Richard stared at me blankly. ‘In which case Michael, you need to see a doctor, because what you’ve just said is not the reaction of a normal, healthy male. Either you’re sick... or you’re lying.’
I was hurt by his accusation, which seemed designed deliberately to wound. What made it all the more hurtful was the knowledge that he’d once tried it on with Jo himself. My anger rose to the surface.
‘You have no respect for anyone else’s beliefs, do you? You really don’t care how much you hurt people with your monomaniacal behaviour and selfishness. As long as you’re happy, as long as you’re having a good time, the rest of the world can go to hell.’ I spat the words out at him as if they were watermelon pips, or bits of broken tooth. ‘You’re just an arrogant, egocentric bastard, Richard. You just don’t care, do you?’
Richard stared back at me impassively. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t. And you can keep on spouting your holier-than-thou attitudes and beating your chest and putting on the martyr act as long as you like, and you can be as miserable and self-righteous as you want, but answer me this, Michael. Which of us is the fool?’
There is such a thing as being too proud, and it does not necessarily take a child to point out the truth, but when Richard said these words to me, I suddenly realised that, like the Emperor, I had wrapped myself up in illusory clothes, believing myself right and true; thinking I had covered all angles, that everyone else believed the same as I; when in actual fact I was standing on a podium in full view of the world, stark naked with my dick hanging out for all to see, and only Richard had the courage to point a finger and laugh.
We stood staring at each other in silence for what felt like an age. I was extremely confused; for a moment I thought this might be an elaborate practical joke, but that wasn’t Liana s way. Eventually the girl spoke.
‘Do I know you... wait a moment, is your name Michael? I mean, was it you who phoned last night?
‘Yes...’
‘Mum gave me the message, but I didn’t know who it could be... we don’t know each other, do we? I mean, have we met or something?’
I shook my head. ‘Is this some sort of joke?’
The girl looked even more bemused. ‘I might well ask you the same thing.’ Her expression turned to one of suspicion, still tinged with a mocking wariness, as if she wasn’t quite sure whether or not to act seriously. ‘What do you want exactly?’
I smiled. If she was putting on an act, she was doing it with great skill. I took a deep breath. ‘I’m looking for a woman called Liana Rogers. We met in India. Just forty-eight hours ago I saw her on to a plane heading back to London. She gave me this address as her home address...’ I took out the piece of paper on which Liana had scribbled the address and phone number, and showed it to the girl.
‘Liana,’ she said, dryly. ‘That’s not my name. My name’s Lee. Lee Anna Rogers. I think someone
is
playing a joke on you.’
Any potential for fun and amusement seemed to fade from that point on. I felt something stick into my stomach; not a sharp pain, but a dull, heavy ache, as if I’d been kicked. ‘But that’s impossible... she wouldn’t do that...’ I was mumbling, and the girl looked at me with what appeared to be concern. I was now more confused than ever. More to the point, the poor girl in front of me evidently didn’t have a clue what I was talking about. She kept staring at the paper; she seemed lost in thought.
‘You’re not winding me up?’ she said at last.
‘No, I... I know this must all seem ridiculous to you, but I swear, it’s the truth. This is the address Liana gave me...’
The girl suddenly put her fingertips to her lips and looked away. ‘Wait a moment,’ she said, then disappeared down the hallway.
I stood there on the front porch wondering what the hell was going on. I couldn’t help but think this was all some elaborate ruse designed for God-knows-what pur- pose. If it was a joke, I wasn’t finding it the least bit funny. And if it wasn’t...
The questions came thick and fast. Where was Liana? Why had she given me this address? And what about this “Lee Anna”? It was all too bizarre, too confusing.
While I was mulling over all this in my head, desperate for some enlightenment, something that would make sense of the situation, Lee returned. In her hand was a photograph. She had a troubled expression on her face.
‘The handwriting looked vaguely familiar,’ she said, handing me the photograph.
‘That’s her. That’s Liana.’ It was a photograph of Liana, taken some time ago - perhaps three or four years - it was difficult to say. Her hair was longer, and she had a definite “schoolgirl” look to her. But there was no doubt. I looked up at Lee, and saw that her expression had not changed. ‘What’s going on?’
‘You’re sure that’s the girl you met in lndia?’
‘Of course... look, would you please tell me what’s going on?’
Lee sighed. ‘Her name’s Angela. Angela Jane Rogers. She’s my sister. And we haven’t seen her for three years...’
Part of Rachel’s work as a psychoanalyst involves working with the bereaved, helping them overcome their loss. She specialises in helping parents who have lost a child. These are, she says, the most heartbreaking, desperate cases that she has to deal with. To lose a loved one is tragic; to lose a child is somehow doubly so; all that potential, all that
life
, gone. She says that, on many occasions, she has been close to breaking down herself, especially when the parents are young, when it’s the first child, and when a sense of responsibility or guilt enters the equation.
One family had been involved in a car crash, a collision with a juggernaut on the M6. Miraculously, both mother and father had survived, although the mother had lost the use of one eye and had been laid up in hospital for several months. The child, just six years old - their only son - had been sitting in the back, and unlike the parents had not been wearing a seat belt. They both held themselves responsible for the boy’s death, and it had taken two years of counselling before they could come to terms with the loss.
When Rachel told me stories such as these, something inside me would shrivel up and die, as if I could, for just an instant, understand empathically the loss these people suffered. I did not understand, however, how Rachel could cope with listening to such tragic tales day in, day out. Surely, I said, enduring a constant stream of nothing but misfortune and calamity would sour one’s world view. Didn’t she ever feel that the world was made up of nothing but anguish and misery? After a day of counselling, didn’t she feel that there was no justice in the universe, that it was all just a haphazard jumble, a sick cosmic joke?
Rachel usually said that, no, she didn’t come away from her patients feeling that way, that after a while she could distance herself from the personal feelings; that in her professional capacity, whilst she must have compassion (which necessitated a certain empathic response), if she suffered as well, she would be of no use to the poor grieving parents.
There was one occasion, however, when she had been unable to stop herself from becoming drawn into the grief. A young, single mother had been referred to her following two years of unsuccessful counselling with another analyst. The young woman’s predicament was unique in Rachel’s experience, and three years after the event she was still suffering from a traumatic response. One day the woman had gone, as usual, to collect her child from school. The little girl was not standing by the school gates as she had always done. She was not in the school buildings or the playground, or wandering the nearby streets. She had not gone home with a school-friend, no one had seen her leave the school. She was never found.
The woman could find no peace. If a body had been discovered it would have been easier for her, but the fact that she could never rest, could never know whether or not her child was alive or dead, haunted every waking hour. Everywhere she turned she would see the face of her missing child. She would wander the streets searching for her, unable to accept that the girl had gone.
She had suffered numerous nervous breakdowns, and by the time she started seeing Rachel she was a wreck, a pale, pathetic shadow, unable to face the day without a tranquilliser, unable to sleep without barbiturates. She suffered constant hangovers from the sleeping tablets. She was continually ill, and had been dismissed from a string of jobs because she was unable to fulfil her responsibilities or carry out her duties.
Not knowing was killing her. She had reached the stage where she actually wished that the child was dead, that there was proof, that her body had been discovered. She chastised herself for such feelings, hated herself, but said that, until she knew for sure that her little girl no longer existed, her life was nothing better than a living nightmare, a nightmare without release.
It was only after six months that Rachel realised why the woman had been referred to her. It wasn’t that she was not making any progress with the previous analyst, but that the previous analyst could no longer cope with the unrelenting torment of the woman’s life. Rachel found herself leaving work in tears; she would wake sometimes in the middle of the night, and her first thoughts would be of this poor woman, doomed to spend her life in a cruel twilight zone where the only release would be the news that her child, her only child, was dead. Unless, of course, her unrelenting waiting game was interrupted by her own demise.
A little knowledge, said Rachel, might be a dangerous thing, but no knowledge at all was, in some instances, the greatest curse of all. There was nothing she could do for her, and eventually she had had no choice but request that the case be taken off her hands. lt was the first and only time she had made such a request.
Rachel says that she will never have a child of her own.
Never.
‘I think you’d better come in.’
Shell-shocked, I followed Lee down the hallway and into a large, spacious living room. Lee signalled to me to sit down on the sofa, while she sat in a large, over-stuffed armchair. She perched on the edge, reached for a packet of cigarettes that was lying on the coffee table, lit up and then, as an afterthought, offered me one.
I had decided whilst I was flying home that I would stop smoking, but I was now so anxious that I took the proffered cigarette. I still could not quite believe that this wasn’t some sort of masquerade, that I wasn’t being set up. A million questions flooded into the front of my mind, but before I could get a chance to ask any of them, Lee began speaking.
‘What was she doing in India? How was she? I mean, was she okay?’
‘She was fine... but hang on Lee, are you saying that you haven’t seen Liana - Angela - for three years? That she doesn’t live here any more?’
‘Angela hasn’t lived here since 1976. There was a big bust-up - a family row - and she just walked out.’
‘Where did she go? I mean, where does she live now?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘But you must have tried to find her, surely?’
‘Yes of course. We didn’t believe she was seriously leaving us. At first we thought it was just for effect; she had a tendency to be somewhat histrionic at times. But the next day when she hadn’t come home, we started to worry. I phoned round all her friends, but none of them knew where she was. We tried relatives, acquaintances, anyone we could think of. Eventually Daddy contacted the police, but they seemed reluctant to help - apparently this sort of thing happens all the time. After a week, she phoned to say that she was never coming home. We pleaded with her to reconsider, but she seemed quite adamant. Mummy was beside herself with worry. I tried talking to Angela, but there was nothing I could say that would make her change her mind. It all seemed absurd - way over the top - but whatever it was that had happened had obviously affected her more deeply than any of us could have imagined. She refused to tell us where she was staying or what she was doing. She said that if any of us made any attempt to find her or bring her back, we’d be sorry. It was a genuine threat. Daddy was going to hire a private investigation firm - I didn’t even know such things existed in this country - but the two or three we approached said that it would be a waste of time and money. They all said the same thing: give it a few weeks; when she was cold, hungry and tired, she’d come back.’
‘She didn’t?’
‘No. The weeks passed and there was no contact. In the meantime we discovered that a number of valuables had been taken; some of Mum’s jewellery, a pair of silver candlesticks, some rare first editions from Daddy’s library. By selling that lot, plus the money she had saved from her allowance, she would have been able to look after herself for quite some time.’