Chapter 1

A Chapter by Jocasta

It’s raining, it’s pouring, the old man is snoring

Jed pressed his nose against the window and recalled the childhood rhyme as he watched the rain drum down on the pavement outside. The heavy drops fed the rapidly growing puddles or bounced off the pavement into scurrying feet. Women had the worst of it he noticed; fussily dressed office girls, their outfits dictated by the weather when they left home, or their after work plans, were caught out by the shower now sending rivulets of water into their open toed shoes. He wrapped his fingers round his coffee as he watched people run between doorways or wrestle with umbrellas on the crowded pavement. The sky was grey and he fancied the rain to be an angry deity rendering his fellow humans as helpless as ants trying to escape boiling water from an upturned kettle. The thought made him feel slightly anxious so he turned away from the window and examined the rest of the café. Taking in the queue at the counter and the bustle of customers struggling with umbrellas and coats at the door, his eyes came to rest on a woman sitting alone in the corner. Dark hair pooled around her head as she rested it on the back of her low chair, a half drunk mug of coffee sat on the table in front of her, both feet were planted flat on the floor, (he noticed the handle of her bag was wrapped around one ankle) and her hands rested on her thighs, palms pointing up. Her eyes were closed and he wondered if she had fallen asleep, unlikely as it seemed given the steamy noisiness of her surroundings. He sat and watched her, touched by how peaceful she looked, but it seemed almost as if his gaze disturbed that peace because after only a minute or so, he saw her open her eyes and rejoin the world. At once she was brisk and focused; a quick glance at her watch, her coffee was finished, bag scooped up, coat on and in one fluid movement she was at the door, waving goodbye to the baristas as she left. He turned back to the window and watched as she bobbed in and out of view before turning off down a side street.

He sighed, and checked his watch, he still had 15 minutes before his appointment, pulling the Google map he had printed off earlier from his pocket, he checked his route for the 10^th time, yes; just over the square and to the left, it would only take a few minutes. He drained the last of his coffee, the café seemed different now, not so much warm and inviting, but noisy and crowded, almost as if the woman had taken some of the positive energy with her when she left. He slid off the stool and pulled his things together, perhaps a walk through the ground floor of John Lewis en route, would kill enough time for him not to be too early.

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S**t, new client in 5 minutes, need to get a move on, Sylvie shut her laptop,

and mentally ran through her checklist, OK mobile off, desk phone turned down, laptop shut, water jug full, glass clean, tissues replenished, bladder empty. Yep, ready to go.

One of the things Sylvie liked about working at 38 Wimpole Street (apart from the client rate she could charge) was this room. When she first applied for membership of the Wimpole Street Counselling & Psychotherapy Practice, she had been more than a little intimidated by the opulence of her surroundings. Years of working for charities in barely heated rooms and stifling in windowless cubby holes on a university campus had rendered her slightly immune to her surroundings, until that was she was shown into this room. She knew she was being fobbed off with the smallest room, at the back of the building, but she had immediately felt at home in it. Tastefully decorated in muted colours, it had a calming presence; the desk in front of the window was solidly built and old enough for her to imagine all the people that to have sat at it before, her whilst she was working. On the other side of the room were two comfortable chairs turned towards a sofa which backed onto the wall. The fireplace opposite the door had been restored to its original glory and the absence of any real flames was compensated for by a large vase of flowers, replenished every few days by the delightful Tanya. All so lovely, but Sylvie knew that it she was being really honest, the thing that probably gave her the greatest pleasure was the handsomely painted sign on the door, black letters on a cream background spelt out “Sylvie Whitmore MBACP Accred.” It gave her me a little swell of pride every time she passed it. “What can I say” she told herself “I’m in touch with my shadow and my narcissism is alive and kicking within it.”

At 1:58, she walked the few short steps to the waiting room and found only one person there,

“Jed Turner?”

He stood up and walked towards her, tall, late thirties, nicely dressed, he was working a smart casual look, suggesting that cared enough about what people think to make an effort, but didn’t feel the need to convey whatever success or wealth he had, at his first therapy appointment. Sylvie noted that his hair was short, well cut, greying round the edges, he had a newspaper in one hand and his coat, still a bit damp from the rain over his arm.

She smiled and led him back down the corridor to the room, shutting the door behind him. He hesitated momentarily and then chose the sofa, most people did. Sylvie thought it was probably because clients, unsure on their first visit, liked to feel the wall against their back. Either that or they were Woody Allen fans and expected her to ask them to lie down; in either case Sylvie knew the pattern was generally set at the first session and that clients rarely changed position subsequently. Actually, she wished more would, it nearly always leds to some significant work on the rare occasions it happened.

But Jed sat on the sofa, Sylvie took her usual chair and looked up at him, for the first time their eyes met and they took a moment to see each other. Sylvie thought that he looked startled, or perhaps confused.

“I saw you” he said, “in the café, just over the square”

“Oh…. yes, I sometimes go there at lunchtimes, change of scenery” She smiled

“You looked very peaceful”

“Did I? I try to tune out, you know, give my mind a rest and slow down for a bit” she thought for a moment “it would be probably be more effective if I didn’t drink strong coffee while I was there, but, you know, habits are hard to break”. Looking at him on the sofa, she was struck by how he seemed the very antithesis of peaceful, his long frame was hunched up into the corner as though trying to take up less space than he actually needed. Sylvie was reminded of children who hide behind cushions when something on the television is scary or embarrassing, perhaps he was fighting the urge to do the same.

“You sounded wistful when you said ‘peaceful’, I wonder what your experience of feeling peaceful is?”

There was a silence as Jed considered the question, his eyes were moving around the room and his mouth was twisting round his face, Sylvie was reminded of a schoolboy called upon to work out a difficult maths question. She sat, still but attentive, and after some moments his eyes turned back to her, “I don’t know what it feels like”, he said, puzzled as if he had only just realised, “I do things, I go places, I see friends, I do stuff that fills my time, I’m not sure there’s any room for peacefulness“.

Sylvie nodded in recognition of his busy-ness, and thought about how much she needed her little bits of time whittled out of the day. That half hour in the café is what gave her the strength for the afternoon; it is where she ritually let go of her morning clients and their feelings, and regained herself. But the memory of how she used to live her life, lurching from activity to task, never daring to be still, lay close to the surface and she thought she understood what Jed was talking about. As the session continued Sylvie learnt more about Jed, he had evidently built up a small but now successful media advertising company, he was financially secure, had many friends and interests, but had never had a long term relationship. It seemed as if he had gradually and unwillingly realised that he was living essentially to work, celibate and unfettered, he was not sure in his thirties how this had happened, it was not what he had envisaged and the thought that he would grow old and die alone was causing him some anxiety.

As the 50 minute hour drew to a close she gently let him know that it was time to stop,

“’Really?”

Jed was surprised,

“ It feels like I’ve only been here about 10 minutes, have I really been talking for all that time?”

“yes, you have, is that a new experience for you, to talk about yourself for that long?”

“yes, just a bit” Jed sounded rueful and ran his hands through his hair as he stood up. “feels good though”.

she opened the door for him

“If you think about it, it’s not that usual in everyday life to have someone listen to us for that length of time, that’s why therapy can often be a very powerful experience and why it seems to go so fast at first”

Jed hesitated for a moment in the doorway and she noticed for the first time how blue his eyes were, “yes” he said thoughtfully, “ I can see that”. Sylvie felt the smallest rush of something, as yet indefinable, but very possibly attraction for the few seconds they stood together, and then he was off, down the hall towards Tanya to confirm his next appointment and arrange billing. Sylvie noted the sensation to herself but left it out of the notes that she hastily scribbled to be typed up later. There was just enough time to replenish the water jug and retrace her steps to the waiting room.

She could see as soon as she got there, that Misty, her next client was agitated; eyes bright, feet tapping, Misty (or Mephisto Huffington) to give her her full name) stood up when she spied Sylvie. Her coat and bag which had been on her lap were knocked to the floor and having lept up, she immediately dropped own to retrieve her belongings.

Sylvie also knelt and scooped up the Chanel lipstick that rolled towards her, assessing the situation. It seemed likely that “something had happened” since their session the previous week, in which Misty had been calm and focused. This looked like a return to the sort of behaviour that Misty had first come to her with, and whilst it wasn’t the first time it had reappeared, Sylvie was sorry to see it now. As Misty gathered everything up and followed her down the corridor with a sort of skipping walk, Sylvie pondered why she was so sorry. She liked to think it was from a position of empathy with Misty’s difficulty in regulating her emotions, and the inevitable despair she knew she would experience. She suspected the real reason however, at least in part, was that it reflected badly on her view of herself as an effective and competent therapist. That familiar and nagging voice in her head which, had been there as long as she could remember, was quietly hissing “not good enough”.

Sylvie knew where the voice came from and knew it served neither herself nor her clients, so she worked hard to tuck it away inside its box. As she closed the door to her room Misty had already taken her place on the sofa and was bouncing at one end of it, arranging cushions and attempting unsuccessfully to settle.

“Misty, you’ve brought a lot of energy with you today, I wondering if it might be helpful to spend some time getting grounded?”

There was a derisory snort in response “oh come on, I got loads to tell you I don’t want to waste time with your new age breating shirt”

That figured

“OK, I know you don’t buy the ‘new age s**t’ as you call it, but I think I would find it helpful, I do want to hear what you have to say, but I’m distracted by the energy bouncing off you”

Big sigh “OK” with rolling eyes and exaggerated movements Misty slammed her feet on the floor, slapped her hands on her knees, exhaled loudly and closed her eyes.

As Sylvia talked her through her breathing, deep breaths in, longer ones out, she took a good look at her client and mentally ran through their relationship so far. Misty’s father was well known in the city, having had a long and successful career in banking. A word in the ear of one of his clients had secured for his daughter an internship on a new e-magazine (it had taken Sylvie a while to work out this was essentially a website) which she had been desperate to do well at. Having experienced some of the most expensive education money could buy both here and abroad, topped off by secretarial college in Paris, Misty was painfully aware that she was essentially unemployable. Much of the work that she and Sylvie had done to date was around coming to terms with the fact that whilst her parents could afford to (and did) throw money at whatever lifestyle Misty had been prompted to try in any given month, they were seemingly incapable of offering any emotional support (no need, they’ve outsourced it to me, Sylvie often thought wryly).

Misty’s response to this had since childhood, been to demand to be noticed by repeated difficult behaviour, hence the many different schools. Her parents in response had withdrawn even further, whilst spending more and more money on her, presumably to offset their guilt. Sylvie harboured a grumbling resentment towards the man and woman who paid her monthly invoice efficiently and promptly, but were apparently incapable of reaching out emotionally to their only daughter. Bracketing this resentment had been hard at times, especially in the early part of the therapy when she had been faced with a demanding and often unreasonable young woman, who clearly had expected Sylvie to provide a solution to her chaotic life, without actually contributing anything to it herself. Which was why Sylvie was really proud of the work that they had done recently. Accepting that success or failure at the internship would inevitably make no different to her parents, Misty had allowed Sylvie to take their place and to share her experience of finding her way in a new environment, working hard and daring to believe that this was something she actually had potential to do well in. Sylvie’s pleasure in Misty’s growth reflected a sense of work, previously unknown to the emotionally neglected young woman and Misty began to experience a sense of pride in herself; she got herself to work each day, on time, worked hard and smartened up her look. Sylvie knew, therefore, looking at the dishevelled client in front of her, that something quite bad had happened.

She waited for Misty’s body to quieten, her breathing to became regulated and then asked her to open her eyes, Misty was still enough now to at least look straight at her and hold her gaze.

“OK” said Sylvie with a smile, “what’s happening with you?”.

“You know that Tilly…”

“The Editor?”

“….Yeah, Tilly the editor, she said I could moderate the main article, remember?”

Sylvie nodded

“It’s a really big deal, you have to be logged on the whole time when the article goes up, you have to read every comment and decide whether it’s ok to post or not, you know, whether it’s insulting or offensive, all that stuff, there’s a whole policy on it and everything, but the main thing is that for the first 5 or 6 hours, you have to monitor the responses.”

“Sounds like a really important job”

“It is, you can’t even go for a piss without getting someone to watch the screen while you’re away, no f*g breaks, lunch at your desk, all that “

“Tilly must have a lot of faith in you to give you that much responsibility”

Misty’s face screwed itself up in response

“Yeah, I think she did”

“Did”

Misty exhaled loudly, waving her arm around in agitation.

“You know that guy I told you about?”

Sylvie didn’t remember, she looked quizzical

“You know, works upstairs”

“Oh, the solicitor, from the law firm, good looking?”

“yeah, that one, Ryan his name is, anyway, the day before the article was posted, we got talking in the smoking area, just chatting you know, we got on, we were having a laugh and we walked back to the building together. Anyway, Tilly saw us and said to me, she said..”

Misty paused to remember the exact words.

“…yeah, she said I looked distracted and maybe, maybe I wasn’t ready to moderate”

Her face crumpled

“like she was already having second thoughts about me, and whether I could do it; she must have or why else would she say that?”

“I wonder if it was just her way or reminding you about the task in hand? But whatever she meant, I’m hearing that it felt like a criticism?”

Misty was silent for a moment. “yes” she said quietly.

“Who else makes you feel criticised?”

“My parents; whenever I started at a new school Mum would say ‘could you just try to stay out of trouble at this one’, not like she was really asking, more making the point that she didn’t expect me to be able to be stay out of trouble, like she knew I’d never be good at anything, and that’s what it felt like when Tilly said that, like she knew I was going f**k it up, that it was only a matter of time.”

“I think Misty, as we talked about before, that it’s maybe easy for you to hear criticism, even when none is intended, precisely because you’ve had so much of it from your parents, does that sound right?”

“I know what you mean, that because I’m used to being treated one way by my parents, I expect other people to treat me that way too, but I really did f**k it up this time”

“OK, OK, remember to breathe and tell me what happened”

“Well, ok, after work I bumped into Ryan again on the way out, and we went for a drink, actually too many drinks and then we had something to eat and then I ended up at his flat”

Misty came to an abrupt halt and went back to staring at the floor.

Sylvia knew this one, she was being invited to admonish her client, instead she waited for Misty to look up and smiling kindly, motioned for her to continue.

“I stayed the night, we had sex” this came out in a rush.

“OK” said Sylvie flatly, noting the significance of what happened, without conveying any judgment.

“Good catholic girls aren’t supposed to behave like that” Misty said to the floor

Sylvie repressed a sigh, when Misty was like this she put her at about 4 or 5 years, still struggling to take responsibility for the consequences of her actions, and wanting to be absolved.

“But, twenty-two year old women can make choices about what they want to do” she said more tersely than she had wanted to. She thought about but then rejected the opening of Misty’s decision making and her feelings about sex, it was important, but detracted from the issue at hand and a quick glance at the clock showed the session was drawing to and end, but still, she had to check..

“Did you feel coerced?”

“Oh, no, nothing like that” Misty looked up finally “actually I had a really nice time, it was lovely, you know? But the awful thing is that I overslept, got to work late, Tilly had to post the article for me because I was so late”

“Not a great start” Sylvie commiserated

“That’s not the worst of it, the worst thing is that I was so f*****g hungover and feeling so sick �" we were drinking cocktails - that I didn’t do a great job of moderating, quite a lot of crap got through”

“OK” said Sylvie, back to the neutral voice, noticing that Misty’s leg had started jig up and down again.

“Tilly had to point them out to me” her voice was rising “My big chance, my chance to show I am up to it and she ends up having to do the job for me”

Sylvie tried to radiate calm, it didn’t appear to have any impact on her client.

“So now she thinks I’m crap and Ryan’s ignoring me, so he thinks I’m a drunken w***e, and I’m probably going to get sacked, and then my Dad’s going be like ‘not again’ and it’s not fair, everything I do turns out bad.”

“It’s not fair?”

Misty groaned

“Oh I know, it’s not about fair or not, its about ‘owning my actions’” the last part accompanied by quotation marks with her fingers. “but that just proves my point doesn’t it? I am crap because I’m responsible, everything I do goes wrong, my parents are right, I’m a waste of time and money”

Sylvie, not for the first time, shivered inwardly at the callousness of parents, and thought for a moment.

“Misty, you know I can’t endorse this view you have of yourself when you’re down, this is an old narrative learnt from your parents, it’s not who you are”

Misty looked at her, her leg was still but her eyes were moist and more bits of hair had escaped from its fastening.

“we don’t have much time left, and I really want to make sure you in a better place when you leave, does that sound like a good idea”

Misty agreed and so the rest of the session was spent exploring a different telling of the story, a version that highlighted what Misty had achieved and what she could positively do to make amends with Tilly. The issue of Ryan and the feelings of rejection he had evoked were more complex and Sylvie made a mental note to check this out at the next session.

Ultimately, Misty did leave calmer than she had arrived, but Sylvie was left with a heavy air which did not dissipate as she wrote up her day’s notes, and was still with her later when the left the building. The rain had stopped and as it was an altogether pleasanter evening than it had been day, and she decided to walk home in an effort to shift her mood.

next chapter

© 2012 Jocasta

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Neville

Wotcha, Jocasta, I have just read this chapter and feel compelled to let you know how much I enjoyed it. I don't often read a whole chapter in one go and almost never during a lunch break, so there you are, it held me for all of my 50 minute hour. You really do know how to set a scene. Sounds much like a typical day at my clinic. I certainly hope you will add further chapters in due course. All Good Things, N