Black Valley (2 page)

‘Well, that’s the problem with claustrophobia.’ Jess took care to name the disorder clearly. ‘It can be cumulative, you see. Avoiding things you’re afraid of can
increase your fear in the long term.’

Elinor didn’t reply. Instead, she sat up. ‘Do you mind if I open the window a bit more?’

Without waiting for a response, she reached up and opened the window as far as it would go. Then she lay back down on the couch again.

This is going to be a rough ride, thought Jess. Her new client had a disconcerting way of doing the opposite of what she’d just advised. All the same, she found herself intrigued.

‘Could you tell me a little about how this started?’ Jess shivered as a draught of cold air hit her. It was spring, but it still felt like winter. How anyone could sleep outside in
this weather she couldn’t imagine.

Elinor thought for a moment, gazing up at the branches on the tree. She seemed quite comfortable in the icy blast. Then she took a deep breath, and spoke.

‘Four months ago, my mother was found dead in my house. Someone broke in and stole a valuable painting.’ Her tone was abrupt, as if she was summoning a toughness she didn’t
possess. ‘I was the person who found her. She’d been beaten about the head.’

Jessica was shocked, but she tried not to show it. There were housebreakers in Cardiff, like anywhere else, but it wasn’t the sort of place where, in the normal run of things, people got
murdered in the course of a robbery. She cast her mind back. She had a faint recollection of reading about the crime in the paper, or hearing of it on the news, but at the time she hadn’t
paid it much attention. Now she wished she had.

‘The police don’t know who did it. They’ve got no leads, and no witnesses have come forward.’ Elinor turned her face to the wall. ‘I’m sorry, I still find
this difficult to talk about.’

‘Of course.’ Jessica did her best to reassure her. ‘Please, don’t feel you need to go into details at this stage.’

This was a tricky situation, Jess knew. According to the latest thinking on post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD as it’s known in the trade, beginning any kind of counselling too soon
after the event in question can be counterproductive, because the mind responds by ‘splitting’: that is, using the unconscious part to work through the horror, while the conscious part
gets on with the business of living. Asking a client to recall the experience can disturb this delicate process. In terms of the current guidelines, Jessica was on safe ground, because according to
Elinor, the event had occurred four months ago. But over the course of twenty years in practice, Jess had seen the guidelines change so often that these days she tended to rely on the unscientific
factor of hunch. And her hunch told her that if her new client didn’t want to talk about her mother’s violent death with someone she didn’t yet know or trust, she shouldn’t
be pushed into doing so.

‘I felt pretty bad just after it happened,’ Elinor went on, turning her head back. ‘I had nightmares, flashbacks.’ She paused. ‘But I’m sleeping better now,
and the flashbacks have gone. It’s just the claustrophobia that’s bothering me.’

Jess thought about taking her through a checklist of other PTSD symptoms – hypervigilance, difficulty concentrating, irritability – but decided against it. She didn’t want to
interrupt Elinor’s flow.

‘I still get anxious when I talk about what happened. And I still can’t concentrate. I haven’t got back to work yet. I’m a painter, you see. A fine artist, not a house
painter. That’s what I do for a living.’ She paused again. ‘Well, when I can make a living.’ Her brow furrowed. ‘Anyway, that’s what I do.’

Jess was struck by the combination of directness and insecurity in her manner. She seemed quite sure of her status as a painter, a fine artist as she called it, yet not altogether convinced that
anyone else would believe what she said.

‘Elinor – d’you mind if I call you Elinor?’

‘That’s fine.’

‘Well, it’s very early days, isn’t it?’ Jess chose her words with care. ‘Your . . . loss . . . was only a few months ago. It’s hardly surprising that you
should find it difficult to get back to work right away.’

‘Yes, but I don’t think it’s that.’ A sudden look of panic came into Elinor’s eyes. ‘It’s a punishment, you see. I’m guilty, and this is my
punishment.’

She came to a halt.

Silence fell. Jess knew Elinor would continue, so she didn’t break it. And sure enough, after a while, Elinor resumed her story.

‘It was my fault. I shouldn’t have kept the painting in the studio. Everyone told me that.’

She passed a hand over her brow, and when she took it away, Jess saw that there were tears in her eyes.

‘I live alone, you see. I’m single. My mother was just visiting. She had a key; she used to let herself in whenever she wanted.’ She paused. ‘She always told me the
painting should be kept somewhere safe. This would never have happened if I’d listened to her.’ Her voice was trembling. ‘I feel terribly guilty about her death. I blame myself
entirely.’

Jess decided against telling her that feelings of guilt are common among survivors of a tragedy. It was a truism, and besides, she couldn’t assume that this woman had no reason to feel
guilty about her mother. As yet she knew nothing of their relationship. So instead, she changed the subject.

‘You say you find it hard to talk about your mother’s death’ – Jessica took care not to emphasize the word ‘death’, but she felt it should be used –
‘and I fully respect that. But I’m just wondering if you’re ready to come into therapy yet. As I said, it’s very early days.’

‘Well, I’ve got to do something. I can’t carry on like this, can I?’ Elinor’s voice rose in anguish. ‘I can’t travel. I open windows wherever I
go.’ She furrowed her brow. ‘D’you think you can help me?’

There was a pause.

‘I don’t know.’ Jessica was honest in her reply. ‘It’s up to you, really. You see, the way I work, we’d have to discuss your mother’s death. The
circumstances surrounding it, your relationship with her, and so on. We would be looking for explanations for your claustrophobia there. But if you’re not ready to delve deeper into that,
there are other ways of helping you with your problem. Cognitive behavioural therapy, for example. CBT, as it’s known. There’s a method a colleague of mine uses that’s been
specially formulated to help people who’ve been exposed to traumatic events. I can refer you, if you like.’

‘No thanks.’ Elinor waved a dismissive hand. ‘I’ve heard of CBT. I don’t fancy it.’

‘Oh?’

‘Identifying your negative thoughts. Adjusting them. Making checklists. Writing out worksheets. It sounds tedious.’

Jess was amused. Although she respected her colleague, and knew many clients who had been helped greatly by CBT, she had to admit she felt rather the same. If one was honest, the type of therapy
one practised, or chose to follow, was usually more a question of taste than a rational decision, whether or not one cared to admit it.

‘But that approach can be very effective,’ Jess said, in an effort to be fair. ‘It’s extremely practical. You’ll develop ways of managing your fear, coping with
everyday tasks, using various techniques—’

‘I don’t want that.’ There was a note of irritation in Elinor’s voice. ‘I don’t want to make checklists and be given homework to do. That’s not the type
of person I am.’

Jessica repressed a smile. She was beginning to warm to her new client. There was something endearingly direct about her.

‘I suppose, being an artist, I’m more drawn to a Jungian view of the world,’ Elinor went on. ‘You know, dreams, archetypes, mythologies. That kind of thing. What about
you?’

‘Oh.’ Jess thought for a moment. She didn’t want to sound too theoretical, but there was no way round it. ‘I’m what’s called an existential
psychotherapist.’

Elinor frowned, whether in concentration or irritation it was hard to say.

‘It’s actually quite simple,’ Jess continued. ‘We’re rooted in Freudian theory, but we emphasize choice and freedom, rather than the idea that we’re the
victims of our past.’

‘But I thought psychotherapy was all about the past. Delving into your childhood and so on.’

‘It is, to some degree. Of course, the circumstances of our birth, and our upbringing, are vital to our understanding of ourselves. And, to a greater or lesser degree, we’re limited
by those circumstances. But every person has a set of choices as to how to respond to those limits.’ She paused. She didn’t want to come over as didactic. ‘And if we’re to
live full, engaged lives, we have to acknowledge our freedom to make those choices, and act on them.’

Elinor looked puzzled. ‘So how would this apply to my situation?’

‘I don’t really know what your situation is. Not yet, anyway.’ Jess hesitated. ‘But it’s possible that your claustrophobia may be what we call a “call of
conscience”. It may be trying to tell you that there’s something you need to address in your life.’ She paused. ‘You see, normally we tell a story about our lives, like the
one you’ve just told me. But sometimes our bodies and our minds tell
us
a story, and we need to stop and listen.’

There was a long silence. Elinor looked pensive. Her eyes began to rove around the room. She seemed to be assessing it: the sash windows, the pale green velvet curtains either side of the bay,
the antique wooden desk in the corner, the white-on-white Ben Nicholson-style relief on the wall. As the silence deepened, the consulting room seemed to take on a life of its own: peaceful,
patient, expectant. The two of them, client and analyst, became aware of the low hum of traffic from the street, the faint rustle of the wind in the tree outside, the ticking of the clock on the
mantelpiece. Secrets had been revealed here, maps redrawn, the compass realigned, new paths plotted. Jess was familiar with that history, that potency; she sensed it every time she walked into the
room. For her new client, it was the first time.

‘All right, then.’ Elinor’s voice finally broke the silence. ‘When can I start?’

After Elinor Powell left, Jess didn’t have time to think further about the case. Four more clients came in, all of them with pressing concerns: there was Harriet, a
morbidly obese young woman with a complex set of emotional problems; Bryn, a man in his fifties who continued to rage against his widowed mother, on whom he was still entirely dependent; Maria, a
single parent whose children were being taken into care as a result of her deepening depression; and Deri, a banker who had recently, and quite unexpectedly, lost his job in the City and returned
home to Wales.

At the end of the final session, Jess hurriedly wrote up her notes, dealt with her emails, then headed for home, stopping on the way to pick up a trolleyful of shopping at the supermarket. It
was only on the short drive from there to her house on the outskirts of Cardiff that her mind began to stray back to her new client. All she knew so far was that Elinor’s mother had died a
violent death during a robbery at her house. That would be enough to tip anyone into phobia, she reflected. Moreover, the fact that the police hadn’t found the perpetrator meant that Elinor
would continue to be in a state of heightened emotion until exactly what happened became clear. It was odd, though, the way she’d behaved in the session, as if she constantly needed to assert
herself in opposition to her new therapist. Maybe that was something to do with the mother; or perhaps a competitive sibling relationship . . .

It began to rain. She switched on the windscreen wipers, but they scratched ineffectually at the window. They needed changing, and she hadn’t yet got around to it.

As she swung onto the main drag out of the city, peering through the smears on the glass, she thought of how Elinor had talked of her mother’s death in terms of guilt and punishment. It
was common enough, she knew, for clients to consider themselves responsible for events outside their control. The urge to blame themselves for anything and everything that went wrong was a kind of
egomania she’d encountered many times with her clients, and she’d long ago realized that it was a perverse attempt to take control of the situation, to place themselves at the centre of
the drama, rather than acknowledge that their role in what happened, good or bad, was often quite peripheral. Elinor had evidently fallen into that trap, judging by what she’d told her so
far.

She left the city behind her, moving into a stretch of road where the trees clustered overhead. As she dipped down under them, she noticed that the leaves on the branches were beginning to
unfurl; soon they would spread into a tunnel of green. The sight of them cheered her. She was always heartened by those first crumpled, sticky signs of spring. This year, after the long, hard
winter, they’d been late, and she’d wondered if they’d come at all; but now, here they were, waiting to open out into a dappled canopy above her, something she could enjoy each
time she took the road home.

She was tempted to look up the case on the Internet. After all, it was public knowledge now, having been reported in the local papers at the time. But, like a juror in a trial, she’d made
it a strict rule not to conduct such searches, unless her clients specifically asked her to. It was up to them, she felt, to tell her their stories in their own way; knowing too much about their
personal lives didn’t help that process, since she’d be comparing what they said against her own supposedly more objective account, and forming her own opinions, which was not the point
of the exercise. On the contrary, her job was to help her clients explore the internal contradictions within the stories they told about themselves, and let the truth emerge from that. Besides,
there was a voyeuristic element to googling that she disliked; where her clients were concerned it felt intrusive, and nosy, and generally underhand.

She came out from under the branches and turned into the lane that led to her house, passing the church on her right. The ringing of the bells on a Sunday morning reassured her, too, although
she never went to the services. As she parked the car outside the garage, she reflected that it was continuity she needed at the moment. She and Bob had lived apart for several months now; she
needed to remain here in the house, with a settled routine, keep the job going, make sure the girls felt secure . . .