The Dance of the Pheasodile

by Tim Roux

  Chrissie and I do not like to think about these things, so we pretend that they did not happen, or gloss over them fast should we ever be confronted with their reality. We do not want those incidents, that blight, to infect the rest of our lives. When we found each other, we saved each other from all that, and even when we were forcibly separated, the thought of each other helped us to keep our balance.

  Yet while these shadows in our lives can be ignored, suppressed, denied, dismissed or displaced, they cannot be either neutralised or eliminated. In our darker moments we know they are there, and we partly relive them like a horror story you are allowed to put down in favour of going to the kitchen to pig out on toast and marmalade. At other times, we sense their pre-conscious presence as a low drone, a gentle shaking at our roots that subtly disturbs us.

  At some point, we both accepted that we would have to confront these leakages into our determinedly and carefully constructed new world.

  We considered many options including psychotherapy and family counselling, but decided in the end on hypnotherapy.

  Why did we even consider family therapy? What did it have to do with our children? Well, as parents, we were, and are, a little paranoid. This has all been so new to us, which is what every parent says, but most of you have some reference points to either copy or reject. You have had parents who have either treated you well or badly, or both at different times and to different degrees. We have had nothing. When it comes to the natural experience of family life, you live in a city surrounded by buildings which are usually ornate in the centre and somewhat shabby in the suburbs, whereas we live in a desert roaming lost and loose between clear horizons. If we want even shrubs as landmarks, we need to plant them ourselves. We embarked on parenthood with a vision of the ideal superimposed on nothing other than on a nightmare which had nothing to do with a real childhood and, to our pride and credit, we made it happen. We really do have two children who have been brought up in the perfect home. Sheer will-power and intelligence has fashioned our paradise, and for that we are first and foremost grateful for the chance to achieve something so special. However, in the end, we decided that this was exactly why we could not proceed with family therapy. We did not want the children suddenly to hit real life head on and at break-neck speed. This was a battle we must fight exclusively ourselves, as we have always done, like the Thebes regiment of lovers battling back-to-back to safeguard each other.

  We had no experience of hypnotherapy, and we did not want to alert our friends and acquaintances to the existence of complications in our lives lest they gossip and exacerbate an already fraught situation, so we more or less picked the first hypnotherapist we could find on the Internet who worked within a reasonable striking distance of where we live in Wokingham, Berkshire.

  Chrissie contacted her, reporting that she seemed very warm and compassionate over the phone, so she booked an appointment for us to see her together for a two hour introductory mutual exploration, which turned out to be a revelation in itself; almost a continuation of our freak-out dinner party with Jerry and Sam of some years ago. We did not dredge up any new incidents between us, but we certainly examined to new levels of detail some of the ones we had already acknowledged to each other.

  About an hour and three quarters into the session, the hypnotherapist, Sian Bridge, leaned forward towards Chrissie and said: “Don’t answer this if you don’t want to, Chrissie, but have you ever been raped?”

  Chrissie went stone still. We both did. Then Chrissie recaptured her composure and replied calmly: “No, I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t think so, or you’re sure that you haven’t been?”

  “I am almost definitely sure that I haven’t been. Why do you ask?”

  “Experience. There is something in the way you approach the whole subject of your care homes that reminds me of several people – some women, and some men – who have discovered under hypnosis that they have been raped.”

  We both sat back, shocked and reflective. Chrissie turned to me. “Have you ever suspected that I have been raped?”

  “No,” I replied emphatically. “I have never heard of it, and there is nothing in your behaviour that has ever suggested it.”

  Chrissie returned to the hypnotherapist. “No, I am afraid not.”

  Sian lent forward towards Chrissie again. “Chrissie, I raised the issue not because I wanted to know the answer, but because you must be aware that under hypnosis these sorts of secrets, that you may have subconsciously kept extremely well buried, may emerge, and that it will be a terrible shock to your system should they do so. These are the sorts of issues you may find yourselves confronted with during this sort of therapy. This is why it is sometimes cathartic, but it can be traumatising too. Are you prepared to take that risk?”

  Chrissie consulted me silently. “Yes,” she said, “we are prepared to take that risk.”

  Sian sat back in her chair. “Good, in that case, let’s set up your first appointments. Who goes first? Chrissie? Would next Thursday at 11:00 suit you?”

  * * *

  In the car on the way home, Chrissie was perplexedly incensed. “Of course I haven’t been raped,” she insisted. “I wonder what gave her that idea. Do you think we can trust her? We can cancel our appointments if you like.”

  “Would you rather find somebody else?”

  Chrissie laughed. “My guess is that they are all the same. Sex mad. If it didn’t happen, they implant it in your brain anyway. There have been so many cases of false memories after people have visited psychiatrists, and we must be the ideal candidates as children brought up in homes. She was simply jumping to conclusions, I would guess, or going on a fishing trip as we lawyers call it.”

  Chrissie loves the expression ‘we lawyers’, although she pretends that she is being ironic. Being a lawyer is immensely important to her, perhaps more so than being an architect is to me. She adores the legal world, she wallows in it ten to fifteen hours a day, it is part of the definition of who she is. She is quick to tell new acquaintances “I am a lawyer” whereas most of her colleagues are rather shamefaced about their career choice. She set her heart on being a lawyer at the age of fourteen and she worked her guts out to qualify as one. Dammit, she deserves the title. I have a gift for drawing and for 3D visualisation. Chrissie became a lawyer through sheer focus.

  In the lead up to her first session, Chrissie was naturally nervous given the risks she had been told she was taking. When Chrissie is nervous, she eats nuts and raisins by the kilo packet load. She also becomes preoccupied and a little manic.

  She phoned me at work just before she got into the car to drive to Sian’s.

  “I am going now,” she said. “I love you.”

  “Take care,” I replied. “I love you too.”

  She also phoned me immediately after she came out. “It wasn’t too bad at all,” she declared. “I went back to the time we were hiding in the loft when everyone was looking for us. We were so young!”

  Phew! “Can I order one of those too? I would love to relive that scene.”

  “It was very romantic. You even fondled my chest, you dirty dog!”

  “I did what? No I didn’t, I breathed into your chest when we were trying to stifle our giggles.”

  “No, you definitely groped me. I was frightened that you were going to go further – frightened and excited at the same time. I felt safe that there were people just below us, so I thought that you would not try it on too much. At the same time, I was tingling a bit. Come home, Keith, let’s redo the scene over lunch.”

  “Where?”

  “Usual place. I’ll be there by one.”

  “Why not? Do they have a loft directly over the reception area?”

  * * *

  So, when I went for my first session, I was full of the joys of adventure. I wasn’t going to the dentist, I was going to the cinema of my life in a glorious re-run of colourful events. I totally forgot about the horrors I might choose to resurrect. Well, no, I
had not forgotten about them; I was confident that I could steer the psychic trip towards the brighter side of my life.

  “Sian,” I asked, “could we focus on some cheerful memories first? I need to have those in my pocket before I start to explore darker issues.”

  Sian looked me straight into the face with her level gaze. “It is sort of your choice where you go, but I will, insofar as I can, try to lead you away from anything too traumatic too early.”

  I felt comfortable with Sian. She was exactly what I expected - mid-thirties, dressed contrary to fashion without being intentionally arty, grounded, solidly overweight, calm and matter-of-fact. Her Trance Room, as she called it, was lightly bathed in spices. She had fantastic, ethereal art all over the walls – huge paintings of galaxies and celestial cities, painted by a French artist she had recently met on holiday called Claude-France Decam.

  “I am glad you like them,” she said. “She is a wonderful woman too. She told me that when she was born, her father, who was also a painter, went off to register her birth at the Mairie intending to call her Angélique, the name he and his wife had agreed to give her. However, along the way, he changed his mind, and registered her as Claude-France instead: ‘France’ as a patriotic gesture, and ‘Claude’ after a former mistress of his.”

  “His wife must have been pleased.”

  Sian took me through a technique intended to relax me from the top of my head to the tip of my toes, then she counted backwards from thirty with instructions to let go, feel drowsy, and only to listen to her voice. I parted with my body at about the count of sixteen. Sian invited me to visit a happy moment in my life, which steered me towards Ella’s first birthday, with this perfect child in the centre of our lives surrounded by so many people who loved her. She did not really know what was going on, which made it all the more wonderful. She hadn’t yet learned to be greedy for presents, which led me on to think of all the presents she had received during her life, and of her favourite possession, a real ring that we bought her when she was seven. Sian was asking me to disclose what was happening like a running commentary. I could hear my voice interjecting and asking “What about Mark?”. I felt immediately guilty. Why was I preferring Ella over Mark here?

  “Does that trouble you?” Sian asked me.

  “No, I love Mark every bit as much as Ella, but yes it does trouble me.”

  “Why does it trouble you?”

  “It would be terrible to love one of our children less than the other.”

  “And what about Mark’s birthdays?”

  I recalled Mark’s birthday when he was about four. We had bought him a Thomas the Tank Engine train set. He was ecstatic, and kept talking to all the characters – Thomas, Henry, James, Cranky Crane, George the steam roller, Edward. He soon knew all their names and carried at least one of them around everywhere he went. For his fifth birthday, we bought him Bob the Builder characters in Lego, and it was an exact repeat of the previous year – Scoop, Roley, Spud, Lofty, Dizzy, Muck – they were all extra family to him.

  And then I cannot remember any more, until I heard a clicking of Sian’s fingers.

  I opened my eyes. “That was nice,” I smiled, stretching on the sofa.

  “Was it, dear?”

  Sian’s voice was different, harsher, less companionable.

  I opened my eyes. A completely different woman was sitting by my side. A much tougher looking woman, behaving like she was being paid by the hour, and speaking in a northern accent.

  “It sounded rather violent to me, I have to say.”

  “Violent?” I exclaimed, astounded. What had I been recounting during the period when my mind was blank? And who on earth was this woman? Surely it was not normal, or even ethical, to switch hypnotherapists mid-trance. I was beginning to feel outraged.

  “Don’t sound so shocked, dear. I am sure it did you the world of good to get it off your chest, and it doesn’t go beyond these four walls, so you needn’t worry.”

  “What has happened to Sian?” I demanded.

  “Sian? Who is Sian?”

  “Sian, the hypnotherapist.” Why was she being so obtuse?

  “You are beginning to play one of your games are you, Harry?” Harry? Couldn’t she even get my name right? “You know that I won’t stand for that sort of thing. This is a place and a time when we concentrate on trying to help you be a better person, to recover your dignity. I am on your side. This is what I do. There is no need to try to wrong-foot me.”

  “Harry?” I said. “Who is Harry?”

  “Oh get away with you. It’s all a game with you, isn’t it? Trying to see if you can outsmart everyone else and dominate them. I can see that you are going to make me very rich, all the time it will take for me to help you sort yourself out.”

  I remained lying on the sofa, my heart beginning to pound in aggravation. “Who is Harry? My name is Keith.”

  “Keith who, dear?”

  “Keith McGuire.”

  “That’s funny, you were Harry Walker when you came in here, and you look exactly like him still. You haven’t changed a bit, which some people would say is more the pity.”

  I looked down at my arms, and was jolted into sitting up. My arms were all hairy, and I was wearing shabby suit trousers and lace-up shoes I wouldn’t be seen dead in, all cuffed and muddy. I smelt rather off too. I brought my hand up to my face in panic. No glasses, but I did have a moustache. I leapt off the couch, a movement that was so fast as to startle whoever the woman was. Well, I know now: she is called Brenda, Brenda Starbright. I was looking frantically for a mirror.

  “Is there a mirror?” I demanded, my voice shaking almost uncontrollably, except that it was not my voice. It was much deeper, and it too spoke in a northern accent.

  “In the toilet, dear. You know the way.”

  I didn’t, of course, but I wasn’t going to bother arguing the toss. It would be through the door, anyway, where I discovered a small square lobby with three further doors leading off it. The second one was the toilet, and I went inside. There was a basin and a mirror in a hand-washing area before you got to the toilet itself. I confronted the mirror. What a face. How angry it looked. How care-worn and aggressive. Cold eyes. Heartless eyes, all love driven out of them. I looked ready to pick a fight with my own reflection, like kittens do. I felt my face again. The skin was rough with peelings of eczema around the eyes. My hair was greased back and seriously thinning. My lips had a kind of Les Dawson pout to them. My teeth were good, though - charmer’s teeth. I smiled suavely to myself, and my face transformed itself into that of a practised oily git, a second hand car salesman, an insurance salesman, maybe an estate agent about to spin an incredible yarn. White shirt, shabby suit trousers, a fit body, though – hardened stomach muscles, useful in a fight. I went and sat in the toilet cubicle and examined myself in intimate detail. Incredibly hairy legs, not washed for a few days, really ugly penis, fat and floppy. Skinny knees. Hairy bum, no doubt. Yes, very hairy bum. Who was this?

  I got dressed again, washed my leathery hands, and returned to the hypnotherapist.

  “Are you all yourself again now, Harry?” she inquired.

  I didn’t reply. She wasn’t going to believe me.

  “Well you can go home now. You have satisfied your court order for today.”

  I don’t know which thought alarmed me the most: ‘home’ or ‘court order’.

  “Where is my home?” I asked.

  She was beginning to betray signs of confusion. “Come on, Harry. Stop it now. I know you like your little joke, but I have had enough of your wit for one day.”

  “I mean it,” I persisted. “Where is my home?”

  “Pease Street, isn’t it?”

  I waited for more elucidation.

  She consulted her records. “34 Pease Street. Are you happy now, Harry? Are there any more details you would like me to fill you in on?”

  “Well, frankly, yes.”

  “What else would you like to know?”

 
; “Where are we?”

  “In my practice in Hull, last time I looked.”

  “Hull?”

  “Yes, Hull, dear, you know, Yorkshire (well, sometimes), England, the United Kingdom, the British Isles, Europe, the world, the universe. Have you placed yourself now, Harry? And more to the point, have you stopped messing us around?”

  I shrugged. “Ta. I’ll be going then.” Ta? When had I ever used that word? I really had to get out of that place to collect my thoughts and to decide what to do, however I did have one burning question, although I don’t know why the answer was so important to me at that precise moment. “What do I do for a living?”

  Brenda burst into a genuine hoot of laughter, bubbling with riotous amusement, and some derision. “Work, Harry? Nobody’s ever accused you of that before, but I suppose that you sometimes con yourself that what you do is work. You are a conman, Harry, and from the looks of things, a very convincing one.”

  “Let me show you something,” I proposed, changing tack and deciding to linger a couple of minutes more. “Do you have a pencil and a sheet of paper?”

  “Here, have this.” She handed me an A4 lined pad, pummelled and contoured with the heavy-pressure notes she had made on previous pages she had removed. Never mind. A pen was resting on top of the pad. I had wanted a pencil really, but a pen would do.

  I proceeded to sketch out very quickly the façade of the office block I had just designed for Longley, Bairns & Woodward, where I worked.

  She responded with something approaching appreciation, if not awe, as I worked the pen over the page.

  “That is fantastic, Harry. I would never have imagined you had that in you. Perhaps you should think of becoming an architect or something. Not that anyone would dare buy a house that you designed around here. All the pins, joists and RSJs would be missing.”