Chapter 12
12
MINNIE
Now
‘How are we doing?’ Tony asked, crashing back into his chair, clipboard teetering across his jeans. Tony wasn’t the image of the therapist Minnie had conjured before she’d met him eight weeks ago, when she’d been ready to tell him her heart was broken after a passionate and intense short-lived relationship. That she was struggling to get out of bed and had even contemplated going to sleep for ever. That she was struggling to feel any self-worth. Angry – so angry – at herself for letting someone break her heart. She had expected Tony to be a slight man in a turtleneck with wispy hair and intellectual glasses. But Tony looked more like Action Bronson or Rag ’n’ Bone man than the stereotypical therapist she had expected. He had tattoos up his forearms, a bald head and bushy beard, and he wore band tees, jeans and trainers.
Minnie liked that Tony surprised her. She liked that he challenged her. She had enjoyed his suggestions to return to the passions of her mostly happy childhood – she liked the inner-child work they had done – and she’d taken most of his suggestions on board, although she hadn’t ridden a Chopper or gone running through a field yet, but she had made a new friend and she had mostly got off social media.
Tony’s first question always amused Minnie though.
‘How are we doing?’
He said it in his gravelly Camberwell voice.
Minnie didn’t know anything about Tony Critchley other than he liked Biffy Clyro, N.W.A. and Death Goals (if his band T-shirts were anything to go by). And that he liked ink. She also knew his professional qualifications, which were proudly displayed on the wall. She knew from his online profile that he was a Cognitive Behavioural Therapist who offered support for anxiety, depression, OCD, PTSD, substance abuse and broken hearts. She wanted to know what he got up to at the weekends, what made him tick – for all she knew he could have just come down from a psychotic episode, or be feeling bleak and full of self-loathing himself, but she didn’t want to chip into her ￡110 an hour fee asking Tony about Tony. Plus she liked the mystery and the edge of him as they sat in his office, just off Marylebone High Street. A plain little room for such an opulent area, with three chairs, a desk with a laptop in the corner, and a Chinese money plant that lifted the room with its fronds of bright green circles. When Minnie was trying to answer tough questions she looked to the Chinese money plant. It reminded her of an installation she had seen at the Tate and brought her calm.
‘Yeah good thanks. I went to the bingo at the weekend, won big.’
She said it so Tony could tell it wasn’t going to be life changing.
There was a pause, while Tony waited for Minnie to say more.
Shit.
Part of her felt like a naughty child for holding something back. She didn’t want to tell Tony she had been with Jesse, having such brilliant fun, because then Tony might think Jesse meant more to her than he did. And she was already embarrassed about how hard and fast she had fallen for JP. So she held back. Hid behind sarcasm. Then stayed silent for a few seconds. A concept that always threw her.
She bit her tongue.
‘And how have you been feeling this week, generally?’
‘Ummm, OK, I think. I feel proud of myself for taking on board some of the actionable strategies.’ She couldn’t not tell him.
‘Which strategies were they?’
‘I went to the bingo with the new friend I’d made, the one from the cafe.’ She said it as if she had made a hundred new friends in the past few weeks.
‘That’s great.’
Tony didn’t ask any more about the friend. Perhaps it wasn’t an issue, which gave Minnie a small sense of relief.
‘And how’s your anger been? Last week you touched on anger right at the end.’
Minnie’s brief sense of relief dropped. His question floored her. She was still angry, and she realised it as she looked Tony in the eye, a searing rage and sense of injustice pummelling her.
‘Yeah, still there,’ she conceded.
‘I was thinking we might do some chair work this week,’ Tony said.
‘Chair work?’
‘Yeah, it’s a good way of letting go of someone from your past. It could be especially helpful for you, given the circumstances. The unfinished business and loss of control. Get up…’ He signalled, and rearranged the third, empty, chair in the room so it was placed opposite Minnie. Tony moved his seat alongside Minnie’s, a few metres apart.
‘I thought that was for couples’ counselling,’ Minnie joked nervously, nodding to it.
‘Oh it is. I have a messy divorce in next…’ Tony deadpanned. ‘But for now…’
He pointed to the space. ‘Would you like to give it a go? If not I can sit there and we carry on.’
Minnie nodded and looked at the chair.
‘What do I do?’
‘I’d like you to imagine…’ Tony looked down at his notes to remind himself of the awful ex’s awful name. ‘Imagine that JP is sitting in front of you right now.’
Minnie took a deep and nervy breath.
‘When you can imagine him, I’d like you describe what he looks like, what he’s wearing, what the expression is like on his face…’
Minnie bristled at how easily she conjured him as she kept her eyes open and stared at the void.
‘Erm, he’s wearing a black shirt, black trousers, black shoes. He has a little smirk on his face, like he’s wondering why I brought him here. The fucker.’
Tony nodded and smiled. He liked Minnie. He didn’t always like his clients, but he liked her sense of humour and her gumption, although she did need to stop making light of everything that was causing her pain. He cleared his throat.
‘I’d like you to tell JP why you want to speak to him.’
Minnie wasn’t sure that she did. She felt so humiliated by him. By the way he’d reeled her in. By the very public way in which he’d dumped her. By his lack of concern or care. By the way he’d shut the door so brutally and finally on their relationship, when she had given him all of her.
‘I don’t want to talk to him,’ she said, frowning.
Tony sat quietly, watching Minnie as she looked at the Chinese money plant, and then the floor. Then she found her voice.
‘Actually, I do.’
Minnie looked back at the space, feeling one part ridiculous and one part empowered. She straightened her spine, played with her fingers. The dark grey nails she had painted hastily before meeting Jesse on Saturday night were now chipped and worn.
‘I’m so upset!’
She looked to Tony with caution.
He nodded.
She looked back at the chair JP was sitting on.
‘How could you do that to me? I don’t fall for people lightly! I gave you all of me and you just let me down. I want to move on… but I can’t.’
‘And how do you feel when you look at him?’
‘How do I feel? I’m angry!’
‘Tell him.’
‘I’m angry. When you dumped me it felt like someone had died. I fell apart. I hate you for that!’
‘Tell him again.’
‘I hate you! I want to be free of you!’
Minnie broke her gaze with the empty chair and started to cry. She then looked at Tony and apologised for being silly.
‘Don’t be daft,’ he said, handing her a box of tissues from his desk. She took three out with vigour and wiped her eyes. Tony waited for a moment, then continued.
‘You mentioned how you gave all of yourself to JP, can you tell him more about that?’
Minnie frowned at Tony, who gave her a gentle and encouraging nod as he straightened the hem of his sock and smoothed the laces of his adidas Gazelles. Minnie looked back at the space in which she had conjured JP and took a deep breath.
‘I gave you so much! I put loads of faith in you. I gave you loads of my time and let you totally dictate to me because I loved being with you. I thought you loved being with me, but it was bullshit. You’re a total bullshitter! I was just one of many!’
The silence was amplified by the noise outside. The mid-morning traffic.
‘Is there anything else you’d like to say to him?’
Minnie thought of Jesse and whispered, ‘I want to move on with my life. I want to stop feeling sad about you. Stop being annoyed with myself. Accept it’s over.’
‘Tell him again, but say it with more power.’
‘What?’
‘You have the power to be clear, and forceful and distinct. Tell him.’
Minnie looked back at the chair. At JP.
‘I want to move on. I want to accept it’s over.’
‘Louder.’
‘I want to move on. It’s over. I want to say goodbye!’
‘Then say goodbye.’
‘Fuck off! Goodbye.’
Minnie gave a nervous laugh and looked back at her hands as tears of heartache and relief tumbled onto her lap.
Tony gave her a minute, took the empty seat back to the corner and rearranged his so he was sitting at a diagonal to Minnie, facing her.
‘Well done, eh?’ he said, like a guy encouraging his kid at Sunday football. ‘You’re the one responsible for saying goodbye now, not him. You’re empowering yourself to do that.’
Minnie sniffed into the tissue.
‘How do you feel?’
Minnie’s brain was scrambled. JP had just been in the room with her and she had come so far. It felt liberating. It felt good. Yet what she really didn’t want to admit to Tony was that she was starting to think about someone else.