by Ella Harper
Hannah smiled. ‘Ha, ha.’
‘Good day at school?’
Hannah considered this. ‘Erin was rude. Lunch was meatballs with a disgusting sauce. Maths was dire. And I was asked to be in the school play. Yay.’
Connie smiled to herself. Hannah not only had Jonas’s tufty, blond hair and wide, brown eyes, but she spoke like him too. In notes. Or rather, bullet points; often in staccato bursts. Connie’s stomach tightened slightly. What time was Jonas due home?
‘Bella’s outside on her phone,’ Hannah announced.
Connie nodded absently. What else was new? Bella was sixteen. Being on her phone was standard. And Hannah throwing her older sister under the bus – also standard.
‘Is she talking about me being on my phone again?’
Connie glanced at Bella as she strolled through the door – and felt a strange, but familiar pang. Bella was a mass of dark curls, pale skin and freckles. Mostly the spitting image of Connie, in fact. Extremely leggy in a pair of tight jeans and a faded grey t-shirt with some kind of rock group reference.
‘When you say “she”, do you mean me?’ Hannah put her hands on her hips.
Bella let out a laugh. ‘Look at you with your hands on your hips! Mum, have you seen her?’
Connie grinned. ‘You are totally full of attitude like that, Han.’
Hannah looked affronted for a second then started to laugh. ‘Rude,’ she said, pulling a face at Bella.
‘Rude,’ mimicked Bella. ‘You’re just cross because you don’t have a phone yet.’
‘No I’m not. Mum, tell her. Tell her it’s not because I don’t have a phone.’
‘It so is, Han. God,’ Bella leant into the fridge, ‘have you eaten all the yogurts?’
‘No. And don’t say “God” like that. It sounds like you’re swearing.’ Hannah did her best sanctimonious face.
So like her father, Connie thought to herself, skim-reading her piece. Was there even a way to make toasting marshmallows in the rain sound hip and cool? Probably not. What did they call those pastel-coloured marshmallows now, even in the UK? Unicorn poo? Maybe she’d borrow that…
Hannah wasn’t done. ‘And actually, there’s a hazelnut yogurt left.’
‘No one likes hazelnut, squirt.’ Bella’s phone rang again.
‘Don’t call me that! And she’s on the phone again. Mum!’
‘Girls, pack it in. Please…’
Connie was only half-listening. She needed to concentrate. She needed to finish her blog and publish it. She had a big dinner party coming up and she needed to plan it and get organised. There was a family holiday coming up and Connie needed to make sure she had her checklists in place. And now she was talking like Jonas – as though she was reading a memo out loud.
Connie caught hold of herself and checked her watch. For all she knew, Jonas might be home on time tonight. Which meant that he could be home in as little as three hours. Connie swallowed. She needed to get a move on. And just like that, the driven spirit that had got her through her journalism days kicked into gear. Roaring fires. Outdoor games. Camping chic. Unicorn poo. She could do this.
Jonas
This was a huge case. HUGE. Jonas could feel the pressure mounting inside him. On the one hand, pressure pushed him to strive harder. On the other, it made his chest tight, his breath shallow and gave him a strong sense that going somewhere quiet to have a heart attack in peace might be best for everyone.
Jonas took a breath and put his pen down for a second. At times like this, he needed to remind himself that he had a good life. Not outlandish, by any means. But decent. And he had worked hard for it.
It was just the case. Jonas leafed through his notes. He loved his job most days. Loved it. He was a criminal solicitor. He was the first person called to the police station after the arrest and he spent much of his time interviewing clients or at the Magistrates’ court. He worked for a firm called Palmers & McCormack, run by two partners, and he was fairly senior and established. He took on a good many cases and he had a high success rate.
But occasionally, a case like this cropped up and it became all-consuming and stressful. Because when you were a criminal solicitor, you were only as good as your last case and you were at the bidding of the barrister, who would often become demanding about what they needed for research and evidence. Jonas had only slipped up a few times during his career and on a minor level, but he knew how costly it could be – both to the company he was working for and to his reputation.
Jonas checked his watch. He didn’t want to be late tonight. He had been late on and off for weeks since this case started and it was getting him down. He speed-dialled Connie.
‘Hey. How’s it going?’
‘Everything’s fine,’ Connie answered. She sounded how she often did when he called. Calm, with a slight edge.
‘Girls OK?’ he asked, checking the time. Yes, they should be home by now.
‘Bickering like… children,’ she said.
Jonas heard the smile in her voice and his mouth lifted slightly in response. Connie carried on talking and Jonas’s eyes drifted to the wall. To his certificates. His qualifications had been difficult to achieve and he had worked so hard to get where he was now. And Jonas was still ambitious. He still wanted to move higher up and push his career even further. He was going for a Partnership if he could. At very least, Assistant Partner.
Connie was saying something about a dinner party at the other end of the phone. Jonas was aware of the dinner party, but he wasn’t sure what the big deal was. Even though it was fifteen years down the line, he and Connie saw JJ and Layla constantly.
Well. Not JJ so much, as he was usually too busy banging women to have much time for dinner parties and polite conversation, the lucky sod, Jonas thought to himself. Not that he envied JJ with any real seriousness. As far as he could see, it was a lifestyle full of fun, but brimming with emptiness. Had it really been worth leaving Connie back in their uni days, just to play the field? Just because he wasn’t ready to settle down? Jonas had put their liaison down to a fleeting infatuation, but he had realised over the years from a few things that Connie had said that it had been rather more than that. But JJ had chosen to end the relationship and obviously JJ’s loss had been Jonas’s gain. And Jonas was also sure that he, with Connie and his girls, was far happier than JJ was now. Stressed up to the eyeballs, granted – but happier overall.
‘When is this dinner party supposed to take place?’ Jonas asked.
‘You don’t think it will happen?’ Connie sounded irritable, and that irked Jonas for no apparent reason.
‘I haven’t a clue,’ he answered, not sure why he hadn’t made it clearer that no, he didn’t actually think it would happen. ‘But JJ is often… tied up elsewhere, for starters.’
There was a pause at the other end of the phone.
‘And Layla is away with the fairies.’
‘That’s not very nice,’ Connie said. ‘It’s not so much that, it’s that she’s a bit worried about…’
‘Listen, I have to go,’ Jonas interrupted, putting the phone down. His boss, Lukas, was approaching and he looked determined.
Jonas bent his head over his paperwork. The company he worked for was smallish, but very much into appearances. There was a veritable competition each night for who could stay the latest. Look the busiest. Try the hardest. Appear the most exhausted-from-all-the-work-I’ve-done-but-still-fresh-and-raring-to-go. And this was even when the big bosses were absent, as though they all thought there were cameras on them, monitoring the length of their day and their relative productivity. It was ridiculous, but like the rest of his colleagues, Jonas was fully on board with the farce.
‘Good work on that last case,’ Lukas said approvingly, poking his head around the door. He was a short man with a taste for chequered suits. ‘Sorry I haven’t mentioned it before, but the holiday and all that.’
‘Oh yes. Borneo, wasn’t it?’ Jonas responded in a pseudo-jovial tone. He had a holid
ay coming up himself, but he was certain he wouldn’t get to mention it.
As Lukas (he of the Palmer in Palmer & McCormack) started droning on about Borneo and its magnificent clouded leopards and orangutans, Jonas found himself thinking that his boss resembled Will Ferrell in Elf. Not because he walked around in an over-sized green coat with pointy shoes or anything, naturally, but he possessed the same curly hair, the child-like enthusiasm and a fixed, vapid smile. Jonas had often wondered how Lukas had climbed the ladder when he appeared to have all the intelligence of a peanut, but shit happened. And Jonas well knew there was more than one way to skin a cat. Or climb a ladder, as it were. And Lukas was a close friend of Michael McCormack and his family. Say no more.
But however he felt about playing the office game, climbing the ladder mattered desperately to Jonas. He wanted Partner and he was prepared to do whatever it took to get there. He wanted the salary, the status and the recognition. But above all, Jonas wanted to provide Connie and the girls with the life he had always dreamed of for them. And with Connie falling pregnant so early on, everything had shifted for them on the career front. Jonas guessed Connie had worked for longer than some women did in similar circumstances, but still. It was up to him now and that burden had been with him for years.
Was it a burden? That thought surprised Jonas momentarily. But he supposed he did feel that way at times. As though it was all down to him. And the thought of not reaching where he wanted to be brought Jonas out in a cold sweat sometimes. Often at night. The thought of it all being taken away from him was a scenario Jonas couldn’t even bear to think about.
‘Well, that all sounds fascinating,’ he said, finding himself gurning back at Lukas. He felt idiotic, but he was playing the game. It was what he had to do to get to where he wanted to be.
Lukas nodded. ‘Oh it was, it was. The rainforests are simply breath-taking. People look down on Borneo, you know, but it’s magical. So.’ His body language changed almost imperceptibly from chatty to professional. ‘Not quite in the same place with the new case from what I understand?’ His face took on a stern but somewhat patronising expression that in Jonas’s opinion a) didn’t suit him and b) made him want to shake Lukas until his teeth rattled.
As such, Jonas took a moment before answering. ‘Not quite, no. But you know you can have faith that I’ll get a good result.’
Lukas raised his eyebrows and smiled vacantly, looking even more Elf-like. ‘Only as good as your last case, Jonas. So for now, you’re good.’ He gave a short, unconvincing laugh. ‘But I need to see some progress here. Ping me an email when you have an update, yes?’
Ping me an email. Jonas inwardly puked. What kind of nob went around saying stuff like that?! He hated all the cheesy, corporate buzz words and phrases with a passion. Put that on your dashboard. What’s your blue sky? God. Jonas often wondered if he was the only one who found such phrases nauseating, the sort of things people said in comedy sketches to take the piss, but he wouldn’t dream of risking his profile by asking.
‘I certainly will,’ he agreed with aplomb. ‘Ping you an email, that is.’
‘Splendid. Look forward to it. And see you in Monday’s meeting.’ Lukas gave Jonas one last, crazed smile, then took his leave.
Jonas let out a jerky breath when he was alone once more. God, but Lukas was a nobhead! Jonas re-grouped – and laughed at himself for re-grouping – before pulling his paperwork towards him again. Maybe he wasn’t going to be home on time tonight after all. And not because he was indulging in office politics. But because this was a shit of a case and Jonas simply had to make some headway with it. He had emails to ‘ping’, for heaven’s sake.
Layla
‘And then I knew I had to leave him, you see. But it’s been really, really hard.’
‘Of course,’ soothed Layla, giving her client, Rebecca, a sympathetic smile. ‘Of course. I understand. It was a very brave move.’
‘Do you think I did the right thing?’ Rebecca sniffed into her tissue.
‘Do you think you did the right thing?’
Layla cringed inwardly, as she often did. She remembered JJ saying something like this back in their uni days when she had completed the first part of her study. That all she would do as a therapist was turn questions back to the client without actually answering them.
But essentially, that was the whole point of therapy, Layla mused. What sort of a therapist would she be if she answered all her clients’ questions for them? She could do that; of course she could. It would be simple enough, and Layla was sure that some of her clients would appreciate being given answers on a plate. Some didn’t want to soul-search or dig deep or self-examine. Some wanted quick fixes, straight answers and instructions on what to do next. Answers and action plans, without any of the ‘inner work’. Others welcomed it, revelled in it, lapping up the about-turn questions, the homework and the chance to question themselves and gently find their way to the truth. But the bottom line was, providing all the answers on a plate really wasn’t how it worked.
Layla wondered what her current client Rebecca would do if Layla did all the work for her. If instead of asking Rebecca to look inward at herself and at all the facts and search for her own emotional response to her situation, she said: ‘Well of course you did the right thing! Andy was a cheating, worthless prick and he was never going to commit to you. Everyone has been telling you that for years, but you refused to listen because you have self-esteem issues, a ‘not good enough’ complex and a tendency to pick men who make you feel bad about yourself, thus creating a full-circle situation that will never break its pattern unless you realise that your childhood is behind most of this because you feel let down by your father leaving when you were five and by your mother being treated badly by a string of worthless men. If you can just let go of all of that, you’ll be able to move forward with your life and you wouldn’t even need to ask me if you did the right thing or not.’
Layla gave Rebecca a sympathetic smile. She couldn’t say for sure, but she had a strong sense that Rebecca’s head might explode from feeling overwhelmed and then there would be mess all over her office.
Metaphorically speaking, of course. Because no one could take on that much information and emotional dissection all in one go. And Layla was always open to the fact that she might not have every single issue pegged. That a curveball could arrive in any session that could turn her entire diagnosis on its head. Those were the moments that made a therapy session worthwhile, in fact – for both the therapist and the client.
Layla made a few notes on her pad.
‘The thing is, he did actually have a really small…’ Rebecca’s cheeks darkened. ‘Penis!’ she finished with a gasp.
Layla’s head snapped up.
‘Yes,’ Rebecca nodded rapidly. ‘And he didn’t know what to do with it either!’
Layla let out a laugh. And there it was. A delightful curveball.
‘OK! Why haven’t you mentioned that before? That there was an issue with sex?’
Rebecca squirmed. ‘Because it’s embarrassing, Layla. I couldn’t even talk about it. It seemed better to focus on Andy’s… commitment issues than his tiny nob.’
‘You don’t need to be embarrassed about Andy’s tiny nob,’ Layla said with a grin. ‘Not one bit.’
‘It’s actually a bit of a relief to get it out there.’ Rebecca visibly relaxed. ‘I know you probably think this is all down to those problems with my parents – and I do get that those things probably contributed to all my self-esteem issues – but trust me. Andy had some serious sex stuff going on.’
Layla put her pad down. ‘So it seems. OK. So now that it’s out there, just how small was it and what wasn’t he giving you in bed?’
After an amusing half hour where Rebecca let rip and discussed poor Andy’s shocking performance in bed, she left, clearly feeling much better about herself. And Layla felt pretty great too. She had no idea where today’s revelation had come from, but if her sessions with Rebecca had he
lped unleash the secrets Rebecca had been holding onto, then it made Layla’s work all the more worthwhile.
How funny that she was able to help so many people move on with their lives, Layla thought, reaching out to touch a photograph on her desk. It was a black and white photograph of her mother from ten years ago. She looked happy and carefree, which was very far from where she was now. In fact, she was unrecognisable, Layla thought sadly.
She started as the phone on her desk starting ringing. Always in a panic that it was an emergency relating to her mum upstairs, Layla snatched the phone up.
‘You OK?’
Layla breathed. It was Connie.
‘Yes, I’m fine, thanks.’
‘So. The dinner party this weekend. Do you have cover for your mum?’
Layla nodded, forgetting she was on the phone. ‘I do, yes. It’s all organised.’ She felt deflated. Was she ever going to be free?
‘Cool. And what happened with that guy you were chatting to online?’
‘Oh, Connie.’ Layla started laughing. ‘His favourite book is something by Salman Rushdie and his idea of a perfect date was a trip to New York.’
She heard Connie giggle. ‘What’s wrong with that? Salman Rushdie, yes. But New York for a date…’
‘To watch the NFL, Con. The NFL. Not to take me out to dinner or up the Empire State Building. No. American fricking football.’
To the sound of Connie’s raucous laughter, Layla grinned and hung up. Christ, but her life needed an overhaul! Her mother was suffering from dementia and she couldn’t get a decent boyfriend for love or money. She needed to speak to JJ at Connie’s dinner party. He had women coming out of his ears. Maybe he could show her how to get men coming out of hers.
JJ
‘OK. So. Cross your leg to the back and… curtsy,’ JJ demonstrated. This move usually got him a laugh. Sometimes a date.
His client laughed. Actually, she wasn’t his client; he was covering for a personal trainer friend who was in Italy with his girlfriend.
