come into the room, she'd noticed
there were tiny glass thimbles of whiskey, sweet sherry and cherry
brandy on Aunty Yetta's serving cart. Unlike the mountains of food,
these were remaining, in true Jewish style, steadfastly untouched.
She reckoned she would need to down at least ten of the
glasses to get a hit and wondered how she could do this without
drawing attention to herself and becoming known as Gloria's
daughter the dipso.
Finally she decided that everybody was too busy eating to
notice her. She made her way over to the cart and picked up a glass
of whiskey. After about five glasses she was beginning to feel much
calmer, and was just about to go into the kitchen to find her mother
when she became aware of a man's voice behind her. It sounded soft
and smooth—as if it spent most of its life doing Kerrygold
butter commercials.
Anna turned round. Every nerve ending in her body capable of
a sexual response, including ones she didn't know about in her
pancreas, suddenly felt as if they were about to take off all their
clothes and step into black silk negligees.
Anna was standing face-to-face with one of the most beautiful
men she had ever seen not on the arm of some Hollywood babe. Her
eyes darted quickly to the buffet table to check that Sharon Stone
and Michelle Pfeiffer weren't hovering by the pickled herrings.
They weren't. The only people lurking by the pickled herrings
were wearing man-made fibers, and there wasn't a Neiman Marcus
carrier bag or an even remotely toned upper body part in sight.
“I was just saying,” came the warm Irish accent, “I
didn't realize it was the done thing to get plastered at a Jewish
wake, but if it is, then I think I'll join you. By the way, I'm
Charlie Kaplan. Henry was my grandfather.”
D an was getting desperate. He'd decided after such a stressful
day to leave work early. As he lay on the sofa going
through the ads for counselors in
Time Out,
he felt like
a eunuch wandering around an Ann Summers shop. The list of therapies
on offer seemed endless. How the hell was he supposed to know if
astrological Reichian analysis was any better than Jungian crystal
therapy, or if Janovian primal therapy was a safer bet than
underwater rebirthing.
What he did know, on the other hand, was that Brenda had
frightened the life out of him. It had taken her to convince him,
when Anna couldn't, that his health had become an obsession, and
that Anna could leave him because of it. Losing her was
unthinkable.
Finally he came across a very brief and
straightforward-looking ad from a psychotherapist who appeared to be a chartered member of
some shrink institute or other. Dan knew psychotherapy only involved
talking to a therapist a couple of times a week, and he could get
away without buying a snorkel and flippers. He dialed the number and
got a calm, reassuring woman's voice on the answer machine: “I
hope you won't take it as a personal rejection that I am unable to
speak to you just now, but if you feel strong enough to share your
feelings, please break down, cry or let go of your anger after the
tone.”
Dan thought she sounded a caring sort and left a message asking
for an appointment.
If Brenda was right, he was, without doubt, on his way to
saving his sanity and his marriage. He decided there and then not to
mention any of this therapy business to Anna. He wanted to surprise
her by coming home one day and announcing he was cured and that he
was whisking her off for a holiday in the South Pacific.
What caused his positive and determined mood to evaporate in
an instant and made his heart rate shoot up to 155 (he confirmed this
using the second hand on his watch) was the thought that Brenda
might have got it all wrong. What if this therapist woman started
wading into his psyche only to discover that it was too late, that
his sanity couldn't be salvaged and that he was, in fact, completely
and utterly barking? As he imagined ending his days lying naked on
a filthy, piss-soaked
there were tiny glass thimbles of whiskey, sweet sherry and cherry
brandy on Aunty Yetta's serving cart. Unlike the mountains of food,
these were remaining, in true Jewish style, steadfastly untouched.
She reckoned she would need to down at least ten of the
glasses to get a hit and wondered how she could do this without
drawing attention to herself and becoming known as Gloria's
daughter the dipso.
Finally she decided that everybody was too busy eating to
notice her. She made her way over to the cart and picked up a glass
of whiskey. After about five glasses she was beginning to feel much
calmer, and was just about to go into the kitchen to find her mother
when she became aware of a man's voice behind her. It sounded soft
and smooth—as if it spent most of its life doing Kerrygold
butter commercials.
Anna turned round. Every nerve ending in her body capable of
a sexual response, including ones she didn't know about in her
pancreas, suddenly felt as if they were about to take off all their
clothes and step into black silk negligees.
Anna was standing face-to-face with one of the most beautiful
men she had ever seen not on the arm of some Hollywood babe. Her
eyes darted quickly to the buffet table to check that Sharon Stone
and Michelle Pfeiffer weren't hovering by the pickled herrings.
They weren't. The only people lurking by the pickled herrings
were wearing man-made fibers, and there wasn't a Neiman Marcus
carrier bag or an even remotely toned upper body part in sight.
“I was just saying,” came the warm Irish accent, “I
didn't realize it was the done thing to get plastered at a Jewish
wake, but if it is, then I think I'll join you. By the way, I'm
Charlie Kaplan. Henry was my grandfather.”
D an was getting desperate. He'd decided after such a stressful
day to leave work early. As he lay on the sofa going
through the ads for counselors in
Time Out,
he felt like
a eunuch wandering around an Ann Summers shop. The list of therapies
on offer seemed endless. How the hell was he supposed to know if
astrological Reichian analysis was any better than Jungian crystal
therapy, or if Janovian primal therapy was a safer bet than
underwater rebirthing.
What he did know, on the other hand, was that Brenda had
frightened the life out of him. It had taken her to convince him,
when Anna couldn't, that his health had become an obsession, and
that Anna could leave him because of it. Losing her was
unthinkable.
Finally he came across a very brief and
straightforward-looking ad from a psychotherapist who appeared to be a chartered member of
some shrink institute or other. Dan knew psychotherapy only involved
talking to a therapist a couple of times a week, and he could get
away without buying a snorkel and flippers. He dialed the number and
got a calm, reassuring woman's voice on the answer machine: “I
hope you won't take it as a personal rejection that I am unable to
speak to you just now, but if you feel strong enough to share your
feelings, please break down, cry or let go of your anger after the
tone.”
Dan thought she sounded a caring sort and left a message asking
for an appointment.
If Brenda was right, he was, without doubt, on his way to
saving his sanity and his marriage. He decided there and then not to
mention any of this therapy business to Anna. He wanted to surprise
her by coming home one day and announcing he was cured and that he
was whisking her off for a holiday in the South Pacific.
What caused his positive and determined mood to evaporate in
an instant and made his heart rate shoot up to 155 (he confirmed this
using the second hand on his watch) was the thought that Brenda
might have got it all wrong. What if this therapist woman started
wading into his psyche only to discover that it was too late, that
his sanity couldn't be salvaged and that he was, in fact, completely
and utterly barking? As he imagined ending his days lying naked on
a filthy, piss-soaked
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