good trying to turn you on!’ she said, frowning.
‘TV is in the corner, love. That’s the way,’ the attendant called encouragingly.
Nora’s basic needs were met. She was fed, helped to wash, and clothed. And now there were fairies in the garden. Martin smiled ruefully. Would she care if he did not turn up again? He bent down gingerly to kiss her forehead. His lips could have been touching a statue on a winter’s evening.
ANDREW HAS BEEN scribbling notes, as he normally does when Martin visits him. The psychiatrist pauses to read what he has written.
How can there be love, Martin wonders, when I am so reluctant to visit Nora? Perhaps he feels servitude to the memories of companionship, to the unwavering strength and consolation Nora had offered him when it mattered most? ‘You are a strange man, Martin,’ she had said to him once. ‘Kind and gentle, but I can never really reach you. It is as if you are acomforting voice on a telephone. You hide behind such large shadows.’
‘You haven’t opened up either,’ he had reminded her. ‘There are times when you retreat within yourself. I try not to follow you. Is it asking too much for you to do the same for me?’ Evasiveness. In a way they were similar.
Andrew closes his notepad with a grunt. ‘I would like to think that you will be honest with me, tell me everything, even though it may be painful. Otherwise progress will be very difficult.’ It’s a repetition, almost word for word, from their very first session. Martin wonders about the intervening years in this room, about what Andrew’s experiences with his clients have taught him.
There is an endearing honesty and earnestness about Andrew. He has helped me, Martin admits readily to himself. But he also derives a peculiar satisfaction from misleading a cleverer man: it frees him from the image of himself as a prey being pursued deep into the dimness of a forest.
The deceit of omission preserves his own right to privacy.
Ever since his first visit to the psychiatrist, Martin has left out part of an afternoon from the Vietnam days. There are times when he feels that he ought to have regurgitated it all and coped with the release of guilt. After all, in the days after Martin’s marriage had ended, Andrew had selflessly given extra time and negotiated him through an unsettled period. And had Martin been more forthcoming with Moira too about his days in Vietnam, she might have been less bewildered.
The strain on her must have been unbearable. There were nightmares. Yelling and incoherent mumbling. Lengthyshowers in the middle of the night coupled with the frenetic scrubbing of his body, as though in an act of ritualistic cleansing. Imitative noise of guns and exploding grenades. When he was unable to bear it any longer, Martin buried his head under a pillow. He was cowed by the accusing looks of imagined faces. Mangled bodies and the warmth of spurting blood. The noise of flies on corpses and the faint rustling of leaves like a serrated knife scraping the nerves.
But Nora—he cannot betray Nora. The truth about her mental state is a mystery anyway. To what extent might she be faking the seriousness of her condition? He recalls her saying once, when they swapped stories about their school days, ‘I loved drama. I lived for the school plays. I would take any part as long as I could play the role convincingly. Acting is so close to what we are and how we behave in life. My favourite was Puck. Once I gave up the part of Prospero to play Ariel. I was determined to go to NIDA.’
Andrew turns the long pause to good use. ‘You are a deceptively complex person.’ A professional evaluation without any trace of exasperation, malice or flattery. It pleases Martin. This is an affirmation of the secret labyrinth within him.
At last he meets the psychiatrist’s look. ‘I think of myself as an ordinary bloke who scratches a living by doing odd jobs. Someone with no ambitions. No desire to do anything else. I
‘TV is in the corner, love. That’s the way,’ the attendant called encouragingly.
Nora’s basic needs were met. She was fed, helped to wash, and clothed. And now there were fairies in the garden. Martin smiled ruefully. Would she care if he did not turn up again? He bent down gingerly to kiss her forehead. His lips could have been touching a statue on a winter’s evening.
ANDREW HAS BEEN scribbling notes, as he normally does when Martin visits him. The psychiatrist pauses to read what he has written.
How can there be love, Martin wonders, when I am so reluctant to visit Nora? Perhaps he feels servitude to the memories of companionship, to the unwavering strength and consolation Nora had offered him when it mattered most? ‘You are a strange man, Martin,’ she had said to him once. ‘Kind and gentle, but I can never really reach you. It is as if you are acomforting voice on a telephone. You hide behind such large shadows.’
‘You haven’t opened up either,’ he had reminded her. ‘There are times when you retreat within yourself. I try not to follow you. Is it asking too much for you to do the same for me?’ Evasiveness. In a way they were similar.
Andrew closes his notepad with a grunt. ‘I would like to think that you will be honest with me, tell me everything, even though it may be painful. Otherwise progress will be very difficult.’ It’s a repetition, almost word for word, from their very first session. Martin wonders about the intervening years in this room, about what Andrew’s experiences with his clients have taught him.
There is an endearing honesty and earnestness about Andrew. He has helped me, Martin admits readily to himself. But he also derives a peculiar satisfaction from misleading a cleverer man: it frees him from the image of himself as a prey being pursued deep into the dimness of a forest.
The deceit of omission preserves his own right to privacy.
Ever since his first visit to the psychiatrist, Martin has left out part of an afternoon from the Vietnam days. There are times when he feels that he ought to have regurgitated it all and coped with the release of guilt. After all, in the days after Martin’s marriage had ended, Andrew had selflessly given extra time and negotiated him through an unsettled period. And had Martin been more forthcoming with Moira too about his days in Vietnam, she might have been less bewildered.
The strain on her must have been unbearable. There were nightmares. Yelling and incoherent mumbling. Lengthyshowers in the middle of the night coupled with the frenetic scrubbing of his body, as though in an act of ritualistic cleansing. Imitative noise of guns and exploding grenades. When he was unable to bear it any longer, Martin buried his head under a pillow. He was cowed by the accusing looks of imagined faces. Mangled bodies and the warmth of spurting blood. The noise of flies on corpses and the faint rustling of leaves like a serrated knife scraping the nerves.
But Nora—he cannot betray Nora. The truth about her mental state is a mystery anyway. To what extent might she be faking the seriousness of her condition? He recalls her saying once, when they swapped stories about their school days, ‘I loved drama. I lived for the school plays. I would take any part as long as I could play the role convincingly. Acting is so close to what we are and how we behave in life. My favourite was Puck. Once I gave up the part of Prospero to play Ariel. I was determined to go to NIDA.’
Andrew turns the long pause to good use. ‘You are a deceptively complex person.’ A professional evaluation without any trace of exasperation, malice or flattery. It pleases Martin. This is an affirmation of the secret labyrinth within him.
At last he meets the psychiatrist’s look. ‘I think of myself as an ordinary bloke who scratches a living by doing odd jobs. Someone with no ambitions. No desire to do anything else. I
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