Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
I t turned out that it wasn’t my one last challenge with Mairéad – who was I kidding? I’d booked in a session with her the next day – this day – so that we could go through all my coping techniques and a couple of new ones for emergencies, as Mairéad put it. I tried not to focus on the fact I might find myself in an emergency and more on the fact that I would still be able to call Mairéad if I needed her, and I definitely did need her.
I needed Mairéad with me in New Zealand and the only way she could be was if we kept my weekly sessions booked in as they were, just over a video call instead. There was the small hiccup of the time difference of course but Mairéad assured me we’d make it work and I loved her all the more for it. She also said that I could call her any time I needed her.
During our sessions, Mairéad always came to me; I never went to her house. That would just be weird and unprofessional. We always sat in my kitchen (apart from yesterday when I broke the news of my plans), opposite each other because Mairéad liked to keep eye contact, which, I won’t lie, I found intense at times, especially as she never seemed to blink.
‘Right, then,’ Mairéad said from across my kitchen table. ‘What are you most worried about going over there?’
‘We’d need a list.’ I sighed.
‘Let’s make a list then.’
‘If only it were that easy.’
‘It is.’
‘For you maybe – a normal person but not for me.’
‘You are normal, Pearl, your brain is just wired a bit differently, that’s all.’
‘It doesn’t feel normal.’
‘What does it feel like?’
Here we go, I thought. The feel stuff – the word that somehow had the capacity to both frustrate me and defuse me at the same time, because it forced me to let it all out when I didn’t naturally want to.
‘Like butterflies,’ I said.
‘Butterflies?’ Mairéad repeated.
‘In my head, it feels like a whole load of butterflies fluttering around my head. All the time.’
‘Butterflies are beautiful.’
‘To look at, maybe, but not when they are flying around your head all hectic and you can’t catch them to keep them still.’
‘Maybe they don’t need to be caught?’ Mairéad said. ‘Maybe they just need to be admired, watched from a safe place, appreciated?’
‘Are we talking about actual butterflies or my thoughts now?’
‘You just need to work with them differently.’
‘Have you ever tried to catch a butterfly, Mairéad?’ I asked. ‘It’s bloody impossible.’
‘That’s where I come in,’ Mairéad winked. ‘Let’s make that list.’
Obviously the list was much bigger than this but we shortened it to the essentials and called it the P&C’s (you know, like T&C’s only these were personalised to me).
People
Prayers
Penises (to include all intrusive thoughts)
Checks
Then Mairéad gave me some coping mechanisms.
Trees, trees, trees (when I needed to break the intrusive thoughts).
Breathe, relieve, relax (when I needed to calm down).
Rafts and rivers (when I needed to let a thought go and watch it float away).
Don’t get on the bus (when I needed to stop a thought from taking over, I had to imagine myself at the bus stop watching the bus drive away full of whatever was bothering me).
Press the bell (when I was already on the bus and the thought had taken over, I had to visualise myself pressing the bell and getting off the bus).
When we’d established the list and gone through it all, Mairéad took me by both hands.
‘Why are you really going, Pearl?’ she asked, and the question threw me.
‘To see Jack,’ I said with a frown.
‘Yes, but why? Why him? Why now?’ she pushed.
I thought about this for a moment. I could have just told Mairéad it was to see if I could really do it, to see if I could challenge myself, how far I could venture outside of my quiet village life without anyone else in tow – which was what she was probably expecting – but the real reason had been locked inside my head for most of my life.
‘To free the butterflies,’ I said.
* * *
After Mairéad left, I spent the rest of the day packing, which was difficult when I pretty much wore the same thing every day. I packed my salmon-pink jumper, and my salmon-pink polo neck, my work jeans and swimming costume, and then stared into the mostly empty bag. There would be plenty of room for extra wipes (there was no limit on them because they weren’t classed as liquid) and some plastic bags for anything sneezed on but what about more clothes?
I opened my wardrobe. Clothes I hadn’t ever worn hung on hangers, colour coordinated, brand new (although I had washed them because I couldn’t have anything from the shop unwashed in my wardrobe). What would Jack like? What hadn’t he had a chance to see me in? All of it. I picked out a mustard-yellow dress that fanned out from the waist – I’d bought it when Una made me go shopping for new clothes – a black cardigan to go with it, an oversized blue jumper Una had bought me that I’d never even tried on, some black leggings and another pair of jeans, a couple of T-shirts, lemon-yellow and white, and a pair of denim shorts. I shoved it all in. My bag was only half full, but it would have to do. I’d fill the rest of it with books.
I packed one tube of toothpaste, a bar of soap, a small pot of my favourite moisturising cream and some deodorant. Then I loaded two 50ml bottles of antibacterial gel – one for my back pocket and one for my bag (that way I’d have two, in case one went missing).
And finally, I placed the Polaroid photo that Una had taken of Jack kissing me in The Tally on top.