Sunday 29 December 2013


 

 

Jennifer's Hierarchy of Fears

Worst Case Scenarios

It’s the wrong colour

It’s too tight

It makes me look fat

I look fat in everything anyway

It’s too young for me

I look ridiculous in it

Everyone is laughing at me

I can’t show my face in public again

Hierarchy of Symptoms

My mouth is dry

I’m sweating.

I can feel my heartbeat accelerating

My knees are giving way

I’m trembling

I’m weeping

I’m losing control

Conclusion

I’m useless and a total waste of space

While I’m actually writing down the Hierarchy of Fears I’m sitting on a wall in front of a church, opposite Waterstones in the High Street.  I get off on the feeling of satisfaction at seeing the words written down – a means to externalising thoughts.   Clarissa will be pleased with me.  If I’m inadequate, at least I’m undeniably, totally, almost irreversibly inadequate.  In fact, there’s something pretty outstanding about my Hierarchy of Fears.  And it makes me feel, paradoxically, rather special. 
 
My phobia is a complex one, for a number of stimuli affect me, both socially and personally.  The sight of the sea convinces me I’m about to drown.  A bird might fly in my face; a spider could crawl up my leg.  But this fear of being laughed at!   Why the compulsion which forces me to go through complex rituals to avoid disaster?   Why do I think stepping on a crack will kill me? Clarissa intends to find out.
 
Because a phobia is an irrational fear.  It’s not a disease, nor does it mean the sufferer is mad.  So says Clarissa.  ‘Will-power, morality, ethics, motivation – all these are nothing to do with a phobia,’ says Clarissa, punctuating each word with a flicker of her long eyelashes.  She tells me a phobia is one of the most seriously undermining conditions, capable of seriously disrupting the lives of the most highly-intelligent humans, even restricting personal freedom to such a degree that the patient becomes isolated.  

By the way, do I have the means to pay?  Clarissa doesn’t do NHS.  

I fiddle with the loose hank of light brown hair that always escapes from the careful swirl on the top of my head.  I close my pale eyes, as though I’m ashamed to say.

‘My husband will take care of it.’ 
 
Clarissa makes a steeple of her hands. ‘The thing about a phobia is this – that it is a learned response.  Phobias can be eradicated. However debilitating these situations might be – they are still learned responses.  They can be unlearned.’  Although in the end, it seems to Clarissa, it all comes down to a fear of losing control.  

‘You have an irrational belief you have to make everything come right, for yourself and everybody else and that the world is out to thwart you.  You fret over every action for fear of its negative consequences.’

‘That sounds just like me.’ 

‘Some people believe that affirmations can help.  Would you like to try that?  OK, this is your affirmation; repeat it after me, Jennifer.  ‘I don’t have to live with this phobia’,’ says Clarissa.
‘I don’t have to live with this phobia.’ 

‘That’s a start,’ says Clarissa.  ‘Well done.  It’ll help if you can take on board that it’s simply irrational fear.  When fear is rational, it is just that - fear.  When it is irrational, it’s a phobia.’

‘OK.’

‘Actually, it’s just mechanics,’ says Clarissa. ‘Straightforward and simple.  Something must have happened to you, something that made you feel scared and trapped.’

‘My mother never locked me in a cupboard.’

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ says Clarissa.  ‘But you need to remember one thing.  If you believe you can get better, you will.  If you believe you cannot get better, you won’t.  Whether you believe you can or can’t, you’re absolutely right!’ 

Clarissa clicks off her tape machine.'
 
 
Later, as we are lying together in bed, Gavin says:  ‘It seems a waste of time trying to find out why you have the condition.  What happens when you know what particular childhood incident caused it?  Will you be cured?  Or will you be exactly the same, while your psychoanalyst gets richer and we get poorer.  After all, it’s me who has to pay for it all.  You just swan around all day.’

Gavin has a point.   But I don’t want to be nagged right now.  I want a cuddle.  I press my hand into his warm side, for he is lying on his back, his rather noble profile looking even more aristocratic than usual in the soft glow from the little bedside lamp.  He ignores the pressure of my hand.

‘After all,’ says Gavin, warming to his theme, ‘If you were bitten by a snake, it would be more sensible to take an antidote than pay someone to go looking for the so-and-so who did it.’

‘Are you saying you don’t want to pay for my treatment any more?  Well, you needn’t.  I could go on the National Health.’

‘Don’t be bloody stupid!’ Gavin explodes, as I knew he would.  He’ll never cut off my private treatment all the while I threaten him with the National Health.  He’s annoyed, for he turns his back on me and yanks my share of the duvet to his side. 

‘It’s silly of me to be scared of so many different things,’ I tell Clarissa on my fifth session. Of course, Clarissa reassures me.  The treatment will take some time, but Clarissa will make a special priority for me.  It will be expensive, but it will be worth it to alleviate the pain.  Clarissa will concentrate on the phobias for now; after all the OCD is merely a symptom of the fear.  No doubt the problems are buried somewhere in my childhood.  

I’m about to walk out, when Clarissa says, ‘I’m going to give you a task.  I want you to write a diary every day, just a few words, jotting down your feelings, the time of day you had those feelings and where you were at the time.  Will you do that for me, Jennifer?’  

I trawl through my memory for a time when I felt good about myself.  Strangely, although it is easy to remember the occasions, it’s difficult to recreate the feeling.  It’s like pain.  You can remember but you cannot reproduce it in yourself. 

Next day, I come across Gavin in the conservatory, where the sunshine streams in for most of the day.  He’s sitting on the swinging chair with an album on his lap and he’s staring at a photo. 

Without needing to check, I know it’s a photo of him.   He stares and stares for ages, at the photo.  Silently I peer through the sliding glass door, trying to see which photo is the object of his fascination.  It’s the one of him standing on the top of a mountain on holiday.   He’s wearing his snazzy mountain jacket, the one she always teases him about, calling it ‘the coat of many colours’, Clearly, he thinks he looks amazing in the coat.  He cannot take his eyes off himself.


I know I hould leave him to it.  I shouldn’t embarrass him by catching him out.  But somehow the temptation is too great and I hover and I realize I’m actually enjoying how ridiculous he makes himself.  Still, he continues to gaze, enraptured at the sight of his other self so fetchingly caught on celluloid.   I shouldn’t stand here watching, without his knowing I’m there.  It’s mean and unworthy.  But so is he, as there are photos of me in that pile, photos he has carelessly glossed over.  Clearly I’m not as fascinating to him as he is to him.       
 
I shuffle around a bit, hoping he’ll look up and see me and blush a little for being caught out in this act of self-obsession.  He doesn’t.  I don’t tell him to come for his cocoa.   Instead, I wander out of the conservatory and up to the bedroom, open his wardrobe door and, distractedly, pull at the sleeve of the coat.  I am embarrassed for him.  It is such a tiny thing, a pointless foible, but he’s been diminished in my mind.  I want to find a decent reason for feeling like this, so ungenerous, so pedantic.      
 
I take the coat out of the wardrobe and slip my arms into the sleeves.  I stare into the mirror set into the door of the wardrobe.  I look like Michelin Man.  I don’t know why he likes it so much, the colours are not attractive, a vile orange, a vicious blue no self-respecting bluebell would aspire to.  There are zips all over the place securing pockets of various sizes.  The collar contains a zipped in hood and it rises up behind the head, making a sort of domed backdrop, like an alien. I fasten the zip at the bottom and slide the zip upwards.  At the top, I sense a bump in one of the pockets.  Unzipping the pocket, I draw out a little sheaf of papers.
 
I shouldn’t look.  Even husbands and wives are entitled to their bits of privacy, have the right to trust that they are not being checked over.  But I can’t help it. 
 
The sheets contain nothing but some credit card receipts.  Nothing juicy there!  Nothing at all.  But I won’t give up.  One by one, I unzip each pocket, plunge in one finger, five fingers, or a hand, according to the capacity of the pocket, withdraw and zip up the pocket again.  This takes some time.  I’m brooding about vain men, self-obsessed men, men who find themselves more fascinating than they find me.  

I’ve been turned off by his male vanity.  I want to find something incriminating.  Deep inside, I’d welcome an excuse to reject him.  I console myself with the thought that small things indicate trends.
 
Actually, I don’t need any evidence.  How I feel is enough.  I don’t need his approval.  He has made himself pathetic – and that helps

 
Next time I see Clarissa, it’s different. 


My pale eyes shine like windows and I haven’t put up my hair.  I tell her I have had an aha moment.

I'm leaving Gavin. 


‘It wasn’t quite what I had in mind,’ says Clarissa.  ‘Why are you leaving Gavin?’

‘I don’t like him.’
 
‘But what about your low self-esteem?’ asks Clarissa.  ‘What about your claustrophobia?  What about your childhood trauma?  I hope you’re not thinking of cancelling the rest of your sessions.’
 
I stare at Clarissa pityingly.  Sometimes I wonder if that qualification on the wall is genuine.
 
‘Something’s happened to me.  Something rather ordinary that’s probably hard to understand and I have you to thank for that.  I can deal with it. I know I can.’

‘It’s not normal to respond that quickly. Now don’t you think we’d better work this through?  What’s responsible for this – apparent – breakthrough?’  Clarissa’s eyebrows have scrunched together in the middle of her temple.  She looks so strange with one continuous eyebrow across her forehead, I’m distracted.  Then I catch myself.  She deserves, at least, a cursory explanation.

‘A big coat,’ I said cheerfully.  ‘A coat like Joseph’s in the Bible, of many, many colours, but an awful lot of empty pockets.’ 

Saturday 12 October 2013

The Tree Spirit


I can hardly breathe.  A pair of lovers is loitering under our tree.  I want to scream at them, ‘This tree is taken; it’s Dean’s and it’s mine’.   But they’re oblivious, absorbed in their kissing and cuddling.    As I shuffle towards them and their faces become clearer, I feel a strange ache inside me which morphs into a violent rush of anger.  In that moment I understand what is meant by being consumed by rage because I am no longer myself.  I’m just a tight ball of undiluted fury. 
I clench my fists, trying not to pant in case they hear me.  I need to give this matter some careful thought.   Because one of these starry-eyed lovers is him.  Dean.  My Dean.  Who the girl is, I have no idea, nor do I care.
            The Tree is an oak, a very large, very old oak and it grows in a remote part of the South Gardens, a fenced off area of our local park.  This was where, in the final years of college, we helped each other with our homework and then relaxed, me nestled snugly into the crook of Dean’s arm.  
I know it’s corny, but we really were childhood sweethearts.  If you’re guessing we met under the old oak tree, then you’d only be half right.  It was autumn and I’d sat down under the spreading branches with my friend, Annette.  Dean was actually eight metres over my head in the tree.  I never knew he was there till he began dropping acorns on my head. 
I told him to grow up and he said, ‘You gonnna make me’ and I said, ‘You better believe it,’ and he said ‘You and whose army’ and I said, ‘You just wait and you’ll find out, Ratface.’   It makes me smile, to think how young we were.  But we liked each other immediately and Dean walked me home. 
But now I’m dumped and don’t know why.
I watch the lovers wander off then I sink down at the foot of our tree and lean against the gnarled trunk.  Dusk is falling – no it’s not dusk – too early for dusk.  Stormclouds are gathering.  I hear the rain pattering on the leaves above me and soon the tree is weeping fat tears over my head and I shake out my dripping hair, putting my arms around the oaken waist.  In the middle ages, spinsters were actually married to trees, to avoid the shame of being spinsters.  Maybe they weren’t that crazy because right now I can almost feel the green life-energy throbbing inside me.  Legend says that tree spirits are the Lords of the forest and natural things and somehow I know our Tree’s spirit senses Dean’s betrayal.  How could it not? 
Secretly, I name the Tree Shylock – because I sense that, like me, it wants its pound of flesh.... 
The Tree was never witness to our quarrel, which took place one quiet Friday evening three weeks ago while we were watching the telly with a glass of wine and a box of chocolates.  Dean wanted to watch the football match and I wanted to watch a girlie film with Hugh Grant.  The video had gone wrong, so we couldn’t watch one while we recorded the other.   
It started as some silly bickering, but then one thing led to another, the way it does.  Things were said.  ‘You always want your own way,’ and ‘You don’t care how I feel,’ and ‘Alright then, I’ll get out of your hair.’  Then it got even more personal and more hurtful.  I’m not kidding myself it was just a lovers’ tiff.  Oh no, we’ve had a few issues, Dean and me and we were spoiling for a fight.  But it was nothing that couldn’t have been sorted, if he’d just grown up a bit and stopped being such a selfish so-and-so and done what I told him.
Then, Dean said, ‘I’ve had enough of this, it’s over,’ and that was that. 
At least, that’s what he thinks!
            Next day, I make a detour by the tree again.  Here, feeling loved and protected and overheard only by squirrels and small songbirds, we’d planned our future lives.   They, Dean and the girl, are here already, and she has her lips close to Dean’s ear. 
Didn’t take him long!  It’s just two weeks since we broke up.  Now look at them, both on their knees and facing each other, nose to nose, like they’re some sort of romantic tableau.  Dean is stroking the girl’s bobbed hair.  I feel sick because Dean and I and the Tree are no longer an item. 
My heart gives a little blip as I think of Dean, the affectionate way he put his head on one side when I talked to him, the way he waggled his ears to make me laugh.  I teased him once, saying he looked like a mischievous elf, and he blew himself up like the Incredible Hulk and chased me around the garden, growling ferociously.  Still, Dean was a great kisser and soon I was swooning in his arms.
            Slipping through all these delicious memories, I’m missing him so much.  I’m painfully envious of the other girl now clinging to my bloke.  My shoulders slumping, I turn away, hoping they haven’t seen me acting like such a loser.   Then I hear a rustling and the crunch of their footsteps on the path.  They’re leaving.  I press up closer to the Tree, pitting my skin on its gnarled and twisted bark.
            ‘I don’t mind sharing Dean with you,’ I tell it, ‘but I forbid you to share yourself with him now he’s left me.’
            This can’t go on.  I sink down into the pile of autumn leaves littering the ground.  It really makes me mad, to think what we’ve both thrown away and it’s time to do something about it.  I get out my mobile.  I click on Dean’s number.   I don’t get a chance to say a word.
‘It’s over, Lucy,’ says Dean.  ‘I’m with Miranda now.’
You’re always hearing stuff about hearts missing beats, but I’ll swear mine actually misses about twenty in that moment.  I just sit there, in the pile of red, gold and bronzed autumn leaves.  My head feels like a coconut, all woolly and strange. 
Before he rings off, I quickly say I’m sorry.  I’m not, of course, because he’s the one in the wrong, but by now I’m desperate so I’ll say anything.  He says he’s sorry back and I begin to think I’m getting somewhere.  The mounting wind knocks one of the lower twigs against my cheek, almost like a warning, and I gasp with the damp sting of it. 
‘It’s over,’ says Dean again.  ‘It’s been a long time coming.  Deal with it, Lucy.’
I am incensed.  How dare he tell me how to act.   Muttering murderous intentions under my breath I sink back among the tortured, grey roots of the Tree.  I remember that time Dean slipped his hands under my arms and lifted me onto the largest branch.  Although it was the lowest branch, it was too far from the ground to jump down, so there I sat there, helplessly, in the fork between trunk and branch, unable to move.  ‘What are you doing?  Get me down from here, you big idiot!’ I’d yelled.  Dean put out his arms and I allowed myself to fall into them and he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close to him.  ‘Please don’t ever let me go,’ I murmured.
‘As if I could!  You’re so precious to me, Lucy,’ he’d said.  ‘Don’t ever forget that.’
Huh!   Such insincerity.  Such treachery.
‘Do you remember, Tree?’ I hissed.  ‘Do you remember all those promises?’
There’s a gentle hissing noise above me, a rustling of leaves, and I feel as though the Tree is being truly sympathetic.  We are in collusion.  Once a threesome, we’re now a twosome – it and me.  I don’t feel alone any more.
I pull my jacket around me and close my eyes and it’s as though the Tree is swaying around me, sensing I need to replenish myself, coaxing me to sleep.   I think I manage to drop off, at least momentarily, exhausted by fitful nights and emotional emptiness.
The next thing I know, there’s a high, girlish voice.
‘I’ll see you under the tree again tomorrow.’
I’m awake in an instant.  How dare she?  Not only does she steal my bloke, she’s also appropriated my Tree as their special place of assignation.  I know the Tree won’t have it.  It won’t.  I won’t let it.
I glance up and the girl is standing a short way along the footpath, hand in hand with Dean.  She’s tall and skinny, no figure to speak of, not curvaceous and sensual like me.  Neither of them notice me and I slide around the sturdy trunk to remain out of sight; they’ll think I left ages ago.  They’ve obviously enjoyed their walk and now they’re setting off in their separate directions, with a last quick kiss by the tree.
‘You gorgeous thing,’ he says, bending down to kiss her goodbye.
I don’t know why I swivel my head around and peer up the Tree’s trunk, but I do.  And I notice the there’s a fissure in one of the lower branches, right where it forks at the trunk.  This shouldn’t happen.  The council’s Tree Inspectors should spot any irregularity, any unsafe aspect of the trees in South Park.  Maybe it was the storm; maybe lightening struck while I briefly dozed. 
Slowly, I shift my weight onto the balls of my feet, sliding my body, slowly, up the trunk till I’m upright.  I step onto a high, knobbly root-tip, lean sideways, curling my body around the trunk, placing both hands on the injured branch and I push.  I push as hard as I can.
I feel the branch give a little so I push even harder.  As the branch creaks sideways, I lose my balance and tumble downwards among the ancient roots, wrenching my ankle, but not before I hear a shrill cry.  I wonder if it is me.
Deliberate act of revenge on my part?  You might think that.  The weirdest thing is, when I finally struggle to my feet, stumble towards the broken branch lying on the ground, there’s no sign of the girl.  She’s scarpered, terrified and, straining my ears I imagine I can hear her loud crying in the distance.   I can see Dean lying on the ground beneath the foliage, his body strangely twisted.
I edge closer, a strange excitement stirring inside my stomach.  I peer through the mess of leaves and twigs.  It’s true there’s a graze on the side of the temple where the branch struck him, but it’s also clear that’s not what finished him off.
A thick, gnarled root coils around his neck.  Oh, it has attitude that root!  If it weren’t for the fresh state of the corpse, you’d think it had been growing that way for years.  There’s just no way that root could cling so tightly and so suddenly to Dean’s neck by some freak of nature.  I can’t help wondering what forensics would make of it, but the thing that moves me most is that he, Dean, looks so surprised.   If I feel a little smidgeon of pity, I manage to suppress it.  Justice has been done.
Blokes shouldn’t mess with me – I have hidden assets.
I feel better, stronger, cleverer.  I say a little prayer to the Tree.  No one can possibly blame me for what’s happened to Dean.
There’s this barman at our local pub I’ve quite fancied for while.  I wonder what the Tree will make of him.  I think I’ll see if I can wangle an introduction, secure in the knowledge that The Tree will take care of any complications.

Sunday 8 September 2013

The Nose Job


(A slightly soppy romance written for Woman magazine, published in 2004)
Copyright: Janet Cameron

I knew Allen wouldn’t approve.  And I was right.   ‘What do you want with a nose job?’ he asks.  ‘There’s nothing wrong with your nose.’
            ‘I hate my nose,’ I tell him, miserably. 
            ‘You’d be better off spending your money on a holiday,’ he says.
            That afternoon, I’m outside my house, cleaning my little Micra.  Allen pulls up in his new red Ferrari.  I can’t help but comment:  ‘Why is it OK for you to spend  thousands on a Ferrari but not for me to spend out on my nose?’
            ‘It’s different.  It’s a car.’
            ‘It’s the same.  You could get a good car for half the price.’
            ‘Wouldn’t be the same,’ he murmurs, running his palm over the shining bonnet.  ‘She’s a princess.  She’s special.’
            I stifle the urge to pour my bucket of dirty window water over ‘Princess.’
            ‘It’s not different.  How d’ you feel when you’re driving it?’
            ‘Driving her.’
‘D’you like it when people stare?  Do you enjoy their admiration?   Makes you feel good about yourself, doesn’t it?   Well, that’s why I want my new nose.’
            ‘That’s vanity,’ he says.
            ‘So’s that,’ I retort,  stabbing my finger at the Ferrari, which gleams back at me  in defiance. ‘If it’s OK for you to indulge your vanity, it’s OK for me too.’
I sweep inside the house.  I’m so angry I’m sure steam is coming out my ears.  I ring Mum for some moral support, but she makes me feel so guilty.  I try to reassure her.
            ‘I’ll make sure I get a reputable surgeon.  I’m not daft.  I’ll to do my homework, Mum, don’t worry.’
            Next day, it continues.  ‘Honestly, Kate,’ says my friend Ali.  ‘It’s not just about your nose.  It’s about your self-esteem.  Accept yourself as you are.  If you want surgery, it’s because something’s wrong psychologically.’
            ‘So what, if there is?  I’m human.  Why can’t I indulge myself?   If a nose job helps my dodgy psychology, who’s it hurting?’
            I see Allen that evening.  He doesn’t kiss me hello.  I’m hurt.  We don’t mention the nose job at first.  Then he starts:
            ‘When you think of all the people needing medical attention who can’t afford it…’
            I begin to tremble.  Leaping to my feet, I plant my hands on my hips and glare at him mutely.  Finally, it comes out in a rush.
            ‘That’s a most unfair argument against cosmetic surgery.  You spent thousands on your last holiday.  You could have donated it to charity, if  you’d wanted to.  I’m not having a holiday this year.  I’m having my nose done.  And I’m keeping my six-year old Micra.  How are you any more moral than me?’
‘If you want to give in to it, that’s your choice.’
             ‘Allen.  I think you should go.’
Allen lets his lip droop, a trick he uses to get around me.  But I’m determined.  No one is going to talk me out of this.   I’m not so stupid I can’t recognize emotional blackmail. 
            How people hate change in their loved ones.  Even an improvement becomes a threat.
            Allen tries to take me in his arms.  ‘Why can’t I stay?’
            ‘Because,’ I say, pushing him away, ‘I need my space.’
            Oh wow!  I didn’t know I could be so assertive.  Allen goes.  I don’t rehash our argument in my mind, like I usually do.  Instead, I find the list of recommended surgeons from my GP and choose a surgeon from my local hospital.  I’ll phone tomorrow.
            I go to the mirror, stare at my nose, pushing it down and up, pinching the end.
Surgery?   I know it’s the right thing to do.
                                                                   ***
            The bandages are coming off today.
            I’ll be bruised.  It’ll take time for the swelling to go.  I shan’t panic, knowing what to expect.  The surgeon holds a mirror up to my face.  I smile at him before looking at myself.  I have every confidence in him.
            I’m not disappointed.  I look, not just at my nose, but at my whole face.  I’d forgotten my lovely eyes, large and heavily-lashed.  I’d forgotten my mouth was full and tilted at the corners.  I’d forgotten because all I’d seen for ten years was my huge, overbearing nose.
            ‘It’s amazing.  Amazing!’
Then Allen rings.  ‘I’ll pick you up,’ he says.
            ‘You don’t have to,’ I retort, feeling independent.
            ‘I want to,’ he says.  ‘I haven’t seen you for yonks.’
            This is true. Everyone was banned from visiting, except Mum.
            I’m anxious, taking the lift down to the main reception.  I see Allen before he sees me.  ‘Kate,’ he cries, face lighting up. 
            With a pang, I realise I want his face to light up for me, not for my nose.  How irrational we human beings are!  I want my new nose but still want him to love me for me!
            ‘You look wonderful, Kate,’ he says.  ‘Will you marry me?’
            ‘Leave off!’
            ‘Please, Kate.’
            ‘I didn’t expect my nose job to work that quickly.’‘It’s not your nose job, you idiot.’  He grabs me, kisses me hungrily.  ‘It’s you.  It’s you.  You’ve got gumption, Kate.  You’re feisty and believe in yourself.  That’s what I love in a woman, big nose or little nose.  Although, I’ll admit, the nose is rather fetching.’
            ‘So you’re not marrying me for my nose.’
            ‘No, nor for your bank balance.’
            ‘Don’t have a bank balance.  I’ve spent it on my nose.’
            ‘Exactly.’                                                               
Allen grabs my hand.  Then we’re almost floating across the hospital car park to where Princess awaits us in all her blazing, scarlet glory.

Copyright: Janet Cameron



Tuesday 9 July 2013

Agony

                   
Copyright: Janet Cameron
                    

 ‘Dear Felicity,’ says the letter, ‘I have two lovers and I like them both a lot.  Trouble is the man I really love won’t look at me.  I’m going crazy...’ 
            Fliss drums her fingers on the dining room table.  ‘I’m not going to rise to it,’ she tells herself.  ‘I’m just not.’  It’s Fliss’ job to take her readers’ problems seriously.  That’s why she’s always bringing work home and it’s her personal pride to read every single letter sent to the magazine.  Whether it’s about dealing with anxiety, vague adolescent yearnings or the need to perk up a mature but flagging sex life, Fliss always specialises in impartial but sensitive advice. 
            Sometimes, she wonders what Charlene might say in her place.  Fliss likes Charlene, who’s sassy and smart-chatty with black hair that sticks out from her head in wet-gelled quills.  Charlene writes for a rival magazine, but the two women respect one another as professionals, sometimes even share a drink and a chat after work.  Seldom do they disagree on how to approach a relationship problem.
Pushing the tumbled mass of gold brown hair off her forehead, Fliss sinks her chin onto her hands and tries to tune into Charlene’s thought-waves. 
            ‘Have you nearly finished, Fliss?’ asks Matt.
            ‘A few more.’ Fliss gives her husband an affectionate glance. 
            ‘You’ve been working non-stop for a week,’ he grumbles, switching on the TV and she sighs.  How can she concentrate, with that noise?  Police sirens, car chases, gunshots, women screaming blue murder
            ‘Nearly finished.   Then we can look through the brochures for our holiday.’
            This imminent holiday in Austria – they’ve been looking forward to it for ages.  Fliss hopes they might go snowboarding, something she’s never tried before.  Imagining herself slaloming through lovely, slushy snow down a mountain slope in the bright sunshine is keeping her focussed.   She loves trying out new things, preferably involving speed and a sense of danger.  Not the sort of aspirations usually expected from a sober-looking, thirty-five year old career woman.  For Fliss, it’s the empowering buzz of a quick thrill, the quicker and more thrilling the better.  In the meantime, work still needs attention so she puts snowboarding, lovely slushy snow and gorgeous training instructors from her mind and gets her head down.  But the next letter makes her catch her breath.
            ‘Dear Felicity,’ it says, ‘I don’t know if I’m going mad, but I’m about to murder my wife.’
            She flicks through the sheets.   The letter is signed, ‘Yours Agonised.’
            ‘Oh my God!’ she mutters and re-reads the letter.  The woman sounds a real monster from the writer’s description:  She’s so sexy, says the letter, that any man who meets her is driven mad with lust.
 ‘Well, really!  That’s a bit over-the-top.’  But, like Shirley Valentine Fliss has to tell the wall, since Matt isn’t listening.
            The awful words leap out at her.  ‘I hate her...could kill her...driving me insane...I’ll get her.’  No indication of identity or place.  No date.  She can’t even check the envelope for a postmark because the bin men have already been.  
            From the letter, it’s clear the writer’s wife is abusive and evil-tempered.   Still, that’s no excuse for violence, so Fliss slips into the hallway to call the local police station.  She has to wait for ages to speak to someone, only to be told they’re short-handed and can’t help right now.  An officer will phone her back. 
Dejected, she snuggles up to Matt on their lush, leather sofa, but he’s absorbed in something on television about alien abductions.  She teases the back of his curly ginger hair with one hand, while tracing his clean-cut profile with the other.  He tries to push her away.
‘I’ve had a scary letter from a potential wife-killer.’
‘Either he’s loopy or she’s asking for it,’ mumbles Matt, which makes her angry and his nape hairs get a tug.  ‘Leave off,’ he growls.
That night, Fliss lies awake beside her sleeping husband, thinking how strange that whenever she receives an unusual letter it seems to mirror her own life problems.  She knows she’s been neglecting Matt recently and he keeps glaring at her, but then he turns away and becomes distant when she makes an effort to be more loving.  Somehow, they can’t seem to connect any more.  Still, she knows as well as anyone that all marriages go through these highs and lows – if you love your mate you just have to ride them out.
Next day, at the office, Fliss hands in her copy and her assistant, Jonathan, brings more letters.  She doesn’t tell him about Agonised whose contribution she’s left simmering in her pending tray for when the copshop is less ‘shorthanded’.
‘Lots of post for you today,’ says Jonathan.   She glances at the envelope on top, at the thick, stubby writing.  Angry writing!   Opening the envelope, she can’t stop her hands from trembling and there’s a black hole swallowing up her stomach.
‘She’s hard, uncaring.  She doesn’t deserve to live.’  And again, ‘I love her but she treats me like dirt.’
She phones Matt at work but he’s in a board meeting.  Annoyed at being called away, he’s abrupt when she most needs a few words of sympathy.  She feels her insides liquify and can’t bring herself to mention the letter.  ‘I wanted to say I love you.  I’m going to make something very special to eat tonight.’   Hearing the meekness in her own voice fills her with self-loathing.
‘We’ll talk later.  I’m busy now,’ says Matt.
 Agonised seems to take over her life.   The police interview her, make lots of notes and remove the threatening letters.   She prefers to be independent and not bother her editor with her problems, but now things have gone too far to keep them to herself.   He listens sympathetically enough, tells her to keep an eye on things and inform him of developments.  The next letter arrives two days later in a batch of mail posted direct to Felicity Minns Agony Column, minus the envelope.  She sets in motion a frantic but fruitless search for the missing envelope. 
‘Jonathan, make sure you save the envelopes from my mail and pin them to the letters, so I can show the police the postmarks,’ she tells him, more sharply than she intends.  Jonathan sulks for the rest of the day.   Her boss is out for a long lunch with some advertising clients and Fliss feels unbearably alone.
No more letters appear that week from Agonised’s poisonous pen.  When the weekend arrives, the sun shines but it doesn’t manage to ease Fliss’ doom-laden thoughts.  She can’t get the letters out of her mind.  The poison pen writer must be a real sicko!  Even so, he has to be somebody’s son, somebody’s brother, somebody’s husband.   Some ordinary woman just like Fliss is related to him.  It’s scary!  She’s relieved when it’s the weekend at last and she can safely relax at home.
‘What a lovely day!  Shall we do something special?  Visit a castle or something?’ she asks Matt on Sunday morning.
‘Whatever…’ says Matt.  Oh, how she hates that word, whatever when it’s used in that way, like an insult, as though speaker can’t be bothered to answer you.
‘It’s good to be alive,’ she tells Matt, more to convince herself than him.
‘Not for much longer,’ he growls.  
There’s a twisting in the pit of her stomach and she spins around.  ‘What?’
Matt nods towards the window.  ‘It’s black as thunder over there!   It’s coming this way.’
Hang on, Fliss, she tells herself, you’re getting paranoid.  What are you thinking of?  Making something out of an innocent remark like that.  Matt’s right.   You’re working too hard.  You need that holiday.  She bends over him and wraps her arms around him, burying her nose in his warm neck and feeling that little surge of wanting that has been lacking ever since Poison Pen Writer struck.   ‘Lovely, yummy Matt’, she gushes, ‘you really are such a sweetie.’
‘Tell you what,’ says Matt, who hates baby-talk, ‘Why don’t we take a week’s skiing break next week?’   
Why not?  Jonathan could cover for her.   What freedom!  What utter bliss!
Next evening, she decides to pop over to Mum’s while Matt watches football.  But her mother’s irritable so Fliss leaves a little earlier than usual, returns home and quietly lets herself in.  As she’s about to enter the living room, Matt’s on the phone and she hears him mention the name Charlene.   Something makes her stop and listen outside the door.
‘So you’ll come and help me, will you Charlie.  We’ll do it next Wednesday, shall we, halfway through the holiday.  I’ll get the maps.  You can persuade her to take the most... appropriate run.  One particular section will suit our purpose very well.  She’s bound to fall for it.’
Fliss starts to shake and her mouth is dry.  She’s shocked to the depths of her being.  Suddenly, everything is clear; they’re having an affair; their motives are simply lust and money.   Charlene won’t want to share the proceeds from the marital home and investments with Fliss when she sneaks off with her husband! 
Her husband and her best friend are planning to murder her.  Imagine! 
A terrible rage fills Fliss and she has to sink into her deep breathing to contain it.  It’s lucky I came back when I did, she tells herself.  Now she has to put a brave face on things and play a careful, waiting game if she’s going to foil their plans.
Taking a final breath, she cries, ‘I’m back,’ as though she’s just walked in and rushes into the kitchen for a glass of water.  She leans against the sink, waiting for the initial shock to subside.  Trawls her numbed brain for some sort of strategy. 
  The simplest way is not to go skiing with them.  Only, if she doesn’t go, they’ll just invent some other malicious scheme and she doesn’t have any evidence to support her case.  At least with the present state of play, she’s forewarned.  But what can she do to protect herself?  And also produce some proof of the threat to her life?
The threat to her life!  Experiencing fully the ominous meaning in that clichéd little phrase, Fliss begins to hyperventilate.  After Matt puts down the phone, he follows her into the kitchen, grinning.  ‘I’ve just been talking to Charlene.  You don’t mind if she joins us for the ski trip, do you?   I mean, we all get on well and Charlie hasn’t anyone to go away with since she dumped her bloke.  Fliss, what’s wrong?  Are you all right?’
Dumbly, Fliss shakes her head, telling Matt she has a headache and she sidles off to sleep in the spare room.  He looks confused, shrugs and then slinks back to watch the television.  She thinks what a good actor he is.
Next day, before catching the train for work, she goes to the police station.  She’s interviewed by a policeman, then another policeman, then a policewoman until her head is about to explode.  They ask her the same questions in subtly different ways and she’s sure they don’t believe her.  To be honest, Fliss doesn’t entirely blame them.  She wouldn’t believe her if she were in their place.  She gives them the name of the other police station near her office dealing with the poison pen letters.   Eventually, they agree to interview Matt and suggest a hotel for Fliss.  She hopes they’ll soon realise she’s terrified, take her seriously and agree with her that the best place for her husband is safely in prison. 
Next day, Fliss is more confused than ever.   She rings the police from work and they say they’ve arrested Matt.  Although she’s thankful her allegations have finally been taken seriously, everything is unbearable.  The terrifying thought of how close she has come to death, the equally distressing fact of Matt and Charlene’s betrayal, are simply doing in her head.  She can’t believe she’s still sane – and perhaps she isn’t.  She hates the hotel room with its blank, impersonal décor and so she decides to return home, for with Matt held at the station, she’s fairly safe. 
She can’t concentrate on anything, not a book, not the television, not even her favourite classical music.  She’s just contemplating her wedding ring when the phone goes.   Fliss pushes the cat off her lap to answer it and gasps at Charlene’s voice in her ear.  Fliss has forgotten about Charlene, but now she’s confused, for if they’ve arrested Matt, why not Charlene too, who is, after all, his accomplice? 
‘Hi there you,’ says Charlene, in her rich, brown-velvet voice, ‘it’s me.’  Fliss is amazed she still has that innocent lilt.  Fliss can picture Charlene in her executive chair, with her aggressive black spiky hairdo, her full, purple lips mouthing the treacherous words over her perfect, white Smile Clinic teeth.  ‘I can’t understand it,’ she complains.  ‘I’ve been trying to get hold of Matt at work and on his mobile, but he’s not replying.’
‘He’s at the police station’ say Fliss, then slams her hand over her mouth.  How could she be so indiscreet?  She must be losing it big-time.  Now she’ll have awkward questions to answer and she mustn’t convey her suspicions to Charlene.
‘Oh no!  What’s he done?’ cries Charlene.  ‘Had one too many and made a fool of himself in the street or is it something more serious?’
‘I’m afraid the skiing’s off.’
‘Oh dear!  Don’t you have any idea why the police are holding him?’ 
She’s got to give it to Charlene, she’s a great actress.  Almost as accomplished as Matt!  Charlene sounds shocked, as if she hasn’t the vaguest notion of why Matt is in police custody.
‘It’s serious.  I can say no more than that, Charlene, I’ve been asked not to.’
‘How long will they hold him?’
‘Well, the holiday’s off, Charlene, that’s for sure.’
There’s a pause as Charlene processes this information.  ‘What a shame!’ she says.  ‘I do hope the charges aren’t too awful.  I can’t understand why you won’t tell me, Fliss, you know I’d never let on.’
‘I can’t say a word,’ says Fliss firmly.
‘And Matt had such a wonderful surprise planned for you and now it’ll be spoiled.’  Charlene sounds genuinely regretful. 
‘Can you believe it, a wonderful surprise?’ thinks Fliss.  ‘Being murdered a wonderful surprise!’ 
 Somehow she keeps her voice level.  ‘Exactly what is this nice surprise?’ she asks guardedly, wondering if there’s something else that’s nothing to do with her being brutally murdered in the cold Austrian snow.
‘I’m not sure if Matt would want me to tell you.’ 
She waits.  Does Charlene need thinking time to come up with a credible explanation?  Or is there really a genuine surprise?   She knows Charlene, despite her profession, finds it impossible to keep secrets – it’s a mystery to Fliss that Matt would have shared a surprise for her with Charlene. 
And, sure enough, Charlene can’t help blabbing.   ‘Well, I suppose I may as well tell you.  I’m sure Matt won’t mind, as he’ll have to think of something else now.  You see Fliss, he wanted help you achieve your ambition.’
‘What ambition?’
‘You’ve always longed to snowboard down a black run.  So Matt planned it for you, for your birthday next Wednesday.  I have the snowboard here, in my flat, for safekeeping.  The plan was that when you got ready to ski down your favourite run, Matt was going to spring out on you with the snowboard.  Surprise!  Good, eh?  What a shame it’s all spoiled now.’
Suddenly, Fliss feels sick.   She searches in her mind for Matt’s exact words:  ‘You can persuade her to ski down the most appropriate run.  One particular section will suit our purpose very well.  She’s bound to fall for it.’
 ‘Charlene, I must go,’ she says quickly.
‘Just before you go, Fliss,’ warbles Charlene, ‘They got that man who wrote those poison pen letters?  I started getting some too and that helped nail him.  It’s amazing how the police manage to trace people from a few anonymous letters.  I can’t imagine how they do it.  So at least you have no more worries about him.’
Bleakly Fliss puts the phone back in its cradle and sinks her head into her hands.

‘No worries!’ she croaks.  ‘Charlene, if only you knew!’

Monday 15 April 2013

Net of Gold









Rose tries to ring Alice again later.  Her niece is kind but can be awkward and takes great and noisy offence at any possible slight.  But Alice still isn’t there and there’s nothing Rose can do.  So she potters with a duster, reads her book and takes a little nap.

Later, when Aunt Rose doesn’t turn up, Alice telephones, waking her up.  But has Rose’s chair sunk lower or is she just getting older?  By the time Rose heaves herself to her feet and answers, she’s puffing a little because she always feels compelled to hurry at the telephone’s loud and peremptory ring.  Leaning on the telephone stand, she lowers herself onto the pouffe and allows Alice to lead off.  Experience has taught her it is pointless interrupting.

‘You’d think she would have rung if she wasn’t coming,’ grumbled Alice. 

‘Maybe she did.  Maybe she rang while you were out.  You know she’s confused by answerphones.  And she’s got a lot on her mind, what with Russell being poorly and unable to be left,’ said Alice’s husband, Matt.  Russell is a cat with a tendency to swallow bits of furball.  

So Alice tells Rose about all the things she could have done if she’d known her aunt wasn’t coming.  Like going to town or to scrabble club or coffee with friends.  Instead, she has set aside this time for Rose – and Rose has inconsiderately found something better to do.  Incensed, Alice tells Rose how disgracefully she takes advantage of her good nature.

‘I shouldn’t give in to you, Rose,’ she says.   ‘I shouldn’t be so accommodating.  You’re just not being fair on me.   It’s awfully ungrateful.’

‘Sorry,’ says Rose, forgetting she remembered to phone Alice twice and that her niece wasn’t there.  All this has gone out of her head and instead, she is suffused with shame.  ‘Sorry I forgot to phone you, dear.’  Russell, feeling better now, tabbily twines himself around Rose’s legs and she lets her hand slide lovingly over his head, along his sinewy back. 

‘It can’t be that important to you then, Rose,’ snaps Alice.

‘What we do is always important to me,’ says Rose with dignity.  ‘It was just – I must have forgotten.’  But Alice is inconsolable and refuses to speak another word to her Aunt Rose.  When her niece cuts her off, Rose stares, bewildered, at the ear piece, and, to distract herself, sets to polishing the grandmother clock in the corner.

It gets Rose down.  She’s a smart old lady, witty and intelligent despite her occasional forgetfulness, and Alice’s coldness brings a heaviness to her legs and to her heart and her joints become stiffer and creakier.   Her eyes get smaller and duller and her mouth is thin and straight. 

She worries, forgets what day it is and misses church on Sunday.  ‘I didn’t actually forget church,’ she tells the vicar on the phone.  ‘I just forgot it was Sunday.’

‘Never mind, Rose,’ says the vicar.  ‘We’ll see you next week as usual.’

‘Will you pray for me, vicar?’

‘Of course I will, if you want me to.  Although you can take a more direct route and pray to Him yourself, you know.’

‘I don’t think so,’ says Rose sadly.

‘Any particular reason you want me to pray for you?’

‘Please tell God I’m not wicked.  It wasn’t that he’s not important to me.  I forgot that’s all.’

The vicar stifles a chuckle.  ‘I’ll tell him Rose, don’t worry.  God won’t hold it against you.’

‘I hope not,’ says Rose.  ‘Although he’s the only one if he doesn’t.’  

She feels shaky as she replaces the receiver and forgets to check it’s firmly in its cradle.  Instead, she shuffles into the garden to refill the bird feeder with the special seed balls she makes herself.  It’s an effort because Rose has to stretch out her arms full-length to reach the feeder fixed high in the branch of the apple tree, well away from the cat.  (Strangely, Russell doesn’t seem to know he’s a cat and is scared of heights.)  It’s a colourful garden, the pansies welcome her full-on with their pretty faces, but even that fails to console her.

ALICE:

When Alice decides to phone Aunt Rose, there’s no answer, not even a ringing tone.

‘Silly old coot,’ says Alice.  ‘She’s left it off the hook.’

‘You’ll have to go round there, just in case,’ says Alice’s husband.

‘I know.  I’ve had it right up to here with her,’ Alice slams the side of her hand against her temple.  ‘She should be in a home.’

Alice puts on her Burberry mac and the green knee-length boots with the buckles and sets off to call on Rose.  In time to her footsteps, she mutters under her breath, ‘Silly old coot.  Silly old coot.’  A light drizzle stings her cheeks and eyes.  She glances enviously at gaps in curtains in lighted windows.  Lucky people enjoying their evenings in front of Eastenders!  Lucky people who don’t have loopy old aunties to plague their lives!

But Aunt Rose doesn’t answer the doorbell.  Nor does she answer her telephone when Alice stamps out her number on her mobile.  Alice bangs on the door, shouts through the letterbox, rouses the neighbours on both sides. 

‘There’s no sign of Rose.  I looked everywhere.  Where is she?’ yells Alice. 

‘A careworker came round and next minute, there was an ambulance outside,’ said Mr. Herbert.  ‘They took her out on a stretcher.’

‘Oh, heavens!’ says Alice.

‘Sorry not to be of more help,’ says Mr. Herbert.  ‘Our tea’s ready so we must go now.’

Alice is deeply shocked at how casually the Herberts are behaving.  They leave her punching out the number of the local hospital on her mobile. 

‘Poor Aunt Rose.  People can be terribly callous,’ she sobs as she waits for the call to be answered.

Yes, Rose has been admitted.  Yes, as Alice is her niece, she may visit, but not for too long as the patient needs rest and a number of medical tests.   A tear courses down Alice’s cheek, making a river on her mascara-smudged cheeks as she writes down the name of the ward.

Immediately, Alice takes a taxi to the hospital and rushes along interminable corridors until she finds Aunt Rose, her pale, frightened eyes flickering above an oxygen mask, her normally curly white hair lying moist and flat on her forehead.  On seeing her niece, Rose fumbles and pushes the mask away, crying, ‘I want to come home.’ 

 Murmuring reassurance, Alice arranges the mask back into position. She explains and explains to Rose, but the old lady remains agitated.  ‘You have to have some tests,’ insists Alice, trying hard to be patient.  ‘You have to have an Xray and a blood test and a biopsy.’

‘I feel perfectly all right,’ says Rose, by now, pumped so full of steroids that this is perfectly true.  ‘And I don’t need that.  I can’t talk properly through it.’  She rips off the oxygen mask and stares balefully at Alice.  ‘The food in here is terrible,’ she says with a grimace.

‘What did you have to eat?’

‘I don’t know but it was horrible.’

‘What did it look like?’

‘It was flat and squashed and it looked like measles,’ says Rose.

Suddenly, Alice starts to laugh.  She laughs and laughs and laughs.  Rose is delighted to have so amused Alice and puts out her ancient hand, its loose flesh freckled with age spots and Alice takes it and presses it to her mouth with exquisite tenderness.

‘I made you laugh, Alice.’   Although Rose can hardly get her breath, it’s a triumphant whisper.

‘Oh, Rose…’ murmurs Alice.  ‘You know you haven’t eaten, don’t you?   You haven’t had all your tests yet and your bed’s got a Nil by Mouth.  You must be thinking of some other time.’

Blinking back the tears, Alice spots a framed verse in calligraphy on the window sill by Rose’s bed, perhaps left by a previous patient, which resonates, painfully, in her head. 

‘The sunlight on the garden 
Hardens and grows cold, 
We cannot cage the minute 
Within its net of gold.’


‘It reminds me of you, Rose’ says Alice, ‘that lovely verse on the wall.   It’s by Louis MacNiece.  Shall I read it to you?’

Rose doesn’t seem to hear her.

‘You know, Aunt Rose,’ she whispers, ‘I haven’t always been as kind to you as I should be.’  She strokes Rose’s hand which lies in her palm.  Tenderly, she fingers the bent knuckles, traces tiny circles around the brown age-spots.

Aunt Rose doesn’t respond but there is a soft smile on her face, as though she’s found Heaven’s own net of gold to be everything she’d hoped for.