The Skeleton Cupboard (5 page)

“I didn't lose them, love. They were taken from me.”

“Yes, I understand that you would think that, Ray. Totally I do. And yes—your first wife … partner … who you seemed to have a sadomasochistic relationship with—”

“I did?”

“It seems that way, Ray. She set you up to make her the victim and you the attacker.”

I was feeling back in my stride.

“So it was her fault, then?”

“I guess it's more complicated than ascribing fault. It's about understanding the dynamics of a relationship.”

“Oh, I see.” Ray clearly didn't.

“Let's put it another way. In relationships we inhabit roles. Often these roles reflect pieces of previous relationships that we have had with significant others”—
bloody hell, speak English
—“with people we love and care about the most. And I wonder, Ray, whether both the women with whom you have had children and whom you clearly have very bad feelings about—well, I wonder whether these women were selected by you because they were easy not to attach to and would one day leave you—just like your mother did.”

Ray looked blank.

“It's difficult making attachments when previous experience says that with a close relationship, loving attachment is followed by heartache.” I paused and wished that I hadn't given Ray my water. “You choose a woman who you know ultimately you can't love and the relationship plays itself out to its bitter end, which is horrible and painful for all, but at least it's safe. Familiar.”

“Right, Doc. I did all that. Yeah, 'course I did.”

“Ray, I'm not saying you consciously made it happen. I just—”

“Nah. I see that. Yeah, clever.”

Another silence and a chance to glance down quickly. There were only ten minutes of the session left—time to wrap up, set some homework tasks for Ray to practice to manage his anxiety and book in next week's appointment.

“So, Ray, I think we need to pull everything together.”

“Fair enough, Doc.”

“OK. Well, what have you got out of this session?”

Ray laughed—more lightly this time. I was encouraged.

“I got that the panic starts from my head. I got that even talking about the fucking attacks can bring them on. I got that it was crap between me and the cunts because I couldn't be—what was it, Doc, attached?”

“That's right, Ray.”

“And I got that I miss my kids and that is why I get stressed and that is why I panic.”

I wanted to cheer. I wanted to hug Ray and shout, “Bravo!” at the top of my voice. I'd taken him from zero insight to a man of several hypotheses in less than forty-five minutes. Instead of cheering, however, I decided to compose myself to say what had to be said.

“You are right, Ray. This is about loss. Losing a mother so young. Then you have to manage the loss of your girls. Most especially, I believe that all this is about the death of your little son. The death of Brandon haunts you, Ray. You are stuck in your grief, and every trigger that reminds you of him—what you see by day or dream about at night—sets off these horrible attacks.”

I sat back. Ray sat forward.

“Sweetheart, he's not dead—I never said he was dead. I just don't have no contact with him.”

What?

“He's not dead?”

“Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. Nah. He lives in Basingstoke with his cunt of a mother, been there since I broke her face.”

The next couple of minutes were a blur. I struggled to manage the shock at being wrong-footed by Ray, and my annoyance at making such a stupid mistake.

Assumption is the mother of all screw-ups.

Ray seemed in good spirits, though. I was able to run smoothly through the diary that I wanted him to keep every day, logging each of his panic attacks and how they affected him in terms of his thoughts, his feelings and finally his behavior. I then went on to teach him a couple of techniques to distract himself when he knew he was about to be triggered, in order to stop his mind hurtling toward the anxious thoughts and the accompanying bodily sensations.

“Stop myself thinking and freaking out by counting backward in threes from a hundred? I can't even count forward that far,” Ray joked, and I smiled, glancing at my watch—only five more minutes and then, I hoped, the appearance of George and another orange brew.

“OK.” I stretched back to my desk to get my diary. “Shall we put in the same time for next week?”

“Whatever you say, my beautiful-eyed girl. But before I go, can I show you something?”

“Of course you can.” I smiled, writing Ray's next appointment in my diary, and then looked up at what I assumed would be a photo of Brandon he'd taken from his wallet.

Except that it wasn't a photo of Brandon. Instead, I found myself looking straight down at a shining switchblade, its point about a millimeter away from the tip of my nose.

“Oh, sweetheart. My beautiful-eyed doc.”

With the blade still in its position, Ray began to trace my eye sockets with his fingertip.

He will kill me
.

I'm not sure what happened next. Images flooded into my brain: women sucking liquidized food into broken mouths pinned together with steel; women in wheelchairs; little children screaming as their mothers are pummeled and beaten.

I closed my eyes and struggled to breathe.

“Open your fucking eyes. Open your eyes, my pretty doc.”

Ray pushed his finger hard into my eyelids and, with a small squeal, I opened my eyes.

He smiled. “Good.”

He stared at me and, in total panic, I stared back. His eyes were gray, the right flecked with brown. I saw David Bowie, Ziggy Stardust.

Oh Christ. Oh God. Please help me
.

He eased the point of the blade away from the end of my nose and for a moment I could take a breath. Maybe that was it. Maybe he'd made his point, reasserted his dominance after his vulnerability in the session and was ready to go.

I was wrong.

Very gently, Ray placed the blade flat side against my skin, next to my left eye.

“I want these eyes.”

I began to cry.

“Oh, sweetheart. My beautiful-eyed doc, please don't cry. No. Shush now. No tears now, baby.” Ray caught the tears on his fingertips and then licked them off. “Oh yes. You taste good. Very good.”

He stroked the flattened blade around my left eye. “These are deadly weapons, you know, sweetheart. Little blue laser traps. And, boy, do you know how to use them, baby. Oh yes. One look and you are straight into one side and then straight out the other. Those eyes. Blue and innocent, but used to finding out all the secrets—aren't they, sweetheart.”

Without understanding why, I felt like I had to nod.

“Yes. You know what I'm talking about, my baby. Blue searchlights.” Ray raised his arm in a mock Nazi salute. “I vill mek you speek!

“You thought you'd got me, sweetheart. I saw it in that pretty little butter-wouldn't-melt sweet little princess face of yours. Young girl like you—Little Miss Know-It-All—thinks she can get inside a bloke like me. Just some thick, useless nothing like me. He's rubbish and he collects rubbish. Shit living with shit. That's what you thought, sweetheart, wasn't it?

“You know, I've met loads like you. Little Miss Do-Gooders. The ones in prison are the fucking worst. Patronizing fucking dried-up old cunts who can't get a man, so they have to spend their time with those of us locked behind bars who can't get away from them and their ugly mugs and whining fucking voices. They think that we need them and that makes them feel good. Do you know, princess, I think it makes them hot. It makes them horny. They are more fucked up than we are. Pathetic. They are easy—just like you were, sweetheart. Easy bait, easy fodder—so fucking easy to fool.

“What got you first? The tears? Did you think you was doing well when you saw the tears? Did you think that the tears meant you was getting somewhere? Did you think, Oh, bless him. Look at all these tears that he's never shed for his poor dead mum and his arsehole of a dad and his kids? That's what you thought, was it, sweetheart? About them tears? Same tears as these?” Ray closed his eyes and then opened them suddenly. A tear trickled obediently down his cheek, and he smiled.

“Trick I learned inside when I was fourteen. Gets you all every time. Every fucking time.” The tears continued. “Oh boohoo. Poor me. Poor Ray—no mum, bastard for a father. Shit life. Poor little Ray.”

He started to laugh silently but with a violence that made his whole body shake. The end of the blade jabbed into the soft skin of my temple.

I yelped.

Ray looked alarmed. The tears stopped and he pulled away the blade.

“Oh, sweetheart. No way. Oh fuck, baby. No.”

He grabbed the tissue box and offered it to me. Shaking, I dabbed the edge of my eye; a small speck of blood stained the tissue.

“Don't worry, sweetheart. Only a small bleed.”

“Ray, I need to leave this room.”

“I'm sorry, sweetheart, you can't, not yet. Not till I'm finished.”

“Finished what, Ray?”

“Finished with you, my beautiful blue-eyed baby girl.”

“We have finished, Ray. It's time to go.”

“No, babe. We finish when I say, and I say we haven't finished.”

Later on, when I was thinking this all through, I couldn't be sure what it was that had been said in that moment, but suddenly the situation shifted for me.

No fucking way, mate. This is my office, and this is my session. We finish when I say, and I say now.

Outwardly I remained passive, but inwardly I felt busy.

Confront him. No, he'll kill me. Talk him down. No, he'll kill me. What, then? What?

And it was then as if descending from the heavens that Sigmund appeared to me, and with blinding clarity, I knew exactly what to do.

“That's a big knife, Ray.”

He said nothing.

“A beautiful knife. And such a big, long blade. It really is beautiful. Can I touch it?”

Still saying nothing, Ray slowly offered me his blade.

I gently cupped my hands around its shaft. “That is long. Long and hard. It's beautiful, Ray.”

Still no sound except his breathing—quiet but getting faster. My mouth felt like it was stuffed with wool.

“Yes, Ray, you are right. I am a little princess, but make no mistake about it—I know a good blade when I see one. I'm not completely inexperienced, you know.”

Ray looked at me and I worked hard to look right back. Everyone and everything was calm.

“Can I stroke it, Ray?”

Exhaling, Ray closed his eyes and nodded and then opened them again to watch his blue-eyed goddess gently place her fingertips on the broad, flat edges of his long blade and slowly stroke them up and down the cold steel shaft.

Ray's breathing quickened, and as I continued to stroke the knife, he closed his eyes. I knew that this was my moment.

“Ray, I'm done. Thank you. You can put it away now.”

His eyes still closed, Ray flicked the blade's safety catch and the knife retracted into itself. Silence. Ray continued to exhale audibly.

OK,
I told myself.
Six paces to the panic button. Ten to the door. Stay with me. We're going to count. One … two. That's it, keep it steady. Three … four. Take your time. Five … Reach out and …

“You cunt!”

Huge hands encircled my neck as I launched myself at the panic button. A siren went off and Ray shook me like a rag doll, my feet lifted off the floor. I felt like I was drowning.

And then, as I was about to go under, I saw the most incredible sight. In an explosion of light, the door to my room flew open and two large women burst in. While one punched Ray right in the face, the other kicked him hard in his testicles with the full force of her Lucite stiletto.

As I fell to the ground, “Josephine” caught me in her strong arms and held me into her muscular body and enormous breasts. She smelled of sweat, musk and heavy foundation. I snuggled into her, feeling safe.

Next to me, Ray was now being held facedown on the floor by two security guards, his arms locked behind his back. Crouching down next to Ray with her knee pressing onto the back of his head, “Daphne” slipped open her little red clutch and pulled out a warrant card. As I was helped out of my office, Ray was being read his rights.

*   *   *

First placement, first critical incident debriefing. I was still shaking, and now I had to meet my clinical training supervisor to talk about what had gone wrong.

Chris came into the room and I stood up, like a child when the teacher arrives. I suddenly felt stupid. Chris didn't seem to notice. She threw her bag down and put her large takeaway coffee cup on the table.

Dr. Chris Moorhead—she who was renowned for being a hard-core and brilliant clinical supervisor—sat opposite me, staring. And here I was, the trainee she'd asked not to let her down only a few weeks earlier. I'd royally screwed up.

Chris was the one who would decide after each of my training placements, over the following three years, whether I would pass to the next, whether I would one day qualify.

“How are you doing?” she asked.

“I'm fine. You?”

Chris stared straight at me. “I'll start again, and this time, please answer me honestly. How are you doing?”

“I'll survive!” I smiled.

“Final time. Think carefully before you answer. How are you doing?”

To my horror, I burst into tears.

“I don't know.”

Chris rummaged in her large bag, pulled out a packet of tissues and handed me one. “You have had a pretty big shock.”

I couldn't stop crying. I wanted to apologize to her, ask for another chance. I couldn't get the words out.

“This sort of thing happens. Generally not so early on, though, so I'm sorry that it happened to you.”