by Sue Margolis
“We’re all here for you, Sandra,” whining Jenny with the plait said in that sickly sweet, caring-sharing way of hers.
Clementine gave a loud snort and rolled her eyes. “Jenny, do you have to be so bloody compassionate all the time? It’s so tedious.”
“I’m sorry. It’s a problem I have. I brought up my sister after our mother died. I suppose I’ve always seen myself in a mother role.”
Veronica broke in at this point and, with a good deal of tenderness, asked Jenny why she felt the need to apologize for being herself. Jenny shrugged and said she didn’t know. “I think it’s time,” Veronica went on, “that you found the courage to stand up for yourself, don’t you?”
“I know and I am trying,” Jenny said.
Ken tried to bring the discussion back to Sandra’s weight problem, but she had begun to get tearful and said she would rather not say anything for a bit.
It was Joe who spotted Cyn’s faraway look. “Is there something you want to say?” he asked her. His expression was warm and encouraging. She found herself wishing that everybody else would disappear and that it was just the two of them on her sofa with a bottle of wine.
“I’m not sure,” Cyn said, looking down at her hands and then back up at Joe. She was starting to feel the same emotions she had felt this afternoon when she discovered what Chelsea had done. Therapy was like that. You’d think you had your feelings under control and then bam, they came crashing down like a wrecker’s ball. Her eyes were filling up and she was biting into her bottom lip.
“Come on, Cyn,” Joe urged gently, “what is it?”
She took a deep breath. “OK, something absolutely dreadful happened to me today. I discovered that a woman I work with has been very cruel and deceitful. I don’t think I have ever been so angry. I wanted to stick pins in her eyes.”
It took her nearly ten minutes or so to tell the Chelsea story. She kept getting choked up and having to stop. Joe looked particularly concerned. When he passed her the box of tissues, she looked into his eyes and got goose pimples down her back.
“Anyway,” Cyn went on, “to get even, I did something a bit wicked. Well, really wicked, actually. In fact, I think it’s the first really wicked thing I’ve ever done and it felt great.” She told the group how she had impersonated Chelsea. “It was as if I’d been trapped inside myself all my life—always having to do the right thing and finally I was free. I was actually singing in the car.”
Veronica raised her eyebrows. “Ah-ha, Cyn has sinned at last,” she declared with a glimpse of approving smile. “Finally, you are standing up for yourself and it feels good.” Cyn said it had felt good and it still felt pretty good, but she wasn’t sure about the morals of it all. “I mean, stealing somebody’s identity is a pretty heavy thing to do. It’s almost as bad as what she did to me.”
Clementine said Cyn was just being a drip and that Chelsea was a total bitch who deserved everything she got. Ken, Sandra and Jenny sat shaking their heads, their faces furrowed with concern. Jenny wondered if Cyn had really sat down and considered the possible consequences of what she had done. “I mean, it could all go so terribly wrong. You could lose your job.”
“Yes, of course, I have thought about it,” she said. “But does that mean I shouldn’t have done it?” As an ex-priest, Ken took this as his cue to start spouting religious ethics. He wasn’t at all sure that she had done the right thing. “As Gandhi so rightly said: if we all adopted the ‘eye for an eye’ approach, the whole world would be blind.”
“Gawd,” Clementine said with another roll of her eyes. “Ken, do you always have to be so holier-than-thou?”
“I’m with Clementine on this one,” Joe said evenly. Clementine started to blush—presumably because it was Joe agreeing with her. “I’m not sure Ken’s Gandhi analogy applies in this case,” he went on. Everybody turned to look at him. They were clearly taken aback. As a rule, new group members tended to be wary of challenging people so early on. Joe didn’t seem to be remotely bothered. He looked at Cyn. “Look, this might be the worst move you could have made. You’re risking being found out and you’re risking losing your job. You also risk being seen as a bad person and if I understand you correctly that’s the bit that worries you most.”
Cyn nodded.
“The way I see it,” Joe went on, “sometimes risks are necessary. In fact they’re vital—even if you can’t always defend them morally. I also think there are times when the end justifies the means. And just because you do something a bit bad, it doesn’t make you a bad person.” Cyn thanked him and said she really appreciated his support.
Veronica turned to face Joe, who was sitting to her left. “Joe, you say it’s vital to take risks and yet you have never risked having a permanent relationship.”
“Ah,” he said with a self-conscious half-laugh, “I thought you might pick up on that.” He spent the next few minutes bent forward in his chair, hands clasped between his knees, talking about how his parents had always been emotionally distant. “Then when I was eight my mother left my father for another man. Even I could see how devastatingly handsome he was. I think he just swept her off her feet. Anyway, he made it perfectly clear to her that he wasn’t interested in being around another man’s child. My dad was devastated by her going and didn’t want me around either. I think it was because I reminded him so much of her. Since neither of them wanted me, they sent me to boarding school. I remember the day they packed me off. There I was, this lost little mite clutching his teddy and a Dr. Who annual.”
“So what happened to you during the school holidays?” Jenny said, reaching for a tissue to wipe her eyes.
“My mum would have me for a week or so. Of course she was always careful to organize it so that lover boy was away on business. I’d get spoiled rotten with toys and then she would send me to stay with my gran. She’s a dear old soul and we’re still very close. My dad would visit and bring more toys, but I could see how hard it was for him. I knew it was because I looked so much like my mother. Before one of his visits I shaved off my eyebrows, thinking he would start to love me again because I didn’t look like her anymore. Of course he just got angry and it didn’t make the blindest bit of difference. Dad never got over her leaving. He went on the booze and died of a heart attack when I was sixteen.”
He said that the legacy of his upbringing was fear of rejection—and not just in his relationships with women. Keeping people at an emotional distance meant never having to experience it again. “I sort of get my retaliation in first, if you like.”
“Umm,” Clementine purred, practically batting her eyelashes. “I am amazed some woman hasn’t been able to pin you down. They clearly didn’t have my kind of staying power.”
Cyn couldn’t help noticing how Joe had colored at the remark. It also hadn’t been lost on Ken, who had taken on a look of complete despair. He was clearly jealous of the attention Clementine was paying Joe.
Veronica was holding Clementine in her steely gaze. “Clementine, may I remind you that this is group therapy.”
“Now I feel really told off,” Clementine said crossly.
“That’s because you were being told off,” Veronica came back with one of her superior smiles.
Feeling an overwhelming need to ease the tension, Cyn stepped in. “But I don’t understand how you coped,” she said to Joe. “There you were, this little boy desperate for his mummy and daddy to love him and they turned their backs on you. It’s absolutely heartbreaking. You must have been devastated.”
Joe gave an easy shrug. “In the beginning I can remember feeling desperately lonely, but that’s about it. Later on I stopped feeling anything. I suppose I was protecting myself. I just got on with it.”
“And what about now?” Veronica said. “How do you feel now?”
“I still don’t feel much really. I know I should be angry, but for some reason I’m not. Having said that, I hardly visit my mother. I see her at Christmas and that’s about it. So I must be feeling some so
rt of bitterness.”
Veronica asked him what he thought might happen if he allowed himself to get angry.
He thought for a moment. “Maybe there would be so much that it would overwhelm me and I wouldn’t be able to stop it or control it.”
“So,” Veronica said, “why are you here? What do you want from therapy?”
“I think I want to find the courage to make closer relationships—especially with women. I’m thirty-six. A big part of me feels ready for a permanent commitment.”
“What about the other parts?” Veronica asked.
He shrugged. “The rest of me wants to keep the world at a safe distance. It’s what I’ve always done. It’s the only way I know to protect myself.” Veronica gave a slow, understanding nod.
Cyn’s eyes were filling up. She was still thinking about his parents. How could a mother and father find it in their hearts to reject their child like that?
Joe said he was feeling uncomfortable being in the spotlight, particularly as he was so new and didn’t know the group that well. Veronica tried to encourage him to say more, but he said he would rather hand the floor over to somebody else. When Clementine began talking about how she had spent Sunday afternoon hanging round the plumbing section at Homebase in order to pick up men, he visibly relaxed.
After the session, Cyn was getting into her car when Joe came up behind her. She gave a start. “Sorry, didn’t mean to make you jump,” he said. “I just wanted to say that I really meant that stuff about doing something bad not making you a bad person. I hope it all works out and you get your promotion. I’m sure you deserve it.”
“That’s really kind.” Wow, sexy and caring. In Cyn’s book this was a heady mix.
“I hope you manage to find what you’re looking for, too,” she said softly.
“Thank you.”
He was looking slightly awkward now, as if he’d overstepped the mark, which, according to the group rules, he had. In fact, they both had. “Right, well, see you next week.”
“Yeah. See you next week,” she said.
He was about to go when she noticed him spot the Anusol ad on the side of her car. Amusement crossed his face, but he didn’t say a word. There was no smart-aleck remark, nothing to embarrass her.
As he walked away, the pitiful image of him as a helpless, unloved little boy came back to her. She would have loved him. How could anybody not?
Chapter 7
“You know what I reckon?” Harmony knelt down, picked the smeary, plaster-encrusted electric kettle up off the floorboards and began pouring boiling water into mugs.
“Nope,” Cyn said, watching Harmony stir the coffee granules, “what do you reckon?”
“I reckon that some people drink at the fountain of knowledge, but you only gargle.”
Cyn started to laugh. “How do you mean—I only gargle?” She picked up a carton of milk—presumably left by the builders—sniffed and immediately recoiled. “Urgh. This is so off.” Harmony said she was sorry, but since she had no fridge yet, there wasn’t a lot she could do. “We’ll have to have it black.” She stood up and handed Cyn a mug.
“So, go on,” Cyn said. “How is it I only gargle at the fountain of knowledge?”
“What I’m trying to say is that thirty-two years on this planet seems to have taught you nothing about self-preservation. Keep away from this Joe bloke. He’s in therapy. He’s a head case.”
Cyn blew on her coffee. “I’m in therapy,” she said, taking a sip. “Does that make me a head case as well?”
Harmony grinned. “No, you’re just thick because you haven’t worked out that you don’t need sodding therapy.” Cyn told her she would take that as a compliment. “I mean, look at the way you’ve handled this whole Chelsea thing . . .”
“But most people would say only a complete loon would do what I’m doing. Let’s not lose sight of the fact that I’ve done something pretty bloody dreadful. On top of that I’m scared stiff. I mean, I could lose my job if it all goes wrong. And they’re hardly likely to give me a glowing reference.”
“I agree it’s a massive risk. Sometimes you just have to do these things. But as for this fella . . .”
“Look, I fancy him, that’s all. I can’t help that. But you’re right, he does have problems.”
“He’ll hurt you. Saying he has problems with emotional intimacy is just a polite way of admitting that when the sex gets boring, he walks. I’ve been out with a few guys like that in my time and when it’s over you feel so used.”
“Don’t worry,” Cyn said, “I’m not about to do anything stupid. Plus it’s against the rules to get friendly with people in the group. I promise you, nothing’s going to happen.”
“Good,” Harmony said, taking a mouthful of coffee. She wiped her finger along the window ledge and rubbed the dust between her fingers. “You know, sometimes I don’t think this place is ever going to be finished.”
Harmony had closed on the Holland Park garden flat a couple of months ago. It was the bottom half of an exquisite cream-painted Victorian villa. On the outside there were wrought-iron balconies and black metal canopies over the windows. Inside, there were grand white marble fireplaces and original covings and cornice work. In the front living room where they were sitting, a ceiling-high bay window looked out onto a pretty square full of trees and flower beds.
The bad news was that the last time the flat had been decorated or updated, the workmen had probably been paid in groats. Simon, the smarmy estate agent who had shown Harmony around three months ago, had urged her to look past the “few superficial bits of work needed” and to “consider the truly vast potential.” Harmony didn’t need telling twice. It was love at first viewing. Cyn had come to see it a few days later. She had taken one look at the damp patches, the rotting window frames and prewar electric sockets and urged caution. She pleaded with Harmony to get some quotes for the building work before she committed herself to buying the flat, but Harmony said she wanted it so much, she didn’t mind what the work cost. “I’ll be in that flat forever. The only way they’ll get me out is in a box.”
She had reckoned on a bill heading toward six figures. What she hadn’t bargained for was the chaos the work would cause. She had been forced to move out of her old place quickly because the people buying it were expecting a baby. So, for now, because the flat was nothing more than a rubble- and dust-filled shell, she was living at a chichi boutique hotel in Kensington, just round the corner from the salon. Cyn had said more than once that she was welcome to stay with her until the work was finished. Hugh had said the same, but Harmony knew she would only end up scrapping with Hugh, and that Cyn’s place was too far from the salon.
Harmony had asked Cyn if they could meet at the flat that morning because she wanted some advice on decor. So here they were, sitting on the window ledge, drinking the builders’ instant coffee out of smeary builders’ mugs, trying to imagine the place done up. Since there were ceilings down, walls half plastered, and wires and copper pipes jutting out all over the place, it wasn’t easy. Harmony said she was toying with a Chinese teahouse look. “I read about it in this interiors mag. It’s grass-cloth wallpaper, stained black floorboards and loads of twisted metal.” Cyn nodded tactfully and said it was definitely a thought, but maybe something more traditional might be easier to live with long-term. They had been tossing ideas around for more than an hour, but nothing seemed to have the “in yer face” factor Harmony was looking for. “You know,” Harmony said eventually, “I think I’m going to get a designer in.” Cyn agreed that might be her best bet.
They were still drinking their coffee when Harmony started rubbing her forehead with the back of her hand. “Blimey, is it me, or is it hot in here? I feel like I’m burning up.” At this point panic set in. “Oh, crap, Cyn, it’s happened, I’m having a hot flash. I know I am. It seems to be coming from my legs and working its way up through my entire body.”
“Harms, calm down. You are not having a hot flash.”
“How do you know?”
Cyn’s face broke into a smile. “Look.” She nodded her head toward the electric kettle. It was on the floor, still boiling away. The only thing heating up her legs was steam. “If you’d been standing any closer, you could have been burned,” Cyn said. She bent down and pulled the plug from the wall. Then she took a look at the kettle. “I see what’s happened. The automatic off switch has stopped working because it’s clogged solid with tiny bits of plaster. It just needs a clean.”
The color that had drained from Harmony’s face started to return. “Oh, thank God for that.” She slapped her hand to her chest just like Grandma Faye. “Right, I need a smoke. Where did I put me ciggies?” Cyn looked at her watch. It was past midday. “I’m going to have to shoot off in a bit,” she said as Harmony rooted around among the builders’ estimates and kitchen and bathroom catalogues, which were strewn over the window ledge. “Saturday lunch at Mum and Dad’s.”
“Oh, go on, stay for a bit. I thought you could help me go through some of these bathroom catalogues.”
Cyn looked at her friend. Her expression had changed from relief to troubled. “Hey, wassup?” Harmony made a thin smile and said nothing was up. “Yes, there is. I can see it in your face. You still haven’t had your period, have you?”
Harmony put down her coffee cup. “No, but it’s not that.”
“What, then? It’s the Justin thing, isn’t it?”
“No. That’s really over. It’s something else.”
“What?” Cyn said gently. “Come on.”
“Dunno. Can’t put a finger on it.” She picked up her mug again and brought it to her lips. “I’ve got everything I could possibly want: the success, the flat, the fancy car, posh parties, fabulous holidays, expensive restaurants . . .”
“OK, no need to rub it in.”
“Sorry. God, I’m going to sound like a spoiled princess, but there’s something missing.”
