You, Me and Other People. Fionnuala Kearney

over five months’ worth here,’ she continues. ‘I’m not even going to ask you when the last time you took me to Langham’s was, or the last time you bought me something in Agent Provocateur. But, here’s the thing: every lie you tell makes me care less and less.’

      My heart hurts looking at her. The pulse is now throbbing behind my eyeballs and I wonder briefly if guilt can present as pure pain.

      ‘Do you know,’ she turns to face me, her eyes pools of tears, ‘there’s hardly a day goes by where I don’t cry. Sometimes, I’m angry, so angry, that I hate you, and other days I’m just sad.’ She seems to linger over the word ‘sad’.

      ‘What do you want me to do?’ I hear the resignation in my own voice.

      ‘Stop lying for a start.’

      I sigh, a weary, heavy sound.

      ‘Do I need to get myself checked out?’ Her voice sounds remote, distant.

      I shake my head. ‘I’ve always used something.’

      ‘Maybe I should anyway. I’ve been sort of ignoring it.’ She seems to be talking to no one in particular.

      ‘You don’t need to worry, Beth.’

      ‘I need not to worry about money.’ Her wet eyes refuse mine. ‘I need not to have to worry about losing my home because of your dick. I need time to think about my life without you in it and I need you to think about my needs for once.’

      I find myself nodding because she’s right. I can’t think right now about me and where I’ll live when Ben gets back and if I can actually afford to run two homes. A brief image of me living in the White House with Emma and Harold clouds my thoughts and I shudder. I imagine my straightjacket would be crispy white.

      As I excuse myself to go to the loo, I hear myself reassure Beth that I will continue to take care of things. I sit on the seat in the downstairs cloakroom, wondering what that means. I’m not sure, but Beth needs to hear what I’m telling her right now and it’s what I want her to believe. So I sit for a while, with my head in my hands, ignoring the red flag waving in it telling me that I don’t really believe it – which can only mean that it’s more lies.

       Chapter Eleven

      ‘Adam told me I stopped wanting him. It was there in the middle of some long spiel of his, like a barbed accusation.’

      ‘And did you? Stop wanting him?’

      I’ve been asking myself the same question since. Carefully, I clean underneath my left thumbnail with my right one. ‘It’s just not that simple. We’ve been married a long time. It was one of those phases where I only wanted to sleep. I don’t think I stopped wanting him as much as stopped having sex for a while.’

      ‘Did you talk about it?’

      I shake my head. ‘I know now that I wanted him to. I wanted him to notice and talk to me, ask me how I felt. Rather than the other way around. It’s always me who does the talking. It’s exhausting.’ I look up. ‘It didn’t last long, maybe a couple of months. We had sex again as soon as I gave in and made the first move.’ I sigh. ‘Of course, I’d lost him by then …’

      ‘Do you remember a few weeks ago we spoke about your fears?’ Caroline blows her coffee as she changes the subject.

      I can only nod.

      ‘You say things are clearer, so tell me what your greatest fear is, right now, in this space in time?’

      I close my eyes and immediately wonder if I can live without Adam, if I actually want to, or is forgiving him again and trying to reboot our marriage an option? The clenching behind my ribs assures me that this is indeed a fear rather than a solution.

      ‘Taking Adam back, nothing really changing, me just carrying on with my head hovered above the sand.’ There, I’ve said it out loud.

      ‘Anything else?’ she prods.

      ‘Leading half a life …’

      She raises a questioning eyebrow.

      ‘What if I can’t move from this small world I’ve created for myself? What if I don’t allow another man near me and, worse, if I did, what if I discovered I had “Go ahead – cheat on me” stamped on my forehead?’

      She smiles. ‘You have nothing stamped on your forehead,’ she reassures me, ‘just on your brain.’

      I lean forward, pick up the Russian doll she used weeks ago with me and I slowly open the five parts. I caress the tiniest figure, and the fear floodgates are well and truly opened.

      ‘Personal failure,’ I hear myself say. ‘I know I’m good; my agent tells me just to get on with it – success will come if I work hard. It’s just that inner saboteur constantly waiting to leap.’

      ‘You’re going to have to find a way to gag her.’ Caroline shrugs. ‘I find that imagery actually helps. Maybe name her too? If you feel negativity creep up on you, visualize her, how she looks, what she’s wearing and then gag her with a cloth – really tightly.’

      I’m fascinated. ‘You have an inner saboteur too?’

      ‘A lot of people do.’ She grins, as if it’s just the most normal thing in the world to be gagging an imaginary part of your head with a cloth – really tightly.

      ‘So, she’s gagged, you’re successful in your own right, maybe you’re even happy living alone. What do you think you have to put in place to get there?’

      My roll grinds to a vicious halt. Me. Happy. Living alone. I like that thought, but still shake my head vigorously. ‘I don’t know …’

      Caroline takes a book from her desk, opens it where it’s marked with a Post-it note.

      ‘“We gain strength, and courage,”’ she quotes aloud from the page, ‘“and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face … we must do that which we think we cannot.”’ She emphasizes the last few words as she shuts the book. ‘Eleanor Roosevelt,’ she says.

      Swallowing hard, I put the doll together again and place it back on the table, my head still disagreeing. ‘Whatever that is,’ I tell her, ‘I’m not ready.’

      ‘Take the doll with you,’ she says, ‘for more positive imagery – if it helps? Her name’s Babushka.’

      I stare at the figure, then reach for her and put her in my handbag. Somehow it makes sense, but I avoid Caroline’s eye. Christ Almighty, I’m in therapy with an adult who gags her inner saboteur and names her dolls.

      This week, I’ve written half of a song. There is an air of excitement in the loft as I’ve probably written half of ‘the’ song. My devil-like inner saboteur, whom I have now named ‘Lucy Fir’, has been well and truly gagged. Eleanor Roosevelt lives on in my head. I’ve listened to lots of fantastic music, watched some classic movies and somehow tapped into the world of love again. I’ve forced myself, for work purposes, to wallow in love’s glorious potential. I haven’t got a title for the song yet, but it’s about a couple being the right fit. About the fact that they just don’t fit anyone else except one another and that they fall apart without each other. It’s all still first-draft stuff, but I think I’m onto something. I’m just sending a soundbite through to Josh, when I hear the doorbell downstairs ringing persistently.

      The sound pulses through the house, again and again.

      ‘I’m coming, I’m coming,’ I mutter, taking the stairs down two at a time. I peer through the spyhole, wondering who on earth can be so determined. My shoulders droop and I rest my forehead on the white gloss door.

      ‘Stop peering through