by A J Waines
There’s no sign of any pets in the place, either. A thought about Erica catapults into my head. She had a scruffy little dog who sat in during our first couple of sessions and seemed to listen to what I said. After that, he lost interest (the story of my life) and stayed in his basket in the hall. I wonder where Rupert is now. Erica always used to offer me a cup of tea when I arrived and she’d sit with her stocking feet resting on a footstool. Now I come to think of it, she was more relaxed, more informal than Sam, who’s wearing the same trademark pale silk blouse and black skirt that she wears at the hospital. I thought she’d be more laid-back at her home; hoped she’d be a bit more chatty.
Our chairs in the sitting room are spread out, so we’re not even within touching distance, and there’s the statutory box of tissues and two glasses of water, making the place look business-like. There are two clocks in the room, so we can each see how much time is left and vases and plants, but few personal items. I can see gaps in the bookcase as well as the walls, as if she’s removed certain books and ornaments. A tiny nugget of hurt hardens in my throat when I think she might have also done that because I’ve turned up.
All in all, the place feels stripped bare, not personal or cosy in the least. Just another room where Sam works. It’s sterile and soulless. Not like a home at all.
I’m miserable and depressed for most of the session and, from the questions she asks, Sam assumes it’s about the accident. I don’t enlighten her. I can hardly tell her I want her place to feel more homely. That I want to feel like she’s properly invited me in.
Towards the end, Sam explains we’ll have another session to complete our first block, then a further three to six sessions to see how I’m getting on. I’m pulled up short by that and a bubble of anger explodes inside my chest.
Now she’s seeing me privately, isn’t it open-ended like it was with Erica? Can’t I come for as long as I like? Bloody hell, I didn’t think there was going to be a time limit. You can’t rush this sort of thing. Doesn’t Sam realise that? I could be cast aside after just ten or twelve weeks, kicked out, like all the other times I’ve had to move on. Then I’ll be forgotten as usual. Rosie who? I can picture Sam’s therapy notes now: The frumpy ginger one who nearly drowned.
As I leave, I notice there’s some post lying on the tufted front mat. Being helpful I pick it up for her. I can’t help noticing a postcard on the top, writing side up. I quickly scan the text. It’s from someone called Con, but there are no kisses at the end and there’s no sign of serious affection. A brother, a friend or an ex? I hand the pile to Sam and wait for her to open the front door.
As she flicks down the latch, I spot a small bundle on the ledge. In a flash, my dismal visit doesn’t seem so fruitless after all. I scoop it up when she isn’t looking and hold it tightly in my hand – all the way home.
Chapter 12
Rosie
The following day, someone deliberately sets the fire alarm off at work and a couple of kids scarper with two trolley loads of DVDs. They aren’t on special offer, so this probably means our pay-rise will be put back a few months, if we get one at all this year. Sid, the manager, is insisting he needs to recover the cost of the increase in insurance premiums through our wages, because we aren’t vigilant enough. The whole business reminds me of Max’s violin. I wonder where it is. Caught up in the weeds at the bottom of the lake, or sitting safe and sound in someone’s sitting room? I’ve been checking the catalogues that Dawn emails every week – it’s stupid really. Sam’s right, no one would dare try to sell that kind of instrument on the open market.
Back at Streatham after work, my basement flat hits me as dark, dingy and damp. The three ‘Ds’. A combination of rotting fish and cat’s pee bleeds through the carpets, even though, in the three years I’ve been here, no cat has ever set foot in the place. Sam’s place is airy, aromatic and artistic. I want three ‘As’ instead of three ‘Ds’. Story of my life – again. I want my sister’s paintings on the wall and Chanel bath oil on my flannel, but I have neither a sister, nor a bath. There are so many black holes in my life. Family, luxury and love being key gaps I can single out straight away.
I’m keeping what I took from Sam’s flat warm all night under my pillow and at the bottom of my bag during the day, just in case. I’m thinking about when to put them to use when I notice my answerphone is flashing with a new message.
It’s the Cumbria Constabulary; they must have found something. I ring straight back, but my hopes are raised unnecessarily. DS Eric Fischer, the person I’m supposed to liaise with, says they’ve found a cello smashed up by the bank of the lake, about a hundred yards from where the van entered the water. A little boy was fishing nearby and thought it was a boat. The case was floating under a wooden jetty nearby.
‘We’ve also got the detailed results back from the van,’ DS Fischer tells me. He has an irritating lisp on every ‘s’. ‘The steering wasn’t stable and there was a slow puncture in the front left tyre, but there’s nothing to suggest it was anything other than wear and tear.’
‘Anything else?’ I ask.
‘The brakes were locked at the time of the crash – it looks like the vehicle could have done with a decent service.’
‘And the other passengers?’
‘I’m sorry. Max, Stephanie and Richard are still missing.’
I replace the receiver and sit on the edge of my threadbare settee staring into the empty blackened fireplace. Just the cello then. Three more instruments and three bodies to go. Are the police going to get in touch every time something new breaks the surface?
In our last session, the first one at the flat, I told Sam more about the other three players. Not that I know a great deal; I hadn’t followed their lives at all since we graduated and barely knew them at college outside rehearsals.
‘Like I said before, sorting out groups at college was pretty random really, it was down to the tutors, but Richard was the one I saw the most,’ I said. ‘He was a bit of a laugh. He liked to take risks and muck about; too easily distracted from his studies. You have to be pretty obsessed to make it as a serious musician and Richard spent more time on the football pitch or at a snooker table than in a practice room. He scraped by, an instinctive player, winging performances on a couple of rehearsals, and he was an exceptional sight-reader. But he didn’t have enough dedication to get to grips with the technique…you know, to make it professionally.’
Sam asked if I liked him.
‘I didn’t fancy him, if that’s what you mean. I’m not sure I knew him well enough to feel anything either way. He was always joking about and I never knew whether to take him seriously or not, so I was cautious with him. But he seemed sweet enough. I wasn’t exactly in his circle. But then I wasn’t in anyone’s circle.’
Sam asked me what had happened to him after college, but there wasn’t much to tell.
‘I got the impression he’d been an odd-job man for longer than he liked to admit. He did everything from pulling down sheds to putting up old ladies’ net curtains. Personally, I think it was a waste of his talents. He would have made a great school teacher. I can see him getting a bunch of kids excited about playing songs from West Side Story on recorders or something.’
She asked about the others and I said I’d told her everything I knew about Max. ‘Stephanie was the quiet one,’ I continued. ‘I remember her in the college orchestra at the front of the cellos. She was pretty good, I think, but she let it go after she left college. Married a Japanese bloke and had kids. Her career never even got started.’
Sam asked if we could do the trance exercise again, to access memories that were lurking beneath the surface. I know it’s useful, but the whole process does get me flustered. What if I accidentally give away something I’m not ready to tell her? I don’t want her to know, for example, about my recent trip to the pub in search of a willing guy. I don’t think that will go down too well, although there’s something far worse I can’t afford to reveal.
She let
me hold her hand again. She seemed hesitant at first, but I suppose she shouldn’t make it obvious that she’s starting to feel something deeper for me. From the way our sessions ended at the hospital, I reckon I’m the first patient to see her privately in her flat, so that must mean something. She’s certainly made an extra effort for me, but she’s got protocol to follow, I’m sure. Erica was always banging on about that when I was seeing her. She was always keeping her distance, saying we weren’t meant to have hugs or contact, even if I was upset; all kinds of rubbish like that. I’m hoping things will be different with Sam, given a bit of time.
Sam led me through the usual trance thing. As it happened, something new did come up, about the lunch with the Hinds’ family, the day of the accident.
‘It’s something Karl said after Max reminded us all about Mick coming to a sticky end at that first party. Karl asked if we were still playing the same instruments we’d played fifteen years ago. Thinking about it now, it seems an odd question to ask, don’t you think? Why would he be interested? He wasn’t even a musician. He worked for his father in property and investments. Anyway, we went round the table and everyone said yes; “except Max of course,” Richard butted in, “who’s upgraded his old box to a two-million-quid deluxe model.”’
‘That conversation seems significant to you,’ Sam had said, narrowing her eyes.
‘Yes, but there’s something else, I’m sure of it.’
Chapter 13
Sam
As soon as I opened it, I felt my scalp prickle. It was sitting on the mat when I got home from St Luke’s. My first thought was that someone had sent me an early Christmas card. It was pretty; a real dried rosebud, with the words Thank you in silver letters on the front and a handwritten message inside:
I’m so glad you’ve agreed to see me ‘out of hours’. I feel you’re someone who truly understands. I’ve never had that before. Rosie XX
The kisses were larger than any of the other letters. Big kisses.
I slipped the card back into the envelope and dropped it into my briefcase. I’d take it to work and leave it with my other work correspondence.
I wondered again if seeing Rosie in my own home was such a good idea. It made our connection less clinical, more personal. I’d need to be careful from now on; I mustn’t confuse her in any way or do anything to give her the wrong impression. She had to understand she was my patient and nothing else – not my friend, not even an acquaintance – a patient on a purely professional basis.
I threw my heavy briefcase onto the sofa, then ran a deep bath. I sank down into the soothing water and dropped the soap. The sound of the splash made me think again of Rosie’s accident. I pictured the van sinking like a stone into the lake and Rosie searching for her viola as water came gushing in. It would have been dark, suddenly so cold; a massive shock to the system.
There’s no way I’d have reached out for any possessions in that situation, no matter how valuable. Rosie had told me her viola wasn’t worth anything, so I couldn’t quite get my head round the fact that she chose that case deliberately, and not the violin. I needed to fully grasp the tremendous sentimental value Rosie’s viola held for her. It was her one and only long-term friend.
I dried myself off and returned to my briefcase on the sofa. A ridiculous new directive had been introduced at work; from now on we had tons of forms to fill in with boxes, graphs and charts to show weekly levels of improvement with each patient. Ugh!
I was rescued by the trill from my landline; a local number I didn’t recognise. I lifted the receiver. ‘Hello…?’
‘Dr Willerby?’
‘Who is this?’
‘It’s Bruce Lennox, Dr Willerby. I’m sorry to disturb you, only I wondered if you’d had time to think about the question I asked you in our final session.’
Bruce was a recent patient; forty-three, short and schoolboy thin, with two hedgerows of bushy hair that didn’t meet up on the top of his head. Awkward and unforthcoming, I’d got the impression he’d spent most of his life stooping under a low cloud of inadequacy. He’d had some memory issues after being attacked in a bar. I’d brought our sessions to a close last Friday so he shouldn’t have been calling me.
‘Bruce…er…how did you get this number?’
‘Er…I think it was on your website.’ I knew for a fact it wasn’t. I was also ex-directory.
Three minutes before the end of our last appointment, Bruce had asked me out on a date.
‘I’m really sorry, Bruce. I’m flattered, of course,’ I’d told him, ‘but there’s a clear directive that means someone in my profession can’t date their patients.’
‘Why not?’ He’d been indignant, hurt.
‘Because we’ve had a very different relationship so far and changing the dynamic between us could interfere with all the good work we’ve done.’
‘I’m prepared to take that risk.’ He’d moved a little too close to my chair, so I got up and eased my way past him to get to the door. Before I could reach it, he was right behind me, breathing into my neck, his hot hands on my waist.
‘Bruce – this isn’t a good idea. I don’t want to have to call security.’ I hadn’t told him my alarm button was a million miles away under the rim of my desk, but he let go and stood back.
‘Just think about it,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t have to be over. You’ve been so kind, so supportive. I can’t believe you don’t have any of the same feelings I feel…but, I know you can’t say otherwise, not here…I don’t want to cause you any problems with your job…’
He’d held out his sweaty little hand and I’d taken it reluctantly.
After that, thankfully, he’d left.
But, clearly, it wasn’t over.
‘Dr Willerby?’ His voice grated again in my ear.
‘I’m in a rush, Bruce,’ I said, my only thought being to end the call as soon as I could. ‘But my answer’s still the same, I’m afraid. I could lose my job for meeting patients or even ex-patients socially.’
‘I won’t say if you won’t…’ His voice oozed conspiratorially down the line.
‘That’s not the point.’ I sighed. ‘I’m sorry, it’s not appropriate.’
‘If the rules were different, might you be interested?’
I scrabbled around in my mind trying to find a rejection that wouldn’t sting too much. ‘Sorry, Bruce – we had a professional relationship, there’s nothing else to say.’
‘But you might think about it?’
He simply wasn’t getting it. ‘Listen – the contract between us has ended,’ I growled, in a steely militant tone usually reserved for persistent cold-callers. ‘There is nothing more. Please don’t contact me again.’
On Saturday, Miranda wasn’t answering her phone again, so I decided to drop round to her flat. I wanted to make sure she was looking after herself. The last time I’d been there I’d been horrified by the number of pizza boxes that were littering her living-room-cum-studio. Evidence of too many takeaways, when she knew good nutrition was a key factor her specialist insisted on to keep her on an even keel.
According to Miranda, several friends had turned up with ‘spicy pepperonis’ one night. But I know my sister too well. When she scratches behind her ear, or turns away as she begins a sentence, I can tell she’s lying.
It started to pour down as soon as I got to pavement level at Camden Underground. I jogged for several blocks, having not thought to bring an umbrella.
‘Why didn’t you call?’ she snapped as she opened the door.
She sounded put out rather than surprised. She stood barefoot, one on top of the other, wearing nothing but an oversized T-shirt. Her bleached blonde hair stood up in spikes so she looked like she’d just got out of bed even though it was lunchtime.
‘I’ve been calling. You’re not answering.’
I tried to push past her out of the rain.
She thrust her elbows out. ‘No – let’s get some fresh air.’
‘But it’s raining…and
you’re not dressed.’
‘I’ll get changed.’ She started closing the door on me.
‘You’re not leaving me out here!’ I raised my voice, storming past her. She dropped back with a huff, and let me inside. ‘What’s going on, Miranda?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’re not returning my calls, you’re distant with me. Secretive. You didn’t even want to let me in.’
‘Let’s go out for a coffee,’ she said. ‘I’m going dizzy with paint fumes. There’s that really nice place down the road. I’ll only be a moment.’
She disappeared up the spiral staircase, leaving me to breathe in the sickly smell of linseed oil. I wandered into the kitchen and took a look in her fridge. Pots of yoghurt within their sell-by date, cheese triangles, a bunch of celery, half a tin of baked beans, half a loaf of bread. It wasn’t brilliant, but it wouldn’t kill her. I sniffed the milk. That was okay, too.
I heard Miranda hurriedly shutting drawers and cupboards upstairs. Why was she so keen to get me out of there? I retraced my steps and sat on the arm of the only chair in the room that didn’t have tins or dirty rags on it. As I scooped my coat under me to avoid wet paint from nearby fresh canvases, my foot caught the edge of something tucked under the seat. I slid it out. Another pizza box. It wasn’t shut, so I took a quick look to check there was no mouldy pizza inside it. Instead, there was a palette knife and a roll of oily cloth.
The sound of Miranda slamming a door upstairs startled me and in my rush to hide the box, the contents tipped out onto the floor. The last thing I wanted was for Miranda to know I’d been snooping, so I dived down to put everything back where it was. As I grabbed the bundle of cloth, something slipped out onto the bare floorboards. I froze, unable to take my eyes off it.