‘Trying to win the approval of others – parents, spouse, co-workers, friends, children can strain your relationships, drain your energy and dominate your life. The five easy-to-follow steps in escaping Toxic Guilt can liberate you from self-defeating patterns and put you on the path to living life fully, joyfully and on your own terms.’
I put my hand up. Marcus nodded at me. ‘Eliza, yes?’
‘I thought it was thirteen steps?’ Actually, what I had wanted to ask was where the bit about how to deal with having caused, for example, a death, came in but I couldn’t bring myself to do it – not yet. Maybe later, when we’d warmed up.
‘Really? Why did you think that?’
‘It said so in the booklet.’
‘Maybe that referred to another of our programs. Either way, we use five, if that’s OK with you?’ The smile was not quite so friendly this time.
I told him that of course it was fine with me and that I was sorry for interrupting. Marcus told me I was not to apologise.
‘In fact,’ he turned to the rest of the room, ‘over-eagerness to apologise is a typical response of someone suffering from Toxic Guilt.’
He went on to list the five steps. They were:
1) Recognize the difference between good guilt and Toxic Guilt;
2) Build boundaries around your time and emotions;
3) Weather the storm of people’s disapproval;
4) Find freedom through forgiveness and relinquishing control;
5) Protect your sense of self while still caring for others.
Then it was everyone’s turn to stand up, form a circle and share, one after the other, the focus of their guilt. Marcus nodded towards the woman opposite him. ‘Daisy, why don’t you start.’
Daisy looked around her and the others all smiled their encouragement. She stepped into the circle.
‘Hello, everyone. I’m Daisy and . . . well, I just can’t stop feeling guilty about the fact that I was sent to private school and my older sister wasn’t. She’s never forgiven me, or our parents. Everyone else tells me I have nothing to feel bad about, but I can’t help it. I feel as if everything good that’s happened to me since, my successful career, my marriage and lovely home, all stem from that lucky break. It makes it worse that my sister is struggling on a low income.’
Everyone clapped, and Daisy who was lithe and blonde and quite possibly drove a Porsche, appeared to be relieved of a burden as she seated herself back down in one smooth movement.
Alan was in his late forties and wearing clothes that looked as if he’d got them from the ‘preppy’ section of a catalogue. He had a buzz cut and a wide mouth that dipped at the corners.
‘Hi, I’m Alan. I can’t stop thinking about how I didn’t visit my dying grandmother in hospital. We never had a chance to say goodbye. I was her favourite grandchild and she practically brought me up yet when she needed me I wasn’t there for her.’
Again, everyone clapped. I wondered if I might suggest we drop the clapping. It took up a lot of time and the session only lasted two hours. It was the same in yoga class. I found the relaxation part difficult. I couldn’t help thinking of all the things I should be doing, none of which involved lying on a mat imagining being a white feather floating to the ground.
Next it was the turn of a woman in late middle age with an elongated body and dry dull hair drooping around her thin face like branches of a weeping willow. She looked so distressed that for a moment I thought she might have done something truly bad.
‘Hi, I’m Joan. When my dog died we found out that she was dehydrated because I rationed her water so she wouldn’t keep peeing on the carpet. I didn’t realise she suffered from diabetes. The vet said lack of water wasn’t the cause of death but I can’t stop blaming myself and thinking of how she must have suffered from thirst in those last few days of her life.’ Joan started to cry and everyone clustered round and patted her on the back and shoulders and told her she was ‘doing good work’.
I wanted to cluster and pat too. Instead I stood there, my arms hanging stiff at my sides, watching. I could feel Marcus’s disapproving gaze. But I really didn’t think the others would want me once they had heard what I had to say, any more than a gang of petty thieves would want an axe murderer to chummy up to them to say he knew exactly how they felt because, when it came to it, weren’t they all in it together.
Joan appeared to have cheered up, and following her was Clare, who felt guilty the whole time but didn’t know over what and Janet, who had the same problem. Then it was Zoe.
‘Hi, I’m Zoe and I’m a working mother.’
There was an expectant silence from the group but the thin woman in her late thirties, whose stooping posture suggested that her guilt was perched right there on her shoulders, appeared to have said her piece and stepped back into the circle.
It was my turn. Marcus nodded at me. ‘Eliza?’
‘I’m not sure . . .’
‘It’s important that everyone shares,’ he said. ‘In fact it’s pretty bad for the morale of the group if one member withholds.’
My heart was racing and I had to take a couple of deep breaths to steady my voice. I glanced over at Marcus. ‘It’s OK, Eliza. You’re amongst friends.’
I stepped into the circle. ‘Hi, I’m Eliza and my selfish and destructive behaviour when I was younger caused a lot of problems for my family, my stepsister especially.’ I looked around me at the sympathetic faces. Marcus nodded his approval. I closed my eyes for a moment, before opening them again and giving Marcus a little nod back. ‘And I killed my best friend.’
Everyone remained still vaguely in the formation of a circle, but looking awkward, a bit like party-goers when a fellow guest has said something really embarrassing before throwing up in the ice bucket. Then Joan and Zoe started up a conversation about begonias. This struck me as imaginative until I noticed the carrier bag with a pot of begonias on the floor by the door. I wished I could join in. Begonias were reassuring things. Looking around me I realised that by now I was standing apart although I hadn’t moved.
Marcus called us to attention by telling us that our time was up; apparently the room was needed for the sex, drugs and alcohol addicts. I was collecting my jacket and bag when Marcus called me back. Could he have a word?
Once we were on our own he said, ‘I’m not sure we are the right people to help you. As I explained at the start of the session we deal with toxic or as it could also be described, imagined guilt. Guilt with no real substance . . .’ he carried on explaining as if I were not only really, really guilty but also really, really stupid ‘. . . with no basis in reality, is simply another kind of addiction and like all addictions it’s about control. Your problem seems to be that . . . well, that you really do have a reason to feel guilty. Were you ever . . . well, punished for what happened?’
I didn’t want to talk to him about it any more. I couldn’t understand what had made me tell a room full of strangers in the first place. Perhaps it was the incense, or maybe the dimmed lights that made you think you were in the cinema or a theatre where nothing was quite real; maybe it was simply the act of forming a circle, which helped, in some curious way, to release inhibitions. I felt let down by Marcus and his clinic. I had told myself that I was only going along to please Ruth but I suppose I had hoped, too, that I would find some answers.
Marcus had been raking his fingers through his mop of dark curly hair and now he rolled his head from left to right as if his neck was hurting. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said finally, ‘but as I said, we deal with . . .’
‘I know. You only deal in guilt that isn’t actually guilty.’ I walked to the door.
‘Wait.’
I turned round. ‘Yes?’
‘At least let me give you a refund.’
Earlier in the day I had sensed the promise of spring, but as I walked back to the flat through the dark streets the wind seemed to come straight from the north and I turned up my collar and shoved my hands deep into my pockets. I paused
at the corner of the road, waiting for the bus to pass before I crossed. I was tired. I closed my eyes for a moment, thinking how easy it would be to just step into the road and be done with it. Dead and Done. Done and Dusted. They said a change was as good as a rest and there was no denying that being dead would be a change. One foot forward, one step down. I opened my eyes and jumped back on to the pavement. The bus passed.
I had done a good thing there, I thought as I walked on. Just think how late the passengers would have been had they had to stop and wait while the police came and the ambulance scraped me off the wheels. Being late home on a chilly March evening might not seem like such a big deal but it could be most inconvenient. Add to it that they could not exactly complain about it. I mean, what would it look like, coming through the door with a scowl and a sigh, saying, ‘That’s all I needed after a long day at work, some bloody woman getting herself run over by my bus.’
I had barely got through the door myself when the phone rang. It was Ruth, wanting to know how the session at the LLG had gone. I told her it had been very helpful.
‘So you’ll continue going? Excellent.’
‘Not really.’
I heard her sigh at the other end of the phone. ‘Why not, Eliza? I mean if I didn’t know any better I would think you didn’t even want my help.’
‘I do. I do. But I really wasn’t given the option to continue. Apparently mine was the wrong kind of guilt.’
Ruth seemed to think I was trying to be funny at her expense so she said goodbye in a tight little voice and hung up before I had had a chance to explain.
Seventeen
Sandra/Cassandra
‘Where do you think we’ll all be in twenty years’ time?’ Rose asked.
‘Old,’ Eliza said.
Spring had arrived at last. We were sitting bare-legged in the grass on School Hill, looking out across the lake that not so long ago had been frozen solid. The sun had real warmth in it. I felt warm inside too. I didn’t want to feel mean or harbour a grudge; I just wanted to be normal. There were times when I thought I might not be. And I don’t mean not normal in a cute oddball way. I mean not normal in the way a sixth finger isn’t normal, or a rogue cell. I knew too that Eliza sensed this about me and that that made her uncomfortable.
‘Apart from old?’ Rose said.
Eliza frowned in concentration. The breeze ruffled her auburn curls and the sun had brought out every last one of her freckles in spite of her wearing a sunhat. It was a battered old straw hat that looked like something your grandmother might wear when gardening and she’d fixed some daisies and forget-me-nots into the faded brown hatband. It was a pretty rubbish hat but somehow you ended up wanting one just like it. It was the same with that small enamel four-leaf clover she wore around her neck. It was nothing special, in fact had someone worn it back home I would have thought it was quite tacky even, yet, back when I had hoped we might be best friends, I had yearned for one exactly the same. I had described it to my parents, telling them I wanted it for Christmas. Of course they missed the point entirely and handed over this really expensive all gold one with a little diamond at the centre. ‘We looked at a little enamel one like the one you were talking about but we thought this was much more stylish,’ my mother had said, looking pleased with herself.
I wore it when I was home, so as not to upset them, but it wasn’t what I wanted.
Finally Eliza replied. ‘I’ll be on my way to a meeting with my publishers.’ She pushed her hat down securely on her head and sat back in the grass, resting on her elbows, a dreamy little smile on her lips.
‘I’m eating a croissant as I walk. I’m too busy to sit down at a café. My first two books of fairy tales have been a success and now they want to discuss a third one but I’m not sure because I might want to focus solely on my art.’ She laughed, so pleased with it all, and although I hadn’t meant to, I found myself smiling back.
‘What about money?’ Portia asked. ‘Are you rich?’
‘No. No, I don’t think so. But I have a nice flat and a good bicycle and I go on holiday to Italy once a year.’
‘Then you’re rich,’ I said.
Eliza looked unsure. She was probably trying to work out if she had been tactless to those less fortunate, i.e., me.
‘What about a family?’ Rose asked. ‘And a husband?’
‘Of course. Eventually.’ Eliza rolled over on her front and her hat slipped off her head and on to the grass. As she picked it up a sprig of forget-me-not dropped to the ground. ‘What about you all?’
‘I’ll be preparing for the Oscars,’ Rose said, straightening her back and tossing her dark curls, as if she were already on that red carpet. She giggled but I suspected that deep down she was deadly serious.
‘You could play Snow White,’ I said. ‘You have the right colouring.’
Rose dimpled. ‘You know, I don’t think there’s been a film with real actors as opposed to the cartoon version. It’s actually a really clever idea.’
‘Cassandra is a very clever girl,’ Eliza said.
I wondered if she was taking the piss but she didn’t look as if she was. She had the kind of face that showed everything she was thinking and right now she seemed to be thinking nice things. Her smile was friendly and her eyes were kind.
The sun had been sheltering behind a cloud but now it reappeared, just in time for us not to have to put our cardies back on. Portia passed round a packet of Philip Morris. She lit her cigarette and mine then Rose leant in towards the match. It made for a funny picture, Snow White with a fag hanging from her lips.
‘Don’t’, Eliza said.
Rose drew on her cigarette. ‘What?’
‘Three on a match,’ Eliza said. ‘You remember, the First World War thing?’
‘No,’ Rose shook her head. ‘Wasn’t there myself.’
Eliza sat back up and as she hugged her knees to her chest I could see the back of her milky-white thighs all the way up to her knickers. I think she saw me looking because she pulled her skirt down really quickly. ‘If three soldiers lit the cigarette from the same match the man who was third on the match would be shot.’
‘Why? Why would he get shot?’ Portia asked.
‘What happened was that when the first soldier lit his cigarette the enemy would see the light; when the second soldier lit his cigarette from the same match the enemy would take aim and then, when the third soldier lit his cigarette from the same match, the enemy would fire. It’s been considered bad luck ever since.’
‘So who would cop it?’ Portia asked. ‘The guy holding the match or the guy lighting his cigarette from it?’
‘Hm?’ Eliza tilted her head to one side and rubbed the side of her nose with her middle finger. ‘I suppose I always assumed it was the guy lighting his cigarette.’
‘Bang bang,’ I said. Pointing my pistol finger at her.
‘Not funny,’ Rose frowned.
But Eliza and Portia laughed so Rose laughed and then I laughed too.
Rose stubbed her cigarette out on a stone. She never smoked them to the end. Then she spat on it to make sure it had gone out before brushing it into the long grass. She looked up at the sky and then at all of us. ‘God, we’re so lucky,’ she said.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Think if we’d been boys and it was back then. Two of my great-uncles died in the trenches. They were really young.’
‘The average life expectancy of a junior army officer in 1914 was eleven days,’ Eliza said. And her eyes grew round the way they always did when she thought about some interesting fact or was about to tell a story. ‘They were so young and so brave and then it all ended, for nothing, face down in that stinking mud. They would have sat around just like we’re doing now, talking about everything they were going to do and see and feel with all those lovely years. And then the war started and those beautiful boys put on their uniforms and picked up their guns and went off singing as if they were off on a great adventure.’
I thou
ght of all the spotty spindly teasing youths I knew and I said, ‘They weren’t all beautiful, or brave either. And them dying made no difference to anyone other than their mothers.’
There was a silence. Then Eliza shook her head. ‘No, I won’t allow that. No one knows, that’s the thing. Because they died before they could be much of anything, the world will never know what it missed or from whom.’ Then she smiled. ‘So that’s why anyone who dies young gets to be good and beautiful. It’s part of the deal.’
‘Julian would be about to go off to war if now had been then,’ Portia said, ‘Or then had been now. It would kill my mother even if it didn’t kill him.’
Julian, Julian who was beautiful and good, my Julian. My heart lurched.
Rose squeaked. ‘Don’t even say things like that.’
Eliza leant forward and patted her knee. ‘It’s OK, Rose. It won’t happen again. At least not while we’re young.’
‘How do you know?’ Rose asked.
Eliza shrugged. ‘I don’t. But I assume.’
Portia said, ‘I can’t make up my mind whether I’ll be an ambassador or just live in a big crumbling house in the country with masses of dogs and horses and children.’
‘What about a husband?’ Rose asked again.
‘Of course,’ Portia said, just as Eliza had.
‘You think you can just decide?’ I said to them. ‘You seem to think it’s all just out there, just sitting there, waiting for you to go and get it.’
All three princesses turned surprised faces in my direction. ‘How do you mean?’ Portia asked.
I couldn’t believe she had to ask. Eliza lay back down in the grass. ‘What about you, Cassandra?’ She touched my shoe with the tip of hers. ‘Where do you reckon you’ll be twenty years from now?’
I looked across at the lake that sat like crumpled foil at the foot of the hill. ‘Oh, I expect I’ll be working in some office somewhere.’
I waited for them to argue with me. Instead they seemed to accept this as a suitable limit, not only to my ambitions but also to my prospects. I looked at the sky, staring at the sun until my eyes stung. Then I looked at back them. They looked blurred. You know nothing, I thought. You don’t know that twenty years from now all you’ll be able to say is, ‘To think we knew her.’
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