The House Swap(18)
I remember hearing once about a celebrity – Madonna, I think it was – who could apparently switch her ability to be recognized by passers-by on and off at will when walking down the street, one minute blending into the crowd, the next radiating some indefinable superstardom that makes people sit up and take notice. It’s like that with me, only what I’m radiating isn’t stardom but a kind of oppressive, prickly dissatisfaction with the world that pulls uncomfortably on people’s coat-tails and makes them draw back for a second look. Right now, that aura is switched on at full blast.
‘Morning, Francis,’ Sara sing-songs, as I come in, barely looking up from her notes. She’s one of the other therapists who regularly use this centre, and sometimes I look at her sharp, ferrety eyes and the keenness of her gaze and wonder how much she sees through the mask I prop up every time I come in here. I prefer not to think about it.
‘Morning,’ I throw back over my shoulder, as I head to my consultation room. I find my notes, try to think about what I’m about to do. It’s a new patient, a man in his early forties. The notes from his assessment are dancing in front of my eyes and I can’t hold on to the words. Giving up, I push them aside. I’ll start fresh. Better that way.
My hands are trembling again, and I pour myself a glass of water, cursing as it splashes over the table beside my armchair. Time to get it together. I can do this as easily as breathing. Used to love it. It makes less sense now than it used to. Now that I’ve cut down my commitments so much, Caroline’s salary outstrips mine by three or four times. By comparison, my payslips are hardly worth the paper they’re written on.
These thoughts are like little needles, jabbing uncomfortably at my skin. Only one way to blunt them, and I can’t do that yet. Focus.
He’s lingering awkwardly at the door, a small, unassuming man with a thinning hairline and round, amber-rimmed spectacles. Nice enough face, but I can see from ten paces that it’s been metaphorically stamped all over by some woman’s stilettos. I’m rising from my chair, approaching with an outstretched hand. ‘Mark? Come in.’ My voice is measured, authoritative. I’ve had enough practice to know how to sound right when I need to.
A first session is often about little more than listening and prompting, and this is no exception. It’s a relief to absorb myself in it, to switch everything else off. He’s a reluctant talker, often stopping mid-sentence or scratching the side of his face in embarrassment, but once he’s under way the words come pouring out fast, a half-whispered torrent of dissatisfaction. It’s standard stuff, mostly – an underwhelming job, a lack of social activity, unfulfilling relationships with family members. He doesn’t mention his wife until thirty minutes in, despite twirling the wedding ring on his finger every few seconds while he speaks. When he does, it’s hesitantly at first, talking round the houses, qualifying everything he says with caveats and assumptions.
‘She doesn’t seem to want to spend time with me.’ His eyes behind the glasses blink fast and erratically, as if the thought is giving him a minor electric shock. ‘I mean, I don’t know. She has a stressful job, works late a lot. It’s understandable, I suppose, if she just wants to relax. But sometimes I wonder if there’s something more to it. Another factor. I’m probably wrong.’
It takes another ten minutes for the truth to emerge: the late-night text messages that he hears arriving on her phone, the new clothes he’s seen in the wardrobe which never seem to be worn at home, the growing lack of interest in sex or intimacy. Each new detail seems to drag him deeper down into a pit he doesn’t want to enter, but they keep coming. It’s as if he’s assembling the evidence, waiting for a verdict. When he’s finished, he spreads his hands helplessly wide out, palms up. The tips of his fingers are very soft and pink, like a child’s. ‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘Do you think she’s having an affair?’
The answer is as easy as falling off a cliff. But it’s not my place to say it, and instead I say, ‘Do you?’ and watch as he measures his own inward certainty against the reality it will become if he says it out loud.
‘Yes,’ he says, at last. He doesn’t seem to want to say anything more.
I could interject at this point, try to force the issue. But sometimes silence is what works and, besides, my head is buzzing, my own personal thoughts trying to surface. I’m thinking of Caroline at the mirror this morning, twisting this way and that, evaluating her reflection in her short, tight dress. I’m thinking how strange it is that I can analyse the relationships of other people with such acumen, even now, and yet, when it comes to my own, I keep so much boxed up and out of sight I can’t even acknowledge the things I know to be true.
Physician, heal thyself. I wouldn’t even know where to start.
‘I suppose I’ve known it for a long time,’ he says, after a couple more minutes, ‘but I didn’t really want to admit it. Now, I have to do something, and I don’t know what the right thing to do is.’
I nod, and our eyes meet, a little moment of connection that cuts through the construct that keeps me sitting in this armchair and keeps him paying me for my presence. ‘Well,’ I say mildly. ‘Sometimes it can be useful not to do anything for a while.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ he says eagerly, grasping the lifeline. I can already tell the way this is going to go. There’ll be five to ten sessions of angst and repeatedly kindled suspicion which he tries to dampen down with hope and denial, then some revelation or climax that will force him to accept the reality of the situation, and then we’ll have to start all over again. Sometimes it’s better to turn a blind eye and save your sanity.