“Not entirely . . .”
“Simon, this is her job. This is how she earns a living. You’re not her charity.”
“No, just yours. Right, Alex?”
I wondered whether he knew why he was coming to see me almost every day. My father had long since stopped paying him. What was in it for him? Why was he so determined to keep me going, to keep me sane? It certainly wasn’t doing him any good. But I never asked him. I never asked him why he kept visiting me and bringing me books, why he kept talking to me—about my legal situation, about my past, about literature, about the world, about everything that was or had once been important to me. I never asked him why he was acting as my agent, trying to liaise with my father and mother, with Anna, with Angelique, and even with Gina. What if I asked him and he didn’t know?
“It’s just that I don’t think she believes me.”
“What do you mean?” Alex asked.
I leaned in and the plastic of my one-piece sky blue prison uniform exhaled. “She thinks I did it,” I whispered.
“You did,” he whispered.
“Don’t say that, not here,” I continued, in an outraged whisper. It wasn’t that I had forgotten how crazy it was for me to have taken the little boy. My circumstances reminded me every waking moment that it had been sheer insanity, however brief, to insinuate myself into Anna’s life like that, thinking, in some vague ill-conceived way that I was also doing something positive for her son. The logic of it had been to leave her no choice but to save me by telling the world that I was, after nearly ten years, her lover again, her confidant, her conspirator, confessor, the person she most trusted. So of course I had her permission to do something as uncontroversial as pick her son up from school. In maintaining this line she would be aborting whatever relationship she had or was about to have with her putative lover, and she would be bringing to an end her sham of a marriage to Joe Geraghty. She would be free to start again. She could reconsider me.
However crazy this plan was, once I had acted on it I had no other way out but to persist with it if I wanted to get out of prison. Anna’s permission was my only possible defense. I had to hope that she retained enough of a vestige of what she had once felt for me for it to be less insane for her to go along with what I’d planned than it was for me to act on it in the first place. Alex understood that, having acted irrationally, it was now rational, even essential, to act for all the world as though, as Anna’s lover, I’d had her permission to take Sam and that it was only her second thoughts about ending her marriage and the humiliation of a public admission of the affair that was keeping her from speaking up and freeing me. I had maintained this line all along, to Staszic and Threlfall, to Gina, in fact to anyone who would listen. Alex knew this and, perhaps with a heavy heart, he went along with it. But he kept checking, prodding me to make sure I was hanging on to reality.
“Simon, we’re trying to get you out of here, you and I, and we’ll do and say what we have to. I can’t get you well in here. But let’s not forget that you . . . you took him without Anna’s permission.”
“Yes, but . . . do you think Gina knows?”
“She hasn’t said anything.”
“Either way?”
“No.”
“Do you talk to her about me?”
“Of course I have.”
“But do you? Do you talk to her regularly?”
“Well, I do. She wants to know how you are.”
“Do you talk to her about my mental health?”
“Simon!”
“What? She’s my lawyer. Only things, matters, affecting my legal situation are of any relevance to her.”
“Simon, do you think I’m betraying your confidence to Gina?”
“I think you’re seeing her.”
“You know I—”
“I think you’re seeing her more than you need to on my account.”
“You think I’m seeing her socially?”
“Yep.”
“Do you think that concerns you?”
“I think that the word concern has more than one meaning. I think that whatever meaning you had in mind, the answer would be the same—yes. Yes, it concerns me, and I think that by responding with a question you’ve answered my question.”
“Simon, I am seeing her.”
“Jesus! I knew it.”
I don’t know why this made me feel the way it did—afraid, anxious, as if someone had hit me in the stomach. I hadn’t thought I had any equilibrium left to disturb. I covered my face with my hands and leaned forward on the chair. I wanted to vomit. Alex put his hand on my back and began to rub it. “Were you seeing her when you recommended her to me?”
“No.”
“Was your . . . be honest with me, Alex—was your interest in her the reason you recommended her to me?”
“No.”
“Not even part of it?”
“No. I’d worked with her before although . . . never as intensely as this. When I contacted her about you, I didn’t know she was separated.”
“Separated?”
“Divorced. She’s divorced. I’m separated.”
“Does she have kids?”
“Two, like me.”
“Alex, you’ve got to tell me—what am I to you?”
“Simon, why are you asking me—?”
“You lie with her—”
“Really, Simon, that’s not your—”
“I don’t mean lay. I’m not talking about sex. Look, Alex, you’re worried about me losing my mind in here. You’re worried I’ll lose my grip on reality altogether. You remind me, rightly, that my defense is . . . a lie. I was not really having a relationship with Anna.”
“No, you were not.”
“I didn’t really have permission to take him.”
“No, you did not.”
“Despite that, everything you’ve done, everything you’ve said to everyone since the day I called you from the police station, has been consistent with that lie. I admit that. But now you have some sort of involvement with Gina. I know you. You would have told her the truth. You would have told her that I’m guilty as charged.”
“She can’t act for you if your instructions are to mislead the court.”
“Alex, what does that really mean?”
“If she knows you’re guilty she can’t continue to defend you against the charges.”
“But, Alex,” I said, now looking up from my knees into his eyes and holding both of his hands, “you know.”
7. It was Gina who finally influenced Alex to stop trying to get me to agree to see Angelique again. Alex had been insisting that Angelique couldn’t reasonably be blamed for my present situation. If she hadn’t called the police, Anna or her husband, Joe, would have called them, sooner or later. In calling them so soon she had actually helped me by reducing the time Sam was away from his parents. If I was to be found guilty, having had Sam for less than three hours wouldn’t look so bad when it came to sentencing me. Sound as it was, this argument was never going to get me to see her. The idea of being sentenced at all, even leniently, was and still is an anathema to me, the more so because nobody had been hurt, certainly not Sam, by what I had done. But more than this, I still hadn’t completely given up the hope that if I could just talk to Anna alone, I might yet persuade her to tell them that I’d had her permission to take her son that afternoon.
Alex had also appealed to my sense of guilt. I am to Angelique what Anna is to me, only in Angelique’s case it is more warranted. When I thanked him for flattering me he corrected me sharply.
“I am not flattering you, Simon. It’s more warranted not because you’re a worthier object of affection than Anna is. At least, that’s not what I meant, although it’s interesting that you interpreted it that way. Your feelings for Anna are based on an idealized version of a relationship you had with her ten or so years ago—”
“Idealized. You always have to say that, don’t you? Is it not enough—”
“Angelique’s
feelings for you are much more rooted in reality.”
“Alex, how can other people comment on the ‘reality’ of someone else’s subjective feelings? Affections can be more real to someone than anything else in their lives. They can be the only things that keep you going, like religious faith.”
“Simon, don’t play dumb with me. She, Angelique, was the only thing keeping you going. She cooked for you, talked to you, walked with you, listened to you. She drank with you, shopped for you.”
“You did most of that too, you know.”
“Simon. She held you. She made love to you. She misses you terribly. How can you punish her like this? It’s not consistent with the person you are, the person you want to be. You owe her.”
“The person I want to be is the person who’s not in here. You’ll forgive me if I’m not at my most giving.”
“Simon, just because she felt more for you than you felt for her doesn’t mean it was wrong for her to feel the way she did. It doesn’t mean it was crazy.”
“But I suppose it’s crazy for me to hold on to feelings for Anna that were once reciprocated?”
“Whether they were reciprocated once is not the point. You’ve had nothing to do with her for years. You’ve got no reason to believe they’ve persisted all this time.”
“She can’t have changed that much, not the essence of her.”
“That’s what you’re counting on, isn’t it? Her essential constancy. If she hasn’t changed you’re a free man. You’re out of prison, this one, and the psychological one you’ve been in for ten years. But if she has changed . . . what then?”
If instead of being hanged by the neck
you’re thrown inside
for not giving up hope . . .
you won’t say,
“Better I had swung from the end of a rope
like a flag”—
“Who is it, the Turkish guy? Nazim Hikmet, is it?”
“Yes.”
“What a fine memory you have. But Hikmet is in prison because of the hope he retains in the world, his country, his people, while you are in prison only because of the hope you retain in Anna, in Anna as she was. It is indeed a heavy burden you impose on her. And even if she hasn’t changed, if the essence of her hasn’t changed, what if you simply misremember her? What if you’ve had her wrong for all these years?”
“I don’t think I have.”
“You hold on to this memory of her the way a religious person holds on to his faith. There’s no test for a theist that can displace his faith in God. If God fails, there must be something wrong with the test or else with the theist’s interpretation of the results. It’s the same with a political ideologue too, a communist or an evangelical free marketeer. It’s not ever possible to displace an article of faith.”
“But, Alex, I’m testing her now.”
“Simon, she doesn’t come to see you. She’s failed.”
“No, not yet. She hasn’t come to see me.”
“Simon, listen to you! You’re unable to design a test that allows her to fail.”
“If I can just get a chance to talk to her, I know she won’t leave me to rot in here.”
“And if she does?”
“Then she’s failed.”
“And if she doesn’t ever come to see you?”
“Alex, I’ve designed the test. You have to help me get her to take it.”
“And, Simon, if I can’t get her to, you stay in jail and she still hasn’t failed.”
But just as he ultimately managed to talk me into agreeing to see Angelique another time, so he failed to persuade Anna to visit me even once. He had apparently spoken to her a total of three times since the day I took Sam to my house. He assured me that she understood what it was I wanted from her. Despite that, he said, I should be in no doubt that the “essence of her” envisages herself negotiating her way through the rest of her life in the knowledge of my conviction for the kidnapping of her son.
8. The smell of disinfectant is everywhere. It burrows into my skull and eats away at the very idea of me. How am I supposed to breathe? Perhaps I’m not.
It was Gina who persuaded Alex to stop trying to get me to see Angelique. In fact, Gina insisted that I not see her. She was horrified to learn that I had even seen her once. Angelique was a prosecution witness who could, herself, be charged and this, Gina argued, made Angelique at least potentially very dangerous. Neither Alex nor I had ever thought of her that way. Gina didn’t know her, but she said prudence required that we assume the worst with respect to her. It was possible Angelique could testify to a conversation we’d allegedly had in prison. She could say that I had told her what to say to the police or in court. Alternatively, she could say that I’d threatened her, or bribed her to change her testimony. It would be difficult enough with Anna refusing to corroborate my story. As far as Gina was concerned, no good could come of me seeing Angelique again. The woman was a young prostitute. She was extremely vulnerable to intimidation by the police. They might even persuade her to wear a wire. Who knows what deals she’s made.
Alex was the one who needed convincing. I had not wanted to see Angelique. He’d been insistent to the point of anger that I did. It was the more pronounced because he had never come close to anger with me over anything, not even over me taking Sam. That day in one of the conference rooms in the visit center, when Gina laid down the law with respect to Angelique, I just sat there and listened, but Alex argued with her. It became a little heated.
“Gina, I understand what you’re saying, but you don’t know her.”
“I don’t need to know her. I’m giving Simon my professional opinion. He can disregard it if he chooses, but why would he want to give her more opportunity to fabricate something?”
“Gina, she’s completely devoted to him. She’s just a vulnerable young girl.”
“Fine. That only makes her more susceptible to pressure.”
“Gina, she was good to him at a very difficult time.”
“Alex, who knows what she’ll say? The more he sees her, the more rope they get. You can’t give the prosecution a windfall like this, not another one. Especially when there’s no need to.”
“You haven’t seen her. The way she is—”
“Alex, there’s no forensic need for him to see her. My job is to get him out. I don’t care if he marries her once he’s out. But right now he doesn’t have the luxury of worrying about her feelings. Simon, you know I’m right,” she said, turning to me.
“I’m not arguing,” I said quietly.
“Alex, he’s not arguing. It’s his decision, his life, his girlfriend.”
“No. We were just . . . friends . . . really.”
“Strictly speaking, Alex, this isn’t even any of your business. It concerns his defense. You shouldn’t even really be here—”
“I can leave,” Alex said, standing up.
“No, stay. I want him here!” I shouted at Gina, but she wouldn’t stop.
“It’s just wasting time, this . . . your relentless advocacy on behalf of that . . . woman. Why do you do it?”
“Maybe we should take a break or something,” I volunteered.
“That’s a good idea,” she sighed, looking at her watch. “I need to call home.”
“Everything all right?” Alex couldn’t help himself asking, but she had closed the door before she could answer.
When we were alone, I told him that I had to agree with her. I just couldn’t risk it; I wouldn’t agree to see Angelique. But I suggested, and regretted it even before he could respond, perhaps he would stay in touch with her. Perhaps he could look out for her.
“Do you want me to try to keep her on side?” he asked.
“Well—”
“Simon,” he began quietly, partly in anger and partly in despair, “I’m your psychiatrist and, against the best interests of at least one of us, I have become your friend . . . I am not your pimp.”
Against whose best interests was it that Alex had crossed th
e line and ceased to be purely my therapist? He had become a friend, maybe even a little of a father figure who also just happened to be a psychiatrist. We had both known this for a long time. But, as a friendship, it was plainly unequal. In what way had I ever helped him? Before I took Sam to my place, before my incarceration, we would often have long conversations that seemed to have nothing to do with me, at least nothing to do with Anna, my past, my family, or my mental health. We would discuss the news, politics, history, his concern about disturbing tendencies in health care. I would hold forth on literature and recommend movies, and even music. We traded ideas and shared enthusiasms. But the friendship was always unequal when it came to our personal histories—I still know very little about his past or his private life, about his children, or about the breakdown of his marriage. And since coming here it has become even more unequal. My longtime emotional palette of shades of melancholy has degenerated into a kaleidoscope of raw extremes—extremes in which I flirt briefly but intensely with paranoia, anger, self-pity, self-doubt, and a sense of hopelessness. To assault Alex with one of these moods whenever he comes to see me is not what one does to a friend. It is what one does to a psychiatrist.
His visits saw the evolution of a minor ritual. After greeting each other, the first thing he would do was ask me about the hours since he had last seen me—how were they spent, how did I get through them, how had I slept? And while he was asking I would be apologizing abjectly for some outburst the previous day or even days before. And I really was sorry. I couldn’t be more sorry. Alex was about the only good thing my father had led me to, the only friend I had in the world. He was my family now. Even Angel, whatever her motives, had turned on me. I had engineered this situation myself with an act that was as irrational as it was futile, and as a result I was more alone than ever. There was absolutely no one else to hear me except Alex. I was not myself anymore. Or else I was too much myself. The relationship, initially of therapist and patient, and then of inquiring minds in the service of lacerated souls, had come full circle. Something about me had helped to distract Alex from some deep, black, lachrymatory hole that hid within him, but not anymore. Now the help was all one way. And he had to drive out to Laverton to give it.