Chapter Thirteen
Weirdly, Edward doesn’t look too impressed by my first week of anger journaling.
His eyes flick across the page, his brows furrowed, and I feel a small crush of embarrassment.
I shouldn’t have sworn all over it, that was immature.
But, in the moment, that’s what I felt like writing.
I was being, y’know, honest and authentic!
I wanted to be childish and petty. I wanted to treat the assignment with the dignity I felt it deserved.
He sighs after a moment. ‘I know you weren’t exactly thrilled about this when your agent – he’s a character, isn’t he – first suggested these sessions.
’ He leans forward, looking thoughtful and intense.
‘But they told me you’d had a change of heart; that you were keen to go ahead and wanted to try.
Your producer, Spencer, and Fabian both said you had requested to meet with me specifically because we already had this collegial relationship.
I was worried it would be unprofessional since we work together as colleagues, but they insisted. They promised me you were open to it.’
‘I am open!’ I snap.
‘Clearly you’re not!’ He sounds exasperated, waving at the stupid journal.
He looks up, making eye contact again. ‘Look, Olivia, would you rather meet with someone else? I would understand. It’s important to find the right therapist and it could be someone outside of the therapy collective. I have a list—’
‘No,’ I say quickly. The thought of having to start again – and with a stranger! – suddenly seems much worse, even, than being here with him. We sit in silence for another minute.
‘You’re sure?’ he asks, eyes searching mine.
‘If you’re worried about Morning Tea finding out that you’ve switched therapists, I could—’ I shoot him a warning look at the mention of Morning Tea, and he brings his hands up in a gesture of surrender.
‘Sorry, I know that topic is off limits.’ I scowl and he sighs.
‘Okay,’ he says at last. ‘Well, I’m getting the feeling the journal itself needed to be noted down as something that made you angry. ’ He looks faintly amused.
‘Sorry,’ I mutter, feeling my cheeks get hot.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he tells me kindly, putting the journal to one side. The fact that he’s being nice about it has made this worse. I thought he’d be supercilious and snotty. I thought I’d get slapped down, instead of this mildly disappointed act.
He cocks his head ever so slightly. ‘Why do you think you find it so much easier to give advice than take it?’
I feel myself bristle again. ‘That’s not true,’ I say as neutrally as I can.
I fight an urge to pick my phone back up and start playing the coloured test tube game again.
‘I’m absolutely fine listening to advice.
’ I then add quickly, ‘When it’s warranted or relevant.
’ He’s looking at me, so I continue, aware I’m slightly babbling.
‘I listen to Sam’s advice! Even though it’s mostly terrible.
And I listened to Justin’s advice when we were together.
He had plenty of opinions on my work and my clothes and my life choices…
’ I trail off when I catch something passing across his face.
It’s gone before I can pin it down and he’s back to being inscrutable.
He clears his throat lightly. ‘Do you think your relationship with Justin was healthy?’
I blow out my cheeks, feeling like I’ve been slapped. You can’t just go straight to a question like that! Edward should be building trust with me, not intimating that I make shit choices.
I lean in. ‘Do you think my relationship with Justin was healthy?’ For good measure I add, ‘Ed?’
He smiles tightly and I can see he’s vaguely annoyed. I know I’m being a bit mean. Maybe even belittling. I’m prodding that professional facade for any exterior cracks.
He puts down his pencil. ‘I wasn’t in your relationship, Olivia’—fair enough, he’s doing the same thing back to me— ‘so I can’t answer that.’
We eyeball each other for a full thirty seconds, neither one of us wanting to back down. But he blinks at last, leaning back into his chair.
‘Okay, if you don’t want to talk about Justin, then let’s talk instead about your week.
How has it been?’ he asks. I sit back in the armchair, wondering how to answer this.
I definitely can’t tell him the truth. I can’t tell him how I wasted the whole week obsessively going through nearly ten years’ worth of Instagram pictures of Justin’s new girlfriend, Orla.
I can’t tell him how I set up a fake Facebook account just so I could request to be her friend on the off chance I could see her more embarrassing younger years.
How I listened to two full series of her podcast – which by the way is hatefully smart and funny and cool.
She really did have Carol Vorderman on there!
Vorders!! The living legend herself! I can’t tell him about Friday night, where I tricked my friends into following Justin and Orla through London, and then watched them personalise a toy at Build-A-Bear.
I can’t tell him how I cried all the way home wondering what name they might call the bear and what message they recorded together for it when you press its tummy.
And I can’t tell him how Sam had to get her daddy long-legs costume out again to cheer me up.
Or the detailed plan she came up with to poison Justin’s home water supply.
‘My week’s been… fine,’ I say simply. Edward smiles again and I think how much kinder he looks when he smiles. He is suddenly less like a Ken doll and almost like a real person.
‘Would you like some cake?’ he says, reaching into a bag and pulling out some Tupperware. ‘It’s carrot cake. My mum made it.’
‘Your mum?’ This completely knocks me off my feet.
This man has a family. He is someone’s son.
He’s probably got a dad, too! I never would’ve pictured it.
‘Does she live nearby?’ I ask, realising I don’t know the first thing about this man I’ve been acquainted with most of my adult life and worked across a hallway from for all these years.
‘Not too far.’ He nods his head. ‘She and my dad are in Bath. My brother and I take it in turns to visit regularly. She loves coming to London though. She says she likes to see young people having fun.’
‘That’s nice,’ I say, meaning it. He takes off the lid and offers me a slice. I take some. It’s moist and smells amazing. ‘Is this your way of bribing me into engaging with the process?’ I twinkle, and he laughs.
‘Yes, I’m dangling a carrot… cake.’
I take a bite. It’s amazing. ‘It’s definitely better than dangling just a carrot,’ I say thoughtfully.
‘What a strange thing for people to say. Carrots aren’t that nice, not really.
I mean, they’re okay, I guess. I don’t turn them away when they find their way onto my plate, but I still can’t see in the dark.
So why would dangling a carrot be so very enticing?
Surely it’s a better idea to dangle a bag of Maltesers or something. ’
‘True,’ he acknowledges, biting into his own slice of cake. Crumbs go everywhere and he laughs at his own clumsiness. And, so I do, too.
‘Please tell your mum thank you very much,’ I say through a mouth full of sugar. ‘She makes a mean carrot cake.’
‘I will.’ He smiles widely. ‘What about you, do you have family close by?’
I shake my head. ‘No. My mum lives in Cumbria, but we don’t really talk much these days.
I’m not close to my dad either. He left us when I was pretty little – three or four.
I think he was in Spain last time I heard from him.
He sends the odd happy birthday text.’ I laugh, adding, ‘Usually in the wrong month though. He mostly seems to think I was born in January.’ I pause.
‘My grandma was the one who really brought me up. But she and Grandpa died quite a long time ago now. When I was a teenager.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he says simply; sincerely.
I shrug. ‘It’s what grandparents do.’
‘It’s what we all do.’ He shrugs. ‘When we were training, did you ever read Love’s Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy, by Irvin D.
Yalom?’ I shake my head and he continues.
‘I’ll lend you a copy, it’s fascinating.
He says that the ever-present awareness of inevitable death is something that drives us from a very young age. ’
I nod. ‘That’s a fun thing to say.’
He ignores this, continuing with something akin to endearing enthusiasm.
‘We try to deny our inevitable mortality in different ways. Some people turn to religion to reassure themselves that something like immortality is waiting for us. Others have children to ensure a kind of continuance. Some try to create something else to leave behind – a legacy of some kind, so we won’t be forgotten. ’
I nod thoughtfully. ‘You know, I’ve been trying to write that book. I have a publishing deal.’ I pause, wondering if I still do. ‘But as you can see’—I gesture towards the anger journal at Edward’s side—‘writing doesn’t really come naturally to me.’
He laughs again, then looks more serious.
‘Look, Olivia, I do understand how hard it is for you to talk to me about all this. I know it will be strange for you to open up to a colleague. But I believe this could work and might even be genuinely helpful if you let it. We all know it’s easier to give advice than to take it.
We can be the wisest person in the world when it comes to other people, but it’s so much harder to be objective when it comes to our own lives. ’