Page 2 of The Therapist
Becky, Oliver’s new wife, is exactly what he wanted. Her perfect body and glowing skin are complemented by thick auburn hair and ice-blue eyes. And Iggy loves her. ‘She makes the best brownies and she likes to build Lego cities with me,’ he informed me after he got to know her. ‘Daddy says she makes him feel peaceful. What does that mean?’
‘Just that he likes her,’ I replied. I never gave Oliver any peace, is what he meant.
But I’ve been like that most of my life, always watching, always waiting for the other shoe to drop, for something to go wrong. I can’t blame my parents, they’re lovely. My anxieties started at school when I realised that not only would I not be adored by everyone but that I was one of those kids who are, for one reason or another, actively disliked. I rubbed people the wrong way without even understanding how I was doing it. As I grew older, that knowledge shaped me, making me shy, wary, worried all the time.
‘Try to have fun,’ my mother would say when I was a teenager and I was invited to a party –something that seldom happened. In self-defence perhaps, I’ve developed into an introvert and that’s something I have accepted. Being around people sometimes wears me out, which is why I find long days of patients so exhausting, but at the same time, I am compelled to help people and this is the best way I know how. I have seen what can happen to a person who has no one to talk to, who feelsthey can’t reach out for help or that the help they’ve reached out for is not there when they need it most.
And even though I can’t abide small talk and meaningless chit-chat, the things people are hiding from the world have always fascinated me. Who are they behind their masks? Perhaps I did my degree for the same reason many psychologists do: I wanted to heal myself. I think I was actively searching for who I was behind my own mask, for the reasons that people didn’t like me. What did they see? Who was the person I was showing to the world, and was she very different to the real me? Growing older has helped, as has becoming a mother, but I am scarred by my formative years and I know that.
My mother used to tell me that the teenage years are the best years of your life: ‘Lots of freedom and no real responsibility,’ she would say with a laugh. From the things she told me about her life, I know that her teenage years were very different to mine. She attended parties, dated, experimented with fashion and played every sport she could. I stayed in the shadows, hid in the library, hoped that if I was noticed, it wasn’t by someone who wanted to make me the focus of their entertainment for the day. I was bullied from my first year of primary school, but high school was where it reached an insufferable level that I nevertheless suffered through until the very end. ‘You can move schools,’ my mother offered many times over the years, but I knew that I would be taking myself with me to any new school. There was something about me, about my looks and behaviour, that made me a target. I hoped that university would be different because there would be not hundreds but thousands of different people and perhaps finding like-minded souls to connect with would be easier. And it was. Life changed and moved on but I can never forget those years.
I suppose few people are unscathed by their childhoods.
Becky has never been bullied. I know that without even asking her the question. I’m sure she was one of the popular girls at school, surrounded by friends and always invited to every party. And now she is Oliver’s new wife.
At least I am no longer in love with Oliver. When we finally admitted to each other that our marriage could not be saved – partly thanks to him, it must be said – my ex-husband and I agreed that we would do everything in our power to make the transition easier for Iggy, who was only three at the time. And we have stuck to that, remaining friendly and letting Iggy know that we still like each other. That’s taken some work on my part but Iggy is a combination of me and his father, inheriting my olive skin, a darker version of my brown hair, and Oliver’s green eyes and smile. When I look at him, I see Oliver, and so I could never hate Oliver because of how much I love Iggy, but I still hold a lot of anger towards my ex-husband. His marriage to Becky, to beautiful Becky who is so at ease in her skin, affected me more than I would have liked. Oliver hated how jealous I was of other women and I hated how much attention Oliver paid to other women. But that’s not what bothers me the most about his new marriage. It’s how much Iggy likes her. No one likes to be replaced, especially in their son’s affections, and Iggy does seem to adore Becky. She is sweet and kind and always finds time to play with him, something that a single working mother has in short supply.
Don’t be ridiculous, I chide myself.You’re his mother, he loves you more than anything. Be happy he gets along with her and that means Oliver spends as much time as possible with him.
Being grateful came so easily in the Balinese sunshine after a sumptuous buffet breakfast of exotic fruit and pancakes. On a day when the rain has splattered against my office window for the last five hours, it’s difficult to remind myself that I have lotsto appreciate, but I am trying. Oliver is in Europe, where it’s summer, with Becky, who dresses in tiny skirts and tight tops. They are doing the grand tour that he and I were going to do for our tenth anniversary. The anniversary we never got to.
Back to work. Stop all this ruminating,I instruct myself.
Iggy is in after-school care until 5 p.m. so I have half an hour before I have to leave to get him, even factoring in the extra time I’m going to need because of the weather. I sit down behind my desk, grabbing a couple of Panadol from one of the drawers and taking them with some water. If I can get some notes done now, I won’t have to work after Iggy goes to bed.
As I wait for the Panadol to work, I read through the notes I have taken on Natalia. She’s a young woman who is a devoted nurse but she is struggling with being unable to leave the job at work. I know how hard it is to do that so I feel I have some understanding of her concerns.
The headache is receding so I power up my computer, but as I go to start entering my notes, there is a knock at the door. ‘Come in,’ I call, knowing that it can only be Ben. There’s no one else in the office right now because Kirsty, our receptionist, asked to leave early today for a doctor’s appointment. She doesn’t seem unwell but perhaps it’s only a check-up.
‘Hey,’ says Ben, opening the door, ‘do you have a minute?’ His smooth English accent never fails to make me smile.
‘I’m leaving soon to get Iggy,’ I reply, and I try, really hard, not to be worried that my black hair is lying limply on my shoulders, that the dark shadows underneath my brown eyes will be more obvious now that my make-up has worn off at the end of the day and that I am wearing my most stretchy pants after eating whatever I wanted on holiday with Iggy. I feel like an unprofessional disaster.
Ben looks immaculate, as usual. His brown hair is a mess of perfect curls and there is a light stubble across his chin. Hestudies me with pale grey eyes behind neat, rimless glasses and I shift in my desk chair, uncomfortable with the way he is looking at me. He is only two years younger than me at thirty-four but he looks a decade younger than me at least. He’s never been married and he has no children. He never talks about a girlfriend but I’m sure he’s rarely alone. I have seen Kirsty’s eyes light up when he walks into the office and I am a little worried about what may happen between the two of them.
Kirsty is twenty-six, around the same age as my patient Natalia, but she has an entirely different attitude to her life. She is pretty, with dark hair and hazel eyes, and frequently has flowers on her desk from young men, always a different one from what I can gather. She mentions Jack or Sven or Oscar for a few weeks and then the name changes. She believes she deserves to have as much fun as possible with her life, and so despite having a business degree, she’s spent years travelling the world and is happy to be our receptionist until she wants the pressure of a job in her industry. I admire her attitude although I never could have done that myself. All I ever wanted was my Master’s of Clinical Psychology so I could start my own practice. I feel like I’ve worked non-stop since I entered university, only taking a six-month break when I had Iggy. Anytime I relax, guilt taps me on the shoulder, especially now that I’m a single mother. I’m thirty-six and starting to feel really conscious of the passing of time.
I shake off my thoughts and focus back on Ben.
‘It’s always hard the first day back at work.’ He smiles and I flush slightly, realising that I do indeed look as tired as I think I look.
‘Well, nice vacations have to be paid for,’ I say with a smile.
Ben and I share office space and both contribute to Kirsty’s salary but we are essentially separate entities, despite both practising under the banner of my clinic name: Calm Minds.I leased the office space first and then advertised for another therapist to take the other office to help with the rent. I’ve had three different therapists rent the office over the last eight years and Ben is the first man. He’s been here for six months.
We’ve developed a tentative friendship, which I’m glad of. He’s an attractive man, very attractive, and it’s admittedly hard for me not to notice that or to worry about how I look when I see him. It’s drilled into every woman, I think. But luckily there are zero feelings there other than friendship and professional trust.
‘What’s up?’ I ask.
Ben comes into the office and sits down on the navy-blue sofa my patients use, stretching his long arm over the back. ‘I have a favour to ask.’
I close down my computer. ‘What can I help you with?’
‘There’s a patient…’ He hesitates.
A therapist never discusses their patients, except with their own therapist, which we are all required to have. My therapist is the woman who mentored me through my two registrar years, SueEllen Granger. She’s ten years older than me and one of the wisest people I know. I see her once every six weeks or so, even if I don’t feel I need to. She puts things into perspective for me, both in my life and with my patients. Ben has only referred to his therapist as Nancy and I don’t want to push him into telling me exactly who she is, but I think she’s in the UK, where Ben lived for the last thirty years, after his family left Australia for the UK when he was four.
The truth is that Ben and I do sometimes discuss our patients if we want an immediate input.
