Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
O ne, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven … penis. I ran up my stairs and then down them again. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, Mr O’Callaghan’s penis in my face. I ran back down.
Trees, trees, trees . One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen.
When I got to the spare room, I was out of breath and flustered, but penis free. I had an hour before Jack was due to arrive. I had no idea how much stuff he would have but how much stuff did someone need when they lived out of a bag? It couldn’t have been much; he didn’t seem the high-maintenance type. I’d bought some extra toothpaste and a bar of soap from O’Callaghan’s, because I couldn’t bear the thought of sharing my soap.
Una thought it would be funny to slip a pack of condoms into my bag so I’d posted them through the salon door with her name in bold print on my way home. I’d sprayed the toilet, stocked up on loo rolls. I’d put a fresh hand towel (I’d kept mine in my room) and a clean bath towel on the spare bed so he knew they were his.
I’d told myself that a weekend would be doable. I would stay up as long as needed (three in the morning, I didn’t care) just to come down and do everything when he was asleep. That way, I wouldn’t have to worry about what Jack might have left on because he’d be asleep by then, surely? I’d wake up an hour early to give myself plenty of time to get down the stairs and if I did it all in one go I’d go for a walk to clear my head.
Come Monday morning, he’d be out of my house and well on his way to Dublin (that was where he was headed, by the way, when his car broke down) and I’d be fine, I’d get through it.
I was already downstairs doing a mental check of the house when the doorbell rang. I glanced at the clock, he was early but that was fine, I was ready (I wasn’t ready). I took a deep breath and visualised my worries drifting away down the river on a raft while I watched from the riverbank on a beautiful summer’s day, until they disappeared out of sight.
Mairéad had taught me that one. I’d tried to tell her that it was all very well until I was joined on the riverbank by an orgy of penises, with Mr O’Callaghan’s taking centre stage. But she persisted, anyway, and I didn’t mind. I wasn’t paying her. I got the sessions for free through a mental-health society –WellMind –I’d joined when I moved into my grandmother’s house, as part of the deal with my parents to get my own house.
When I opened the door I almost passed out. Mairéad was stood there not Jack. We have our sessions on a Saturday because I am too tired during the week and Mairéad is too busy.
‘Everything OK, Pearl?’ she asked with a concerned look on her face.
‘I forgot you were coming,’ I said, flustered.
‘I always come on a Saturday.’
‘No, I know, it’s just that I am expecting someone and it’s all a bit out of the blue, so it’s thrown me.’
‘A date?’ Her eyes sparkled.
I shook my head.
‘A friend?’
‘Kind of.’
‘Now I’m even more intrigued.’ She laughed but I think she could tell I wasn’t in a place for humour.
‘He’s called Jack.’
‘OK.’ She smiled. ‘And who is this Jack?’
There was a beat as I held her stare.
‘I don’t actually know.’
* * *
My sessions with Mairéad usually last an hour but she’d agreed to stop fifteen minutes early so that it wouldn’t clash with Jack’s arrival. It had been difficult to concentrate because I couldn’t take my mind off the fact that Jack could have turned up at any moment and what would I have said? WellMind was plastered all over Mairéad’s car for Christ’s sake.
‘So, how do you feel about him staying?’ Mairéad brought me back into the room.
‘Regretful.’ I sighed.
‘How about we change that to hopeful ?’ She gave an invisible nudge. ‘It will be good for you to have someone else in the house to challenge you, it’ll be just what you need.’
Mairéad had a way of doing that; switching the negatives to positives. You know, like the whole turn-that-smile-upside-down, impossible-to-I’m-possible thing. It annoyed me when other people did it but for some reason with Mairéad I didn’t mind.
‘It’s going to make everything worse,’ I said flatly.
‘Only if you let it.’ Mairéad straightened her back and pushed her mug of coffee to one side like she was about to give some sort of speech. ‘Come on, let’s go through some coping strategies so that you feel more prepared. He’s only here for the weekend, you can do this.’ She winked.
‘I feel sick.’
‘It’s just your nerves. It means you’re excited.’
‘It means I’ve made a mistake.’
‘No, it doesn’t.’
‘I don’t even know him.’
‘True, but he’s already stayed one night, the rest will be a breeze and if it’s not then you’ll cope, just like you always do. Ready?’ She didn’t give me a chance to respond; she took a deep breath in and then gave me a nod. ‘In for one, two, three, four…’ She opened one eye to check I was joining in. ‘Hold for eight,’ she said with restricted breath. ‘And pinched cat’s bottom lips – release … one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.’
‘Pinched cat’s bottom lips’ means exactly that by the way – I have to pinch my lips together when I breathe out so that they look like a cat’s arse hole (if you’ve ever seen one, you’ll know what I mean). It helps to slow down the breathing.
I was glad she finished on nine. Nine relaxed me more than the exercises. I had no idea why so don’t bother even wondering why yourself, because you’ll never know either.
When I first started Mairéad’s breathe, relieve, relax techniques I could barely get to five before letting out one mighty gasp like I’d almost drowned. But kudos to Mairéad, I always felt calmer afterwards (probably because I had such a light head from all the breath holding).
‘OK, so what’s your main worry about Jack coming to stay for the weekend?’ Mairéad asked.
‘He’ll see it all.’
‘See what?’
‘My OCD.’
‘OK, pick one ritual and tell me what would be so bad about him seeing you doing it.’
I sighed. ‘He’ll wake up and hear me telling him I love him, over and over again, while trying not to think of a penis and kissing the top of his head three times without waking him up.’
‘That’s a good one.’
‘Thank you.’
‘So, let’s just say, for argument’s sake, you’re what, lying next to him doing it?’
‘No, I’d be standing up over him because I can’t assume I’ll be in the same bed.’
‘Of course, right, OK.’ Mairéad nodded. ‘So, you’re telling him you love him…’
‘Whispering,’ I corrected her. ‘I’ll be whispering I love him, he’ll be asleep, remember, and I won’t want to wake him up.’
‘Just to clarify you don’t actually love him?’ Mairéad asked.
‘No of course I don’t love him! It’s just what I say isn’t it. I do it to you, Una, my parents, have you not noticed?’
‘Yes.’ Mairéad smiled warmly.
‘It’s just an urge and I’ve got to say it before the penis comes. It’s not always consistent, I don’t do it to everyone, and it doesn’t make any sense.’
‘It’ll make sense somewhere we just don’t know where yet,’ Mairéad said. ‘But for now, let’s just concentrate on Jack and how you’ll cope because we don’t have much time. So you’re standing over him, he’s fast asleep, you’re whispering that you love him, then what?’
‘Then I say it over and over again because of the penis.’
‘Right, and let’s just say he stirs, do you stop?’
‘I freeze, wait until he settles and then start again.’
‘Why do you start again? You’ve already told him you love him.’
‘Because I’ve thought of a penis.’
‘And? What’s the penis going to do if you stop and walk out of the room at just one I love you ?’
‘I don’t know what the bloody penis is going to do, Mairéad, if I knew that it would all be much simpler. I’ve told you, it’s not this clean-cut thought that falls into place on explanation.’ I felt my heart speed up and whack against my chest and Mairéad must have felt it too (figuratively speaking).
‘Perhaps that’s best left for another session too,’ she soothed. ‘Let’s just concentrate on the what if s. So he’s woken up, he’s staring right at you, you’ve said I love you a million times, kissed his head three times, and he’s heard and seen it all. Then what?’
‘Then I die of embarrassment.’
‘And?’
‘And I can’t explain myself – how could anyone explain that without sounding like a complete and utter weirdo?’
‘And?’
‘And he runs a mile because of said weirdo.’
‘Mmm, and?’
‘And that’s it.’ I snap.
‘No, it’s not, and then what?’
‘And then nothing.’
‘Exactly. And then nothing .’ Mairéad repeated.
‘What do you mean?’
Mairéad reached over and took my hands in hers. She must have felt me flinch. ‘I mean nothing horrendous will come of it, even if the worst thing he does is run away, which I’m sure he wouldn’t do. You might feel mortified, but that’s as far as it will go; you won’t die, you won’t go crazy, you won’t make something awful happen to someone else. He’ll either get up and walk out and think you’re totally crazy – which is fine, by the way – or he’ll stay, ask you what you’re doing and you’ll tell him.’
‘Tell him?’
‘Why not? It might help.’
‘I wouldn’t know where to start.’
‘You start exactly where you are – you tell him you have an obsessive compulsive disorder that gets worse when you’re tired or anxious, that you’re having therapy for it and that it doesn’t define you.’
‘But it does define me,’ I said, defeated.
‘Only if you let it,’ Mairéad said again. It was one of her favourite sayings. ‘What I’m getting at, is that nothing is going to happen, even if you said I love you and turned around and walked out of the room after saying it once, a penis right there in the forefront of your mind. You don’t have to say it more than once. You don’t have to say it at all.’ She paused and it felt like forever. ‘The penis is just in your head,’ she added. ‘It’s not real, we’ve established that.’
Mairéad looked at her watch. I liked the fact she still wore one like me. Most people don’t bother anymore. It’s all gadgets and devices that don’t tell them the actual time but instead tell them everything else like their heart rate or how unfit they are, or when to have their tea.
‘OK, we’ve got five minutes, tell me how your last food shop went?’ She dragged me from my thoughts again. ‘Did you manage to do what we talked about?’
What Mairéad meant was had I managed to do the shop and get home without using hand sanitiser, and I had. I had got all the way home without putting any on because I’d accidentally left it at home – which never happens by the way but the whole Jack thing had really flustered me (you see, it was already messing everything up) – but I didn’t tell Mairéad that. I didn’t go back in and buy any either because someone had sneezed on my way out (I’d heard it behind me as I walked out of the shop) so there was no way I was walking back through that. I sprayed my hands with my trusty Dettol spray instead.
‘Yes,’ I said and I hoped she’d leave it there, but of course she bloody didn’t.
‘That’s great!’ She beamed. ‘And how did that make you feel?’
‘Anxious.’
‘What else?’
‘Dirty.’
‘At what point did you stop feeling dirty?’
‘When I had a shower afterwards.’
‘You showered?’
‘Yes.’
‘And then what?’
‘Then I felt clean.’
‘Did you wipe the shopping?’
‘No,’ I lied.
‘I see,’ she said, but I don’t think she bought it. ‘The thing is, we need to try and move forwards not backwards. I understand you will have relapses but in order to have relapses you need to stop doing something first.’
‘I did, I didn’t use sanitiser. That’s massive for me, with the contamination from the steering wheel, the handbrake, the seats.’
‘Can I ask you something, Pearl?’
I knew Mairéad meant business when she used my name.
‘Yes.’
‘Did you wipe the inside of your car afterwards?’
‘No.’
It was the truth.
‘Did you spray it?’
Damn Mairéad, she never let anything drop. I let out a long sigh.
‘Yes.’
She shook her head and paused to let me know she wasn’t happy and I felt like a schoolgirl about to be told off.
‘And your shoes?’
‘I did them in the car.’
‘I see.’
‘What about the woodlice? Did you shut the gate without checking them?’
‘That’s different.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s their lives at stake.’
‘But your life is at stake, Pearl – your mental health – you can’t spend the rest of it like this. You can’t spend the rest of it trying to save woodlice.’
‘I can’t stop it all, not cold turkey,’ I protested.
‘We’ve tried the gradual approach, Pearl. We agreed we’d give this way a go.’
‘And I did, I tried my best but it was just too much.’ I sighed again.
‘I want to help you, Pearl.’ Mairéad looked at me with pity and I hated it. ‘I want to, but you have to help me too. It has to come from you. If you can break just one ritual, it will put you on the path to healing. It all starts with change, Pearl, and you’ve got to make a change.’
We both startled at the sound of a loud knock and I jumped to my feet, which prompted Mairéad to get up too.
‘He’s here,’ I said, my eyes full of panic.
‘Just breathe it will be fine. I’ll go, but call me if you need me – day or night, I don’t mind.’ She placed her hand on mine and I didn’t want her to go. I wanted her to stay, to tell me what I had to do, to do it for me.
I walked behind Mairéad until she reached the door and opened it. Jack was stood on the other side, a rucksack on his shoulder.
‘Hey.’ He smiled at Mairéad and then to me. I could see Mairéad’s car parked outside, with WellMind scrawled across the bodywork in bold red and underneath – Ensuring Mental Health Matters.
Mairéad smiled at Jack and then turned back to me.
‘Remember what I said.’ She squeezed my arm again.
‘I will. Thanks for stopping by, Aunty Mairéad. I’ll let Mum know you were looking for her.’
I pleaded with my eyes for Mairéad to go along with it, and she didn’t say anything, just gave me a look and walked to the gate.
When she reached it she stopped, fixed her eyes on me and then pulled it firmly shut behind her.
And all I could think about were the squashed woodlice.