Espresso Tales

Irene was beginning to feel impatient. She glanced at her watch. What if the next patient arrived now? She might be prevented from hearing Dr Fairbairn’s revelations, and by the time that they next met he might be more composed and less inclined to confess his guilt. “So?” she said. “What lies at the heart of your guilt?” She paused. “What did you actually do?”

Dr Fairbairn looked away from her, as if embarrassed by what he was about to say.

“I suppose at the heart of my guilt lies my professional failure,”

he said. “I’ve tried to tell myself that it was no failure, but it was. It really was.”

Irene leaned forward. “How did you fail?” she asked. “Tell me. Let me be your catharsis.”

“You’ve heard of my famous case?” asked Dr Fairbairn. “The study of Wee Fraser?”

“Of course I have,” said Irene. “It’s almost as famous as Freud’s case of Little Hans or Melanie Klein’s Richard.”

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Dr Fairbairn smiled, a smile that surrendered shortly to pain.

“I’m flattered, of course,” he said, “but in a curious way that makes what I did even worse.”

Irene looked at him in astonishment. Had he falsified the case? Did Wee Fraser actually exist, or was he a fraudulent creation upon which Dr Fairbairn’s entire scientific reputation had been built? If the latter were the case, then it would amount to a major scandal. It was easy to understand why the author of such an act of deception would feel a crushing burden of guilt.

“What exactly did you do?” Irene asked. “Did you invent Wee Fraser?”

Dr Fairbairn looked at her blankly. “Invent him? Why on earth would I have invented him?” He paused. “No. I didn’t invent him. I hit him.”

Irene gasped. “You hit Wee Fraser? Actually hit him?”

Dr Fairbairn closed his eyes. “I hit him,” he said. “He bit me and I hit him. And do you know what? You know what? After I hit him, I actually felt a lot better.” He looked out of the window, shaking his head. “And then the guilt came,” he said.

Then the guilt came, like a thief in the night.

And took from me my peace of mind.

74. The Wolf Man, Neds, Motherwell Irene was rarely at a loss for words, but on this occasion, faced with the extraordinary confession by Dr Fairbairn that he had actually raised a hand to Wee Fraser, the famous three-year-old tyrant, she was unable to speak for at least two minutes. During this time, Dr Fairbairn sat quite still, privately appalled at what he had done. He had spoken about that thing which he had for almost eleven years completely repressed. He had articulated the moment of aggression when, his hand stinging from the painful bite which Wee Fraser had inflicted upon him, he had briefly, and gently, smacked the boy on the hand and told him that he was not to bite his therapist. Wee Fraser had looked at 244 The Wolf Man, Neds, Motherwell him in astonishment and had behaved extremely and uncharacteristically well for the rest of the session. Indeed, had Dr Fairbairn not been as well versed in the dynamics of child behaviour, he might have concluded that this was what Wee Fraser had needed all along, but such a conclusion, of course, would have been quite false.

Eventually, Irene spoke. “I can understand how you feel,” she said. “That’s a serious burden of guilt to carry around. But at least you’ve spoken to me about it.” She looked at him quizzically. “And, tell me, how do you feel now?”

Dr Fairbairn took a deep breath. “Actually, I feel quite a bit better. It’s the cathartic effect of telling the truth. Like a purging.”

Irene agreed. Dr Fairbairn actually looked lighter now; it was almost as if the metaphysical weight of guilt had been pressing down upon his shoulders; now these seemed to have been raised, lifted, filling his blue linen jacket with movement and strength.

“Of course you won’t be able to leave it at that,” she said, gently lifting a finger, not so much in admonition as in caution.

Dr Fairbairn looked momentarily crestfallen. “No?” he said.

“No,” answered Irene. “The striking of Wee Fraser is unfinished business, isn’t it? You need to make a reparative move.”

Dr Fairbairn looked thoughtful. “Maybe . . .”

Irene interrupted him. “Tell me,” she said, “what happened to Wee Fraser. Did you do any follow-up?”

Dr Fairbairn shook his head. “Wee Fraser had been referred to me by a general practitioner. She managed to get the Health Board to pay for his therapy after he had been involved in an unfortunate piece of exhibitionist behaviour in a ladies’ hair-dressing salon out at Burdiehouse. He had been taken there by his mother when she went to have her hair done. Some of the other ladies were a bit put-out and so she took Wee Fraser to the doctor to discuss his behaviour. Fortunately, the GP in question had the foresight to believe that psychotherapeutic intervention might be of some help, and that’s how our paths came together.”

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“And the parents?” asked Irene. “Functional?”

“Oh, I think that they functioned quite well,” said Dr Fairbairn. “Or they seemed to. They were a respectable couple.

The father was a fireman and the mother was a receptionist at the Roxburghe Hotel. They were at their wits’ end with Wee Fraser, I fear.”

“And what happened to him?” asked Irene. “Did you not hear anything?”