Honest (6 page)

Sighing,
leaning on my stick, the iPod in bits, I looked back at my pillow, plumped up
and inviting. The space where the head should have been was gone, and so was
the song. I looked back and forth between them, my panting breaths the only
sound to be heard anymore.

Somehow, that
didn’t comfort me.

Chapter Eight

The counsellor
came again a week later. We did the same routine, one that I knew we’d stick to
from now on: I let her in, we go to the living room, she sits on the couch in
her brown suit with her plum red hair. I sit in my wheelchair. Rinse and
repeat.

By now the
house looked a little more lived–in, which she picked up on with a forced grin
on her face. ‘What’s that you’ve been reading?’ she asked, nodding at the
magazines scattered on the armchair by the fireplace.

‘It’s
Cosmopolitan
,’
I said. ‘Just a magazine.’

‘Oh,’ she
said, nodding, twirling her pen between her long fingers. ‘Anything good?’

I shrugged.
‘How to dress for an interview. There was an article about marriage, and
whether women considered marriage a sign of success.’

‘And what did
you think about it?’

I shrugged
again. ‘I don’t know. I suppose if you can’t please a man, you can’t perform
the most basic task a woman possesses by nature. That’s what we were made for.’

Melanie
frowned and cocked her head to one side, her curls bobbing. ‘How so?’

‘I’m not
religious but I suppose there’s the whole Adam and Eve thing. Evolution. Male
stags fight to the death over the females,’ I said.

‘Ah, but do
humans behave the same way, do you think?’

‘Well, yeah.
It’s just...I don’t know how to explain it.’

‘Try.’

I scratched my
head. When I pulled my hand away, a few strands of hair came with it. I tucked
them under my leg. ‘Guys don’t fight over girls ‘cause they have more choice.
You have to
make
them like you. And if you don’t, then you aren’t good
enough and you won’t get picked. They won’t even notice you’re alive.’

Melanie tapped
the pen on her pad of paper. ‘Do you honestly think that, hm?’

‘That’s
basically what they say in the articles. I mean they don’t come right out with
it, but it’s...What’s it called? That English term. Rhetoric?’

She smiled,
but her eyes remained cold. She was getting concerned, I could tell. I was
experienced with these things from my last counsellor. This was how it all
starts. I knew that any minute now, she was going to ask me about
him
.

‘Well that’s
nicely observed. You should look into journalism. Are you interested in
journalism? I know you haven’t applied to go to any colleges in September,
but—’

‘I really
don’t want to,’ I said. ‘I don’t see the point. I was thinking of taking up
photography or something like that.’

‘Well, it’s
the perfect location for it, with all this scenery on your doorstep. How’s
things with dad?’

My body went
cold. In my mind I could hear a tapping sound on a door, followed by a bed
creaking. In my mind’s eye I could see Peter’s silhouette on the cliff top. I
could see frosting smeared on a toilet seat. I pinched the bridge of my nose, bowed
my head, and closed my eyes.

‘Ellen? What’s
the matter, not feeling well?’ Melanie tapped my bad knee with her fingertips.

‘That’s my bad
leg,’ I said, flinching. I opened my eyes. ‘Everything’s fine. He’s at work.’

‘Good, good.’
She took a slow, deep breath.
Here it comes
, I thought. She wasn’t done
yet. And I was right.

‘Ellen, I
wonder if we could chat a little bit about Dennis Denton. You might have heard
recently that—’

I clamped my
hands over my ears. ‘Shut up,’ I said. ‘Not today.’

Her cold eyes
softened. ‘We’ll have to at some point, Ellen. We’ve got things to address. We
need to discuss you being here when—’

‘It’s fine,’ I
urged, tightening my hands over my ears. Her mouth kept moving, but I squeezed
and squeezed so hard I couldn’t hear a word of it. When the mouth stopped
moving, I took my hands away.

‘Were you
listening to me? We’ve got to sort this out, Ellen. I’m worried.’

‘Don’t be,’ I
said. I had no idea what she was worried about, seeing as I wasn’t listening. I
just knew I didn’t want to talk about Peter’s dad. Not now. Not when things
were going so well.

‘I’ve got a
boyfriend,’ I said, smiling.

‘Wh—oh? A
boyfriend? Back at home, you mean? Sharon didn’t make mention of that in the
information she forwarded to me.’ She began rifling through her papers, a deep
crease in her forehead. She gave up.

‘Sharon
wouldn’t know. I haven’t told her.’

Melanie nodded
quickly, still picking at the papers, itching to search again. ‘Right, right.
And this is a boyfriend back in London? Where did you meet him?’

‘No, he’s not
in London. He lives here.’

Her eyes
widened. ‘But you haven’t been here very long. How old is he, Ellen?’

‘Forty–two,’ I
said, rolling my eyes. ‘We’re very much in love.’

Melanie put
her pen down and sighed. ‘Oh Ellen, please. Let’s not do this. I have to ask
these questions, you know that. I just want to establish that you’re safe and
in control.’

‘Of course I
am,’ I said. ‘Things happen fast sometimes. I’ve read a million stories about
these girls who knew they loved someone the first time they met them. People
who got married after three weeks, stuff like that.’

She cocked an
eyebrow. ‘So you’ve already decided you love this man?’

‘I don’t
know,’ I said, smiling. ‘You know how it is. What is it they say?’ I searched
my mind, filing through article after article in
Comso
,
Marie Claire
....In
the end it was the simplest, most common phrase that came to mind. ‘Treat them
mean, keep them keen,’ I said, grinning in triumph.

‘Right. So
where did you meet? How old is he? I mean, what’s his name?’ I could see she
was getting frustrated already, her hands flapping about while her cheeks went
as red as her hair. As far as she was concerned, I was a victim of child abuse
— I wasn’t supposed to be into boys. I wasn’t supposed to be remotely concerned
with them, not until I felt ‘stable’ and ‘ready’.

Well, that was
my decision, not hers.

‘I’ve known
him forever. His name is David.’

She put her
pen down again and looked at me, her eyes glazing over. ‘David Peirce.’

I looked down
at my knees, smiling, suddenly feeling very coy. ‘Might be.’

There was a
long pause. It was a grey afternoon, and the living room was dark and dull. Her
eyes stuck out like two coloured diamonds, watching me. ‘Ellen, David Peirce is
one of my—’ she shut her lips tight before she could say anymore. I could
practically hear her cursing herself inwardly.

‘Client
confidentiality,’ I said, grinning. ‘I could report you for that, you know.’

She sat back
in her seat and exhaled deeply. ‘That was a slip of the tongue, I’m sorry.
Look, what I’m trying to say is that I know David has as girlfriend, and it
isn’t you, Ellen.’

‘What?’ I
said, going cold.

‘David’s
girlfriend is called Lauren. They’ve been together a couple of years now.’

I bit my lip.
‘Well, it’s early days yet. I never said—’

‘Your words
were
I have a boyfriend
, Ellen. David Peirce is seeing Lauren.’

‘Lauren
Anders. Yeah, yeah, I know her name,’ I said, huffing. I pulled one of the
loose hairs off my hand and toyed with it. ‘Look, things are rocky between
them. And what with me returning after all this time...Well, it’s like one of
those
Cosmo
stories isn’t it?’

‘No, it
isn’t,’ said Melanie. ‘How do you know her surname? Ellen? What is that you’re
playing with?’

‘My hair,’ I
said, wrapping it around my finger.

‘Ellen, you’re
not losing your hair again, are you? Sharon put in the report—’

‘Shut up! I’m
not talking about Bulimia today. Or Dennis.’

Melanie leaned
forward, arms resting on her knees. She stared intently into my eyes. ‘Ellen,
we will have to talk about Dennis at some point today, because there’s news—’

I clamped my
hands over my ears again. She sighed and stopped talking. When I took my hands
away, she continued. ‘But I want to know more about what you’ve been saying is
going on between you and David. How many times have you seen one another?’

‘A couple,’ I
said.

‘Ahuh. And
does dad know you’ve been seeing David?’

‘Dad said I
should go and say hi to him. He wanted me to.’

She nodded
slowly. ‘Right. So what has made you think there might be something going on
between you two?’

‘He kissed me
in his car. He even touched me.’ I felt my breast with my hand to show her
exactly where, just to rub it in her face a little. If there was one thing I
hated about counsellors, it was their inability to let anyone else be happy,
especially their clients. You had to be firm with these people.

She took my
hand and pulled it off my breast. ‘That’s enough, Ellen. I get the point.’ Her
eyes were wide, alarmed. ‘Look, Ellen, if what you’re saying is true—’

‘It is. I’m
seventeen, for Christ’s sake. It’s up to me if I want to let David touch me
up.’

‘I know that,’
said Melanie. ‘But in all seriousness Ellen, I’m finding this — no, no. All
right. If you say it happened, then fine, it happened. Would you like me to
take this up with David?’

‘No!’ I said.
‘Why? Why would you do that?’

Melanie
crossed one leg over the other. ‘Ellen, this is your first time back since the
boat accident. This is a lot for you to take in. I’m concerned because you’ve
made no indication to Sharon that you’re ready for a relationship, not since
the abuse and the tragic accident with Peter. I mean your leg is barely healed
and Dennis’ sentence has just been—’

‘Shut the fuck
up about Dennis!’ I shouted, moving so abruptly I nearly fell from my
wheelchair. ‘And don’t you dare bring up Peter! If I want to talk about Peter,
I will.’ I fiercely wiped the tears from my eyes.

Melanie
pressed her lips together. ‘David has been in contact with me, Ellen. If you
want to talk about David, then fine, but you won’t like it. He seems to think
someone has been calling his house at all hours and he thinks you might know
who it is. He’s also made no mention of you and him being an item.’

I ground my
teeth together. How dare he! ‘What? So you already knew about all of this and
you didn’t say anything.’

‘No,’ said
Melanie. ‘David made a complaint because he knew there was a likelihood that I
would be visiting with you.’

‘He’s lying,’
I said. ‘I don’t have his number. He came on to
me.
’

‘Calm down,’
said Melanie, holding her hands up and waving them up and down, as if I was a
puff of smoke that she wanted to waft away. ‘You might be getting confused. You
haven’t had much experience with men and that’s completely understandable, but
where David is concerned—’

‘Are you
saying I’m naive? Are you saying I don’t know how to handle men? Please!’

‘Don’t make
this harder than it is.’ Melanie pleaded, leaning over to touch me again. I
batted her hand away. The thought of her touching me made my skin crawl, the
old witch. ‘Since Dennis was put away you and Sharon have made some real
progress getting over the abuse. Coming back here was a bad idea on your
father’s part. It might be a good idea if the two of you went back home where
you weren’t surrounded by old faces.’

‘Dennis was a
dirty old bastard and he deserved to be put away,’ I insisted, gripping the
arms of my chair for strength. It was a painful, painful thing to say about
Peter’s father.

‘I know, I
know,’ said Melanie. ‘But do you think getting involved with David — in
whatever
way — is really going to help you come to terms with what happened?’

‘What do you
want me to do, run away? I’m not doing it! This is my cottage and this is where
Peter died and this is my fucking home and that little bitch isn’t going to
shove me out of here! She isn’t! He loves me, I know he does, he always has—’

‘Wait, wait,
wait, calm down. Who are we talking about here?’

‘Peter!’ I
cried, my nose dribbling. I wiped it with my arm and smacked the tires of my
chair, breathing heavily.

‘Then who’s
‘she’? Who’s trying to push you out?’

I thought
rapidly, my eyes searching around the room for clues and finding nothing. ‘I
don’t know,’ I said. I really didn’t.

‘We were
talking about Lauren before. Is that what you think is going to happen? Maybe
you feel like David has moved on—’

I held my hand
up to stop her. A thought was coming to me. A memory of when Peter was alive.

His mum,
Diane, golden tanned skin with her Moroccan hair and English face — English
rose, they called it in Cosmo— hugging Peter, folding his underwear, making his
bed, changing his sheets. Smiling, all the time, smiling. She looks at Peter
like she really loves him, more than me, more than I could ever love him. It’s
a love I can’t understand
—

‘Peter,’ I
said, weeping, staring at the threadbare carpet.

‘What does Lauren
have to do with Peter, Ellen? Try and think. Let’s try and get to the bottom of
this.’

‘No.’ I
covered my face and cried, my shoulders hunching up, my whole body shaking.
Suddenly I felt so small. I could see Dennis’ face in my mind, and Diane’s, and
I could remember how good it felt to see her face crumbling up into something
way beyond terror. Even after everything, I’d still relished that moment. It
had felt
good
.

 ‘I want to be
left alone. Go away.’

She patted my
knee. I could sense her pausing, as if to say one final thing. Deciding against
it, she silently left the house.

I thought of
Peter again. I thought of his dark shape at the end of the boat. I thought of
him sinking down into the depths. I thought of the ocean swallowing me, then a
huge weight on my leg, unbelievable pain, before a great dark cloud billowed
out around me and blinded me to Peter forever.