An Evening at Joe's (26 page)

He yanked the door open and there was madame Klarsehen holding the cat.

"Well done, monsieur. He's better!"

"Can you make me bark like a dog?" The worried expression on his face showed he was being absolutely serious.

She started to laugh again. "No, Mr. Morris. I can't make you hop around the room like a kangaroo either. You are entirely conscious throughout the whole process. If, at any stage you're not willing to proceed you can abandon the session yourself. I can't 'make' you do anything. I can, however, help you to achieve a desired result by tapping into the enormous power of your subconscious. And to do that you need to be in as relaxed a physical and mental state as possible. So I ask you to close your eyes and I talk you through some relaxation techniques. After that the initial session will last for about thirty minutes."

He looked doubtful and extremely nervous.

"If we are going to go ahead, now is as good a time as any... what do you say?" The first thing she'd noticed when he came into her consulting room was a change in attitude. A barrier seemed to have disappeared, apprehension had replaced out and out cynicism, which meant, she hoped, that he had decided to give it a try.

He took a deep breath and nodded.

"Excellent... first of all, as I am constructing these sessions to compliment and support your clinical treatment, when are you scheduled to commence your next period of chemotherapy?"

Reaching into his inside jacket pocket he pulled out a university diary. "I have my first session in three weeks' time... the 24th. January."

This was noted down and then she put away her spectacles and got up. "Right, Mr. Morris, let's have you up on the couch with your shoes off and please loosen your trouser belt."

At this last command he shot her a very disconcerted look but he complied. Going to the window she drew the curtains partially. She then walked across the dimly lit room and sat down in a chair a few feet away from the couch.

"Now, Mr. Morris, I'd like you to take a nice deep breath and close your eyes. Close your eyes and begin to relax."

What followed was like nothing he had ever experienced before. The controlled breathing and the gentle cadence of her voice with its downward inflections and carefully chosen repetition all conspired to encourage him to relax. His body had been like a piano wire, strung so tight it was ready to snap, and slowly, carefully, she was encouraging him to unwind. After twenty minutes his heart rate had dropped dramatically, his breathing had become shallow and almost inaudible, and his body appeared to have acquired a strange sense of detachment from his sentient self. He was aware of everything around him... her words, the far off hum of traffic, the beat of his heart and yet he felt separated from it all, beneath it, as if he had floated down and down and down and had come to rest on a sort of sea bed. He felt heavy and relaxed but free and light all at once. And here, below all the concerns and irritations of his active, tumour-invaded life, he lay calm and expectant.

He had no idea how long he had been lying in this state but her voice came as a mild surprise as if he had forgotten she was there.

"Now, I want you to imagine you are standing at the top of a beautiful staircase which has ten steps and, in a moment, I will ask you to descend this staircase. I will count from ten to one and with each number, with each step, you will descend deeper and deeper into total relaxation. Deeper and deeper. Deeper and deeper."

"Ten."

He started down, as if floating in slow motion, and felt his foot touch the next step.

"Nine... eight... seven...." and then it happened. It felt like he was in a lift and suddenly the brake had failed and the lift had lurched down as if about to plummet and he felt himself involuntarily pull back in panic. How she knew that this had happened he couldn't fathom, but sense it she had and she paused and got him to breathe deeply and steadily until he was ready to continue. It was for him to decide... to continue, to take the risk or to pull back. He felt that another defining moment had arrived and it was here that he came to realise how many of these moments he had squandered throughout his life. Here was a chance to change, to feel anew, to shed the bitterness of the past and to live in the here and now, to assume responsibility for his life and to live, to live, to live!

"Six... five... four...."

He saw his feet go slowly down, step by step and he felt his conscious mind drift down, down, down to somewhere darker, quieter, more significant. His eyes were open but there was nothing to see.

"In front of you, you will see a door. This door will lead you to a very special place for you, a place where you feel happy and safe and secure. This place can be anywhere you choose. And now... step through the door."

He walked onto a beach he hadn't set foot on since he was ten years old. As clearly as if he was there for the first time he could smell the sand left wet by a receding tide... he could hear the far-off crash of the waves and the high-wind call of the gulls, he could smell the new-mown hay from the fields at the top of the rocky cliffs... he was there... Oh! The sea! The sea! His heart felt light, he could feel the sand between his toes and as he looked down at his shoeless feet he smiled and wondered where he had left his brogues.

"I would like you to walk towards the sea to a part of the beach where the sand is wet. Here I would like you to write in the sand, 'I forgive...' followed by the names of three people, of which your name must be the first,"

It seemed to his waking mind a strange request, but his deeper self encouraged him to continue, and he felt the coolness of the sand as his index finger began to plough its exonerating furrow. The hand had started to write and without further premeditation he wrote, "I forgive myself, my father, and my wife." As he pulled back to look at the general effect he heard the words, "Watch the waves... see the wave come in and over the words you have written... watch the wave recede... your words are gone... " And so he stood for what could have been hours contemplating the sea with its high rollers, one after the other, pushing for the shore and wondering why he had picked the names he had. It had been entirely spontaneous. What did he have to forgive his father for? And his wife?! She had had the affairs, she had walked out on him finally... and yet despite his questions he was filled with a sense that something was very right about this moment, the here and now of it, the utter irrelevance of all that was other than this.

And then came her voice again, dropping like a pebble into the smooth water of a hidden pool, "Take a few moments to enjoy your special place, and then I want you to lie on the sand. In a few seconds I will count from one to ten and you will come slowly back to full consciousness. One... two, three...."

She had left the room to allow him to come round quietly. Very slowly he came to a sitting position on the couch and rubbed his head slowly. His watch told him he'd had his eyes closed for an hour, and yet it had felt like ten minutes. Rather abstractedly he did up the clasp on the waistband of his trousers and then the belt and then, slowly, put on his shoes. The sight of his face in the mirror opposite stopped him for a few moments. He was smiling and he had no idea why. Shaking his head he put on his jacket and went out into the reception area. As he filled out his cheque she asked, "How do you feel?"

He tried to speak but all he managed to do was nod a few times and smile broadly. She smiled too. "It was a good start.... I know you hesitated to begin with but you went with it and I think you did very well. So, I'll need to see you again in a week. Same time?"

Again he found himself nodding and, smiling inanely by this time, he began to feel an acute urge to laugh. Suddenly he was in a hurry, his need had become urgent... he was not panicking but he must leave now or he might make a fool of himself. "Yes, yes, that's fine." He looked at his watch. "Oh, God, is that the time... sorry, must dash." With that he snatched his appointment card from the table and rushed out through the door.

She stood quite still for a few moments, and then went back into the consulting room and, after opening the window slightly, she sat down. She was clearly waiting for something to happen and then she heard it. A man had run into the alley behind her building and had started to laugh uncontrollably.

He was worried about the old lady downstairs. He feared she was losing her mind. She had come up for her now customary cup of coffee and to see the cat who had taken quite a shine to her. Over the last few weeks a strange sort of friendship had started to blossom between them. She didn't appear to need his company, rather he felt he needed hers. She had her life and her routine. Every morning she would go to mass at eight thirty and then on to the cemetery to talk with her husband. She didn't appear at all embarrassed or self-conscious as she recounted how he had said this or that to her. But now she was in the process of recounting to him a dream she had had the night before and which she daren't tell her husband for fear of shocking him.

"You see, monsieur, it was all a bit confused. It wasn't so much the fact that I was having an affair with the Fuhrer, although that was bad enough. But they were hanging Jews at the bottom of the garden and the kitchen sink was filthy!" His mouth just hung open as he tried to think of something to say. "It's the guilt, you see, monsieur. We Catholics carry it around and it just gets heavier the older you get. My husband was Jewish and my family were terribly shocked when we married. We had to run away. It was a scandal! " She was smiling and seemed to be enjoying herself.

He found himself noticing things about her he'd never noticed before. The old-fashioned wedding and engagement rings she wore, the swollen knuckles of her hands distorted by arthritis, the beautifully manicured nails. The Piaf-style coiffure without a hint of grey. The old, two-piece suit with the frayed cuffs but whose original quality was evident—Dior, perhaps, or one of the other houses his wife had frequented. His eyes drifted to her face as she spoke. The eyebrows had been carefully plucked and, with further help, described two graceful arches above her large, pale-green eyes. Vanity and habit still encouraged her to put rouge on her cheeks and her lipstick had been applied in a manner Bette Davis would have approved of.

"When the occupation began, they took us in and hid Bernard in the cellar. We came back to the house one night and he didn't see daylight again for five years! Can you imagine? It's the fact that we were of German extraction, I suppose, and Bernard's brother being dragged off to the camp in Poland and never coming back, my being Catholic and German, oh, I don't know... such a confused mess... so silly... and how could I even dream of kissing a man with such a ridiculous moustache? But we were lucky... they came once to check papers or something but we were lucky. Halfway through a search of the house the air-raid sirens went off and they left. They just never came back. My father used to play chess with Bernard... he always lost... but he really grew to love him. So silly, it's the same God... we all pray to the same God.... " She just sat there looking out into the distance and sipping her coffee, the cat on her lap, purring loudly. The mantle clock rang the half hour and she seemed to wake up with a start. "Oh! Is that the time? Excuse me, monsieur, I must be going, I'm arranging the flowers at church and I mustn't be late." She limped to the door and as she opened it she turned and looked at him for a few seconds but said nothing. Slowly she began to smile and, nodding her head as if she had resolved a question in her mind, she turned and shut the door behind her.

At first the only change he had become aware of was that he was smiling a lot. One morning, not long after his first session with the hypnotherapist formerly known as "psycho-quack," he had caught himself grinning in the mirror while shaving and, for several seconds, wondering who the other chap was. He was also, rather curiously, getting better at it. Shaving, that is. His usual performance resembled more a vain attempt to cut his head off by degrees with a safety razor than an essential procedure in the morning ritual of male grooming. After-shave used to he applied as disinfectant whereas now....

"You'd think, wouldn't you," he said to the chap shaving in the mirror, "that after doing something every morning without fail for the last thirty years or so you'd at least be good at it."

His change of demeanour had also caused quite a stir in the local shops and the one or two restaurants which were prepared to put up with his irascibility. Madame Klarsehen had had to fend off numerous enquiries from all quarters. Was he in love? Had he come into an inheritance? Had he finally gone mad? Was he safe?! Of course he was oblivious to all this.

Change was working quietly within him and at first he was merely aware of feeling happier about life in general. He hadn't found God, he had no desire to shave his head, wear orange or ask total strangers on the Champs-Elysees whether they loved him; he hadn't become a Buddhist and the contortions of the lotus position were, thankfully, still a mystery. He hadn't become a vegetarian, started jogging, or stopped smoking and he was prepared to resist the allure of yogic flying until they started offering air miles. But yesterday he had noticed a pot of daffodils in a florist's window and he had spent ten minutes just looking at them and thinking of England before he went in and made with the readies.

However, the tumour was still there and growing. Over the past few weeks the aim had been to address his negative approach to life. But a few days ago she had addressed the question of his cancer. To help his clinical treatment he had to alter his perception of his problem. He had been a passive onlooker in a fight to the death between his body and his illness. If this remained the status quo, he would be dead in a matter of months. On the other hand, he could choose to become an active participant, regarding his body as the one precious thing he had which was worth defending and deciding to treat his illness as his enemy.