chapter forty-one
‘Thank you for fitting me in today.’ Erika sat in the blue leather recliner across from her psychologist, who sat in a matching lounge chair angled towards her, as though Erika were a guest on a talk show. There was a large round ottoman in between them, with a box of tissues on it, as if the ottoman were a coffee table. (A tiny annoyance. Why not get a coffee table?)
‘No problem at all. I’ve had a lot of cancellations because of the rain. They’re advising people to stay off the roads if possible.’ Erika’s psychologist’s name was apparently Merilyn. That’s how she’d introduced herself, and that’s the name that appeared on her stationery, but as far as Erika was concerned it was a real error of judgement. Merilyn was entirely the wrong name for her. She looked nothing like a Merilyn. She looked like a Pat.
Merilyn bore a startling resemblance to a secretary who had worked for Erika for many years, and was correctly, appropriately, called Pat. That particular type of (round, rosy) face and the name Pat were therefore linked together forever in Erika’s subconscious and every time she looked at her psychologist she had to remind herself: Not Pat.
‘This rain really is extraordinary, isn’t it?’ said Not Pat, looking out the window.
There was no way Erika was going to waste a minute of paid time discussing the weather, so she ignored that fatuous remark and launched straight in.
‘So whenever I get invited to someone’s place, I always take a jar of chocolate nuts,’ she said. ‘Chocolate almonds.’
‘Yum,’ said Not Pat cheerily.
‘I’m not that keen on them myself,’ said Erika.
Not Pat tilted her head. ‘Why do you take them then?’
‘Clementine’s mother used to take chocolate nuts whenever she went to someone’s place,’ said Erika. ‘I think she bought them in bulk. She was quite thrifty like that.’
‘She was like a role model for you,’ suggested Not Pat.
‘They used to invite me to come with them,’ said Erika. ‘To barbeques and … things. I always said yes. I was always so happy to get out of my house.’
‘That’s understandable,’ said Not Pat. She was looking at Erika curiously.
‘I’m doing that thing my mum does when she tells a story,’ said Erika. ‘She rambles. She can’t stick to the point. I read that it’s quite common with hoarders. They can’t keep their conversation in order any better than their homes.’
‘Rambling is good,’ said Not Pat. ‘Actually, I think you’re circling. I think you’re coming to something.’
‘Well, you know, chocolate nuts aren’t really an appropriate hostess gift anymore,’ said Erika. ‘Because of allergies. Everyone has allergies these days. Once Clementine looked at my jar of nuts and said, “You can tell you don’t have kids, Erika.” ’
‘Did that offend you?’
‘Not especially,’ said Erika, considering. ‘You would think it would have because we’d just that day found out that we’d failed another round of IVF. Clementine didn’t know that, of course. She would have felt terrible for saying that if she’d known.’
Not Pat tilted her head even further, like a cute little Disney chipmunk listening out for something in the woods. ‘You went through IVF? Or you’re going through IVF?’
‘I know it’s strange that I haven’t mentioned it up until now,’ said Erika defensively.
‘Not strange,’ said Not Pat. ‘But I do find it interesting.’
‘About eight weeks ago,’ said Erika, ‘we had a barbeque at our next-door neighbour’s place.’
‘Okay,’ said Not Pat.
Watch me circle, Not Pat.
‘Yesterday,’ said Erika, ‘my husband found our neighbour’s body.’ She wondered if she was doing this on purpose. This was what her mother did. She threw people off balance for the pleasure of watching them wobble. It was fun.
Not Pat definitely wobbled. She was probably regretting right now that she’d agreed to this emergency appointment. ‘Um. The neighbour who had the barbeque?’
‘No,’ said Erika. ‘He was on the other side of them. He was an old man. Not an especially nice man. He didn’t have friends or family. Everyone is feeling terrible because his body was there for weeks. Except I’m not feeling terrible.’
‘Why is that, do you think?’
‘I don’t want to feel terrible,’ said Erika impatiently. ‘I don’t have time to feel terrible. I don’t have the … space in my head. Look, I don’t even know why I mentioned that. It’s not relevant. Anyway, we’ve given up on the IVF because my eggs are rotten, and before the barbeque, we asked Clementine if she would donate eggs to me. To us.’
Not Pat nodded bravely. ‘How did she react?’
‘Something happened at the barbeque,’ said Erika.
‘What happened?’ Poor Not Pat looked like she was about to break out in a sweat.
‘The thing is, beforehand, I took one of those tablets you prescribed,’ said Erika. ‘A whole one. I know you said I should start out with a half, or even a quarter, but I took a whole one, because I couldn’t break it, and then, at the barbeque, I think maybe I drank more than I would normally drink.’ She saw Clementine running about trying to catch the frothing champagne.
‘Oh dear,’ said Not Pat with a grimace so exaggerated it was almost comical.
‘As you may know, there’s a big warning label on the front of the packet,’ said Erika. ‘It says the tablets can increase the effects of alcohol, but I just thought: Well, I never drink much, I’ll be fine, but I had a glass of champagne and maybe I drank it too fast. I was feeling a certain level of stress. Anyway. I think I actually got drunk, which is not something I’ve ever done, and I have gaps in my memory about that night. Black spots. Like blackouts?’
‘They’re probably more like brownouts,’ said Not Pat. ‘Alcohol affects your ability to transfer your memories from your short-term memory to your long-term memory.’
‘So you think they’re gone forever?’
Not Pat shrugged. Erika glared at her. She didn’t pay for shrugging.
‘Something might trigger a memory for you,’ said Not Pat. ‘A taste. A smell. Something someone might say that makes you remember. Or sometimes being back in the same place might help. You could “return to the scene of the crime”, so to speak!’ She laughed a little at the words ‘scene of the crime’ but Erika didn’t smile back. Not Pat’s smile vanished.
‘Right,’ said Erika.
She would think about that later.
‘So anyway, I took chocolate nuts to the barbeque. Like I always do.’
Not Pat waited.
‘I guess I was just thinking about all those times that Clementine’s mother asked me along to family events,’ said Erika. ‘Her dad would be driving, her mum would have the jar of nuts on her lap, and I’d be in the back seat with Clementine. Her older brothers were mostly off doing their own thing by then, so it was often just the two of us. I’d be looking out the window, feeling so pleased with myself, so blissful, pretending Clementine and I were sisters, and that her parents were my parents.’
She looked up at Not Pat, surprised to find that this was what she’d been circling, this not exactly shocking little factoid, as Oliver would say. ‘Clementine wasn’t blissfully pretending she was my sister. Clementine didn’t want me there at all.’
‘Ah,’ said Not Pat.
‘I always knew that, of course. Deep down I knew it. But lately I’ve been trying to put myself in her place, to be the one looking out the other window, the real daughter, with this impostor always hanging about.’ Erika looked unseeingly at the plush, padded surface of Not Pat’s ottoman. ‘I wonder how that felt.’