The Old-Timer looks down at the floor, suddenly overcome. The room is silent. Still. Respectful of the words that he shared just moments ago, grieving his dead mother. He leans forward in his chair, struggling to find forgiveness for his father, whom he believes could have offered more patience and love—kissed her, held her, made her last few weeks more comfortable before the cancer eventually devoured her pancreas. “Destroying,” he says, “a woman I barely recognized in the end.”
He knows forgiveness will be the thing that heals, but today it’s hard for him to reach. His anger and resentment sabotaging his recovery.
The Single Mother looks at him, uncrosses her legs. A tear slicing through any resistance she may have to let go. Her body responding to his grief.
“Last night, I wanted to drink,” the Old-Timer says. “It caught me by surprise. I thought twenty years in I’d be safe, but apparently not. Apparently, addiction still wants to surface like some overflowing sewer. Persistent, this fucking disease.”
One of the newcomers looks about the room, spooked. A certain panic setting in. Sensing his alarm, I attempt to catch his eyes—a codependent act, I realize—but as they meet I hold him steadily in my gaze. It’s not unusual that significant loss can spark overwhelming feelings of despair, so much sometimes that relapse occurs, even for old-timers.
Clara suddenly sails into my mind, my own loss ignited. Remembering how I’d struggled with my addiction five years ago when her death became a constant companion to my waking day—preoccupation forcing me down, a little boy, into a deep well of sadness. I feel the loss lodge itself in the core of my chest, anxiety causing a rush of adrenaline. Dark and alone, I sense myself relieved the meeting has now ended. I look up at the Single Mother as she leaves. Her tears finally permitting the release of my own.
“Hello, stranger.”
“Hello.”
“No friend today?”
“Unfortunately not. He’s got a date.”
I don’t know why I say this; Mohsin does not have a date. Neither is he likely to have one until he completes the piece of research the Royal College of Psychiatrists has him working on day and night—this also being the reason I find myself alone, again, seated at our usual table, not speaking the truth. But I can’t help myself. I’m a little liar.
“Someone he met at a reading group,” I say.
Another lie.
“Well, I guess it beats internet dating.” She laughs.
“Pfft.” I snort. “I know what you mean.”
I have no idea what she means. The one and only time I signed up for internet dating I met Monica. Mohsin’s suggestion that I find a “companion” not something I’d wanted to even mildly entertain. But there were no bad experiences. I was instantly charmed by Monica’s online profile on TopFlightSingles:
Slim, bubbly and petite 35 yr. old Libran ISO fun, travel, and conversation. I am artistic, have left-leaning politics and a GSOH. I love mountains, trees, and challenges—I’ve cycled from Havana to Trinidad, climbed a glacier in the Andes, and I fancy Antarctica next. I enjoy being surrounded by white and silence (does that make me sound weird?). Is there a witty, dashingly good-looking Oscar Wilde or Ray Mears out there?
I am someone who wants to make a difference in the world (I’m a doctor)—God, I sound like a beauty pageant queen! I hope that clarifies things . . . maybe not? . . . How about this? . . .
I’m an ordinary girl striving to be extraordinary and I am amused by life’s glorious absurdities. Laughter is important and a sense of humor a must. I love sunsets and fires, India and the Andes, sensuality and early morning dew . . . on cobwebs . . . ooh, and perhaps a stroll on the South Bank, a glass of vino, and a great deal of chatting. Finally, you must be an AL (Animal Lover!) although I have no pets.
A little voice in my head forced my hand. Just give it a go, it said, she sounds funny and smart and lighthearted, what’s the harm? I was just a little naive, like a child posting a letter to Santa Claus. Click. And so we arranged to meet—at the South Bank for a glass of something, obviously not vino, and a great deal of chatting. I bought a new suit, new underpants, mildly relieved to no longer be hostage to the seven stages of grief. I was feeling again. An encore of senses. My manhood swelling and adolescent unruly. I was rekindled. Unchaste. And sad. But supposedly no longer alone.
The Pretty Freckled Waitress shifts her weight from left to right, a long, thin notepad in her hand.
“What can I get you?” She smiles.
“I’d like the shishito peppers to start,” I point, finger trailing the menu, “followed by the salmon teriyaki.”
I feel a wave of shame wash over my predictable choice and watch the Pretty Freckled Waitress write down my order. I’m sure she only does this to make me feel better, knowing I order the same thing every time.
“Anything to drink?”
“A bottle of—”
“Sparkling mineral water,” she interrupts, “with lime cordial.” Writes this down too. Cringe.
“That’s all,” I say, fingering the ceramic ginger jar. An attempt to mask my unease.
She underlines my order with a confident strike of her blue pen, then leans over to place a starched napkin across my lap. I note the trio of buttons casually left opened on her blouse, revealing the contours of her breasts. I look away, embarrassed.
“Okay then,” she chirps, “back in a while.”
“Crocodile!”
Oh sweet Jesus. Crocodile? My longing to appear light and quippy drags me into a further abyss of shame. Hopefully none of the other diners have heard. I look to the Zen garden, wincing, my fat friend the Buddha experiencing no such conflict, his laughing today, I imagine, aimed at my foolishness. I wish Mohsin were here to keep me company and help ease my embarrassment. My stony-faced friend, although rather jolly, isn’t much of a talker.
A group of women opposite toast, for the fifth time. Clinking their champagne flutes while making exaggerated eye contact. Someone’s birthday, I tell myself. One woman, whom it appears the celebration is for, starts to cry. Immediately manicured hands and reassurances are rushed in like cavalry from the two women sitting on either side of her. Instant gratification, I tell myself, likening them to a pair of slavish, pearl-clutching dimwits.
As my salmon teriyaki arrives, a tall man sits down at the table next to me with a young woman who I assume is his daughter. She throws her head back, revealing pretty white teeth, laughing at his goofy impression of whom, I’m not quite sure. The waiter joins in and hands them each a menu. It’s not until I notice the girl’s bare foot climb his leg like a tree that I realize they are lovers. Each of them enamored by their opposite. Age proving an attraction for both. The Electra complex, I tell myself, pulling back my shoulders and feeling somewhat envious of the man, his age close to mine. I throw Humbert Humbert a cold stare, painfully aware of my hypocrisy.
My mind wanders momentarily to Susannah and her much older beau. I wonder if either of them even know what the Electra complex is. Clara and I had hoped for someone who would be a match for Susannah’s creativity. Someone of similar age. A man who was sensitive, kind, smart, and capable of intimacy and commitment. A man with courage. We’d even liked a couple of the guys she brought home whom she’d met through work at the gallery. But then five years ago when Clara’s cancer raged, leaving us only three months to prepare for her death, Susannah met Toby.
She was sad. Vulnerable. In need of comfort, kindness, and a body—I imagine with unease—to hold her at night when she couldn’t sleep. And he was only too willing to oblige. Even though he was married.
“Can we not be so quick to judge, Dad?” she’d said.
“He’s married, for Christ’s sake!” I’d yelled.
“Oh, Susie,” Clara whispered, taking her hand, “are there children involved?”
Thankfully there are no children involved. Toby didn’t quite graduate from dad school. And his itch of seven years to a woman I know only as “she” or “her” has now been scratched by my silly daughter and her romantic notions of the older man. Fifty-two years old to be precise, only three years younger than me.
I wonder if Susannah is searching for a replacement father figure. Whether Toby is he. What did I do that was so wrong that my only child settled for a man like him? I imagine her replacing the girl next to me; laughing, her bare foot resting against Humbert Humbert’s thigh. I shake my head and quickly dismiss the entire sordid exchange.
I look up, my appetite killed. Opposite, the group of women are sawing lean meats and dipping rolls of rainbow sushi into soy sauce while the girl next to me opens her mouth like a bird, the tall man feeding her with his chopsticks.
Lunch left and unfinished, I decide not to leave a tip.
“Come in, Charlotte,” I say.
Earlier fatigue lingering somewhat, my eyes still appear blurred and tight. I notice loose change has fallen from my pocket onto the daybed, but rather than risk Charlotte see me reach over to collect it, I wait for her to sit, as is my habit.
Charlotte negotiates the side table and I note she is dressed rather eccentrically today: swaddled in bright-colored tie-dye, almost like a bandage, the colors fetching and optimistic compared to her usual uniform of blacks and grays. On one of her fingers I notice a ring that looks like it may have fallen from a Christmas cracker or one of those plastic eggs found in claw machines at fairgrounds. Charlotte regards me while I stare at the ring, then quickly places her hand beneath her thigh.
“I think Nurse Kennedy has a crush on me,” she begins. “He sat with me. Helped me finish my jigsaw.”
“A crush?” I say.
She looks down.
Silence.
Never work harder than the patient, let her come to you.
Nurse Kennedy, Peter, joined us six months ago, having worked on a psych ward somewhere in the north of England. I liked him, immediately finding his patience and engagement with the patients a refreshing change from the nurses currently here. He also has the most impressive heart-shaped hairline and piercing dark eyes—rather like a barn owl. This, for some reason, endears him to me. Not that I’m particularly keen on barn owls, or owls of any kind for that matter. Rather, that his looks posed little threat or competition.
I look up, Charlotte still in her head and preoccupied with the view outside.
My thoughts drift, picturing the waitress serving me salmon teriyaki. A dainty impression beneath her soft blouse. The afternoon light sends a glow from the glass roof bathing her strawberry hair, thick with curls. Her freckles like cinnamon dust. I ought to feel guilty, fantasizing this way, my commitment to Monica not even slightly denounced. Dirty dog.
Charlotte snaps her fingers, bringing me out of my reverie.
“Hello?” she barks, irritated.
I rearrange my face.
“You men. You’re all the same.”
“A rather sweeping statement, don’t you think?”
“I know you sit there, bored, disinterested,” she spits.
“You’re projecting,” I say, pinching my right leg.
She looks at me, scans my face for clues, but I’m giving nothing away. The pinch has me back on track. Focused.
Looking at my notes I clear my throat and slowly turn a page or two, buying some time.
“Last week we discussed how you felt dismissed by your father. How he ignored you. I wonder if something is being reenacted between us,” I say.
Charlotte looks down at her feet, battles with a tear attempting to escape. I imagine her trying to push it back into her cage of pride, not wanting to allow me the experience of her vulnerability.
“Bastard projection,” she says, “always fucks things up.”
I feel my earlier fatigue melt. She has me now: compassionate and feeling.
“So it does.” I smile.
Charlotte arrived at Glendown three years ago, clinically depressed and suicidal. Isolated, with limited contact with what remained of her family, she had a nonexistent desire for self-care, work, or any interests other than jigsaw puzzles. The emerging worlds from tiny cardboard pieces offering a regulating effect on her mind.
As a child, Charlotte lived on a quiet leafy street in Islington. Next door was a man named Tom, who lived alone with his three cats. The cats would roam from garden to garden, offering gifts such as mice and birds. Charlotte was very attached to the cats.
Slowly, Tom entered the lives of Charlotte and her family, offering to help out with the gardening, odd jobs, and, of course, babysitting. Tom was lovely. So friendly. The perfect neighbor. That is, until Charlotte refused to play his little game of musical chairs. Tom slipping his hand beneath and pulling at her underwear. Charlotte said no. And that was when things got nasty. If she didn’t play, the cats would have to be punished, Tom said. She allowed his thick hand inside her.
Charlotte’s parents called her a liar. An attention seeker. Tom was lovely, Tom could be trusted, what was she thinking? Her father ignored her. You’re imagining things, Charlotte’s mother dismissed. And Tom? Well, Tom eventually moved on, most likely to another quiet street, next door to another little girl. Lovely Tom.
What followed were a series of crimes where Charlotte fell victim to the abuse of those in power: a vicar who called on the house to “rid her of her lies,” a teacher who insisted Charlotte stay behind to help tidy the store cupboard, and several unsavory employers. Each time her story was dismissed. She was deemed an attention seeker. A liar. So she turned to the words of poets, writers, and activists for sanctuary—those who found voice and language to cover paper with mighty words. Charlotte told me that she’d once written the names of these people on the soles of her shoes: Alice Walker, Audre Lorde, bell hooks, Andrea Dworkin, and Rosa Parks, to name a few. Then she’d push her feet inside and stand, wondering what it felt like to walk in the shoes of strong women. To have them march with her, refusing the torment of patriarchy. Women who fought back.
“Their names transport me to a world of empowerment,” she said a year into our work.
“You’re also empowered,” I said.
She waved away my words of advocacy, looking down again at her feet.
I moved forward in my chair.
“The soles of your shoes deserve another name,” I spoke softly.
She looked up.
“Charlotte Lakewood.” I smiled.
Our session ended with me handing her a thick black marker while she paused, shoe in hand. Her thumb rubbing, repeatedly, its thin plastic sole.
“Go ahead,” I encouraged, watching. A single tear traveling down her cheek.
And with that, she scrawled her name, large and proud. Excitement uplighting her damp face as she added, with zeal, an exclamation point.
“There,” she said, embodied and firm. “That’s me.”
Her shoe offered steady like a gift, in both hands.
She leans forward now in her chair, stretching both tie-dyed sleeves to hide her fists. “So this projection,” she says, “how do I stop it? How do I not make you into my dad?”
“Good question,” I answer softly. “First we acknowledge our relationship. Our attachment. I’m not your father. I’m nothing like him. We separate him and me. Men generally. Not all men will disappoint and dismiss you, Charlotte. We’re not all the same.”