Becoming Tess

by H K Thompson

  “…this new piece of information about Miss Dawson has been cause for concern here at the unit. Her refusal to speak to Inspector McKenzie, the police officer handling her case, has caused me to question whether the benefit of the doubt about the child’s death was misplaced and that what we may have on our hands is someone who is implicated in the deaths of her child and her brother. There is incontrovertible evidence that she was at the scene where the murder of Stephen Dawson took place.”

  This revelation caused a minor flutter around the table, with exchanges of glances and quizzical looks. Sir Alex nodded and said “mmm”, indicating that he had prior knowledge of this last piece of information.

  “What is of most concern to me is that Tess Dawson refuses to speak to the police who have already tried to question her and, I believe, there is a second attempt to be made in about two weeks’ time by the Dyfed-Powys force in the person of an Inspector Alun Davies who is coordinating the investigation into Stephen Dawson’s death. You can perhaps see why I’m concerned about the continued presence of a possible perpetrator of a serious violent crime here at Wellbridge House. We are not designed to accommodate serious violent offenders securely here nor is it within our remit to do so. I am therefore recommending that Tess Dawson be transferred from here to a secure establishment to which she would be more suited.”

  Evelyn was dumbstruck. He had arrived rapidly at his endgame without a single shred of substantive evidence to support his case nor with prior consultation with her as Tess’s therapist, nor, she doubted, with anyone else involved in her day-to-day care. His dislike of, and frustration with, Tess had completely ruled him and he had lunged for the coup de grâce with unseemly haste and a badly and emotionally argued attack. Evelyn was aghast and disgusted. She let out another small gasp of incredulity that this time was picked up by everyone at the table. Peter Archer spun forty-five degrees to face her and said with contemptuous petulance:

  “We all know that you are closeted in some strange therapeutic tryst with Dawson, but that has to come to an end now. It has achieved nothing.” His voice rose in a tremulous outburst.

  As he finished what he had to say his voice gave way to a final tone of vindictiveness. All control was lost for a brief, telling moment. There was a long pause around the table as each member withdrew into a moment of shock and introspection. The time had come.

  Sir Alex was the first to break the silence and call the meeting to attention, to regroup his disorientated troops. He said slowly and calmly:

  “I think we should discuss what Peter has just said and we should also certainly call upon Evelyn to speak to the matter. Perhaps some responses to the Director’s opening comments first.”

  Sir Alex had never, as far as Evelyn knew, referred to Peter Archer as the Director before. It said as much as any of the members needed to know about how the Chairman felt. Angela Norman spoke first.

  “Yes, thank you, Sir Alex. I would like to say something in response to Peter. To be frank, Peter,” she said, turning to face him and looking directly at him, “it seems as if you’ve just given us a bit of a fait accompli. It seems that you’ve already come to a rather drastic conclusion. I can remember when Tess first came here and how concerned we all were by her silence and we all concluded that she’d been traumatised and, given time, she would recover. I’m intrigued as to why there’s this sudden rush to get rid of her. I’m even more intrigued by your rather off-colour remark about Evelyn and Tess’s relationship. To call it a tryst is to raise all kinds of questions by inference that seem to me to be misplaced and highly inappropriate. I’ve always held Evelyn’s work in the highest regard and her integrity likewise. What you said was nothing less than a slur.”

  Angela never took her eyes off Peter Archer as she delivered her uncompromising and admonishing statement. He blanched and looked quickly to Sir Alex for reassurance. There was none forthcoming. His evident discomfort was compounded, no doubt, by the knowledge that Evelyn could, if she wanted, spread news of his behaviour beyond the boardroom; and in the space of a few minutes the Board had been shocked into an ominous and unwelcome confirmation of who Peter Archer actually was.

  “I have to say that I’m very shocked by what you’ve just said and particularly the bit about Evelyn. You’re trying to discredit her and what she does here. I’m certainly of the opinion that her work is invaluable and beyond reproach. To put it bluntly, Chair, what the Director has just said is completely unacceptable.”

  Richard Rowntree had cut in, furious. His face was red by the time he finished his response. He glared at the Director across the table and Evelyn could see a vein throbbing in his temple.

  Sir Alex interjected to move the conversation along. “Thank you, Richard, and Angela. Hazel, would you like to say anything at this point?”

  “Yes, I would,” replied Hazel, thoughtfully and slowly.

  Hazel Simmonds had learnt control during her career on Fensham District Council. It took a great deal to rattle her and even more to make her angry. She would not give Peter Archer the chance to see her angry, an emotion that she confined to the privacy of her own thoughts.

  “I simply can’t accept the conclusion about Tess Dawson that the Director has come to. There is nothing that you’ve presented here that could support such an outcome,” she said, looking directly at him down the table. “And I find your last comments deeply offensive. I think he should apologise to Evelyn,” she asserted, turning to Sir Alex.

  She was splendid and uncompromising. She had never flinched.

  Peter Archer was showing signs of growing dismay. His hands were fidgeting, fiddling with his pencil, first point down and then point up, pushing through his fingers onto the blotter. He was finding it difficult to look at each member as they spoke to him and he was studiously avoiding Evelyn’s look as she peered down the table at him. This was an event to be remembered, even savoured, in private. She could feel a base and primitive impulse for revenge gather strength inside her, involuntary but satisfying. Peter Archer was being routed. After the years of controlling and insulting behaviour he was being called to account. It appealed strongly to that part of her that had longed for the moment when abully is brought to heel. He had made a big mistake. There was no going back.

  Sir Alex nodded in assent to Hazel Simmonds and turned to Simon Cooper, inviting him to respond.

  “Peter,” he said, concern etched on his face. “Peter, I am concerned, as is Hazel, by the lack of real substance to your argument for the transfer of Tess. It’s my understanding that her work with Evelyn is progressing well and I would certainly like to hear from her before we go much further, in outline if not in detail. We must remember that the main method of rehabilitation here is psychological and yet your analysis and conclusion seem harsh and punitive. They seem to revert back to a frame of reference that we’re trying to change here, that, in fact, we are mandated to change. As for your reference to the therapeutic relationship between Tess and Evelyn, I find it frankly bizarre and more worrying than anything else that you’ve so far said. It seems to me that you feel envious of the relationship and that you would like to break it apart. I wonder if you feel excluded by it, rejected even, and that your way of dealing with those powerful feelings is to try and bring the relationship to an end which is the only way that you might feel in control and powerful again.”

  As Simon’s comments came to an end Peter Archer was left with his mouth open, speechless. Evelyn was thrilled by the directness of Simon’s words and moved by his courage in offering such an interpretation. There was no escape for him. Everyone had been honest, unflinching and true to the principles of their joint responsibility to the institution. Sir Alex spoke again:

  “Thank you, Simon. Those are apposite comments. I think, Peter, I’m correct in saying that the Board is of the opinion that the transfer of Tess Dawson is not an appropriate course of action at the moment and I would like Mrs Doyle to come in at this point to cast some light on the progress or otherwise of
her therapy. Evelyn, would you mind?”

  Evelyn focused her thoughts. Whatever she had come prepared to say had been transformed by the unity of response that had come from the Board members. She was touched and felt supported in the face of Peter Archer’s continual attacks and undermining that she and the staff had to endure. It brought home to her how tedious and upsetting her dealings with him had been over the years, how wearying and deadening. What the Board had achieved in the space of fifteen minutes was the demolition of the facade that the Director presented to the world and his exposure as a bully. She felt intensely grateful and intensely relieved. For the rest of the meeting he would, she felt certain, be a spent force. She paused for a moment and said:

  “Thank you for inviting me here. I do think it important that I inform the Board as to what is happening with Tess Dawson.” She paused for a moment. “Our early work together was difficult. I believe that Tess Dawson was traumatised by whatever had happened to her prior to coming here and that was at the root of how she presented when she first arrived, especially the mutism. In the last few weeks a great deal has changed. She has begun to talk to me about events in the recent past along with experiences buried in the more distant past that together are creating a narrative of key events in her life and key configurations in her psyche. To put it simply, she is opening up to the process of self-discovery and self-understanding and awareness. She is, in my view, a very intelligent young woman who has been caught up in a life story that is, frankly, sad, abusive and deeply deprived. She has little sense of self-worth and yet she is rising to the challenges of healing. She is no longer afraid of the process of her psychotherapy and I regard that as a major and profound breakthrough. I hesitate to say this but I believe that the mystery of her brother Stephen’s death may soon be revealed just as the mystery of her daughter Rachel’s death may likewise become clear. I think that is all I can say at the moment and I share it with some misgivings but trusting in the integrity of the Board. Thank you.”

  The Board members smiled and nodded at Evelyn as she finished her statement. Their support for her was palpable. Peter Archer sat at the end of the table nodding in agreement. Sir Alex said:

  “I see you nodding, Peter. I take it that you agree with Evelyn and that you would like, perhaps, to change your recommendation?”

  “It’s good to have an account from Mrs Doyle. She always refuses to tell me anything about the case,” he said churlishly. “I’m glad to be better informed. I can tell that the Board believes that Miss Dawson should have more time to bring her therapy to a satisfactory conclusion. I will be persuaded by the Board’s observations and accept this conclusion. Yes.”

  It was all over. Tess could stay. The Director’s attempt to exclude her had been foiled. Evelyn felt elated. She felt grateful for the unanimity of the Board and thanked them all as she rose from the table and left. It felt good to know that things would never be the same again and that Peter Archer was something of a marked man. Like the psychotherapist she was, Evelyn silently vowed to say nothing of what had happened in the meeting. If word got out about it then it would not be down to her but to whatever calculations any potential leaker would be making about the politics of Wellbridge House. For her the chapter was closed. She headed for the therapy room and her next patient.

  Chapter 17

  It was 4.30am and Tess woke, blearily looking at her bedside clock and feeling a pounding in her head and the hazy recollection that there had been a meeting with the Director. She had been dreaming of him, a strange hallucinatory dream in which he was both the Director and her mother telling her that she would have to leave home, that she was no longer wanted there and that she had to leave straight away. He and she were very insistent that there should be no delay, all the while dissolving and re-forming from Director to mother and back again. The voice kept changing from male to female and the effect was so phantasmagorical that she thought she was awake and living in a surreal world of melting, blending and transformation that was both frightening and mesmerising. She felt deeply anxious as the waves of reality and dream ebbed and flowed in her mind until anxiety drove her up from the deep and she broke the surface, her eyes opened and she remembered the encounter with Peter Archer and the announcement he had made to her. It had come across as brusque and dismissive, as if he did not want it or agree with it and that he resented the fact that things had gone against him, as they clearly had. All this Tess could read from his body language, his tone of voice and his failure at any point to look her in the eye.

  The pressure in her head pushed from behind her eyes until she feared they would be put out with a pop and fall down her cheeks. The biochemistry of her brain was so disorganised that all actions, all intentions to move or check her reality, were powerless. She felt helpless to do anything. Added to this she felt violently sick and feared she would vomit over herself, unable even to move to the edge of the mattress to find the floor, let alone to the bathroom that adjoined her room. The bathroom might as well have existed on another planet. She found herself, between fitful lapses into half-comatose sleep that lasted seconds or minutes or longer, trying to work out how she might get onto her feet to prevent the mess that would result from an uncontrolled vomit but found no course of action open to her. She wondered, as she drifted, what was wrong with her until she lapsed again into unconsciousness and slept until 5.15am, when she opened her eyes again and saw the clock’s green numbers.

  This time she realised what was happening. It had been a long time since her last migraine. It had, in fact, she recalled, been the night she had arrived back from her visit to Stephen in West Wales and she’d collapsed onto her bed, grubby from the long drive, her bag unpacked. For the last few miles of the drive she had fought a blinding and sickening headache. She had almost crawled from the car to the front door and had actually crawled on all fours to the bathroom where she had been violently sick. She had lain by the toilet bowl for what seemed like an eternity and finally summoned up enough strength and clarity to drag herself to the bed. As she let her body weight be taken by the soft mattress she had felt the most magnificent sense of relief and had lain inert and motionless for several hours drifting in and out of the familiar hallucinations and dreams that were so much a part of these acute neurological maelstroms.

  Something was gripping her right eyeball and the pain from the grip reverberated deep into her brain. There was little let-up, just the inexorable squeezing, then a slight relaxation of the pressure and then the next flexing of the imaginary fist and the next waves of acute agony. It went on for hours that time, retribution she had thought, in a mildly paranoid state, by some vindictive part of her for having gone on the fateful mission and transgressed her own better judgement.

  She lay now and waited for the pain to lessen, to slacken its excruciating intensity. She saw the light slowly dawn at about seven o’clock and thought that she would be unable to see Evelyn today. That made her feel worse and the pain grew as her distress welled up and tears gathered in the corners of her eyes. She stopped herself from crying and breathed slowly and deeply with the waves of pain, sometimes panting in her effort to control the torture. At nine o’clock, after a time of sleeping, dreaming and imagining, there was a knock at the door. She heard it through her haze of suffering and mumbled. Then came the sound of a voice lost in the inarticulate mush of half-consciousness. She could find no words and her mouth would not make them anyway. A voice said:

  “Tess, are you OK? You didn’t come down to breakfast so I thought I’d better come and find you.”

  She groaned and said: “Can’t talk. Just some water. Please.”

  “What’s the matter?” said the concerned voice.

  “Migraine. Just water. Thanks.”

  She drifted off from the exhaustion of trying to speak. When she woke the next time there was a glass of water on the bedside table. She had no awareness of its arrival. With a monumental effort and after ten minutes of mental struggle she pulled herself up enough
to hold the glass and take a sip. Then she collapsed.

  Two hours later, after a more peaceful sleep, she woke again to see the water and the time. It was three o’clock in the afternoon and the light was already beginning to fade. She thought, My session, I’ve missed it, and felt sad and depressed. She found herself wondering, now that she was more conscious, why she had the migraine and why she had had one after seeing Stephen. She thought vaguely that both involved a sort of letting-go. She fell back to sleep. Later still, when it was dark, she woke to find the curtains closed and the illuminated figures on her clock reading 8.49pm. She knew someone had been in to check on her and had placed a basin by her bed on the floor. By this time the intense feeling of nausea had dissipated and she was grateful to be spared the violent, retching upheaval of it. She wondered who had known about her migraines, enough to take these thoughtful and precautionary measures. She thought of Judith and remembered the voice asking if she was alright. That was a long time ago, it seemed.

  By the time she woke the next time it was after midnight and, to her great relief, she felt hungry. In the light of the green numbers she propped herself on her elbow and reached weakly for the glass of water that, at some point, had been refilled. A plate of dry biscuits and a banana had been placed on her bedside table and she reached for a biscuit and broke it with her teeth into her mouth. She munched away at her biscuit, slowly feeling its nourishment replenish her blood sugar and sending a faint pulse of energy through her body. She part-peeled the banana and took a bite. She was rewarded with a stronger flavour and a more powerful pulse of energy coursing through her body.

  What had she been thinking about all that time ago when she had realised something so important about this awful illness? It was about letting go. The Director had told her, as she disentangled dream, hallucination and nightmare from reality, that she could stay. The Board had decided that she should remain at Wellbridge House until her treatment was complete. She could continue her work with Evelyn.