by Adrian White
“That’s okay for the grown-ups,” he said. “A couple of idiots who have fucked up the one good thing they had together – we deserve all we get. But it’s not okay for our daughter – for Katherine.
“She kind of got lost in all of this, but I don’t think any of it was lost on her. You think you’re being so sophisticated, keeping your fights and arguments and storming out for when she’s up in bed, but of course she doesn’t miss a thing. And my solution was to find reasons to be away from the house for days at a time, as though she couldn’t see through what was really going on.”
“What age is she?” asked Katie quietly.
“She’ll be fifteen this year,” said Mike.
“And you and Margaret have been fighting for what – three or four years?”
“There’ve been good times in there as well,” said Mike, “but yes, it’s about that – longer, actually.”
“So a third of your daughter’s life has been spent with her parents falling apart?”
“Tearing each other apart would be a more accurate description,” said Mike.
“And her brothers left home during this time as well?”
“Yes,” said Mike.
Katie didn’t need to tell Mike what he and Margaret done; she could see he knew well enough.
“It would have been better if you’d left,” she said eventually.
“I know,” said Mike, “but I couldn’t. I tried, and I couldn’t. That’s how I’m so sure now that I want us to be together.”
“It takes two for that to work,” said Katie.
“Yes, I know.”
“Three maybe, in this case.”
Katie thought of herself at fifteen, and all she could remember was confusion. She always considered her conscious life as an adult to have begun once she was allowed to leave school; anything before that was just a chance rebounding from one nightmare situation to the next. There are happy childhoods and there are unhappy childhoods, but you have no control over which you get.
“You came here to tell me about your daughter,” she said.
“Yes,” said Mike. “Or, at least, to ask you about her.”
“She’s your daughter, Mike,” said Katie. “You can start by telling me something good about her – something I’m going to like.”
Mike cleared his throat.
“Well,” he said, “you know I’m going to tell you that she’s beautiful – and she is – but she’s more than that. She’s sharp and clever and funny and unique. She’s the perfect opposite in many ways to Jack and Mike – not that they aren’t those things too, but she is just so completely her own person. I guess she had her brothers there to help bring her along, so she’s savvy and street-smart and wise beyond her years. She’s . . . what – what can I say? I love her; she’s my daughter.”
“That would do it,” said Katie, and smiled; though she knew there was nothing much here to smile about.
“She’s very sick,” said Mike.
“I thought she might be,” said Katie. “And that’s why you’re here?”
“Yes.”
“You’d better tell me,” said Katie. “Tell me what she’s doing to herself.”
Please don’t let it be cutting, thought Katie. Please don’t let it be cutting.
“She’s refusing to eat,” said Mike. “She . . . she just won’t eat anything.”
“For how long?” asked Katie.
“For nearly four weeks now.”
“And before that?” asked Katie. “Was she trying it out before that?”
“We don’t know,” said Mike. “We don’t think so but we can’t be sure. If you’ve got a teenage daughter then you watch out for these things but really, if she wanted to hide it from us then it would have been easy.”
“You mean yourself and Margaret were too busy fighting to notice?”
“No, not really, no,” said Mike. “That’s the thing – the house has been better recently. I’m not saying I don’t have moments when I lose it – when I go off to my room like a little boy because I get so upset – but we don’t fight any more, and the house is generally pleasant and calm.”
“But Katherine could . . . she could have been thinking about this for a long time?” asked Katie.
“Knowing Katherine,” said Mike, “then yes, I think she’s deliberately set about to do this. I don’t think she’s just fallen into it by chance. The doctors believe she must have been experimenting before.”
“I’d say she could get away with anything if she wanted to,” said Katie, “and I don’t mean simply because you and Margaret were too preoccupied to notice – teenage girls find a way when they want to. If it makes you feel any better, I doubt this is all down to you and Margaret.”
“Thanks,” said Mike. “I mean – thanks for saying that, but I think you’re wrong. I know what the doctors tell me, but I don’t believe this is an eating disorder; I think it’s a protest against myself and Margaret for letting her down.”
“Perhaps every eating disorder has its roots in some form of a protest,” said Katie, “and then ends up just being what it is.”
“That’s what they told us at the hospital – not necessarily a protest, but some form of . . . anything, really, before whatever grievance she has just doesn’t matter any more, but they don’t know Katherine like I do – she knows exactly what she’s doing to us by doing this to herself.”
“She probably blames herself more than she blames you,” said Katie. “Is she very weak?”
“She’s barely conscious,” said Mike. “She . . . there isn’t enough of her to have any kind of resistance.”
“Will she talk to you?”
“No,” said Mike, “she’s refused to talk to me or her mother.”
“What – she hasn’t spoken in all that time?”
“That’s right,” said Mike. “And now I don’t know whether she can’t talk to us, or she won’t. She’s just slipping away.”
“What do the doctors say?” asked Katie. “Do they think she can she still hear you?”
“Yes,” said Mike. “They say I should never stop talking to her – not that I would anyway – but again, I don’t know whether she can’t hear me or won’t listen to me.”
“You mean she might still be deliberately ignoring you?”
“Yes,” said Mike.
“So what’s to be done?” asked Katie. “Can they force-feed her? I don’t know what happens – she couldn’t just die, surely?”
Katie regretted her choice of words as soon as she’d said them. Mike looked away, across the room to the bar.
“They can give her supplements,” he said, “and she’s on a drip to at least give her something. And they’ve had various attempts at giving her something more substantial, but they didn’t have much success and it wasn’t pretty to watch. So yes, if something doesn’t happen soon, she’ll slip into a coma and die.”
“And is she capable of eating anything by herself?” asked Katie.
“I don’t know,” said Mike. “And the doctors don’t know either – whether she’s capable and refusing, or past the point where she can help herself. Sooner or later though, she’s going to reach that point.”
“But you don’t think she’s there yet?”
“I hope she isn’t,” said Mike. “I hope that if she really wanted to, she could find a way to pull herself out of this.”
“But for now she’s determined not to?”
“That’s about the size of it,” said Mike. “And I’m running out of things to say to her that I think might change her mind.”
“I’m sorry,” said Katie, “I’m really sorry.”
“I don’t believe . . . ” Mike began. “I can’t believe that she really wants to die. But I’m scared now that she’s got no control over it one way or the other.”
Katie said nothing because there was nothing to say.
“I should have said stubborn,” said Mike. “When I was describing her to you, I forgot to tell you how
stubborn she can be.” He wiped away his tears with the heel of his hands. “But this surely is taking the piss?”
“She wants to teach you a lesson,” said Katie.
“That’s some fucking lesson,” said Mike. “Enough, already.”
“She’ll decide when it’s enough.”
“But I can’t believe,” said Mike, “I can’t believe she’d deliberately kill herself just to make sure we got the message. I know I’ve hurt her, and I know she’s hurting, but what kind of a mind can see it through for that long?”
“A determined one,” said Katie, “but you’re right not to give up – she’s depending on you for that.”
“I don’t know what to think or believe.”
“You can believe that she needs you,” said Katie. “And that she needs her mother.”
Mike looked away.
“Where’s Margaret in all of this?” asked Katie.
Mike didn’t reply. Katie gave him a minute or two, but he still said nothing.
“Mike,” said Katie, “what about Margaret? Tell me about Margaret.”
Mike looked up at Katie and then away again.
“Mike!”
“Margaret refuses to go and see Katherine,” he said eventually. “She refuses to talk about Katherine, or to accept that this is happening. She’s shut herself down completely where Katherine is concerned.”
“Oh Mike,” said Katie and then, “Oh God.”
“Exactly,” said Mike.
“Because she thinks she’s to blame?”
“You’d have to ask her that,” said Mike. “Not that she’s likely to answer you at all.”
“But surely she understands what’s happening? Where this is going?”
“I guess she does,” said Mike, “but it’s not enough to change her mind.”
“Oh God,” said Katie again.
“What kind of a person could do that, do you think?” asked Mike. “What kind of a mother could shut herself off from her own daughter?”
Katie excused herself and went to the bathroom. She had to get away from Mike to think at all clearly about this. She looked at herself in the mirror. She was alone in the room.
Poor Mike, she thought. Mike Maguire, and the women in his life.
“Poor Katherine,” she said out loud.
And poor Margaret – Katie couldn’t begin to think what Margaret might be going through.
She returned to Mike.
“I forgot to tell you,” said Mike, when Katie sat down, “though you might already have guessed. I named Katherine after you. No one else knows – except perhaps Eugene – because they don’t need to know, and it wouldn’t make any sense to tell them anyhow. But I know, and it’s important to me, for what it’s worth. I had hoped to be able to tell you some day. Not like this though; I didn’t picture it ever being like this.”
“What about your sons?” asked Katie. “Are they not old enough to help out?”
“They are,” said Mike, “but I’m not sure I want them to see their sister in the state she’s in.”
“But they’re going to have to be told,” said Katie. “And sooner rather than later, I’d have thought.”
“I know, but it’s got to the point where I don’t know what’s best to do about telling Jack and Mike junior. I’m sure if I told them that Katherine was sick, they’d both want to come home.”
“And is that such a bad thing?” asked Katie. “Why have you left it so long?”
“Because Margaret asked me not to get in touch with them,” said Mike. “She didn’t want the two boys to be dragged into our arguments, and I . . . I thought she was right – or, at least, I did at the time. Now I’m not so sure what to do.”
“If Katherine’s as sick as you say,” said Katie, “you’re going to have to let them know, and fuck whatever Margaret might think.”
“I agree,” said Mike, “only it’s still difficult to go against Margaret’s wishes, even if I don’t necessarily agree with her. Plus, I wanted to speak to you first.”
Yes, but why? thought Katie. Why?
“Mike,” she said, “I’m flattered that you should want to tell me. And I’m sorry to hear about your daughter – really sorry.”
Mike shrugged.
“I don’t know why you had to go about it in such a crazy way,” said Katie, “but then that’s you all over. Perhaps you’re right – I might have refused to see you if you’d told me straight out why you were here. Whatever – it’s done now, and I’m glad you came; but I don’t know what else I can do for you. There’s nothing I can say that would make it any better. You need to be with your daughter, Mike, in Manchester, and not here in Dublin with me.”
“I’ll be back there soon enough,” said Mike. “I appreciate you agreeing to meet me – I know it wasn’t easy. And for listening to me – there aren’t many people I can talk to about this, apart from Katherine’s doctors of course.”
Mike hesitated for a second or two.
“I have something else to ask of you, though,” he said. “Something more than just listening.”
“I’m not sure what else I can do for you here,” said Katie.
“It’s not here that I’m looking for your help,” said Mike. “I want you to come back with me to Manchester and talk to Katherine.”
Katie looked at Mike.
“I wouldn’t be able to do that,” she said.
“That’s what I came here to ask,” said Mike.
“Well then, no. I’m sorry, but no.”
“Any particular reason?”
“I don’t need a reason,” said Katie. “I just can’t, is all – and I don’t know what good you think it might do. I don’t know Katherine and she doesn’t know me; if she won’t respond to you, she’s hardly likely to respond to me.”
“I think she might,” said Mike.
“Because you’re desperate,” said Katie, “but you’re wrong. She needs you and she needs her mother, not some stranger that she’s never met. She needs her mother.”
“She hasn’t got her mother.”
“Her brothers, then,” said Katie. “And if you can’t bring yourself to ask them, she’s going to need her father all the more. Look, Mike, if I’ve helped by being here – ”
“You have.”
“But you have to get back to Katherine now. What did you think I could do?”
Mike was about to reply, but Katie carried on speaking.
“I don’t know what you thought this might have to do with me,” she said. “It’s mixed up in your head with the regrets over your marriage. So you want out of whatever mess you and Margaret are in – fine, but you know I’m not the answer. I wasn’t right for you back then, and I wouldn’t be right now. As I said, I’m flattered that you thought to come looking for me, but you’ve got to get back to your daughter. Go home, Mike; go home now, before it’s too late.”
“That’s not why I’m here, Katie,” said Mike. “I loved you then and, seeing you now, I think I could love you still; but that’s not why I’m here. I’ll say it again – I want you to come back to Manchester with me and talk to Katherine.”
“I’m not going back to Manchester,” said Katie.
“You know why I’m asking you,” said Mike.
“No, I don’t know – tell me why.”
“Because I think you know of a way to reach Katherine.”
“Why would I know of a way to reach Katherine when you can’t?”
“I don’t know,” said Mike, “and you know I don’t know, and you can hide behind that if you want to, but you know why I’m asking you and you know why I think you can help.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Katie. “You’re talking in riddles.”
“Okay then,” said Mike, “here it is in plain English – from an Irishman living in England to an English woman living in Ireland. You’ve been living through some pain your whole life and I don’t know what that pain might be. I hoped I could save you from that pain and I failed, and
now I think I’m going to fail Katherine in the very same way that I failed you.”
Katie didn’t speak.
“Whatever the pain is that you’ve been going through,” said Mike, “I think it could help you to reach my daughter.”
Katie still didn’t speak.
“You’re right,” said Mike, “I am desperate. But desperate people do desperate things. I don’t know why I believe this might help Katherine, but I do.”
He sat and waited for an answer.
“You didn’t fail,” said Katie, eventually.
Margaret had anticipated finishing her morning session in Alderley Edge, and then having lunch in Didsbury on her way to the afternoon appointment in Withington. It made sense in terms of the travel involved. It would also have kept her busy and on the move; the last thing she wanted to do was languish at home. But because she had left home in a hurry – grabbing the opportunity and excuse to avoid Eugene – she now had to drive all the way back to pick up what she needed for the afternoon.
Margaret took the motorway and resigned herself to her change of plan. The drive gave her time to assess how her morning session had gone. She felt drained – as she always did after counselling – and could quite easily have fallen into a deep sleep. She worried sometimes how it was possible to slip into the traffic of three or four lanes of motorway, and not even think about the mechanics of driving. She could travel for ten or fifteen miles, and not remember making a single conscious decision to take this exit, or merge with that lane. Every now and again, Margaret would resolve to concentrate only on driving, but it was so monotonous that she couldn’t keep it up for longer than a minute. She knew it was dangerous, and wondered how many other cars were being driven in this way.
Her client in Alderley Edge was unusual in that he was a man. It wasn’t that men didn’t need counselling; it was just unusual for a man to actually seek it out. Especially in a case such as this: the man’s partner was the sole wage earner and was not prepared to accept that his self-esteem might have been threatened by the reversal in roles. He was in his late-forties and couldn’t get back into the work habit after having been made redundant; he was doing volunteer work at the local charity shop, which he believed his partner privately thought was ridiculous. Her career had gone from strength to strength once the children were grown, and he’d become obsessed with the possibility that she was having an affair at work.