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PART SIX

CHAPTER 25

When Vesna got home from her shift around midnight, Robert was still awake, lying there with the bedside lamp on and his hands linked behind his head.

‘Hello, my husband,’ she said, climbing into bed. It was a little ritual they played sometimes. ‘What are you thinking about?’

‘Hello, my wife. I was just lying here feeling terribly jealous of you.’

‘Jealous?’ said Vesna with amazement. ‘What d’you mean, darling?’

‘Not jealous: envious.’ Robert had taken his arms from behind his head; he reached for Vesna’s hand. ‘Envious that you have two healthy loving parents, who have been there for you and your brother every step of the way. And wishing I did, too.’

‘Oh.’ Vesna’s face was soft with sympathy. She hugged him, cuddling close. ‘I wish you did, too. I
am
lucky, I know it.’

‘Do you think Dad understood, when we explained to him about – my mother?’ Robert asked. ‘That she’s been found?’

‘I couldn’t tell,’ said Vesna seriously. ‘Truly, I just couldn’t tell. He seemed to be taking it in, but his lack of interest was so… profound.
It doesn’t seem possible that he could have been so disinterested if he’d really grasped your news.’

‘I thought exactly that,’ Robert said. ‘Is there something more I ought to do, Vesna?’

‘I don’t think so, darling. Not just now, anyway. But it’s odd, I was just talking about your father tonight. Do you remember Bernadette Rooney? Who I worked with at Fairfield?’ Robert nodded, a little uncertainly. ‘She was on the same ward with me this evening. She does agency work now, but she also has a therapeutic massage practice at her home. She works a lot with elderly people. She pointed out something I’ve never really considered before: that a lot of older people haven’t had any physical contact with another person in years. Even decades. Apart from, you know, shaking hands. And medical examinations, perhaps. Isn’t that sad?’ she said, cuddling her husband even closer.

‘It is,’ said Robert softly.

‘And I was wondering, do you think that might be good for your father? A proper massage. He must get stiff from all that gardening. Bernadette’s very skilled, she’s been studying in China and the States… ’

‘Why not?’ said Robert, though he’d never even considered massage before, even for himself, let alone his father. ‘If you think it’s a good idea?’ He felt Vesna nodding affirmatively. ‘Well, if Dad’s willing to give it a go…Why not?’

A week or so later, Robert took Alex to Bernadette’s house. They were shown into a neat, cosy room with a massage table in the centre. Robert sat on a chair in the corner while Bernadette talked to his father, filling out an information sheet. She would begin, she explained, by massaging his feet, and they could take it from there. Bernadette put Robert in mind of so many nurses he’d met: unfussed, competent. He particularly appreciated the way she explained things to Alex so directly, without any jargon or condescension.

Alex was chatty and charming while Bernadette slowly massaged his long pale feet.
Has he always been like this?
Robert wondered.
He didn’t remember his father as such a flirt. Maybe it was a way of handling the memory loss? Or maybe Robert had just never seen his father clearly. Heaven knows, every aspect of his family of origin seemed open to question these days. While he sat there, apparently listening to Bernadette and Alex’s conversation, his mind turned restlessly to these recent and almost unbelievable events.

He felt that he was over the initial shock of finding out about his mother, though that had completely unnerved him at first. And he had started to come to terms with James’s deliberate concealing of his discovery, distressing and unexpected though such behaviour was. Now, furnished with Rose’s address, phone and email, Robert was struggling with the idea of contacting her.

He found the prospect utterly daunting. His mind had stalled and blanked a hundred times.
How do I start this? What on earth do I say?
And then his thoughts invariably leapt to how he would sign off. Could he write at the end
love, Robert
? He was shocked to find the idea filled him with unexpected fury.
She doesn’t deserve my love!
He thought, of course, of describing his own family, his career – but even then he was again overwhelmed by resentment.
Why should I?
Vesna and his daughters were the most precious things in his life. How could he risk exposing them to the kind of emotional bruising he had suffered as a child?
And what would she care?
Now, as an adult, he could see that Rose must have been desperately unhappy with her own life, her marriage, everything, but since James’s news Robert had found himself helplessly reliving the hurt of her prickliness and myriad dissatisfactions which as a boy he had taken terribly personally. His efforts to please her, and the impossibility of doing so – it all seemed so immediate again.

Oh, but he so wanted his mother to know him at last, to know him as a man: successful, respected, a man with a beautiful, happy family. Yes,
he
had achieved that, something she herself had not been capable of! Him, Robert, the nervous nitwit… well, still nervous, true. Still riven by anxieties…

He felt trapped somewhere, and he didn’t want to be. He needed a bridge, a ladder, some way he could approach his mother afresh. So they could meet as equals.

Now Bernadette was suggesting to Alex that he might like to remove his shirt and lie on the massage table for some work on his back and shoulders. Robert rose, intending to leave the room, but Alex cheerfully insisted he stay, and the conversation continued in a somewhat stop-start fashion while Berndadette massaged Alex, gently at first and then with increasing firmness. Alex mentioned he’d been having some knee trouble and she suggested an acupuncture treatment, explaining what that would entail. Alex, completely unfazed, agreed. With fascinated trepidation, Robert watched Bernadette insert the needles. He had imagined it would revolt him, but no. Afterwards, Alex walked around the room, experimentally, staring down like someone trying out a new pair of shoes.

‘Fixed!’ he declared. ‘Knees like a kid! Like new!’ He looked so cheerful, his face such a good colour. Could it be that he actually looked younger? The three of them grinned at each other. ‘Well, aren’t I glad to have met you, lass!’

‘These things seem to happen at the right time, don’t they,’ Bernadette said, smiling.

In his head Robert heard Meredith’s voice:
You have to be alert to the moment when you’re ready to change…The right person…

‘Bernadette,’ he asked impulsively, ‘would it be possible for me to make an appointment with you, too?’

‘Sure!’ she said. ‘I’ll just get my book, we’ll make a time.’

Two days later Robert was back, face-down on the massage table. Was it the lack of eye contact, partly, that made it so easy for him to talk to Bernadette? The reassuring strength of her hands as she worked on him? Or her matter-of-fact tone as she chatted about the different therapies she had studied, the nervous system and acupuncture, mind/body connection, human responses to stress… all sorts of things. Suddenly Robert was telling her about
his compulsions: the fingering, the checking. When they had started, how they’d got worse over the past year. His fears, as far as he could voice them, of what would happen if he didn’t fulfil each action as he… must.

‘Have you spoken to your GP about this?’ she asked. ‘First port of call…’

‘Yes. I know it’s obsessive compulsive disorder, that’s what they call it.’

‘And did your GP suggest any treatment?’

‘Well, the deep breathing, that was his idea. And that’s certainly helped me control the, er, the… panic attacks. But he’d like me to go on some kind of tranquillisers, while I prefer to avoid medication.’

‘Has he ever suggested CBT? Cognitive Behavioural Therapy?’

‘I think… um, he might’ve mentioned it… But, really. Therapy!’ He heard his own voice, how scornful it sounded, and suddenly felt embarrassed. ‘I just don’t think I’m the therapy type,’ he added lamely. He hoped he hadn’t offended her.

‘Uh-huh,’ said Bernadette. She sounded amused. ‘And a week or two ago, would you have said you weren’t the massage type, too?’

‘I suppose I would,’ Robert admitted.

‘Well, with your new open outlook… ’ said Bernadette, working away at a knotty bit in his right shoulder. ‘I know a guy who’s had some great results with treating obsessive compulsive disorder. He’s a psychologist. Would you consider seeing him?’

Robert took a deep breath. ‘Can’t hurt, I suppose.’

‘That’s right. Can’t hurt, good chance it’ll help.’

At the end of their session, as they sat at Bernadette’s little desk and he took out his wallet to pay her, she said, ‘You know, Robert, I’d like you to come and see me again. You do a lot of desk work and I can help with the consequences of that: just the usual postural problems and muscle tension. The other business, the OCD… I’ve been thinking, before seeing the psychologist I mentioned, there’s someone else I think could help you a lot.’

‘Really? Who?’

‘Her name’s Theresa Thompson. She’s a massage therapist, like me, but she’s been working a lot with Bach flowers. Therapeutic use of plant essences, that is. And she’s working a great deal these days with Australian native flower essences. Unusual. She’s getting some results that I think are – well, let’s not pre-empt anything. But I’d love you to see her.’

Native flower essences. How
… ‘If you think it will help, Bernadette,’ said Robert with a rush, ‘then I’ll give it a go.’
Good heavens, did I just say that?

With her blue eyes, brown hair and sturdy build, Theresa was so similar in appearance to Bernadette she could be her sister. As they exchanged polite introductory remarks it occurred to Robert that it wasn’t only Berndadette and Theresa who were similar. Though Vesna didn’t look like the other two women, she radiated the same reassuring qualities: calmness, empathy, capability.
It must be that that makes me trust them
.

The way Theresa massaged him was quite subtle compared to the deep, occasionally somewhat painful work Bernadette had done. From time to time she paused, with her hands lying still on his body. Still, but very much alert.
I should feel self-conscious
, Robert thought, this being only the second massage he’d ever received, other than Vesna rubbing his shoulders sometimes. But instead he felt… well, simply relaxed. A state so unfamiliar, it took him a while to identify it.

After he had dressed Theresa talked to him in more detail about his – it was still hard for him to say these words – obsessive compulsive disorder. But it was also becoming easier to talk about, each time. He noticed that every so often Theresa closed her eyes for a little while, almost an extended blink. Finally she said, ‘I need you to wait here about ten minutes.’ She went into the adjoining room.
When she came back she was carrying two medium-sized brown glass bottles, which she placed on the table in front of him.

‘One for home, one to keep at work,’ she told him. ‘At moments of stress, when you find yourself starting to do your fingering or wanting to check things – any of those signals – I want you to stop and place three drops of this liquid under your tongue,’ she withdrew the dropper and squeezed one, two, three drops back into the bottle to demonstrate, ‘and, if possible, to sit quietly for about a minute while you say the words I’ve written here. Preferably aloud.’

She placed a folded piece of paper beside the bottles. Robert looked at it.

‘This is an affirmation,’ Theresa said, her calm blue eyes holding his. ‘A declaration about your intent in facing life. You could say it’s a mission statement for your soul.’

Soul.
Hardly a word he was comfortable with.
Are we talking about faith here, Merry?

‘I understand that you may not have said words like this before, or not in this way. But it’s very important that you are able to say this affirmation. And that you say it often, especially in these next few weeks. Do you think you can?’

Don’t hold back, Robert! Don’t hold back.
He picked up the piece of paper, opened it. There were just a few handwritten lines.

I honour the universe and my place within it. I trust the universe to ensure that at all times I have with me and within me everything that I need. All is safe; all is well. I require nothing more, and nothing more is required of me.

He felt – what? He felt
attracted
to these words. Even reading them silently had given him a pleasant, expansive sensation. Not weird.
I want to say them
, he thought.

On impulse he asked, ‘Can I say them now? To you?’

Theresa flashed a sudden smile. ‘Of course!’

Robert took the dropper from her and placed three drops of the clear, faintly spicy liquid under his tongue. Then he spoke the words of the affirmation aloud in a low voice, taking his time, and as he did
so an extraordinarily deep feeling of safety flowed through him. Ease. Warmth. Fullness. Theresa sat and listened attentively with her face perfectly still, and then she beamed at him, and he beamed back.

He looked down at his hands, resting lightly on the tabletop. He turned them palm up, held them before him, touched the palms together, folded the fingers, then parted his hands and rested them again on the wooden surface of the table.
If I can beat this, if I can leave these awful anxious habits behind me – that’s what I’ll write to my mother about! I’ll tell her and she’ll understand how much I’ve changed. How much everything’s changed. At last.

CHAPTER 26

James knew the meeting had gone just about as badly as it could. He’d expected his brother and sisters to be angry with him, but the degree of their outrage had shaken him badly. James was used to being liked, to being approved of and admired; it was terrible to be the cause of such pain and anger. He came away feeling unspeakably miserable.