Bright Burning Things(32)

‘That girl that works in that place is such a little bitch.’

He fixes his collar, pulling it high as he says, ‘Of course, if it makes you uncomfortable, we can arrange for you to see someone else.’

I think back to how kind he was to Tommy, and how he didn’t feel the need to quiz me or patronise me, like that other asshole. He paid for our pizzas, for Christ’s sake.

‘I’m not sure, to be honest.’

‘That’s ok. You can take some time to decide before your next session.’

A silence descends. My heart speeds. Seeing this man here, this fragment from my past, means there can be no denial now. I was a pisshead mother and I deserve exactly what has befallen me. Sonya, you’re not playing a part now. This is real. I still don’t know how this separation, which, ok, maybe is my just punishment, is in Tommy’s best interests. The familiar torturous questions swirl: Who’s minding him? Are they being good to him? Can they understand his quirky little ways? Is he managing to eat anything? Is he able to sleep without our bedtime stories, without Herbie? And Herbie? I can’t seem to follow that line of thought any further. I’m terrified of what my father might have done with Herbie, who is, after all, only a dog.

‘Would you like to talk to me a little about the feelings this enforced separation is bringing up in you?’

Something about him tells me that he’s not a father. He has an aura of someone who spends a lot of time alone, a self-regard, a self-containment, an air of selfishness. I wonder how old he is. Older than me, for sure – mid-forties? Well preserved, toned. I wonder how long he’s been in recovery, and how bad he was before. He seems so upright, so uptight, so repressed, so absolutely sober in every sense of the word that I have a hard time imagining him off his head. How I’d like to see him out of control; see his perfectly coiffed hair all over the place. I surprise myself with this thought.

‘Would you like to finish our session now, Sonya?’

Would I? I like how he says my name, the way he puts the emphasis on the second syllable, like a character from a Chekhov play, like how Tommy says it. Yaya. I am brimming with my name, its music, its latent possibilities. Sonya.

‘No, sorry, just feeling a bit hemmed-in in here.’

He rubs the backs of his fingers against his stubble, a sound like sandpaper scratching. Shoulders wide and solid, forehead high and domed, brain helmeted. He looks intelligent, except for the preppy clothes. I imagine him in tweed. Much more satisfactory.

‘Would you like to go into the grounds for a walk, get some air?’ he says.

I nod. We walk down the grim corridor to the front door. The receptionist glances up for a beat, sees me looking at her, then buries herself back into her dark Secret, her cheeks flushing. Maybe one of the twelve-step devotees told her she shouldn’t be reading that blasphemous trash. I want to shout at her to stop looking for answers inside the pages of some stupid book written by some equally stupid fuck.

‘Fresh, after all that rain,’ he says.

I look up at the sky, which is dense with cloud, as usual. We walk out into the gravelled driveway, past the tarnished statue of the Virgin Mary with her flaked, aged face and bleeding brown-red lips, past the chicken coop with its rusted barbed-wire fence, hello, cluck-clucks!, past the clusters of smokers, mainly men, gathered outside the kittens’ shed. I look at their lined, thread-veined faces. Even those whose lives are a wrecked shambles have visitors, a kindly sister, a girlfriend, someone they knocked about a bit. Even their children come, some of whom were genuinely at risk.

I can feel David regarding me.

‘Do you have children?’

He looks surprised, caught off guard. ‘No, not yet.’

As usual my insight into other people is uncannily accurate, which, instead of making me feel superior, as it normally does, just depresses me. The overwhelming greyness of the scene around us: the sky, the concrete ground, the crumbling, breeze-block walls. Recently my night-times have been filled with the ghosts of the orphaned children who once lived within these walls, still trapped. They are grey, broken children with blank stares, sometimes wearing Tommy’s face. His hands beating on the window, his face pressed against the pane.

‘This place was once an orphanage,’ I say.

‘Think that might be an old wives’ tale.’

I don’t say anything.

‘Are you experiencing any relief in here, Sonya?’

‘I haven’t touched a drop in thirty-eight days.’

‘And the head?’

The head, my head, what do you mean exactly? You try living with the torture of not knowing where your child is, the callous indifference of that, on the part of someone who is supposed to love you.

As if he can hear my thoughts (I hope I haven’t spoken them aloud; am pretty sure I haven’t), he says, ‘Sister Anne said she left a message with your father. Seems pretty tough that he hasn’t let you know where the boy is.’

‘It’s raining,’ I say.

He nods, looking towards the sky. Neither of us makes a move to go back inside.

‘Almost refreshing, were it not so fucking relentless,’ I continue.

He laughs, surprising himself.

‘Can I ask you a question?’

He looks at me sideways, suspiciously.

‘I’m curious: is there the same level of relapse in a private facility as in here?’