The Seduction

by Joanna Briscoe

  ‘You dull person,’ said Beth.

  ‘Forgive my outspoken partner in crime,’ said Sol.

  ***

  Facebook, Twitter, all the normal sources revealed nothing; Dr Tamara Bywater hid in essays which required further Internet searching, the bringing up of PDFs in arcane analytic language, in subscription-only abstracts of academic articles to which Beth found herself fleetingly considering subscribing. She misspelled the name a few ways, even resorting to ‘Tammy’, with a smile, and still there was nothing more.

  Sol began to make Fern her hot chocolate.

  He was more attractive as he aged, it dawned on her for the first time, his body dense with regular exercise, his thick eyebrows, the cropped hair, the coal eyes. She looked at his wide hands in the sun, each patch of pigment, knuckle formation, artery so familiar, the wedding ring frank, a statement. And indeed, those hands had been all over her, inside her, cupping themselves to the shape of her breasts, making her come. They looked big, yet could fly over a keyboard, a camera lens, a body. His nails were short, and very clean. She loved his washed smell, his American need for many showers.

  Tamara Bywater would smell of face cream, womanliness.

  ***

  Beth arrived early from The Dairy at the river with its hooting, gulls circling then swooping on to a spot on the water, and made quick drawings in the November cold to blast through her loss of confidence. She had only sketched, stiffly and badly, since delaying her gallerist’s visit, but now some muscle memory took over. She jotted down representations of weed, the fish-tinged depths of mud and diesel, changing her habits while aware of how amateur plein-air painting appeared.

  She had always favoured angular, menacing landscapes with a history to them, a story: a sense, perhaps, that someone would emerge; she had been drawn east to the smudged geometry of construction, light in puddles, night-blurred buildings. Her work contained some suspicion of a mystery or question, a suggestion of being watched. She so often wondered: had she herself been seen more than she realised in her own childhood? Sefton Park was so close.

  It was still early. She worked steadily now through the chill, her hair a brightness against her scarf, her movements swifter as she suspended judgement for croquis drawing. She studied the buildings on the far bank of the Thames, where fingers of darkness padded between walls. A pattern of footfall bled into a corner of her consciousness.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ came a voice behind her. ‘Profound.’

  Beth imagined, moments later, that she had felt the swoop of that voice like the breath of a pigeon, its hot-feathered suddenness pressed against her ear. The reality that Dr Tamara Bywater was out there in a raincoat took a few moments to process.

  ‘I always wanted to see your work up close,’ she said. She gave the radiant smile.

  ‘Oh,’ said Beth coolly, despite her shaken pulse, ‘this is only a preparatory sketch.’

  ‘But you are working again.’

  Tamara Bywater gazed, leaning over. There were traces of grey in the sheen of her parting, visible in the growing day. She seemed unreal and shockingly human beside Beth: that creature of artificial light only, who appeared to live in the hospital, forever sitting immutable on a chair, like a Nepalese living goddess.

  ‘It has longing in it. It pulls me in.’ She tilted her head.

  ‘Are you allowed to see me out here?’ Beth asked playfully, for something to say.

  Dr Bywater’s expression closed off. ‘I have to get back to work,’ she said. ‘I saw you as I passed.’

  ‘Of course,’ Beth said hastily. ‘Yes. See you later.’

  ***

  Beth took the lift, with its usual drama of wheelchairs, sighs and exaggerated wall-pinning, and emerged at the fourth floor, St Paul’s visible from the north windows before the visitor was swallowed by Psychology Outpatients’ inner corridors. The psychologists, almost uniformly drab, came to the waiting room to fetch their patients.

  Dr Bywater appeared. Beth saw that a colleague in the waiting room was aware of her, his body language betraying a nervous alertness. He took a few steps back and forth, a pile of papers in his hands and his head stiffly averted, until she finally addressed him, and his Adam’s apple bobbed. Beth watched in amusement. What was it about her? Her strange potency was not about her looks. What quality did she possess? What laying of peace, or hope?

  Beth rested her head against the squeaking plastic chair in Dr Bywater’s office, letting her breath out.

  Dr Bywater paused. ‘Have you done your worksheets, data diary? This week.’

  Beth looked blank. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. Haven’t done my homework.’

  Dr Bywater gave her sudden smile.

  ‘CBT has its limitations,’ she said in formal tones. ‘I need to use more psychodynamic therapy to address the source of your cognitive issues. At least we have more than the minimum six sessions.’

  Beth caught her eye, a clashing flash of pupils. Her face flared.

  ‘How is the situation with Fern?’

  ‘Fern … Fern seems almost to hate me sometimes,’ said Beth, and the night came to her with its drift of images: Snapchat, hurriedly hidden; and suddenly there had been another message from Aranxto. Aranxto? Had she actually seen that? The picture dripped into sleep, and Beth had woken in the greys and duns that crept in from beneath the blinds to the lone cries of waterbirds, and Sol heard her, and rubbed her back until his hand flopped.

  ‘And Sol?’ said Dr Bywater. ‘How is the situation with him?’

  ‘Mixed.’

  ‘It often helps to look back at what brought us together. Tell me about meeting Sol. What was it about that early love that still bonds you?’

  ‘Oh …’ said Beth, and she found she was smiling. ‘Well, we met because he came into a café I was in. Think of the chance of that. I was working in this artists’ colony, the first time I’d been to America, and into this small folksy café in New Hampshire walked Solomon, in the middle of a job, and I had this weird, inexplicable thought: There he is. I can’t explain that.’

  ‘A sense of recognition.’

  ‘Yes, as though I knew him. He looked at me, and he hesitated slightly – I can still see exactly that look – and I thought, We’re trying to find a reason to talk to each other. Anyway, so—’ Beth glanced at the clock.

  ‘We have a bit more time. Listen,’ said Dr Bywater, her expression serious. ‘I didn’t know how to remind you … but … but you are scheduled only for another two sessions. I’m sorry.’

  ‘What?’ said Beth abruptly. ‘I really can’t stop now.’

  Dr Bywater hesitated. ‘I would be happy to continue seeing you. Let me get back to you on this. How is your work going generally?’

  ‘Better. At least I’ve started again. But not good. Pretty lacking, really.’

  ‘You are holding back, aren’t you? Like here. You’re afraid of what you might find. In both places.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Loosen up. You’re hiding something from yourself. Paint quickly. See what happens.’

  Beth pictured her canvases. She lowered her head. ‘You are amazing to me,’ she said. ‘So brilliant, experienced. I need to continue. But I always want to ask you about you.’

  ‘It’s generally better if the therapist doesn’t talk about their personal life.’

  ‘Yes, Miss.’

  ‘Let’s just stay with your feelings,’ she said. ‘This is all a defence. What are you experiencing? Right now.’

  A desire for you to love me, Beth wanted to say, and she was shocked at herself. She bit her lip, then dismissed it. She began to talk instead about her mother, as Dr Bywater seemed to require.

  ‘Children find it unbearable to contemplate that a parent might be that negligent or flawed so they internalise it, and assume there must be something wrong with them,’ said Dr Bywater. ‘But it isn’t true. It’s all right. It’s all right, Beth. You’re safe now.’

  Beth gazed at the clock. She suddenly re
membered being a girl and missing her mother so badly that at a certain point she wanted to curl into a ball and give up.

  ‘And you can comfort the child you were, integrate her with the adult that you are – this impressive adult.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Beth. ‘But I’m afraid I’m not impressive. Some of my friends are much more successful than me.’

  ‘Well, that also shows you’re successful. It’s a matter of perspective. Name one.’

  Beth shrugged. ‘Aranxto,’ she said.

  Dr Bywater paused. Her eyes widened, just slightly. ‘Aranxto?’

  ‘Yes.’ Beth smiled at the thought of the camp and once self-doubting Aranxto she had always known now inspiring this level of recognition as he commanded millions for his self-exposing shock-pieces. ‘The mad show-off!’

  Dr Bywater regathered her expression. It was the first time Beth had seen her betray her own emotions, and it bothered her for reasons she couldn’t fathom.

  ‘Listen. What I was going to say was – you could see someone privately.’

  ‘Can I see you?’

  Dr Bywater hesitated. ‘Only if you approach me. I can’t suggest myself. You’ll find plenty of names via the website of the British Psychological—’

  Beth interrupted her. ‘I’m not going to see anyone else. I’ll find you.’

  Dr Bywater nodded.

  ‘I can help you. This works,’ she said levelly. She paused. ‘How I react to you will be an indication of how others respond to you in the outside world.’ She held her gaze, calmly. ‘Do you find people are responsive to you? You can make a connection with people?’

  ‘I suppose.’ Beth shrugged. ‘You mean communicate with people? I’m not really Aspergery. I have friends. I, we – relate to each other. If you like.’ She shrugged again, like a nervous twitch.

  ‘You bring a lot of charm into these sessions,’ Dr Bywater said, the edges of her mouth tilting into a suggestion of a smile.

  ‘Do I?’ said Beth hastily.

  ‘Perhaps you had to. It developed in reaction to what happened.’

  ‘Oh. I see … Yes …’ said Beth.

  ‘You’re blushing, Beth. You bring charm, whatever the reasons.’

  Dr Bywater looked directly at her. In that moment, Beth had the uncanny sense she was being flirted with.

  Dr Bywater blinked, as though clearing her vision, and tilted her head. ‘We must work now,’ she said, sounding distracted.

  ‘Look at the time!’

  Dr Bywater smiled, a small dimple appearing on one cheek, but she didn’t look up. Then she fixed her gaze on Beth, and Beth felt framed by the absolute focus. It dawned on her then, in words: what she had known for some time, and what was the biggest cliché of all: she had a crush on her therapist. And her therapist was female. She wanted to laugh and, somewhat to her surprise, the idea brought her neither shock nor embarrassment, but an odd kind of happiness. She could even picture telling Ellie, mocking the stereotype that she was. Hadn’t Ellie herself already realised this?

  Dr Bywater stood and fetched her diary. As she moved, her hand knocked against the mouse on her desk at the side of the room, and her computer monitor cleared to reveal her face, the entire screen filled with a cropped monochrome portrait of the NHS clinician. Beth drew in her breath. Dr Tamara Bywater lay on a rug or a fur, hair spread in an abandoned fan around her, her cheekbone moulded in shadow, her mouth a play of curves. She looked glazed, or post-orgasmic, the intimacy of her expression absolute. Beth stared. Dr Bywater glanced at her then turned.

  ‘Oh Lord!’ She snatched the mouse, but the screen only brightened. She bent over it, the cursor careering as she tried to make the image disappear. ‘Beth, don’t look. Please.’

  ‘You look beautiful. I’ve never seen you like—’

  ‘My husband … It was his birthday request. They were not for your eyes.’

  ‘There are more?’ Beth said, and laughed.

  ‘Beth! Really, I apologise.’

  ‘No. Absolutely. No need, no need! It’s … I like it. You look – you look so beautiful.’

  Dr Bywater was flushed as she got rid of the image. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said eventually.

  Footsteps sounded along the passage, the department otherwise silent.

  ‘We have to be quiet or I’ll be in trouble. Clinical appointments don’t go on this late,’ she said. The footsteps came closer. ‘The tread of Dr Penrose,’ she murmured, raising one eyebrow.

  She took in a breath. ‘We must end now. I’m going to show you another way out,’ she said, hurrying from the room, and they walked together, colluding without speech as they sped effortlessly in a different direction from the waiting room, along other corridors, lights streaming past as though they were on a runway at night, only the two of them, a sole head-bowed cleaner, those heaving double doors, strings of lights, until they reached the staircase and fire escape.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Beth. ‘So very much.’

  She ran, raced down the stairs, so lightly, so smoothly, the stairwell her own white-lit kingdom, and she emerged into almost fallen darkness, took gulps of air and laughed. Inhaling the sharpness of air stained with winter stirred longing somewhere deep and old in her, summoning youth, or the wild excitement of early romance. She talked to Tamara Bywater in her head as she walked along the riverbank, branches thrusting into an inked sky, and they walked as one, huddled, talking, talking. It was always that cold wet scent of early winter, exhilaration tinged with faint unease, that she associated with a sense of having crossed a boundary.

  TEN

  It was unseasonably cold by the time Beth alighted from the bus where the goths were already gathering, and descended the bridge steps on to the towpath. The sight of the pub-goers was cheering, their presence an assurance that Little Canal Street was still part of a strange no-man’s-land, semi-sealed from North London obsessions: schools and tutors, side returns and media careers; yet lacking the financial focus of central London or the City, the incestuous jostling of artists to the east. It was neither known nor popular. She could be herself here, unshackled by expectation.

  She felt the greater chill rising from the canal in the greys of the evening, breathing in a choke of diesel as a boat with a faulty engine chugged by. Two bicycles raced past, and geese cried from the water.

  She collected Fern from her Year Eight dance rehearsal, and immediately had the instinct that she had just arrived back at school. Fern’s cheek was air-cool when she kissed her; she flinched from contact, and the same subtle smell had reappeared.

  ‘Did you—’ she said, then stopped herself until later. Where were you that night? she wanted to ask, again.

  Fern walked ahead, her gait embellished with slight arm-swinging and foot-kicking that denoted a casual, even carefree, attitude, but which only compounded suspicions.

  ‘See you at home,’ Beth said to Fern’s back, causing a faint break of surprise in her walk.

  Later, in Fern’s bedroom, Beth began to rub her daughter’s scalp with an expectation of resistance, pathetically grateful for servitude. She was so in love with the dirty hair and cappuccino freckles, the smell of her cheeks like a drug to be imbibed in hidden hits. Tentatively, she began to ask questions about Fern’s day.

  Fern pressed her nose against her Kindle to turn the page. Her shoulders tensed. She answered her mother in icy little shoots of breath between silences. ‘Legitimately – enough,’ she said.

  Beth fell silent.

  Fern’s phone sounded from her bed with a message. She glanced at it then pushed it quickly under her duvet.

  ‘Why did you stop me?’

  Beth paused. ‘What?’

  ‘Why?’ said Fern. Her face was flooded the scarlet that had always heralded tears when younger.

  A rumble of panic vibrated somewhere in Beth’s guts.

  Your self-punishing introject is very strong, came Dr Bywater’s voice. Are you clinging to guilt because it feels safer?

  ‘What are you t
alking about, darling?’

  Fern was silent.

  ‘Oh, I don’t want this,’ said Beth. ‘I hate this. What has happened? Let’s just talk about everything. Please.’

  But Fern had clamped down, as untouchable as a junior ice skater in a children’s comic. Beth’s sweet child was a sharp little knife, her back and shoulders willing her mother away with disgust. Beth wiped a tear, unseen, and left the room quietly. She recalled the moment of Fern’s birth, the messy disgorgement followed by the world tilting. The jolt of love when she looked into those blurred eyes, the tiny petal of a mouth.

  ***

  How could Lizzie Penn – any mother – have not felt the same? And yet Beth knew with all certainty that she had once been loved by her mother. The mother who had walked with her and read to her and taken her to plays the few times she could afford it. She had met a new man, but was that all of it?

  ***

  Dr Bywater was late for their session. Beth sat speculating about where she lived, and who the husband was. He was a tall, somewhat harassed man, an architect in an unstructured linen suit over a T-shirt, she decided. Dr Bywater was still not there. What if she knew through advanced software that her patient had been googling her, and she now viewed her as a stalker?

  Dr Bywater sped, straight-backed, from the other direction into the waiting room and then to the receptionists’ booth. She was carrying a large black mock-croc bag, and Beth was certain, somehow, that she seen that bag before, but surely never on her. A crowded scene came to her, a street or square. Dr Bywater was in a huddle with the receptionists, and whatever she said was making them twitter with gasps of pretend shock. Her own laugh, different from any Beth had ever heard from her, rang out after them.

  ‘Oh, Beth! Am I that late?’ Dr Bywater turned abruptly, put her hand out and touched Beth’s shoulder. Beth shivered involuntarily. Dr Bywater gave her a flash of her smile, a glimpse of something more vibrant than the consoling presence Beth was used to.

  She walked a little ahead down the corridors, opening the double doors. Her calves were fine and elongated, and she walked as though she were beautiful, with an easy, upright glide.