Authors: Anne Buist
Natalie walked over, laughing. She wasn’t much of a car person so she wasn’t sure
exactly what she was looking at, only that it wasn’t a Porsche and it didn’t look
long enough to be a Ferrari. Anyway weren’t they all red? It was short and square
and testosterone-saturated.
‘Lotus,’ Liam said to her.
‘I know,’ she lied. ‘You’re having a full-on midlife crisis aren’t you?’ She wondered
what it had cost.
Liam grinned back. The corners of his eyes creased, blue and penetrating as ever.
‘Jump in.’
Once away from the pub Natalie pulled her wig off and felt the air rush through her
real hair as Liam hit the sound system, turned off the highway and let the car loose.
It must have been half an hour before Liam stopped. The road had ended by a river,
far from the last sign of civilisation.
‘So how does it rate against the Ducati?’ Liam asked, undoing his seat belt. He looked
at her, hard.
‘Not on the same page.’ Natalie returned the stare. ‘But good for a car. I can cross
it off the bucket list.’
‘Does that list have fucking in a Lotus on it?’
Natalie laughed, looking around her. ‘There’s barely enough room to sit.’
‘Let’s be inventive shall we?’
Inventive meant a new bruise from the gear stick, scratches from twigs on the freezing
ground and a mercifully short dip in the river. After he had driven back to the Welbury
pub, they showered together in her room to warm up and he stayed the night without
it being discussed.
‘Dad would have been fine if he’d stayed off the piss.’
Jessie sat down opposite her. Sunglasses off: a bonus. She was holding a scrap of
paper to which she occasionally referred. Natalie had told her to write down her
feelings as they had come to her through the week and it seemed she had done so.
‘Never did for long though. Not after Mum killed herself.’
Jessie had been ten at the time and had been the one to find her mother’s cooling
body. Natalie suspected the sexual abuse had started around then. Alcohol would have
lowered whatever barriers her father might have had. But abusive or not, he was the
only stable person in her life and when he remarried two years later Jessie might
well have felt rejected.
‘It seems to me that your father coming back into your life has brought up a lot
of stuff from the past.’
Jessie shrugged. Not ready to go deeper yet.
‘Keep writing down anything that comes to you. And put it in this.’ Natalie pulled
out a white cardboard gift box, slightly smaller than a shoe box.
Jessie frowned. ‘What’s that?’
‘A box for the bad memories,’ said Natalie. ‘No one else will ever look into it.
Once you put the thoughts, feelings and memories into it you have a choice.’
‘Choice?’ Jessie looked sceptical.
‘Whether to take the lid off or put it back on,’ said Natalie. She had used this
technique several times. In her bottom desk drawer there were two boxes that had
been tied up at the end of therapy and handed over to her to keep, their owners symbolically
leaving their pain behind. ‘Then you can use some of the mindfulness techniques.’
Natalie had outlined these at the beginning of the session.
Jessie snorted. ‘How’s that going to help?’ But she took the box anyway.
Georgia had the appointment immediately after Jessie’s. Looking out of her window
to the car park as she wrote up her notes, Natalie saw them stop and talk to each
other. On the face of it, the two had little in common. Underneath they were, she
supposed, similarly angry. One expressed it through her physical appearance and the
other used her middle-class good looks to hide it. Both damaged, but Jessie was easier
to read, and to empathise with.
Georgia breezed in wearing bright colours and smiling.
‘Good morning Natalie.’ Natalie wondered why she didn’t like Georgia using her first
name. It made her feel old if her patients called her Dr King. But Georgia, she reflected,
used her name the way a politician did with a radio interviewer, implying—or trying
to evoke—an intimacy that didn’t exist. Natalie adopted a neutral smile and invited
Georgia to talk about her week.
‘I’m getting to the gym daily. And I checked out the new shopping centre in the city
and got—’
She could have been visiting a girlfriend. Natalie cut in.
‘I was thinking, after last week,’ she said. ‘Something you said didn’t quite make
sense.’
Georgia waited for Natalie to go on.
‘You implied Paul was your first sexual partner.’
Georgia frowned. ‘Did I?’
Natalie waited.
Georgia shrugged and said, ‘I don’t really like to think about before him. It’s not
like any of that…well I left it all behind. I was…naive.’
‘I’d like you to tell me about it.’
A tight smile. ‘If I must.’ After a pause she continued. ‘I met Gary at a party.
What can I say? I was naive, stupid. He took advantage of me.’
‘How often did you see him?’
‘See? You mean have sex with? Just the once,’ Georgia said, laughing mirthlessly.
‘More than enough, I assure you.’
‘When did you know you were pregnant?’
‘As soon as I missed my period.’
So not a case of pregnancy denial. ‘Did you let him know?’
There was the briefest of pauses before Georgia said, ‘No point. He wasn’t going
to play happy families.’
‘Did you tell your aunt and uncle?’
‘Virginia?’ Georgia’s face made a brief grimace; in response to Natalie’s look of
curiosity she added, ‘My uncle told me once we were both named after states of America
but I’m sure it was chosen as a good Catholic name in her case. She was as pious
as the Virgin Mary so I wasn’t about to go to her.’
‘What about your uncle?’
‘We didn’t have that sort of relationship,’ said Georgia,
smoothing out the crease
in her dress. ‘I was about to start nursing and had organised a share house. So I
just moved out.’
‘What was going to happen with the baby?’
‘I suppose I’d have put it in childcare. Maybe adopted it out. To be honest I didn’t
think all that much, I just… assumed it would work out.’
Which it had. By accident or design?
‘It must have been difficult.’
‘I hardly put on any weight. If people thought I was pregnant they never said. I
didn’t feel much different. It was a very rapid labour and I panicked. I realised
it was dead straight away.’
‘Did you call for help?’
Georgia shook her head. ‘I told you, I panicked. I know now it was a precipitous
labour, not like my later ones; it happened very quickly. Suddenly there was…a lot
of mess and…a baby. Only it wasn’t moving or crying.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘Delivered the placenta. Cleaned up. Called an ambulance.’
Natalie found her clinical account chilling. The autopsy had been inconclusive and
there was no follow-up at the time. Only in the light of subsequent events had Georgia’s
behaviour come under suspicion.
‘I had never bonded, you see,’ said Georgia. It was a reasonable explanation for
her lack of feeling; also a motivation for murder. ‘Not like the pregnancy with Genevieve.’
‘How did you feel when Genevieve died?’
‘I knew immediately she was dead. She was blue and cold.’
‘How did you
feel
?’
‘I watched her; I’ve no idea for how long. Then I called Paul. He was out at the
shops. I wasn’t sure if I should call an ambulance or not, given she was dead.’
‘Georgia, I’m wondering how you
felt
?’ Natalie repeated.
‘I…I don’t know. Stunned I think. It really didn’t sink in.’
‘And Paul?’
‘Devastated. Kind, supportive. Though…’
‘Though…?’
‘Though…?’ Georgia looked blank. ‘I, well I can’t really recall that period very
well.’ She looked down, rubbing her hands on her legs. ‘I just remember feeling afraid.’
‘Afraid of what?’
Georgia looked up, eyes widened. ‘Of…nothing in particular.’ Natalie was sure the
smile was staged; but why? It broadened when Natalie said her time was up. Georgia
almost skipped out of the office.
Natalie reflected on statements she had read from Georgia’s friends. When her children
died, Georgia had seemed disconnected, emotionless. Dissociation? Because she didn’t
have any emotions? Or because it was her lifelong pattern, learned at the hands of
abusive or unavailable caregivers, where it was safer to hide your emotions rather
than be vulnerable?
Neither quite fitted with Georgia’s departing words. Her mention of feeling afraid
didn’t ring true for someone getting in touch with their inner demons; it was too
easy
. Was she afraid of Paul?
‘Your weekly present has arrived.’
Natalie took the red envelope from Beverley’s hand and
realised her own hand was
shaking.
This time it said,
I’m watching you. Taking your mood stabilisers are you?
She felt
nauseous.
No one knew about her illness except a handful of health professionals, Tom and her
family. She didn’t talk about it, didn’t like to think about it. She hated being
reduced to a diagnosis and hated, too, the powerless rage that it caused to sweep
through her. Now someone else knew. Who? And how?
She thought of the car outside her house, the noise on the roof. Of Travis and his
two dead babies and what he stood to lose. Of some of the psychopaths she had interviewed
over the years and how little regard they had for the lives of others. Just
who
was
watching her do
what
? She wondered what the cops would make of this, imagined them
looking at her, asking about her mental illness, forming their judgments. She was
going to file this message away too. Just as the stalker probably thought she would.
What else did he know about her and what did he intend to do with that knowledge?
‘How’s everyone?’ Natalie asked as she came into the office.
Kirsty raised an eyebrow. ‘I have two nurses off sick and no one wants an extra shift.
I have a hangover, Wadhwa thinks the hospital should fund his research and Corinne
has gone ballistic over the KPIs. Next question?’
Normal day at the office. ‘The patients?’
Kirsty grinned. ‘Pretty good, thank God. It’s a lot quieter here now Georgia Latimer
has gone.’
‘Georgia? She created unrest?’ Natalie asked. ‘What do you mean?’
‘We had more acting out over the two weeks she was here;
three patients slashed up
and Corinne gave us a serve about how much sedation we were using. Place was a madhouse.’
Natalie groaned at the quip. ‘And you think Georgia was behind it?’
‘Hard to say.’ Kirsty shrugged. ‘She was always nice as pie to us, and I never saw
her be anything else to patients either. But there’s something off-centre about her.
I think they sensed it.’
Natalie nodded. Maybe that was it, the same unease she felt. The patients were fragile
enough for that kind of feeling to throw them.
Celeste was much brighter than last week. Her brother, Joe, heavily tattooed and
sporting a large septum ring, was visiting her.
‘She’s okay today, Doc,’ he said with a grin that showed missing teeth.
‘That’s great to hear,’ said Natalie. ‘Look ahead, not back?’
‘I reckon,’ Celeste said. ‘Would be nice to have a future without the bastard about.’
‘We don’t have to talk about him; future, remember?’
‘Suits me fine. I just want to forget.’
Her brother nodded and his eyes followed Natalie all the way to the door. Natalie
met them as she turned and she saw a knowing quality that unsettled her. Was there
some meaning there? Or was she being oversensitive?
‘I have no doubt Georgia is damaged,’ Natalie said, sipping her glass of wine. ‘I
feel there’s something I’m missing from her story. I’m trying very hard not to be
judgmental but if I hear about her shopping trips again I swear I’ll gag her with
her Gucci scarf.’
‘Is it possible you’re a snob?’ asked Declan.
‘That’s a new one. Not something many people would call me.’
Declan laughed, measured and contained. She was pretty sure he timed things for effect;
longer smiles and more nods if he wanted to reel her in, opening a space for her
to feel safe, to reveal things about herself. Shorter, abrupt looks and words, threatening
the withdrawal of approval if she didn’t think about the point he was making. ‘Snobbery
works in both directions. I’m not suggesting Georgia hasn’t done it hard but she
sounds like she wears her middle-class status like a badge.’
‘Like my mother?’
Declan’s expression didn’t reveal anything; it didn’t have to. Here was something
else to consider in the countertransference.
‘It’s not just Georgia,’ Natalie continued. ‘I have this bad vibe about Paul. I mean,
if she is so damaged, what was he doing married to her for all that time? Why didn’t
he suspect something? I’ve seen hundreds of shitty marriages and mutual psychopathology,
but in this relationship children kept dying. Wouldn’t that be enough to shake an
innocent man into wondering what was going on?’
‘Perhaps it did, when she was pregnant with the last child. Could you ask him?’
‘It had occurred to me. I’d have to get Georgia’s permission…’
‘You could try. It seems to have quite a hold on you. What about your other case?’
Natalie shifted uncomfortably, allowing herself to be distracted by the front door
opening and the sounds of someone walking down the corridor, then the thud
of shopping
bags being dropped on the bench. His wife presumably.
She filled him in on the interview with Tiphanie. ‘My gut feeling is that she’s covering
up.’
Declan frowned. ‘You’ve told me nothing about her partner.’
‘I didn’t interview him.’
Declan didn’t respond.
‘The O.P.P. and the police thinks he did it. Angry, immature. He didn’t have much
to do with Chloe; Tiphanie was the stay-at-home mother.’
‘Will you be interviewing her partner?’