Nothing you can’t do
Kira worked fast. In fact she was like a whirlwind. Anwar had called Millie that night.
‘A woman called Kira cornered me on the orthopaedic ward today,’ he explained. ‘She’s very … er … outgoing. Isn’t she?’
‘That’s one way to describe her,’ Millie muttered.
‘Seems like there’s been a fair bit of change recently,’ Anwar probed. Millie knew he’d seen her and Pav around the hospital together. He’d probably heard about the cake in the canteen as well.
‘You … er … could say that.’
‘Do you think we should fit in another session, Millie?’ Anwar was one of the first people to call her by her Christian name. He’d asked her before they even sat down for her session with him six years ago what she was comfortable with him calling her. At the time it had been a real novelty to have someone address her with informality, even if she was paying them to do so.
Millie thought about all the changes over the last three months and how overwhelming they sometimes felt, and agreed to meet Anwar that night.
*****
‘So,’ he grinned across at her now. ‘This is different.’
For some reason Millie had wanted to meet Anwar at the pub. It was quiet enough that they would be able to talk, and she knew in the back of her mind that she wanted to show him how far she’d come. Anwar had always told her that her limits were not set in stone; that she could do anything if she would let herself.
Millie managed a small smile and watched as he blinked in surprise. She’d always been concentrating so hard at their previous sessions that she rarely, if ever, relaxed her mouth from a grim line.
Anwar’s grin widened, his white teeth stark against his dark skin. He was attractive, objectively, Millie had always been able to see that, but he didn’t affect her like Pav. Nobody ever had.
‘I like him for you, Millie,’ Anwar said through his smile, and Millie looked away, feeling her cheeks heat. ‘When you collapsed in the lecture theatre his face was … well, the best way to describe it would be “fierce”. We had to pry him away from you. Did you know that?’
The memories of that awful day were hazy for Millie. She did vaguely recall Pav’s loud objections to her not going to the emergency department.
‘He’s … kind,’ Millie whispered, and a strange expression crossed Anwar’s face before he cleared his throat.
‘Millie, I’m sure he is kind,’ Anwar said slowly. ‘But you know that’s not why –’
‘They want me to present at the conference,’ Millie blurted out, cutting him off. She did not want to go over Pav’s motivations for being with her, be that kindness, pity … it was too stress-inducing to consider.
‘Okay,’ Anwar said, his eyebrows going up in surprise. ‘How do you feel about presenting?’
‘I … I think it’s beyond my –’
‘Millie, if you say “limits” I will scream,’ he told her, deadpan.
She shrugged and almost smiled again imagining the big man in front of her letting out a girly shriek. ‘Well, it is. You saw what happened before.’
‘You had a panic attack, Millie,’ he said slowly. ‘It doesn’t mean you can never speak publicly again. You know that, right?’
She looked away and took a deep breath. Anwar sighed. ‘Millie, I –’
‘He kissed me,’ she blurted out, and he blinked at her in surprise.
‘Er … right … so …’
‘I wanted him to … I mean it was … I just …’ She trailed off and stared at her hands on the table, waiting for Anwar to fill the silence.
‘This is a huge step forward, Millie,’ Anwar said eventually. ‘This shows that you can push past some of the boundaries in you mind.’
He broke off as his hand shot forward to grasp onto Millie’s, and pull it out from her other sleeve. She hadn’t even realised she was pinching the skin until the pressure was removed. Anwar let go of her hands once they were separated and Millie slipped them under the table and out of sight.
‘Why does this make you anxious?’ he asked. ‘Describe exactly the negative thoughts, then we can deal with them.’
‘I love him,’ Millie whispered.
‘Mils, that’s not a negative –’
‘When he was actually kissing me I wasn’t thinking anything, except …’ Her cheeks heated again and she bit her lip. It seemed that kissing Pav, doing anything physical with him, was a temporary cure for her anxiety. Her mind was blessedly and totally blank when they were together like that. It was afterwards that the doubts crept back in.
‘Okay, so not whilst he was kissing you, but you felt worried after. What were you thinking? Can you put exact words to the worries.’
‘Okay, so first I was thinking that … that I loved him – Pav, I mean.’
‘Right.’
‘And then … and then I started to think about when he would get tired of me, of how much I’d miss him. Then I worried that would set me back, that I might have even more … limits.’ Millie took a deep breath before going on. ‘Then I thought, what if after he leaves me and meets someone without limits, someone easy, what if he regrets ever being with me? What if he resents me for wasting his time? What if he ends up hating me?’
There was a few moments’ silence as Millie stared down at the table.
‘Oh, Mils,’ Anwar’s soft voice eventually whispered. Millie looked up to see that he was staring at her with a tender look on his face. She shrugged and Anwar leaned forward to put his warm hand over her cold one.
‘Right, let’s break them down, all right? You known the CBT drill. We have to look at each thought and confront it head-on with logic. As always I’ll remind you that I know how clever you are, so I know you have an awful lot of logic at your disposal – let’s tackle this stuff with that. Because this is a big step forward, Millie. Allowing yourself to trust somebody to that extent … it’s a massive leap for you. And you know what, if you can make that kind of progress, there’s nothing you can’t do.’
*****
‘Wooh! Wooh!’ Kira cheered as they watched Libby and Claire flip down the two aisles onto the stage and swing around the poles. It was Saturday afternoon and the club that Tara and Claire danced in was deserted. For some reason Kira had declared that book group, or rather the Let’s Try and Sort Millie Out Group, as it seemed to have become, would be conducted here this week.
Eleanor, Kira and Millie had just arrived and were standing at the back of the club. Libby had already been there for a couple of hours going over the new routines she was teaching the girls. Although she no longer performed (her ‘bursary’ allowing her to give up that extra money), the owner kept her on retainer as a choreographer. Millie suspected that it was a very large retainer given the affection the owner had for the woman who had made his club a real success. Since Libby had joined the dancers a few years ago and taken over the routines it had become the most famous strip club in London.
Kira jumped up on the aisle in front of them and ran down it with her hands milling in excitement. Halfway along she fell into an ill-advised forward roll before jumping back up to her feet, swinging up onto a pole and falling on her arse. Millie had never seen anything so funny in her life. She felt it bubbling up through her chest and her mouth trembled, and then she started laughing. Once she’d started she couldn’t stop. She could hear El giggling next to her and took a deep breath in to try and control it, but then it started up again.
Turns out, Millie’s laugh was loud. It was so long since she’d laughed properly that it came as a bit of a shock. When she finally managed to get a hold of herself she had tears running down her cheeks, and she was pressing her lips together to stop herself being set off again. The image of Kira’s inelegant forward roll after the girls’ professional flips kept replaying in her mind.
Instead of looking annoyed, Kira was beaming at her from the stage.
‘Hurrah!’ she shouted, her arms going straight up into the air. ‘See, I knew this was a good idea.’ She gave Libby a pointed look and Libby rolled her eyes in response.
‘What are we doing here, Kira?’ asked Millie through a few giggles that were still trying to escape as she and Eleanor walked up to the stage.
‘You, my gorgeous girl, are going to work the pole,’ Claire told her, and Millie’s smile abruptly fell away.
‘Wh –’
‘Come on, lady,’ Kira said, jumping down from the stage and grabbing Millie’s arms so that she could move them both in a swaying motion from side to side. ‘It’ll loosen you up. Get that stage-ready mindset on the go.’
‘Kira,’ Millie said, attempting to halt the swaying but somehow finding herself in a dancer’s hold with Kira’s hand around her waist and her other hand holding Millie’s out in front of them. ‘There are not going to be any …’ Millie paused as Kira spun her out and then pulled her back in again ‘... poles to work on the stage at the conference. I’m not sure the same skills are needed.’
‘Of course they are,’ Kira told her as she continued to sway them both in a little circle. ‘Confidence, control, not being afraid of the audience: it’s all the same whether you’re stripping or public speaking.’
‘Have you ever stripped, Kira?’ Eleanor asked, her voice just as sceptical as Millie’s.
‘Um … actually she has,’ Libby put in from the stage through a huge smile. ‘It was kind of an amateur night. Kira brought the house down.’
‘Oh God!’ cried Claire. ‘Was that the time she crawled on her belly like a snake, then did that air-cycling on her back? I thought I’d die laughing.’
‘My moves may be unconventional, but they said what they needed to say, get me?’
‘They said that you are mentally ill, Kira,’ Libby told her. ‘Steve still hasn’t let any amateurs back up on stage and it’s been two years.’
Kira sighed. ‘I can’t help it if that man has no eye for talent. Right, now let’s get this pony in the bridle; let the waffle see the Nutella.’ Everyone stared at Kira blankly and she sighed. ‘Let’s go, people.’ She clapped twice and Claire rolled her eyes.
‘Okay,’ she said, sitting down on the edge of the stage. ‘Have you ever danced before Millie?’
‘Uh …’ Millie shifted on her feet and her lips twisted to the side. ‘Ballet. I used to do ballet. But the teacher said I …’ she paused for a moment, then straightened her shoulders ‘… she said that I was too robotic. I don’t think she’d wanted to put it that way but my mother was pushy and wanted me to take the main parts in the performances, to be the star, and eventually my teacher had to let her know it wasn’t possible. That I could learn it all perfectly, but I would never be able to dance. Mother pulled me out after that. I was nine.’
‘Did you enjoy it?’ El asked, and Millie shrugged. She had loved the costumes. She loved being with girls the same age. It had been fun.
‘Yes,’ she whispered, remembering how devastated she’d been when her mother had ordered her to collect her stuff. The regret and sadness on her teacher’s face as she was dragged away. ‘Yes, I loved it.’ She felt El’s hand squeeze hers for a moment and then release.
‘Great,’ said Kira into the silence, jumping off the stage and landing in front of Millie. ‘Stripping is just like dirty ballet. You’ll be all over it in no time.’
Millie smiled and shook her head. ‘I don’t think that …’
‘Come up here,’ Claire said, offering Millie a hand and staring at her expectantly. ‘We’ll start slow.’ Millie hesitated for a moment. Claire gave her an encouraging smile and Kira a small shove from behind. She drew in a breath and reached up to Claire. Tara grabbed her other hand and she was pulled up on stage.
‘First things first,’ Tara said. ‘You all need to chuck a pair of these babies on. Nobody can work a pole without some friction, and leggings are not going to cut it.’ Millie caught the black scrap of material that was chucked at her chest and held it up to inspect it. It was a pair of gold satin hot pants with Main Attraction written across the back in sequins.
‘It’s the waitress uniform,’ Claire explained. You’ve got to be able to grip the pole with your legs.’ Millie looked at the girls and then at the hot pants in her hands. Kira was already pulling off ripped jeans to reveal a pair of red pants, then pulling on the shorts over them. She pinged the waistband and jumped once on the spot.
‘Ready!’
Millie looked from the shorts to Eleanor, who shook her head and smiled.
‘Come on, hun, we’ll find the changing room.’