by Amy Lilwall
‘Yes! Um, no, as it happens. As I said, I met Drew at the librette. As did Watty. Watty and I are business partners.’
They nodded at each other.
The doctor tried again. ‘Do you happen to know if Drew’s still out of work?’
‘Drew went back to dancing.’
‘Really?’ The doctor squashed his mouth up towards one cheek like a sugar hole at the side of a cappuccino. ‘Such a shame. An excellent scientific background. Do you have a phone number for…’
‘They started a family, you see.’
‘Did they? Good for them! I’m looking to recruit someone with Drew’s kind of knowledge. An ex-employee would sort of go against company policy but, given the situation, someone who could be integrated straight away with little or no training is exactly what I need right now. You don’t happen to know if Drew worked for any other labs?’
‘I do, yes. And no. He hasn’t done anything but dance.’ Wow! Drew would be so excited! To think that it wasn’t company policy but yet this, this TV doctor would make an exception for little old Drew. ‘They had Isabel more or less straight away and decided that something had to give…’ God, he was listening! He was drinking in every word! Drew would be so honoured! ‘And then there’s Jasper; the dog. Mustn’t forget good old Jas.’
‘That is dedication. The project that we were working on was called Isabel, you know? To name your own daughter after your work, my gosh! I really must get back in touch…’
Well, if there was one thing that Drew was! ‘Definitely dedicated. Their own daughter is a scientific breakthrough…’ Reg put his hands in his pockets and beamed. Then made a face as if he’d just eaten something bad. Shit. Shit! Mustn’t talk about Isabel. Had he really just said her name? Shit. Yes, he had. Twice! Bollocks! And, and scientific breakthrough? Oh Jesus, Reg, where the hell is your head at?
‘Oh really? You mean a miracle? Did they have to have IVF?’
‘Erm… Well…’
‘That’s not really a breakthrough, though. Were they testing a new procedure? Seems interesting…’
‘I was just referring to the success of the project and how, by association, that would also make Isabel a success.’
‘The project was unsuccessful.’
‘—.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Quite sure.’
‘Well…’ Bugger, bugger, bugger. ‘I’m not too sure, actually… Maybe Watty named her after our grandmother, Izzy. She was a scientific anomaly. Smoked seventy a day and lived until she was ninety-six.’
‘Right…’
‘And so by association…’
The doctor coughed and looked at his feet.
‘To be honest with you, I didn’t know her for the first eight years of her life. I didn’t want to delve around the details of their fertility problems… I just know they were trying for a while.’
‘Eight years? Did they go away?’
Good God. ‘No, no…’
‘They were in London the whole time?’
‘Well… They were, yes.’ He really wasn’t going to let this one go.
‘Yet you didn’t meet your own niece for eight years?’
Okay. This was verging on pushy. ‘Gosh, you really want to know, don’t you?’
The doctor breathed in sharply and thought for a moment. ‘No. I’m sorry, it’s just that… well… something similar happened to me and…’
Oh no, this was it. The heart-pour. And Reg had batted it back in his face. ‘Oh dear, I am sorry.’ Misery needs company. ‘What I should have said was… Well… Families are funny really, aren’t they? Watty and I didn’t really see eye to eye for a while.’
‘Ah!’ He nodded firmly. ‘I understand. Yes, no… Quite right. Strange things, families.’
‘All water under the bridge now.’ Oh no. There would be no heart-pour. Reg had batted it and the doctor had caught it and put it in his pocket. He’d totally closed up.
‘Of course! Mustn’t dwell.’
‘Absolutely.’ Reg looked at his feet.
‘So you’ll give me Drew’s number then?’
What? ‘What? Oh! Yes, I mean… Should I?’
‘Well… Not if…’
‘Sorry. Stupid question. Of course. I mean, you’re not just anybody, are you? Ha! Good heavens, no.’
* * *
She stepped into the office. There he was: all thoughtful, erasing some imaginary thing on his desk with his finger. For want of something to do. Because he had seen her. She saw him seeing her for the tiniest fragment of an instant, before she’d even had time to start a smile. He looked away, towards the thing he was rubbing out on the table; no, no; ’twas not yet time to say hello. Finally he looked up as she stood in the door frame of his office.
‘Hello, Emma.’
‘Hello.’ She blushed; re-hearing that voice that had said those words. Those I’m-not-going-to-let-anything-happen-to-you words. She’d not quite known what to do after that. And now, well, now feelings that she’d not even had the tiniest inkling about seemed to pad around her head as if it had long been their home. It was like discovering kittens that had made their den in her garden, not knowing what to do about them but constantly wanting to play with them. And knowing that they were there meant that she looked out for them, thought about them when she was doing other things, left food out for them. And with every day that passed, it was looking more likely that she would keep them. She drew back her shoulders and took a subtle deep breath, watching as he straightened his glasses so that she could see all of his eyes.
They were a year old now, the kittens.
He smiled. He always allowed himself a smile before they started their sessions.
‘It’s warm in here,’ she said, rubbing her arms as if she were cold.
‘Oh… Shall I open the… I’ll open the…’ But he’d already turned and was fiddling with a button next to the window.
Emma opened her hand, releasing a recording strand that meandered upwards, curving and flexing like spider web. She wiped her hand on her knee and closed it.
He turned from the now-opened window. ‘There we go.’ He sat down without asking her if that was better, or if it was opened enough or if she’d like a glass of water. She smiled at him and noticed that, as usual, he didn’t look at her legs as she crossed one over the other. He was exactly the same, although everything had changed now. ‘I’ll never let anything happen to you,’ he’d said, and now she was looking out for all the tiny signs that would reaffirm this. So far there were none. Just like always.
‘It’s been a while,’ said the voice.
‘A year.’
‘Oh!’ He raised his eyebrows.
He hadn’t realized that it had been that long. She smiled again, trying not to look disappointed about that. Maybe he’d pretended not to have noticed the time going by.
They observed each other.
How could he not know that it had been a year? Oh dear, she’d probably got it all wrong… Obviously, there was nothing there. It had all been just a badly worded sentence. ‘I’m not going to let anything happen to you.’ No: ‘I’m never going to let anything happen to you.’ The ‘never’ was key in all of this. Had it been ‘not’, it would have meant there, in that particular slot of his timetable, while she was in his office, while she was paying him, he wasn’t going to let anything happen to her. But it was ‘never’. He had said ‘never’…
‘What’s brought you here today?’ said the voice.
This time she took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She’d let herself do exactly what she’d warned herself against. It wasn’t about them, not in that sense. That’s not why she had come today; yet she’d allowed herself to run with it. How stupid. How ridiculous. How unprofessional.
‘Emma?’
She opened her eyes. He was leaning forward and looking right at her.
‘Is there something in particular that you wanted to talk about?’
‘Yes,’ she managed.
<
br /> ‘Good.’
This was the fork in the session. She could go ahead and launch into everything now, or… Or she could string it out for a while. She felt around for some of her previous issues, were they still there? Of course they were… Where had they left off last time? I’m never going to let anything happen to you. No! Not that. What had she been saying last time? Something about… Something like… His face had changed; in fact, he’d taken off his glasses and his eyebrows hung above his eyes like sad mouths. That was new. Then she realized she’d been staring at him and her face was all wrinkled and scowling because it was really looking at the thoughts inside her head; but he had thought that the face had been for him and now… Gosh, he looked upset, she’d upset him. She straightened out her face.
‘Why did you leave it so long?’ he said, then: ‘Before booking another session.’
‘You look… sad,’ said her mouth without consulting her brain.
He fought to keep his face neutral, but this time lost. Every expression in the world struggled together under his face, like eels in a bag. He put his glasses back on.
‘I meant to say—’ Emma started.
‘I am sad—’ he said at the same time.
She blinked. ‘Pardon?’
‘I said, I am sad.’
There it was, he’d said it! He’d missed her. He’d missed her! They were on exactly the same page. Her chest thudded so much that she felt like panting. She’d been sure of it. She could tell him everything, she could trust him entirely and then… And then… A woman in a purple jacket sat on a beanbag, twisted her head around to look at her. Emma twisted her mouth to the side to stop it from talking then looked at the walls. They seemed to make her feel better, like everything was contained. Like she could be silly and doe-eyed and unprofessional here, but then she would leave and the world would be as it was.
‘Let me explain,’ said the voice and she flicked her eyes back to him. He took a deep breath. ‘Do you know what counter-transference is?’
She shook her head.
‘Okay. In psychotherapy, it’s the idea that the therapist… That’s to say, me’ – he pointed to the centre of his chest – ‘might be emotionally entangled with the patient. Now, recognizing the fact that…’ – he closed his eyes for a second and scratched his jaw – ‘that I have feelings for you is… is critical to understanding the dynamics of this space’ – he spread his hands out towards ‘this space’ – ‘and, therefore, ultimately everything that is said and unsaid and, well, why what is said is said and what is unsaid is… unsaid.’ He smirked at his own long-windedness and pushed his glasses up his nose. She laughed with him. ‘This is in order to make progress with your psychological healing, progress that is relatively… unhindered.’ He placed his hands on the table in front of him. In a softer voice he added: ‘I am sad because I feel like I might have pushed you away.’
He looked at her.
Her eyes grew hot as she tried to think of something to stop her mouth from wobbling again. She would not cry. She would not cry. She felt herself bite her lip and concentrated on his shoulder.
He cleared his throat and looked at his desk. ‘I’ve put myself out on a bit of a limb here.’
She laughed a sobby, snotty explosive laugh; then sniffed.
He pushed a box of Fibre-Web towards her. She took a sheet and dabbed a tear before it slid down her nose. ‘Let me explain what transference is. Unlike counter-transference, transference refers to the feelings that the patient projects onto the psychotherapist.’
She looked back at him. He watched her as if he were waiting for an answer, as if he needed rescuing, as if he would gulp at any moment. The thought made her smile. She bit her lip again.
‘Look.’ He tapped his desk. ‘Dictionary,’ he said. ‘This might help us. Transference… Ah, there we go.’ He rotated his thumb and forefinger on the table so that the screen shifted around to meet her point of view, then seesawed his fingers slowly so that words tilted upwards. ‘Read the last definition.’
She read. Transference is often manifested as an erotic attraction towards a therapist, but can be seen in many other forms such as rage, hatred, mistrust, parentification, extreme dependence, or even placing the therapist in a godlike or guru status.
‘You see? It sounds quite harmless, doesn’t it? I quite like that last bit,’ he said. Then winced and pulled his face back into neutral. ‘So, it’s really not just about having a crush or fancying someone, shall we say? Maybe you see me, as like, a brother or even a parent.’ He waited for a moment, blinking at her. ‘Any thoughts about all of this, Emma?’
Emma folded her lips between her teeth and thought for a moment. ‘Do you remember one of the last things you said to me?’
He sniffed: ‘I think I do but it would probably be best to clarify.’
‘That you were never going to let anything happen to me?’
‘Yes. I remember that.’
‘Did you mean it?’
He sat back in his chair. ‘It’s good that we’ve addressed all of this today. The sentence that I’d phrased in my head was very different, it was neutral. What I actually let slip corresponded more truthfully to how I felt, let’s say.’
She smiled.
‘But, I could never mean that, Emma. I could never protect you forever. The feelings that pass between us here have to be acknowledged and, and mourned.’
She felt her stomach wind and twist, wringing out liquid that then seeped from her underarms and over the surface of her eyes. ‘Why?’ she couldn’t help.
‘Because, here, we are engaging differently with emotion to, perhaps, how you would do in day-to-day life. On this level, we must identify and understand emotion in order to help you. We mustn’t always give in to it. That would be like…’ He searched the ceiling for an analogy. ‘That would be like looking for an endangered species; locating it, allowing it to breed, feeding it, keeping it warm over a long, long period of time; then going out one day and eating it.’ Her face laughed, then she thought of all her kittens and went back to looking sad. He continued. ‘But that doesn’t mean that you would never think about what it would be like to… erm… eat it. There’s nothing we can do about that; we are, after all, only human.’ He sat up in his chair and strengthened his voice. ‘This is a space where these feelings are allowed to be present without the pressure of anything coming of them. We have to trust each other to maintain certain boundaries. You can trust me. The worst thing I could ever, ever do to you is betray that trust. Imagine the biggest moral law you could ever break and times it by a thousand…’ He let his hand flutter into the air to indicate a really big number.
Emma looked at her hands. He felt the same way – it had all come true! But… It had all already ended. She had let herself dream so deeply about this; and now reality was drawing itself over lots of happy dreams that would continue to walk about her apartment like ghosts. If this ghost faded, she’d be so lonely without it. Disappointment made her fingers seek each other out for comfort. She clasped one hand with the other and thought about what it had been like to start and finish a love story in less than twenty minutes. Nothing had really been explained… It would take her so much more time to get over this than the whole thing had taken to… well… be.
Her face felt cross, but she couldn’t let that surface. Don’t think about it, you’re running out of time. Images blew up in her mind of all the little ghosts that were currently padding around houses where owners still watched where they were treading and checked water bowls before going to bed. Mrs Lucas would soon have two ghosts to look after… What time was it? She lifted her head to look at the clock, glimpsing his head incline as she moved her own: like a Labrador waiting for a ball. 10:28 flipped to 10:29 as if in slow motion. This wasn’t why she had come here. But at least she was now almost sure of one thing: she could trust him.
She sat and waited for her chest to calm down as 10:29 somehow became 10:33. She let the silence expand like a big, soapy bubbl
e until she felt confident enough to pop it. Straightening her back, she looked right into the eye that was inclined towards her. ‘I can trust you, right?’
He shifted. ‘Well… Yes.’
She thought quickly; how would be the best way to go about this? ‘I know a lot about… my ex-profession.’
‘Right,’ said Hamish, with a hard blink and a slight jerk of the head.
‘And the beings I’ve been involved with throughout my career.’
‘Of course.’ The word ‘beings’ resonated for a second. He didn’t ask what it meant.
‘I have to keep myself, you know, discreet. But I’m faced with a moral problem now and… and I can’t ignore it. I have to interfere; do you know what I mean?’
‘Maybe if you explained… Go on.’
‘I can only really tell you the absolute minimum.’ She swallowed. ‘Blankey has gone missing.’ She stared at him to see if he recognized the name.
He frowned. ‘Blankey?’ Then: ‘I know that name.’
‘Can I go on? Or is it best not to…’
‘I think you have to.’
‘Yes, but I need you to keep this to yourself.’
He sighed huffily. ‘Emma, I can’t promise you anything until you tell me what the problem is. If I can keep this between us, then, of course, I will.’
Emma considered this. ‘I won’t be allowed to come back,’ she said.
‘Sorry?’
‘I won’t be allowed to come back if you tell anyone. I’m not playing with you, this is important. I need to be able to trust you entirely or else that’s it; I’ll have to leave town.’
Hamish took a deep breath through his nose. ‘Did you kill someone?’
‘What? Good heavens, no!’ she scoffed.
‘Have you stolen something?’
Her face became serious. ‘No. I promise.’
Hamish gave a few deep nods. ‘Fine. I won’t tell anyone.’ He put a finger to his lips but it was shaking so he withdrew it.
Emma’s mouth almost smiled. ‘Thank you.’ She closed her eyes. ‘Blankey is Mrs Lucas’s littler.’ She watched as the realization pushed his eyebrows up with each name. ‘She has been missing for two days now.’