Tell Me A Secret

by Samantha Hayes

  Back in reception, several people are already in the waiting area. ‘Sandy,’ I say quietly. ‘If you’re popping down to the deli later, would you be able to pick me up a salad? I won’t get a lunch break today because…’

  She glances up, giving me a look. ‘Of course,’ she says, one eyebrow raised. She taps away at her computer, no doubt still curious why I contacted a client myself.

  ‘Morn, Lorn.’ Joe comes out of the back room carrying a mug of coffee. He gives me a wink, a pat on the arm.

  ‘Hey,’ I reply, all of us aware there are two clients waiting already. There’s none of our usual chatter, nor the bear hug Joe would have given me had it been private. He’s the only one of my colleagues to do this and, while we’re all neatly boxed up within our professional boundaries as soon as we step inside the clinic, somehow it doesn’t seem wrong coming from him.

  Or maybe it’s just me who’s boxed up.

  ‘I need one of those,’ I say, pointing at his coffee.

  ‘Lorna,’ Joe says, following me into the staffroom. ‘Have you got a moment?’ He closes the door behind us.

  ‘Sure,’ I say. Can he read the guilt on my face? As my supervisor, Joe has my best interests at heart and we have regular sessions to discuss my clients and their progress, as well as my own issues. Supervision is a bit like therapy for the therapist. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Sit down,’ he says, a serious look on his face.

  Chapter Six

  Lorna

  Tom is fifteen minutes late and, by the time he arrives, I’ve downed another cup of coffee and written a couple of referral reports. I’m swigging the last drop when Sandy buzzes me to tell me he’s in the waiting area. I go out to greet him, immediately spotting from the way he walks, the way he holds his head, that he’s not had a good week.

  ‘Have a seat, Tom,’ I say, closing the door behind us. He chucks his bomber jacket on the end of the sofa and drops down onto the dark grey fabric. There’s water on the side table in case he wants it, though he never does, and a box of tissues within easy reach. Plus, I brought in the small, nameless plant that Freya gave me for Mother’s Day yesterday to brighten the room a little, to remind me of my little girl while I work.

  Then I think of my own mother and the gift she was reluctant to accept from me. I thought I was doing the right thing for once. Even as a child, she seemed to despise everything I did, made me feel guilty for even breathing. ‘You know I can’t leave your father for that long,’ she said, staring at the voucher. After taking Freya to the park yesterday afternoon, I’d popped over to see her. ‘What do I want with a new hairdo anyway?’

  ‘I thought you deserved a treat,’ I told her, glancing at my father as he sat in the chair. He didn’t comment, of course. ‘And Dad will be fine for a couple of hours. Won’t you, Dad?’ I said, glancing at Mum, hoping she’d accept.

  ‘See?’ she said, shrugging. ‘I can tell he’s not happy about it.’

  ‘Dad doesn’t mind, Mum. He’ll barely notice you’re gone. Anyway, I can always come over and sit with him while you go to the salon. You’ll enjoy getting out, chatting with people.’

  Mum put the voucher on the mantelpiece, at least, which showed a glimmer of hope that she might actually use it, treat herself. Being stuck inside with Dad all the time wasn’t healthy, but it had been that way for years. She’d pretty much turned into a recluse apart from when she came over to us – sometimes with Dad, sometimes without.

  ‘How are things?’ I ask Tom, settling into the chair opposite him. It’s just the right distance away – not too intimate, yet not so far away I seem detached. I cross my legs, making sure my skirt stays at knee level.

  He shrugs.

  ‘OK,’ I say. ‘You seem a bit like you don’t know, or maybe don’t want to say?’

  Another shrug, though he’s looking at me, almost as if he wants me to guess. I hold his gaze, aware of him wringing his hands in his lap.

  ‘How have you been sleeping?’

  Tom shakes his head. ‘Not great.’

  ‘You sound exhausted.’

  He nods. ‘It’s more than tiredness. It’s like my body’s giving up on things, you know? I thought I could deal with it, get back on track, but it’s getting worse.’

  ‘OK, so you don’t feel like you’re functioning properly?’

  ‘Nope. Especially not on Mondays.’

  ‘Sunday night sleep is still the worst?’

  ‘Yes. Sunday nights I can never sleep. Not a second, literally.’ He stares at his fingers. ‘It’s, like, hardwired into me, as if my body knows it can’t relax or let go on a Sunday night.’

  ‘So it’s become a pattern for you, that you can’t relax on Sundays?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Aren’t you supposed to just tell me how to fix it?’

  It’s only our third session, so I’m not expecting much yet. I’m still trying to connect with him, forge our relationship, but he constantly shuts me out. ‘I’m hoping that we’ll be able to discover together what’s going on for you, Tom. It’s not simply a case of you telling me that you can’t sleep and me giving you the answers.’ I give him a small smile as he pushes his hands through bleached hair. The roots are black and greasy. ‘With my help, with you sharing your feelings, I’m confident you’ll be able to find your own answers.’

  ‘But my parents are paying you for advice. Can’t you just tell me what to do?’

  Tom is only nineteen, studying at university, and has been falling behind with his work. His OCD is virtually at the point where he can’t leave the house, and he finds it difficult to form and maintain relationships with people his own age. His tutor has given him a final warning, and he smokes weed from the moment he gets up.

  I make a little sound to show I’ve heard him. ‘Well, firstly, I don’t give advice. But the way you say it, it makes me think you want “advice” to appease your parents rather than to be of benefit to you?’

  Tom shrugs again and sighs heavily. ‘They’re only doing this to cover their guilt. They don’t really give a shit. They just want me and my problems to go away. They hate me.’ He slides down in his chair, chin resting on his breastbone, fingers clasped across his chest. His legs are spread wide. ‘And I hate them. Especially my mother.’

  ‘So by paying for your sessions, you think your parents hate you?’

  He’s silent for a while, then takes a tin out of his jacket pocket. He pulls out a ready-rolled joint and a lighter. ‘That’s what it feels like, yes.’

  ‘I’m afraid you can’t smoke in here, Tom.’

  He puts it between his lips. ‘That other shrink used to let me.’

  ‘For a start I’m not a shrink, I’m a psychotherapist,’ I say with a slight smile. ‘And I’m afraid this building is completely no smoking. You can go outside if you want, but you’ll be wasting more of your session.’ He’s testing me, I know, but if he chooses to go outside to smoke, I will show that, within our allotted time, I’ll still be here waiting for him when he comes back inside. It’s all about boundaries, him knowing where he stands. It’s unlikely he’ll have experienced such a relationship before.

  And then he’s on my mind again… swooping in at just the wrong moment.

  ‘Fuck it,’ he says, throwing the joint down beside him. ‘I don’t even know what to say any more. It’s like my feelings are all dried up.’

  ‘I get that,’ I tell him. ‘I get how hard it is sometimes to say the things we most need to. Like they’re stuck – or dried up, as you say.’ I hold a loose fist against my throat.

  Tom nods, his cheeks reddening as he turns away. ‘It was like, when I was eight, I stopped sleeping. Mainly on Sundays but other days too. Back then, I never knew when it was all right to sleep. It was like, if I didn’t, then everything was fine. Even though it wasn’t.’

  ‘OK…’ I shift my position, leaning forward slightly. ‘So it sounds like you almost felt afraid to sleep, that if you kept awake, everything would be all right?’

&n
bsp; ‘Yeah, that’s it exactly,’ he says, staring straight at me. For the remainder of our session, Tom talks about how he’s ruined his parents’ lives, how they never wanted him, how he was an accident and should have been aborted. He says he hates himself. He doesn’t cry, but he’s close to it.

  After our session ends, Tom’s mum is waiting in reception to drive him home. She doesn’t look at me as I say goodbye, telling him I’ll book him in for the same time next week.

  ‘Chicken salad OK?’ Sandy asks, squaring up a stack of client files on her desk. I sense a different tone to her voice but could be imagining it.

  ‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘Can you book Tom in for his regular slot again, please?’ I head back to my office to make a few quick notes, then go to collect my next client from the waiting area. She’s always on time and never tries to run over the end of our session like some.

  After that, I only have one more appointment booked for this morning – Brian, a long-term client – but Sandy tells me he cancelled half an hour ago. ‘He apologises profusely and says he’ll come next week.’

  ‘Thanks, Sandy,’ I say, feeling slightly thrown. Or maybe it’s because I’m concerned that she’s still curious about my unusual lunchtime booking, my guilt rearing up again. But I can hardly tell her that I only did it to make me feel alive again, that I only broke strict ethical guidelines for selfish reasons, just to feel the high, to get a fix. To feel close to him again even just for a second.

  Back in my office, I tap my pen on my desk, staring at the clock, sighing. There’s still an hour before the new client comes – the poor, unwitting person I’m projecting my mess onto. I’m already thinking up excuses to explain why I texted him directly, how it’s not normal practice, how we won’t be doing it again. I’m terrified he’ll make a complaint.

  That’s what he said once, when we had a big fight. One of our big fights. That he’d report me, have me struck off. Then he stormed out, leaving me reeling. Leaving me shrunken and fearful, terrified of the consequences.

  ‘Heard you’d got a no-show,’ Joe says, poking his head round the door, making me jump. ‘Fancy an early bite of lunch?’ There’s none of the earlier concern in his voice, nothing that gives away that he thinks I’m losing it. In the staffroom earlier, I did a good job of convincing him that all was fine, that I didn’t need extra supervision, that my workload was manageable and there was nothing extraordinary on my mind. But it made me suspect that Sandy had said something to him about what I’d done.

  How could I have been so stupid?

  ‘It’s just that you’ve seemed a bit distant these last couple of weeks, Lorn,’ he’d said earlier. ‘Want to talk about it?’ A therapist who’s not there for herself isn’t going to be there for anyone else either, and that’s part of Joe’s job – to flag any issues with the clinical team, to offer support and help.

  ‘Have I?’ I’d replied, sipping my coffee. ‘Really, I’m fine.’

  Not fine.

  ‘Everything OK at home?’ he’d asked, taking me by surprise. It’s not the sort of thing he’d usually broach unless I brought it up.

  ‘Sure.’ I shrugged, trying to look perplexed.

  He’d smiled then, that wide, beaming Joe smile that shifted the geography of his face upwards. ‘Good,’ he said, though I didn’t fail to notice the little twitch at the corner of his eye.

  ‘Er, paging Lorna…?’ Joe says from the doorway. ‘I said, do you fancy some lunch?’ He grins, one hand toying with his beard.

  ‘Oh God, sorry, Joe. You caught me in deep thought. I’ve got an assessment soon and I really should catch up with some notes right now, plus I have some reading to get through for my course and—’

  ‘It’s OK,’ he says, holding up a hand. ‘If you change your mind in the next half-hour, let me know.’ He pauses, as though he’s going to say something else, but then shuts the door behind him.

  In truth, there’s nothing I’d like more than to go for lunch with Joe, have him listen to me, hear the whole sorry story, spew it out instead of leaving it to rot inside me. I imagine his expression slowly changing as I drip-feed him, bit by sordid bit – his eager smile transforming into a tight frown as he realises what I’ve done. But I can’t do that. I’ll never do that. Even therapists have secrets.

  Chapter Seven

  Nikki

  I stretch out in bed, forcing myself awake, wondering if today is the day. I sense it’s not. Not yet.

  I didn’t sleep well last night. Usually sleep comes easily – an escape, a respite. Perhaps it’s because I know the time is drawing closer, my mind unable to switch off, running over how it’s going to happen, what I’m going to do. My plan is sketchy, but when I do finally meet her, I’m concerned all she’s going to notice are the dark circles under my eyes, my twisted mouth biting back everything I want to say. I know she’ll pity me, think I’m crazy, send me on my way feeling smug and oh-so grateful she’s not me.

  After I drag myself out of bed and wash myself down in the tiny shower across the creaky landing, I rub a towel over my short hair. The mirror is dirty, the foxing on it overlaying my skin to make me appear twenty years older, all freckles and distortions. She’d like that, I think – if I was old and past it. No competition for her in her perfect life. Complete with her lover. I’m determined to look my best when we finally meet. I found a scarlet lipstick dropped outside the burger van last week, so I shoved it in my pocket. I can’t afford things like that for myself.

  I dab some on my lips now, puckering up, deciding I’ll wear it when I meet her. A scarlet woman. That’s what she’ll think as I laugh like a witch, when really she’s no better herself. Her do-good therapy crap won’t fix me. Besides, she’ll need a few sessions herself after she hears what I’ve got to say.

  Sometime after ten, I lock up my room and head out. I’m just a lodger, holed up on the top floor of a wonky old house with a tiny bathroom and a kitchen shared with the landlord.

  The landlord and the lodger. Such a cliché.

  It should be a hundred and fifty pounds a week, but I pay a lot less. I’ve been here two years now, the longest I’ve stayed anywhere for ages. ‘Bye,’ I call out from the hallway. My landlord smiles, mumbling something from the kitchen, something about an appointment later, that he’ll be out for a while and could I take a delivery of paint and brushes for him.

  ‘Sure,’ I say, flicking him a wave, not knowing if I’ll be back or not. It’s often unpredictable where I’ll end up.

  The cool morning air makes my nostrils flare as I step outside, breathing it in. I take the familiar route to where Denny’s had the van parked recently, dumping my jacket and bag under the tiny counter. No doubt we’ll get moved on soon. First thing I do is open up the hatch, heat up the hotplates and get the coffee on.

  ‘Nice lipstick, chick,’ Denny says, rasping out a laugh that ends in a smoker’s cough.

  ‘Thanks,’ I say, opening up the freezer compartment to pull out two boxes of burgers. I glance at the grease-stained clock above the small sink. Seven hours to go. Seven hours to fill with buns and onions and cans of pop. And, when she leaves work, I’ll be waiting, watching her every step.

  Chapter Eight

  Lorna

  A few minutes before one o’clock, Sandy buzzes me to let me know that my new client has arrived. Any thrill from his texts has long since gone. Like any good therapist, I’m aware of my feelings. Nothing goes unnoticed or unused in this job.

  Cath says I overthink everything, that I analyse stuff to death and see things that no one else would pick up on. But it’s second nature to me – noticing every single word someone uses, every muscle twitch and look, and every movement made and awkward silence.

  ‘You’d bloody well read something into the angle the postman drops the letters through the door, you would,’ she said, laughing, last time we met. But I took it on board, thought about it lots – of course – and I laughed along with them too. Cath, Annie, Megan, Charlotte – none of my friends know
anything about what happened last year. Keeping secrets is part of my job.

  Cupping water in my hands… I think, shaking my head as I gather up the rubbish from my lunchtime salad, chucking it in the bin. I check there’s a clean glass on the table and enough tissues in the box, glancing in the mirror to fix my hair. I like to collect my clients exactly two minutes before their session begins. This allows them time to come into my office, take off their coat, settle down and catch their breath before we begin. But, just as I’m leaving the room, my phone pings. I turn back, grabbing it from my bag. Even now, ten months on, the sound still gets me.

  Jack’s agreed to babysit Freya, so we have a whole evening’s pass. Dinner then a movie? xx

  I stare at it for a moment, frowning, before flicking it onto silent. Mark knows I usually I do other things on a Monday – calling friends, doing my nails, reading, taking a candlelit bath, journaling. All those self-care things I preach to others but despise doing myself. It’s only for distraction. To fill a void. But then my mind swerves onto what I used to be doing on Monday nights a year ago and my cheeks burn, my heart races. I hold on to the desk, taking a deep breath.

  ‘Get a fucking grip,’ I whisper to myself, glancing at my watch. A minute past one already. Dammit.

  Sandy glances up as I come into reception, the sound of my footfall changing as I tread from soft carpet to tiles. There are two people waiting. A woman, facing me, and a man, dark-haired, with his back to me. I don’t immediately notice the lurch in my stomach. It’s more of an undercurrent, but it soon turns into something I can’t ignore. The looming rise of a tsunami.