to see a tear run down Georgia’s cheek.
‘Did it? For a while?’ asked Natalie gently.
Georgia turned slowly and looked at Natalie with a blank expression.
‘Make it better?’
‘Oh.’ Georgia took a breath. ‘Yes. Paul and I could still plan our life together. The pregnancy was relatively easy which helped. And I was interested in sex again. I was able to keep Paul happy.’ Natalie circled the word happy and added a question mark. ‘Labour was okay. Olivia was even easier than Genevieve. Placid. Everyone loved her. She loved being dressed up.’ Georgia unzipped the bag and pulled a photo from her wallet, a child in a ballet tutu. It must have been taken shortly before Olivia died. She looked about two years old.
‘It was just fancy dress,’ Georgia explained. ‘She would have done ballet classes the next year.’ Natalie stared at the photo; Olivia was the perfect pretty extension of her mother. Had this been Georgia’s fantasy? If so, what had gone wrong to alter it? Cried once too often? Too needy and demanding?
‘What was her health like?’
‘Oh, she had the usual colds and things.’
Natalie looked at the general practitioner’s summary that had finally arrived. Georgia had been in to see him weekly with Olivia, sometimes more often. A battery of tests, well outside the usual range, had been ordered. A normal reaction from both GP and Georgia after an earlier SIDS? Or was it Munchausen’s; in this case, Munchausen’s by proxy? As a nurse, Georgia would have known exactly how to fake illnesses to ensure particular tests were done. She could have given her children medications that would have induced vomiting, taken their blood to make them anaemic, ensured that faecal material contaminated collections or caused urinary tract infections. Natalie had looked hard at the tests and the results. It was hard to see them as anything more than anxiety driven. Nothing too invasive and no recurring theme.
Georgia started to say something then stopped, still staring at the photo. Her face again seemed devoid of emotion.
‘Georgia?’
She continued to stare blankly. Natalie started timing. Five excruciating minutes passed. Natalie got up and knelt down beside her, putting her hand gently on the other woman’s arm. ‘Georgia?’
Georgia looked at Natalie dreamily. ‘Sorry, what?’
‘Where have you just been? What were you thinking about?’
‘Uh, I don’t know,’ said Georgia, looking confused. ‘We were talking about Olivia weren’t we?’
‘Yes.’ Lost time? She cringed at the thought of eating humble pie with Wadhwa.
‘Tell me more about Olivia. What was her relationship with Paul like?’ Because Natalie still had a hand on Georgia’s arm, she felt rather than saw the stiffening. It was so fleeting she wondered if she had imagined it; Georgia was smiling broadly.
‘Oh he was wonderful with Olivia. Called her his little monkey.’
Natalie stared at her. Georgia’s sudden brightness was patently excessive and completely at odds with the preceding fifteen minutes. Still, the overly bright Georgia had her uses. She gave her permission to contact Paul, as well as her Aunt Virginia.
‘How can I tell if it’s real?’ Natalie watched as Declan finished arranging his desk. The file in the corner was now exactly square.
‘The only way you’ll ever be certain is if she tells you. And even then?’ Declan shrugged. ‘You can look for inconsistencies, lies over unimportant things, maybe an overall gut feeling. Just don’t draw conclusions too soon.’
‘Do you believe in dissociative identity disorder?’
‘I understand it’s popular with our American colleagues.’ The expression suggested he wasn’t going to add a bust of any American analyst to his mantelpiece in the near future. ‘The United States of Tara was very good, I hear.’
‘You can’t disregard the diagnosis on the grounds of it being dramatised on television.’
‘No, but it may be a culturally based—in this case American—phenomenon.’
‘So you’re saying it can exist?’
‘The human brain is very complex. Rather than ask yourself if you believe in some disorder that is an artificial construct, ask yourself if you believe in dissociation as a phenomenon.’
‘I’ve had it. A reaction to antihistamines. I felt like I was separate from what I was actually experiencing. But I knew what was going on. And I didn’t kill anyone.’
‘You’ve been depressed and not tried to kill yourself too.’
Suitably chastised, Natalie thought for a moment. ‘One of my borderline patients used to feel she was hovering around the ceiling watching as her stepfather raped her.’
‘Analytical theory aside, what’s the point? Does it help?’
‘It’s a survival technique. It helped my patient separate herself from the terror of the experience. It develops young.’
‘Because that’s when it’s most needed. How does a child of five or even ten make sense of furtive behaviour, threats and pain from an adult they want and need to trust?’
‘Okay. But dissociation isn’t the same as D.I.D.’
‘I agree. But is it a first step? What would it take to explain the subconscious taking refuge in different personalities?’
‘Wadhwa would say a ton of abuse, perhaps specific abuse creating conflict in the child: “I love my father, I hate my father”. The different personalities are supposedly a way of managing the contradiction.’
‘And you’ve already established Georgia represses emotions. Can you conceive a way that other personalities would resolve it?’
‘Gut feeling? It just seems too convenient. What I’ve seen could still be borderline and besides…’
Declan raised his eyebrows.
‘Perhaps the police have this one right; the most obvious simple explanation rather than the deeper psychological one. A jury are going to take on board that she got angry and killed them more readily than Wadhwa waxing lyrical on separate personalities developing, one for rage, and others for fear and shame.
’
‘The jury is not your concern. She may have D.I.D. She may have a personality disorder. Or it may be something else.’ Declan considered her gravely. ‘But whatever Georgia’s diagnosis, this is not about you and Wadhwa.’
‘Urgent message to ring Dr Cortini at the prison,’ said Beverley, handing her, at the same time, a note from Jacqueline Barrett suggesting a time to meet to discuss Georgia. Beverley had outdone herself today, dressed in the full array of rainbow colours, and her mood seemed to be in line with it. Natalie left her to organise the meeting with the barrister.
‘Amber has just heard about Travis’s second child going missing.’ Lucia Cortini’s voice was always gravel and strine. Today it sounded like it was coming around a cigarette parked in the corner of her mouth.
‘She’s taking it hard?’
‘She’s coming up for her parole hearing. I don’t want another fuck-up like with her bail.’
‘You think the parole board will see her as still unstable?’
‘Yes. Someone put it in her head that it’s her fault.’
‘She isn’t to blame.’
‘Yeah. I get that. But she’s not listening. She wants to see you.’
‘I can’t.’
‘You mean won’t.’
Shit.
Declan had been clear. ‘You are going to cause more harm than good. You’re over-involved and not seeing things clearly. It’s affecting your judgment. You shouldn’t be seeing her.’
‘I can’t stop,’ Natalie had protested. ‘She trusts me. She still has a lot to work through.’
‘This is a directive,’ said Declan. ‘Explain, and then hand her over.’ The threat of him reporting her and her losing her ability to practise gave her no choice.
Amber had been understanding and accepting, but only because she considered herself unworthy. Now, over a year later, Amber was asking for help and there was no one else who understood what she needed.