Chapter Five #2
Sasha could feel his relief at this latest suggestion. He was
always more cheerful after these sessions, and so Sasha kept going
along, glad enough to take on Olivia’s rationalisations and walk
home with Laurie in the light.
But he’d
been coming here for six months. The nightmares hadn’t stopped.
Then, were they so irrational? Sasha folded his hands in his lap.
Laurie was paying for these visits. Olivia was hellishly expensive.
Sasha thought about the papers in his file, and Cuza, and how it
felt—he sometimes let himself forget—to be a stranger in a strange
land. “All these things are possible,” he said quietly. “But my
dreams are getting worse, not better.”
She
blinked as if he’d dropped a stone into her calm pond. Beside him
Laurie flinched too. “I’m sorry,” he went on roughly, throat
suddenly full of words that needed to be said. “I don’t like to
think about the past. But... I came here in a container ship. In a
refrigerated truck, along with...” He paused, because this part of
it had always been grimly funny. “Along with the yoghurts. There
were eleven others with me, and five of them died of the cold. I
thought they’d just gone to sleep, but when I tried to wake them up
they fell down onto the floor. Their faces were grey. Then I ran
away, and I had nowhere to live. It was winter. I got robbed and
beaten up, and I stupidly started doing the rent-boy thing to earn
a few pounds, and I got raped a couple of times. I slept on the
streets in a bin bag. It’s all over now, and I’m fine, but to be
honest, I’m not fucking surprised I have bad dreams.”
Laurie
got up. He was expressionless. His hands were loose by his sides,
his shoulders and spine rigid. Sasha glanced up at him in surprise.
“Laurie?”
“Will you excuse me a minute?”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I just—”
“Sasha, let him go.” The doctor went quietly over and opened
the door. She didn’t look at Laurie as he slipped past her. Then
she closed it again, and sat down on the edge of her desk, her arms
folded. She was very pale. “He loves you terribly, doesn’t
he?”
Something tired and damaged in Sasha almost made him deny it.
His own words had thrown him back to that time two years ago when
Laurie had come down—like a god, like a diamond-starred angel—into
the pit where Sasha had lived. Even in Laurie’s bed, held tight and
ecstatic with those warm arms around him, Sasha had questioned
it. How can someone from your world love
someone from mine? But he was over all that
now. “Yes,” he said softly, shivering at the ongoing miracle of it.
“He does.”
“Did you ever tell him you’d been raped?”
The
shiver died. Sasha stared at her. Had he told him now? Clearly he’d
told this nice, civilised woman the same thing. He replayed his
statement. Yes—there between the muggings and the bin bags, so
offhand he’d barely heard it himself. “Yes. At least, I... He knew
what I did. I told him I’d had a client or two where things went
wrong. Where the guy wouldn’t let me go.” Christ, had he even been
that explicit? Cold horror stole over him. “No. I don’t think I
did.”
“Listen to me.”
“I’ve got to go after him.”
“Yes, I know. Just for a moment, though. You know I look after
Marielle Fitzroy, right? Laurie’s mum?”
Sasha
nodded. He didn’t really care, but if Olivia was serious enough to
discuss one client with another... On his feet, satchel in his
hand, he forced himself to attend to her.
“That’s the kind of doctor I am. I help rich, delicate ladies
who’ve had maybe a little addiction to prescription sedatives, or a
difficult divorce. Things like that. Laurie brought you to me
because I’m the only psychiatrist he knows, and because he still
associates money with safety. With effectiveness. Do you
understand? If something costs enough, it’s got to work.”
“I do understand. That’s not true, though. Laurie knows better
than that now.”
“He’s grown up a lot. And he’s a dear, but he’s still very
naive. So I’ve got to tell you this myself—I’m the last doctor in
the world who can help you. You need a specialist in rape trauma,
someone who knows about homelessness and the long-term effects it
can have.”
“There aren’t any.” Sasha headed for the door. “I told you—I
just have bad dreams.”
“Which I’ve told Laurie to let you sleep through. I’m very
sorry.”
“They aren’t about that. They’re about...” But Sasha didn’t
have time. He shook his head. “Never mind. Olivia, I’ve got to
go.”
“I can give you the name of a good counsellor at—”
“Send it to me, would you? Please?” Sasha took pity. “You
haven’t done anything wrong, okay? I wasn’t honest with you. You’re
a great doctor.”
Her
smile twisted oddly. “Thank you, Sasha. But you know a hell of a
lot more about the world than I hope I ever have to. Go on, then.
He’ll be beating himself up by now for making this about him, not
you.”
***
Sasha
met him in the corridor. He was smiling but pale, his fringe wet
and sticking to his brow, as if he’d splashed his face with water
and not glanced in the mirror before leaving the bathroom. Sasha
turned him with a touch to his elbow and fell into place at his
side. “Laurie, love. Are you all right?”
“Yes. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because of what I said in there.”
“If I’m not—if—then I’m the biggest pansy arsehole in the world for making
any part of this about me, not you.”
Sasha took his hand. Olivia Matthews was a damn good doctor, he reflected
wryly, at least for the troubles that ailed people like Marielle
and Laurie. He opened the door to the staircase, tugged Laurie
through after him and sat him down on the top step. Knelt in front
of him and took his face between his hands. “Listen to
me.”
“I am. But you don’t have to go through anything again
that—”
“I do have to.” Sasha stroked the still-damp cheekbones with
his thumbs. “I gave you some vague ideas about how I made a living,
didn’t I? Back when we first met. And I told you it hadn’t always
been good. That sometimes I didn’t have choices.”
“Yes. You did tell me. I’ve got no idea why I just freaked out
about it.”
“Because I never sat there and told you flat-out that I was
raped.”
Laurie’s
face twisted. He recoiled from Sasha’s grasp and slammed one hand
to the stair carpet, whose luxuriant depth even here absorbed the
impact soundlessly. “Fuck. Where are they, Sash? The bastards who
did it?”
“Long gone. They were... just clients. I never knew their
names.”
“Then I can’t go after them and fucking kill them.”
“No. But I know you would if there was any way, and that makes
my whole world better. Laurie, you’re my world. All that bad
stuff’s gone, and if I can’t get that fact through to my stupid
subconscious... Olivia says you’re to wake me up from these dreams
now.”
“She does?” Laurie swallowed. “That’s a bit of a volte-face,
isn’t it?”
“Well, now she knows the plain ugly truth, just like you, you
poor bastard. She also fired herself.”
“No. You need somebody to help you.”
“She’s gonna send me someone’s name. But I’m not sure I even
dream about that part of it—not all the time.”
“What, then? Oh, Sash—you always say you don’t remember. Please
tell me.”
“My father. Stefan. Testifying against him was the only thing I
could do, and I don’t regret a word of it, but he rears his ugly
head, you know?”
“I know.” Taking Sasha’s hand, Laurie turned it over as if
looking for the future in its palm. “You felt like you’d betrayed
him, despite...”
“Despite the fact he’d sent a hit man after us. Yeah, I did—and
believe me, I tried to get over it. Stefan’s in jail. In Bucharest,
and probably for life.”
“Yes. You never have to see him again.”
“So what with that and our new dream regime, we’re... What
does All’s Well Kenneth say when things are going right?”
“We’re laughing.” Laurie smiled weakly. “We’re
golden,
darlings.”
***
Olivia managed her timetable so that Laurie and Sasha would
never run into Marielle Fitzroy in the clinic. Today her schedule
had been interrupted, though. Or perhaps poor Marielle was having
one of her frequent crises and needed an unscheduled consultation.
At all events, there she was, being aided out of the family
limousine by a smart female chauffeur in impeccable grey. Laurie
tightened his arm around Sasha’s waist and glanced round the foyer
for somewhere to run. “Oh, Christ. Not now.”
“It’s okay.” Sasha would have preferred to dodge her, too. He
and Laurie might be golden but he wanted them home, in the ordinary
world of daily bread, radio on in the background, paperwork spread
out across the kitchen table, chatter about their working day. But
he was fond of Marielle, against all odds having formed a kind of
exiles’ bond with her in the wake of Clara’s disappearance. “Come
along, soldier. Best meet our deaths bravely. Has she got a new
driver, by the way?”
Laurie
glanced at the impeccable girl now manoeuvring the limo neatly
round the clinic’s tiny car park. “Wow, yes. I hope Charlie’s all
right.” He took Sasha’s advice, braced up and went smiling to open
the door for his mother. She was leaning heavily on the arm of a
grey-haired lady whose face lit up at the sight of him. “Hello, Ma.
Hi, Mrs Gibson.”
Gibson
momentarily forgot herself. Since Sir William’s death she had been
not only housekeeper but loyal companion and guardian to Lady
Fitzroy, but Laurie had been her pet all his life. She dropped
Marielle—Sasha stepped in and made a subtle catch—and threw her
arms around her boy. “Laurence! We came and saw you at the
Queen’s—Charlie and I did, that is.” For some reason her round face
reddened a little. “You were lovely. We saw your Guardian reviews
too, and...” She dropped her voice to a discreet whisper. “And the
article in the Star. That wretched girl! We didn’t believe a word
of it.”
“Good,” Laurie told her, laughing. “Because not a word of it
was true. Never mind that—how are you? What has Ma done with
Charlie?”
Again