‘Apologise to her. Give me two minutes to call Amanda’s
mother. Also, could you call Lulu, I haven’t been able to get hold of her yet, and ask her for Maxine Bentham’s phone number? Got that?’
‘Maxine Bentham, yes, Dr Tennent.’
His shirt was sticking to his back with perspiration. In the sanctuary of his office he closed the door, removed his jacket, then opened the window, letting in a faint hint of a breeze and the ever-present scent of cut grass. He checked his e-mail, then picked up the receiver to call Teresa Capstick, and then put it down again, not sure what he should say to her. Had word of the phone call from Amanda during his radio show reached her? He should tell her the truth.
Except that right now the truth wasn’t looking good.
He rang her, and gave her part of the truth. He told her Amanda had called, that he was having the tape analysed and there was some evidence to indicate her voice had been a recording and not live. He promised to let her know as soon as he had more news, then pressed the intercom and told Thelma to send in Mrs Gordon.
For the first few minutes of the session, it was almost a relief to get back to the normality of work. He worked through Anne Gordon’s litany of events in this past week of her sad life. In her mind she had been snubbed by a Safeways checkout girl, by a succession of telephone operators, a taxi driver, her next-door neighbour, and even by a caller for Christian Aid, who clearly did not think her contribution (five pounds) to have been enough.
Increasingly his mind kept returning to Amanda, and he began to watch the clock fiercely, willing those minutes away, desperate for the session to end so that he could check with Thelma to see if there had been any calls.
Anne Gordon noticed. ‘You’re not interested in me either, are you, Dr Tennent?’
The final ten minutes shot by as he struggled to extricate himself from that one.
‘Are you familiar with the writings of Mahatma Gandhi, Dr Tennent?’
In contrast to Michael’s ragged, perspiring state, Dr Goel leaned back on the sofa in a commanding pose, the picture of cool. Dressed in a lightweight black suit, collarless white shirt, black Nubuck loafers and immaculate hair, he looked like a hologram from a style magazine.
‘I presume you are,’ Michael replied, determined to dominate this session with this man. ‘Tell me why.’
‘Actually I prefer the writings of his son Arun. Mahatma wrote the
Seven Blunders of the World
. Wealth without work. Pleasure without conscience. Knowledge without character. Commerce without morality. Science without humanity. Worship without sacrifice. Politics without principle. But it was Arun who added the eighth, which is the greatest of them all: rights without responsibilities. Do you not believe this applies to psychiatrists, Dr Tennent? That you assume rights over people without any ultimate responsibility?’
‘Tell me why you think that.’ Michael watched him carefully. Goel seemed to be struggling with a deep inner anger, but his response came out in a measured, calm voice.
‘Why do I think this? I don’t think this, Dr Tennent, I
know
this.’
‘Would you like to explain your feelings on this to me?’
‘Come on, Dr Tennent. You sit arrogantly on your chair, telling people what’s wrong with how they perceive the world, with the way they live their lives, and you gaily tell them what they should do about it. But they walk out of this office, and it doesn’t matter to you what they do then, does it? You carry no responsibility for their actions once they’re out of here. None. You can say what the hell you like and there’s no comeback. I think that is
rights without responsibilities
. Don’t you?’
Michael considered his reply. ‘Psychiatrists are doctors of medicine, and we do the best we can for our patients. I think we take our work very seriously, and we are acutely aware of how what we say can affect our patients. I can’t agree with you, but let’s continue down your line. Tell me how you think psychiatrists should become more responsible.’
Thomas Lamark watched the man squirm in his chair, hot, uncomfortable, exhausted. ‘Have you ever been in love and lost someone, Dr Tennent?’
Michael leaned forward, eyes on his patient’s face. ‘It sounds like you’ve had this experience yourself. What were the circumstances?’
‘On a country road. I was driving with my wife and we hit a truck. She was killed.’
And suddenly, with utter clarity, it was all back in Michael’s mind. That February Sunday morning. Rain tipping down. Late for a christening. Driving his red BMW M3 fast down a country road. Too fast. Katy sitting beside him, crying. He had told her the previous night that he no longer loved her, that he had been having an affair with another woman, a nurse called Nicola Royce, for three years. He was sorry. Their marriage had run its course, he was leaving her.
It wasn’t Katy’s fault, she had done nothing bad. It was just the way she was – a nice person, but cold, obsessed with her own work. They had grown apart. He had married her because he had been in love with her beauty and with her talent. They had made a glamorous partnership, the successful artist and the successful shrink. But they weren’t a loving couple and never really had been, except perhaps in their earliest days. They had few things in common. She didn’t enjoy sex, she was always too damned serious, obsessed with her looks, her health, her career.
Nicola, a nurse whom he had met at a party, gave him warmth. They had fun, terrific sex, got drunk together, she made him feel young – he’d even taken up motorcycling because Nicola loved bikes. Life with Nicola was a party for two. He adored her. They had planned their future life together.
That Sunday morning his mind hadn’t been on the road. He was trying to explain his feelings to Katy. She told him to slow down, he was driving too fast, it was his fault they were late, they should have left earlier, he was trying to cover an hour’s journey in forty minutes.
They were overtaking a lorry, Katy shouting at him
through her tears to slow down. Empty road ahead. Pulled in past the lorry. Coming up to the brow of a hill, a right-hand bend. Something was coming the other way, a yellow blur; a van losing it on this bend. Crossing onto their side. Coming straight at them.
Michael saw the replay in his mind now in slow motion. He swerved to the right, trying to angle in front of it, the van impacting on Katy’s side, airbags exploding, a man in the passenger seat of the van bursting through the wind-screen, the glass shards looking like feathers from a ruptured pillow. The van bouncing back, the front pushed right in, the roof twisted, the driver through the open windscreen still behind his wheel but part of his skull had been sheared off.
Then he looked at Katy. Not a mark on her, but she was twisted round at an impossible angle, her head hanging slack like the airbag.
‘I still cannot remember how the accident happened,’ Terence Goel said.
Michael stared at his patient. He ignored him, held the image inside his head. The memory.
The guilt.
Nicola had come to see him in hospital. He had ended his relationship with her there, from his hospital bed.
It had felt then as though his whole life was finished.
Ten months later, he heard that she had married an eye surgeon in Sydney.
He stared at the picture of Katy on his desk; then he looked back at Dr Goel, aware that he was waiting for his response. ‘Do you blame yourself?’ he asked.
‘They tell me it wasn’t my fault.’ Thomas leaned back further in the sofa. This was hitting home. Dr Tennent was looking distressed. Their eyes met again, and Thomas lowered his, not wanting to push his luck too far.
Michael tried hard to pull himself together, to put the crash from his mind. And yet . . . last week Goel had mentioned a car crash. Then on Tuesday, he had talked about a bird, the bower-bird, losing a loved one. It was uncanny. Too uncanny.
This man seemed to know something about his past.
‘Tell me more about your wife,’ Michael said.
The morning sun was coming in through the window now. The left side of his patient was in shadow, the right side brilliantly lit. It made him look even more unreal. He remained almost hypnotically calm as he spoke. ‘I bought two birds, two white doves, after she died. They loved each other. I used to sit and watch them in their cage, and envy them so much. They used to nuzzle each other all the time, and made strange little sounds.’ He paused, then he said, ‘Have you ever envied something’s happiness so much you wanted to destroy it, Dr Tennent?’
‘Did you want to destroy your birds?’
‘I took one out of the cage, and I put it in darkness, down in the cellar. Then I just sat, for days, watching its mate pine in its cage. It stopped eating, after a while it stopped calling for its mate. Its coat became matted and dirty.’
Like me. I’m pining like the dove, for Amanda.
‘And the mate in the cellar?’ he asked.
‘I left it there.’
‘To die?’
‘It didn’t. It kept on living, somehow. Eventually I killed it.’
The man’s face was a mask of steel. He gave Michael the impression he was enjoying himself. Michael was curious about this, and wanted to draw him further.
‘Tell me about how you felt when you were watching the dove in the cage. Did you feel powerful?’
‘I always feel powerful, Dr Tennent.’
‘Are you sure you always feel powerful, or are you just feeling powerful at the moment?’
For the first time, Michael detected a change in the man’s body language. Terence Goel glanced down at the floor, and tightened in on himself. Defence. ‘The past is –’ He fell silent.
‘The past is what?’ Michael pushed him.
‘Do you know your past, Dr Tennent? Do any of us know our past?’
Michael pursued his original question. ‘Tell me what else you felt when you were watching the dove in the cage.’
‘I despised it.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it was so weak, pathetic, helpless. Because it neglected itself, it allowed itself to get run down, malnourished. It did not portray any strength of character, Dr Tennent.’
‘Was it the male or the female that you locked in the cellar?’
‘The female.’
Did this man have Amanda locked in a cellar?
The thought was absurd, and yet Goel was looking at him as if he knew he had the upper hand. But
what
upper hand?
Michael, determined not to lose control of this session again, used the one weapon he knew he had.
Gently, he asked, ‘I’d like to know something about your own past, Terence. Tell me about your mother and father.’
The effect was instant. Goel looked like a frightened child.
‘I’m not sure I want to talk about them.’
‘Are your parents alive?’
Goel was trembling. His eyes were shut. Several times he opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out. ‘You know –’ he said finally, then stopped.
‘What do I know?’ Michael kept his tone gentle and pleasant, easing the man through his distress.
Pushing his hands through his hair, Goel said, ‘I – I don’t think –’ He fell silent again.
Michael allowed the silence to play for a while, then he said, ‘You said you despised the bird. Do you think this might be some aspect of yourself that you are despising? Do you feel trapped by something?’
‘You’re missing the –’ He stopped abruptly, clenching his fists.
‘Point?’ Michael suggested.
Goel shook his head angrily. ‘We just need a bit of silence here, you’re getting me confused, you are not helping me, OK?’
This man was in a worse state than he had previously suspected, Michael thought. On the verge of a breakdown. What the hell had been going on with his parents that he was unable to talk about? He waited for Goel to compose himself.
‘Let’s go back to the dove in the cage. Can you imagine what it feels like to love someone and then to lose them, Dr Tennent?’
‘Did you feel that by tormenting your doves you were somehow compensating for the loss of your wife? That because she had died, no living thing had the right to happiness? I’m interested in how you reconcile that to Arun Gandhi’s statement about rights without responsibilities.’ Michael raised his eyebrows at the man. ‘You are stronger than the dove, you can put it in the cellar, but what about the feelings of the dove in the cellar?’
‘Fallout shelter,’ Goel corrected.
Michael leaned forward. ‘Fallout shelter?’
Thomas felt his face going red. He hadn’t meant to say that, it had just come out.
Careful. Careful. Bugger, bugger, bugger
.
Michael watched Goel shaking, his knees banging together, as if he was close to having a fit. He was aware this was because the man was angry with himself. Why?
‘It’s – she’s – it –’ Thomas windmilled his hands.
Careful. Careful
. His face was burning, his voice seemed to jam in his throat.
Careful
. ‘A joke – she – she used to – used to say it was a shelter.’ He opened his hands out expansively. ‘People do, don’t they?’
‘She?’
Goel rocked backwards and forwards for a moment. ‘I think we need to return to the cellar here, Dr Tennent. I think we were doing better with the dove in the cellar.’
Michael decided to strike hard again, while the man was floundering. ‘Tell me about your childhood. I’d like to know about your parents. Let’s talk about your mother.’
Careful
. Thomas closed his eyes, clenched his fists again.
Careful. Careful. Why are you asking about my mother? Are you trying to trick me?
‘You haven’t answered my question about
the dove, Dr Tennent. Answer my question about the dove, for God’s sake, will you?’
Michael noticed the anger in his outburst. Against what?
What had this man’s parents put him through?
‘I really think it would be helpful to talk about your relationship with your parents. Tell me about your father – or your mother, if you prefer,’ he said calmly.
Thomas got to his feet and paced up and down the room, agitatedly, trying to compose his thoughts, trying to connect back to the psychiatrist. Rage seethed in him.
You smug bastard, you killed my mother and now you want me to talk about her. You want to sit there and get some kind of sick, sadistic pleasure out of hearing about how much I loved her? I’m not going to give you that pleasure, Dr Michael Tennent
.