Past

I like my new client. I can already tell she’s going to be more of a challenge but that’s OK. She sits opposite me, her slim legs crossed, oozing confidence. She is a woman at peace with herself. But we all have darkness within us and the deeper it’s buried, the more interesting it is.

I take my pad from the table and my pen from my pocket. I could use a laptop for my notes but clients still like to see a good old-fashioned notepad. The problem with using a screen, I guess, is that the client never really knows what we’re doing behind it, whether we’re taking notes or watching something on Netflix.

I begin asking her the standard questions and she raises an amused eyebrow.

‘Really?’ she says.

I frown and chastened, she sits upright, uncrosses her legs, straightens her skirt and turns her attention to giving me her answers.

‘Why are you here?’ I ask, when we get to the end. And then I give her the usual spiel about how anything she says won’t go further than this room.

This room. I look around it, at the pale pink walls, at the window that looks onto the road outside. There are no blinds on the window shielding us from prying eyes, just curtains which I can’t close, not at this time of the day. It’s why I’ve made sure we’re sitting towards the back of the room. Discretion, as always, is everything.

‘I don’t have any major problem,’ she says. ‘I just think that it would be good for me to be in therapy, to experience what it’s like. And to talk. It’s always good to talk, isn’t it?’

‘It certainly is,’ I agree.

So we talk, about her childhood – happy; her teenage years – no real problems; her career – she loves it. The one thing she doesn’t talk about is her husband. I know she’s married so that in itself is telling.

I put down my pad. ‘How long have you been married?’ I ask.

She looks surprised, so I look pointedly at her left hand, at the thin gold band on her ring finger.

‘I might be widowed,’ she says.

‘Are you?’ I ask.

‘No.’ I wait. ‘Seven years,’ she says. ‘I’ve been married seven years.’

‘Seven happy years?’ I ask.

‘Seven ecstatic years. Not an itch in sight.’

I suppress a sigh. She’s disappointed me.

I lean towards her and fix her with my eyes. ‘Do you know what Henry David Thoreau said about happiness?’

Now she looks disappointed. She leans forward too, stares right back at me. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I know exactly what Thoreau said about happiness. And it’s a load of bollocks.’