The Therapist, page 17
He emptied the bottle, sharing the dregs between them.
‘God, Martha. Hell. I really don’t know what to say. I get how this happened in the first place. The pregnancy, I mean. I get why you wanted to keep it to yourself. But Samantha? Look, I really don’t know. I mean, she’s a mature woman and everything, but …’
Rob felt the shock as if it were a personal blow. This was his Samantha they were discussing. His and Martha’s. He desperately wanted to say that, between them, they could love her through whatever trauma she might have to face.
‘I’ve upset you, Rob. This was too much to lay on you. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you any of it. I have to work it out myself. I just thought you might—’
‘Martha, please. Don’t apologise. I’m honoured—truly, that’s the word—that you’ve chosen to share this with me. This is a horrible prospect. On a far bigger scale, obviously, than the other one. In a different league. The question is, was it just a completely hollow threat, designed to put you through exactly what you’re now experiencing? Or is there some substance to it? I mean, trying to see it from their point of view, they have more power over you if they don’t spill the beans to Samantha, so that you have to live with the uncertainty. If Giles, or Abigail Orton and her sister, actually told Samantha, then you’d have to deal with it, and so would she. But they’d lose all their power. Isn’t that right?’
‘Yes. They’d lose their power over me, and I might well lose my daughter in the process. Who knows what they would say? Who knows how Sam would react? To be told something like this by a total stranger and then having to confront me with it. Is it true? Why have you kept it from me all my life? Why did you tell that dreadful Giles person but you never told me? And what would I say? Sam’s no fool. If I said it was to protect her, she’d say, No, Mum, it was to protect yourself. And she’d be absolutely right. It’s true. I lied to my husband, I lied to my daughter, to protect myself. And, of course, I never told Grant he was a father.’
‘Well, you didn’t actually—’
‘I hope you’re not going to say I didn’t actually lie, Rob. I hope you know that sins of omission are just as bad, just as heinous, as sins of commission. Sometimes worse. As in this case. Oh, no, Rob, don’t try to patronise me. Spare me that.’
‘Okay, Martha. Fair enough. But let me think about this. I’m sure there’s a way to handle this that could work for you andSamantha. And what about Simon? Have you thought about his reaction? Let me spend some time on it. Ponder it a bit.’
In their fifteen years working together, Rob had never seen Martha cry. But here she was, sitting in his office, weeping quietly into a tissue dragged from the box on his desk.
He let her be for some minutes, then said, ‘May I give you a hug, Martha? And let’s talk again next week. How does that sound? Will you be okay in the meantime?’
A wordless nod from Martha. After the hug, she sat back down in her chair and showed no sign of leaving. She shook her head, as if to clear it of this dark material.
‘Send me away on a lighter note, Rob. Tell me some good news. Tell me why you’re jaunty. Tell me you’ve defused the bombshell, at last.’
Rob looked at her, torn between the various versions of this story it might be possible to tell her.
‘You’re incorrigible, Martha. Relentless. I wish you handled me as gently as you claim to handle your clients. It’s a long story. But yes, we’ve split. Finally and forever. Though Constancia might give you a different version.’
‘Oh, Rob. That is good news. And Zoe will be delighted too.’
‘Que?’
‘Oh, don’t play the innocent with me, Rob. I’m sure she’s a wonderful therapist. But, boy, she’s hopeless at hiding her feelings for a colleague. And you are a bit of a dreamboat. I can see that. Through half-closed eyes, admittedly.’
‘Get out of my office. And have a lousy weekend. I hope the bedbugs do bite.’
THIRTY
After their return from Europe, Giles was duly admitted to the Neutral Bay clinic, discreetly housed in a gracious old building that, from the outside, was indistinguishable from the other houses in the street.
Every weekday morning, Martha would drive over to visit him. In the beginning, when he was heavily sedated, he appeared to have no clear idea of who she was, but he was benign enough and able to make polite conversation. After each visit, Martha would drive on to Balmoral for lunch and a restorative walk along the sand.
She would drop into the practice occasionally, exchange pleasantries with Sandrine, whose discretion continued to be exemplary in spite of Martha’s temporary retreat from their previous closeness, and spend a few minutes bringing Rob up to date on the unfolding saga of Giles. There was nothing about those conversations she enjoyed. She felt as though she was being exposed as a rather foolish, naive woman, though Rob never ventured anywhere near such an assessment. She would also spend a few moments with Zoe, getting to know her a little better and catching up on the progress of the clients Martha had handed on to her. Her impression was that Zoe had been an excellent choice of locum.
Giles’s psychiatrist was happy enough to speak to Martha, though she was guarded in her responses to Martha’s questions. She seemed sympathetic to Martha’s situation, but warned her that, in his more lucid moments, Giles was starting to blame Martha for the state he was in. She mentioned several times that Giles had undertaken the trip against her strong advice, and that he had been seeing her twice a week—not once a week as Giles had told Martha—right up until the time of his departure.
In her own defence, Martha claimed to have had no inkling that Giles had been advised not to travel, let alone that such advice might have amounted to a warning. But she had certainly been the prime mover. It was she who was swept up in the idea of the trip and, in retrospect, perhaps she had mistaken Giles’s acquiescence for enthusiasm.
But that was all history. Now she had to deal with the reality that Giles was in the care of a competent professional who was being very cautious in her attitude to Martha: reluctant to offer much detail about Giles’s condition, and occasionally reminding Martha that she wasn’t ‘family’, and certainly not ‘partner’. But she did mention that Giles seemed to have settled into the routine of the clinic as if it were his home. Indeed, she confided in Martha that she was worried by his willingness, even eagerness, to be institutionalised.
As the weeks passed, Giles became increasingly lucid, noticeably less anxious, yet more irascible and impatient in his dealings with Martha. He had been moved to the rehab section of the clinic and was functioning more normally than he had been in months. Martha was relieved for him, but acutely aware of his obvious loss of affection for her. A frosty unease had settled on their time together. It was as if they no longer really knew each other, yet Martha still cared deeply about his wellbeing and was pleased by any sign of improvement in his condition. She knew it would have been impossible to separate her devotion from her sense of duty, or even to distinguish duty from some form of compensation for her own feelings of remorse. She was relieved, though, when the psychiatrist advised her to cut back her visits to Mondays and Thursdays.
And then Giles’s sister appeared on the scene. Beatrice.
Giles had never mentioned his sister to Martha, and the first she heard of Beatrice’s existence was when Martha turned up on a Monday morning for her routine visit to be told by Angela, a nun Martha had always found warm and approachable, that she would not be able to visit Giles today, and perhaps not ever again. Angela was as kind as usual, but firm. She told Martha they had learned from Giles that he had a younger sister in Melbourne and so they had contacted her and explained the situation. Beatrice had arrived on the weekend and spent many hours closeted with Giles, in deep conversation. Temporary accommodation had been arranged for her in the clinic.
‘The good news,’ Angela said, ‘is that Giles seems much more coherent. More fluent. More relaxed. He has shared all his meals with Beatrice and appears generally more cheerful.’
Martha was allowed to meet Beatrice, who was polite but cool. She told Martha that she was well aware of the nature of Martha’s ‘previous connection’ with Giles, she knew all about the Europe trip, and she knew that Martha’s relationship with Giles had begun, inappropriately, through their counselling sessions. She confirmed that Giles had refused to see Martha and she understood that this was to be a permanent ban. She said she was sorry to be the bearer of such news, and hoped it would not be too upsetting.
Then she handed Martha a note from Giles, which Martha opened on the spot. All it said was: I’ll get you for this. There was no salutation. No signature. No date. But the handwriting was unmistakably his.
Martha had kept that note, along with the poem Giles had written her and a lace handkerchief he had bought her in their first week in Brussels.
With some reluctance, Rob agreed that Martha could see Zoe professionally. It was a bit incestuous, he thought, but Martha had warmed to Zoe enough to feel that she could trust her to be helpful through the period following the final breakdown of Martha’s relationship with Giles. She saw Zoe five times over a couple of months, and told her the entire story of her relationship with Giles. Zoe had given her some welcome space for reflection, and encouraged her to express her remorse and regret.
During the months following Giles’s refusal to see her, Martha had been almost paralysed by grief. She knew Giles had become a heavy burden, and for much of the time he had seemed no more than that, Yet Martha had invested so much of herself in him that his total rejection of her came as more of a shock than a relief. It was as if she’d been prepared to give up the burden, but not the connection.
When she told her friends the bare bones of the story, they couldn’t see any grounds for sadness, let alone grief. They tried to convince Martha that she’d had a lucky escape. When it’s over, it’s over, was their verdict. While Martha knew that was a perfectly rational response to the situation, she also knew that a big part of her didn’t want it to be over at all. She didn’t want the complexity, the messiness, the drama, but she sorely missed the intimacy she had once shared with Giles.
Under the gentle guidance of Zoe, Martha gradually came to understand that her grieving over the loss of the Giles she had once loved so intensely was not only as authentic as more conventional kinds of grief, but could be harder to deal with because it wasn’t shared, or even really understood by other people. It wasn’t legitimised by others’ participation in it, or their engagement with it. That insight had helped her to understand why she had been feeling so desolate; so marooned; so alone.
She recalled having had a similar reaction to her two miscarriages, all those years ago. Simon had been bitterly disappointed. Friends had been sympathetic. Yet Martha had had no sense of anyone but herself feeling that those were actual bereavements.
Now Giles had gone. To Martha, it felt as if he, too, were dead; as if this were yet another bereavement. But his note made it clear that Martha was far from dead to him—a thread would continue to connect them, via his desire for revenge for whatever wrong he felt she had done him.
There was yet more to be uncovered. Another kind of grief. With the help of Zoe, Martha was able to acknowledge that she was also mourning the loss of her self-respect—her respect for her own judgement, her respect for the ethical standards of her profession, even her confidence in her ability to care for those wounded souls who might come to her in the future. And, beneath it all, she felt she had spectacularly failed Giles by falling so far short of her own lofty goals when it came to the care of his soul.
At their final session, Zoe had said to Martha, ‘We’re none of us saints, Martha. We’re only pilgrims, at best.’
Ten years later, Martha still drew comfort from those words.
THIRTY-ONE
On Saturday morning, Sam was lazing in bed with Rob in the recently restored Crows Nest cottage she used as home and office. She was still adjusting to the radiance of her new life. Lying in the arms of a man she adored, who adored her in return, was an experience she had scarcely dared dream would ever come her way again; not since the abrupt and never fully explained breakdown of her last serious relationship, more than five years ago. The fact that Rob loved her with such tenderness and shared her yearning for parenthood had transported her to an entirely new realm of being.
‘So when are we going to tell your mother?’
Following the previous evening’s heavily freighted session with Martha, Rob felt it was a question he needed to raise again. The hallmark of his relationship with Samantha, in total contrast to his time with Constancia, was its transparency. They never hesitated to say what was on their minds. There was no guile. No dissembling. No prevarication. Honesty and frankness came as easily as breathing. They couldn’t imagine any reason why they would ever want to keep anything from each other.
And now this.
It was Martha’s secret, not his, Rob told himself. But now it was in his head, it certainly felt like his. Never before had he understood the possible significance of that remark he’d previously regarded as merely cynical: A problem shared is a problem doubled.
‘Remind me why you’re so reluctant to tell Martha about us,’ he said. ‘Given that we will obviously have to tell her sooner or later. And given that it’s good news in every way. I am in love with her daughter, after all.’
‘I don’t know, Rob. Maybe I’m too sensitive to how she might react. You’re right, though. We want her to know. She has to know. She’s going to be a grandmother, for God’s sake. We hope.’
Samantha fell silent. She turned and gazed at Rob, but couldn’t find the words she wanted. She reached out and traced the line of his jaw with her finger.
‘Would a cup of tea help?’ he asked.
‘Lovely,’ she said, and rolled over.
While Rob was making the tea, Sam put on a t-shirt and arranged some extra pillows. She propped herself up and waited. She felt clearer, now, about the reasons for her anxiety over Martha’s reaction to the news that her daughter’s life had been transformed by Rob’s love. (She also had to admit, very reluctantly, and only to herself, that there was another reason why she had been hesitating: she had wanted to be absolutely certain Rob was not on the rebound from Constancia.)
Rob brought mugs of tea with buttered toast on a tray.
‘We’ve never discussed your policy on crumbs in the bed,’ he said with a grin. ‘So much to learn. So little time.’
‘So little time?’ Samantha replied. ‘I’m forty, not eighty. I feel as if we suddenly have all the time in the world.’
Rob propped himself beside her on top of the bedclothes and, with the plate of toast balanced between them, they sipped their tea.
‘Alright, shoot,’ Rob said.
‘You’ll have to bear with me, okay? It’s quite hard to articulate. I’m no psychologist, you know.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Look, I know this might sound silly, but I’m afraid of how our happiness will affect Mum.’
‘Really? Affect her in what way?’
‘I suspect—I strongly suspect—she is a woman who has never been loved. Not really. Not in the way you love me. Not in the way she desperately wanted that awful Giles to love her. Giles! That was a fantasy episode if ever I saw one. Did you ever meet him?’
‘I never did.’
‘Weird. You could tell after being with him for a very short while that he was weird. Intense, but not in a good way. Like a zealot or something. Yet there was my poor mother investing heart and soul in him.’
‘That’s certainly true. She talked to me about him, after the event, as if he had been all she’d ever dreamed of.’
‘Dreamed of is right. She needed him to be someone he wasn’t. She needed him to be the great love of her life. That was never going to happen. You know Mum, Rob. The enigmatic Martha. I mean, you see her at work, being this wonderful professional counsellor. She’s got truckloads of insight into other people’s problems, hasn’t she? But she couldn’t see it. Not in her own case. Is that common? I mean, for counsellors?’
‘Maybe a bit of that. But you said the most important thing about it, I think. You said she needed him to be the great love of her life.’
‘Yes, and that’s exactly my point. That’s what I’m scared of doing to her. Shoving this—us—in her face. Here we are, actually finding what she was so desperately seeking. If she’s never been loved, how will she feel when she sees me being loved like this by you? I know we have to tell her. And I’m not going to hold back when we do. But can’t you see what I’m saying? She could be really upset even while she’s genuinely happy for us. I think there’s a very sad, very empty part of my mother buried somewhere deep inside, and I don’t want to … I don’t want to be the cause … oh, I don’t know.’
‘Samantha, you’re the daughter any mother would dream of having.’ Rob put down his mug and leaned over and kissed her. ‘Knowing Martha, I imagine she’ll be not only content but delighted to see her daughter securely loved. I don’t think envy is in Martha’s emotional lexicon. Really, I don’t.’
‘I know that’s true. But I’m not talking about envy. I’m talking about something much less conscious than that. God, you’re the psychologist. You tell me what I’m trying to say. I just think it might be quite a challenge. That’s what I fear, anyway.’
‘I get what you’re saying. Absolutely. And I guess it’s complicated by the fact that she’s coming to the end of the road professionally.’
‘I know. I thought of that, too.’
‘But let’s wind back a bit. Forget Giles. Wasn’t your dad the love of her life? She once told me they were high-school sweethearts. That sounded pretty good. I’ve never really understood what went wrong. I gather the divorce was difficult. What divorce isn’t?’
