The Younger Wife(75)

54


HEATHER


Heather had seen Mary twice since she’d come to visit that day – not as a counsellor, but as a friend. It felt so good to be able to talk, really talk. It was during one of those conversations, which Mary had said she would keep completely confidential, that Heather confessed the reality of her childhood. Mary had taken it surprisingly well. She didn’t seem disgusted. Not even particularly shocked. And Heather was starting to realise how much she was projecting her expectations of a violent, destructive relationship onto a healthy one.

‘We are all products of what we experienced as children,’ Mary had said. ‘Our childhood helps form the way we view things. Certainly, if you experience trauma as a child, it can lead you to believe that trauma is life, and that you will never be, and indeed don’t deserve to be, safe from it, even in your own home. But in your case, you are safe from it, Heather. It’s those childhood demons that you aren’t safe from. You need to address them.’

And so that was exactly what Heather was doing.

Heather’s psychologist was a very beautiful, very well-dressed woman in her mid-fifties. She had the faintest trace of a Russian accent, and a matching difficult-to-pronounce name starting with an H. ‘Everyone calls me Inna,’ she said. ‘You’re welcome to do the same.’

‘Thank you,’ Heather said. ‘You can call me Heather.’

‘I’ve read the notes that you provided before you came in today. You had an extremely traumatic childhood, Heather. It’s amazing you are coping as well as you are.’

Heather smiled shyly. ‘I wouldn’t say I’m coping all that well.’

Inna crossed her legs. ‘Tell me about that.’

And so Heather did. She told Inna about her drinking, about the miscarriage, about the ‘abuse’.

‘Tell me more about the abuse,’ Inna said. ‘I’m particularly interested in why you are so certain you are imagining it.’

‘Well,’ Heather said, ‘there have been several incidents where I’ve been injured. Once I fell up the stairs. Another time I landed in broken glass after I could have sworn Stephen strangled me.’

Inna regarded her closely. ‘You say you could have sworn. But now you don’t think that was the case?’

‘No. I think I imagined the incidents.’

Inna took a moment to digest this. ‘Did you have any injuries?’

‘Yes. But I’d been drinking during nearly all of these incidents, and I don’t have a great recollection of them. I may have been responsible for my injuries. There have also been times when I should have been injured . . . and I wasn’t. Like the time I thought Stephen strangled me, but I didn’t have a single mark on my neck afterwards.’

‘Interesting.’ Inna made a note in her notebook. ‘And you said that your father strangled your mother? That’s how she died?’

Heather nodded.

‘What does Stephen have to say about this abuse?’

‘He’s horrified. He said that he would never lay a finger on me.’

‘And what do you think?’

‘I . . . I think I believe him,’ Heather said. ‘I think maybe I internalised some of the brutality I saw against my mother and imagined it was happening to me instead. Is that possible?’

Inna appeared to consider this for a moment. ‘It’s not my area of expertise, but I do know there is some overlap between the parts of the brain that perceive and the parts that imagine. I heard of a study done recently about how external stimuli can distort memories and even produce new, seemingly accurate memories. So in short, yes, it’s possible. My question to you is, is that what is happening here?’

Heather thought about that.

‘Don’t think about it,’ Inna said. ‘Answer me from your heart, because that is where the answer lies. You know the truth better than you think you do.’

Heather looked deep inside to her heart of hearts. It turned out Inna was right. The answer was right there.





THE WEDDING


After one guest’s suggestion that we adjourn to the pub to await news, some of the guests go home, but most join the foot traffic to the Half Moon. As I walk, theories surround me.

‘Apparently Pam had an episode in the chapel,’ a woman says. ‘You saw how agitated she was. Tony’s father was the same when he was alive. The dementia made him violent. Once, he pushed Tony into the wall. And he was such a sweet man before!’

I hear that Pam was both the perpetrator and the victim, that Stephen had had a heart attack and that Tully had had an anxiety attack. Someone swears they saw one of the little boys trip and hit his head. Yet another person says a fight broke out between the daughters. It’s funny how desperately the brain will seek an answer if it doesn’t have one. Not knowing is not a restful state. I know this. I have never felt less rested, more agitated, than I do right now.

At the Half Moon, we are ushered into a function room. I wonder who among us had the connections to organise this. Waiters have already set up tables and a couple of waitstaff are circling with wine. This is a wealthy group, I realise. Someone will probably quietly go and take care of the bill. Or several people will argue for the right to pay it. Strange beings, these upper-middle-class men.