Authors: Ricki Thomas
Hope was smiling, firmly in control of three personalities. “Oh, no, not indistinguishable at all. Eileen was a lovely, jolly lady. My mother was a suicidal alcoholic. But neither of them had any self control, that’s the indistinguishable part.”
“Self control and slimness seems to be very important to you, maybe to the point of obsession, don’t you think?” Pat had engaged now, Dawn was forgotten, she wanted to verbally take Hope into the ring and send her down, blow by blow. Dawn was furious, but knew they’d have to save their inevitable argument for later, away from Hope’s ears.
The gentle laugh tinkled, crystal bells tinged with superiority. “You think somebody can’t be slim without having OCD. And in the meantime that gives you a good excuse to go and tuck in at McDonalds and KFC.”
Hope’s punch had landed squarely on the chin, Pat squirmed into a defensive stance. “I have personally never eaten from either of those restaurants.”
“But you admit you’re fat?”
Dawn’s face paled as the altercation unfolded, bitter vitriol spilling from both parties, with disbelief that her boss, one of the best counsellors she’d ever known, had allowed herself drawn into a personal dispute. She waved her hand, trying to catch Pat’s attention, make her stop, but the two women’s eyes were locked in battle.
“My weight has nothing to do with you.”
“Neither mine you, but you felt it appropriate to mention it when you accused me of being obsessive.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“Admit it, you don’t go home to a bowl of green salad, do you?”
“What I eat is my business.”
Hope squared her shoulders, she appeared tall, strong, powerful, an antithesis to the skinny, frail shell that usually attended the sessions. “And what I say to my counsellor is my business. You are the one who’s poking into my business, not the other way round.” The blueness of her pupils was intense, cold, yet burning, reaching out to Pat and strangling her with their fierceness.
A defeated gulp rippled through the fleshy chins, Pat was struggling to stay alive. Embarrassed, she glanced at Dawn, who’s supportive nod barely registered, before stuttering the ‘get-out-clause’. “You were asked at the beginning of the session if you minded me being here. You could have said yes.”
Hope strolled, slowly, calmly, her steps confident, until she reached the seated woman. Although inches shorter than the woman, she seemed to tower over Pat as she loomed threateningly close to her, hands clasped behind her back. “If I had said yes, you would have placed me with another counsellor because you don’t think Dawn’s up to the job. And I don’t want another counsellor. Dawn is helping me immensely, she’s good, she gets me to open up. But you, you just want to ruin it, for me, and for Dawn.”
Pat’s eyes flickered between the two women. No more words were necessary, she picked her bag up and glided elegantly out of the room, head held high, and without glancing back. Her job done, Hope marched to her usual chair, completely self-assured, as if the interaction had been an every day occurrence. Dawn was confused, she’d never witnessed such a weird exchange, and she had no idea what came next. “Hope, why did you do that?”
“She phoned me the other day, asked how we were getting on. She mentioned the report she’d made you do.” Hope seemed to retain formality when she wore a suit, her posture was upright and assured. “In the first session I asked you if this was confidential and you said yes. Well, it can’t be if you go and write it all down for Miss Piggy out there to read.”
“It’s only for Pat, no-one else would…”
A blaze of fire silenced her. “I tell you things for you only, Dawn, not her, or her boss, or the papers, or the gossip magazines.” Her words were firm, direct, but not overly loud. “Every single word you have written about me is potentially a front cover story for the tabloids. Don’t think for a second that your little receptionist will think twice about my file’s confidentiality when the journalists are offering her twenty thousand just to slip them a snippet or two. I want that report burned, Dawn. I want that report back, and burned.”
“Hope, I…”
“Now!”
The Report
Dawn stepped into Pat’s office gingerly, unsure whether or not she’d be under fire for her client’s behaviour. She was shocked to note Pat’s eyes were red-rimmed, her face lightly blotchy. In the bin beside the desk she could see unopened crisp bags and chocolate bars, Pat followed her stare and edged the bin under the table with her podgy foot. “What do you want, Dawn?” Her usual friendliness was gone, the words cutting, gravelly.
Dawn clasped her hands together, fingers entwined, sheepish. “She wants the report. She wants to burn it.”
Pat waved her hand, petulant. “Well, she can’t have it.”
Dawn moved closer. “Please, Pat, she has good reason, if it was to get into the wrong hands…”
The movement was sudden, although graceful as ever, and Pat had moved from behind the desk. She was standing, hands on wide hips, confrontational, uncomfortably close to Dawn. “She can not have it.” Her impassive nature took control and she stepped back, replacing the anger with nonchalance. “Anyway, after what I’ve seen today, I’m considering having her sectioned.”
Dawn gasped, her cherry pink stained lip hanging lamely. “What! There is no way that she is mentally unstable. You’ve made this personal Pat, you want revenge on her because she indirectly insulted you.”
Wagging her finger, losing control once more, and specks of spittle jumped out with each word. “Not at all, I’m more professional than that. That woman is dangerous, she needs to be locked away. She’s evil.”
Dawn was aghast, this was ridiculous. “Bollocks, is she! She called you fat and you can’t handle that.” Dawn kicked the bin, uneaten confectionary, biscuits, snacks spilled over the carpet. “Look at that, and that’s just what you brought to pig out on today. She’s right, you’re morbidly obese, you have no self-control, and you do eat when you think you’re not being watched. But that’s no reason to lock one of my clients up where she doesn’t belong.”
Pat slammed the report on her desk with her fist. Dawn moved to pick it up, but Pat snatched it to her chest. “I’ve read what you put, Dawn. She’s clearly depressed, probably anorexic by the size of her, and are those kids really safe with a drug smuggler?”
“You twisted bitch. You know that she was exonerated of that. Does that woman who just spoke to you appear to be depressed? She seemed very confident to me.”
“Then let’s see what a psychiatrist makes of her, shall we. I’ll pass the report to Surinda Jahal, see what she makes of it.”
Neither women in the fierce exchange had noticed Hope enter the room. In her high black boots, with her lean, slim body, Dawn towered over the petite form, and Pat, not tall but cumbersomely huge, dwarfed her. Her tone was level, firm. “You will pass that report to nobody. I am paying Dawn to be my counsellor, and what I say in that room is for her ears only. Give me that report.”
Pat shoved the file under a chunky arm. “No.”
“Then you die.” The words rang, echoing repeatedly through the stunned silence, The edges of her lips crinkling into an ambiguous smile, Hope turned and left the room.
Session Nine
Dawn didn’t want to see her, she was scared now, but she knew she had to. She paced the room, back, forth, the report lying ominously on the table. The building was quiet, the usual buzzing white noise silenced by Pat’s untimely death. Gayle popped her head through the door, the normal sunny smile replaced with sombre grief, her usual singing sentences now a singular, sad tone. “Your client’s arrived.”
The diminutive figure slipped through the door, timid, shy, her pallor grey, floating like a ghost to her usual seat. Dawn remained standing. “How did you do it?”
“I didn’t, Dawn, it was a freak accident.” Hope had read the local headlines with shock, how high winds had blown a tile loose and it had fallen onto Patricia Hinds, breaking her skull and killing her instantly.
Dawn restarted the pacing, her blonde curls swaying with her unfeminine gait. Gone was the usual funky, ethnic themed outfit, now replaced with a sober Aran knit, men’s jeans, and flat ankle boots. She’d not told anybody of Hope’s statement the week before, how could she, they’d think she was nuts. But the coincidence was incredible. Too incredible.
“I cried too, you know, not for her, I didn’t like her, but because I knew you’d think it was my fault somehow.” Her tone was plaintive, a mewing kitten. “It wasn’t.”
Dawn was angry, she’d respected her boss, her work, her calm manner, her mentorship. “She didn’t deserve it, Hope, she was a good woman, an excellent counsellor. Why did you kill her?”
Hope pulled her knees into her chest, her dulled eyes almost hidden beneath the overgrown fringe. “I didn’t kill her. I couldn’t. I can’t make the wind take tiles off and throw them at specific people. Come on, where’s your common sense?”
Dawn looked to the ceiling, breathing heavily. “That’s why I want to know how you did it.”
“I didn’t.” She was weary with the inevitable questioning, wishing back her threat the week before, and tears threatened, prickling.
“Witchcraft? Was it witchcraft? Or voodoo? How did you do it?” Dawn’s hands expressed the words, animated with disgusted anger. Hope’s eyes flitted unconsciously to the report, Dawn followed the glance and snatched the folder up, hugging it tight to her athletic body, protecting Pat’s final encounter. Snarling, she ripped the report in two, in four, eight, sixteen, throwing the shreds about her feet, scattering Hope’s musings with disbandment. “There you are! You didn’t have to kill her. She’d given it back. We’d discussed it over a coffee, and she’d seen your reasoning. You didn’t have to kill her.” The shouting ended, but the resulting silence was deafening, an uncomfortable wedge driven between the two women.
Hope cried silent tears, abundantly coursing over her pallid skin, soaking into the leggings at the bent knees. Tugging a tissue from the box, she dabbed at her wet cheeks. “I didn’t kill her.”
“So what was the threat for last week, then, that’s too much of a bloody coincidence, Hope, and you know it.”
Hope exhaled slowly, her tone resigned. “When I said that, I meant it professionally. I was going to get my solicitor involved and take some kind of legal action out on her, the publicity would have killed her counselling career.”
Dawn growled, she punched the back of her chair, then slumped into it, sagging, head down. “Shit!” Her hands tugged through the curls, creating a frizz Hope hadn’t seen before. “I never thought of it that way.”
“No.”
It started with a single tear, her face contorted in agony as she tried to retain her professionalism, then her body convulsed uncontrollably, and soon she was howling, unable to contain the grief any longer, guilt now tingeing the sadness. Hope leaned across and snatched another tissue from the box, passing it to Dawn, with a reassuring squeeze on the hand. Seven pent up days of tears tumbled unchecked, sobs coursing through her body as the agony of her bereavement spilled out.
Dawn, head in hands, was oblivious to Hope silently lifting the bin, reclaiming every scrap of paper from the floor to ensure her secrets stayed in the room. The clock on the wall ticked softly in the background, a rhythmic metronome beating away the minutes.
Scanning the carpet for any rogue shreds of her memories, Hope replaced the bin, she sat beside Dawn and clutched her hand, mother and child, content that the counselling would be resumed at a later date when Dawn was ready.
Bereft, overflowing with emptiness, Dawn snuggled against Hope’s maternal heart, her shudders relaxing as the tears subsided, and the minutes passed without words or movement.
Today, Dawn needed Hope.
Session Ten
The open grief had gone, and Dawn’s sense of style had returned, the tight black jeans tucked into knee high stiletto boots, a golden, sequin-covered waistcoat covering a black polo-necked cashmere sweater. She sat, a steaming mug of vegetable cup-a-soup warming her hands, awaiting Hope’s arrival. She didn’t have to wait long, Hope breezed into the room, cheery, immaculate, and smiling.
Dawn hastily downed the dregs of the thick soup, set the mug on the table and stood, gesturing a seat, swift movements indicating a need to get the first word in. “Hope, first of all I really want to apologise for my behaviour last week.” Hope was waving her hands dismissive, vying to get a word in edgeways, but Dawn’s spillage continued unbroken. “I can promise it won’t happen again, and it goes without saying that I won’t charge you for that session.”
“Dawn, stop it. I don’t mind, okay. As you’ve said before, you’re a human too. It’s forgotten, it’s in the past. Let’s move forward.” Hope’s voice was soothing, and Dawn sat, relaxed. A few moments passed while Hope judged the best way to proceed. She chose upbeat. “There’s been an exciting development I’ve been dying to tell you about.” Dawn leant forward, grateful for the reprieve, and eager to start. “Do you remember I mentioned that Al was being done for fraud?”
“Al’s husband number…”
“Three. Bigamist husband, overall wanker and thief.”
Dawn tried not to giggle but one escaped, swearing seemed erroneous from the smart suited woman before her, hair tied in a neat chignon, prim, the delicate features enhanced by the severe style. “He’d got Helen, the other wife, to transfer the house into his name.”
Dawn nodded, the wintry sun that flooded through the window, catching the waistcoat and matching curls and showering reflections of shiny droplets onto the walls. “Yes, yes.”
“He was found guilty this week, his prison sentence has increased five years, and the house is to be transferred into her name solely. I’m really pleased for her, it means she can sell it and move up here as soon as possible.”
“That’s really good news, Hope, it’ll be good for you to have a friend close by.” Silence hung lamely, Dawn waiting for Hope, Hope waiting for Dawn. Eventually Dawn rooted for some words. “You’re very smart today, have you got an interview?”