When she presented the box to Minnie on the sofa, she said, ‘I’m sorry you think Isaac wasn’t here for you these last seventeen years. When you open this, you’ll see that he was. He’s been here all along. I just couldn’t tell you.’
Anna
The therapist’s office was in a basement near Gloucester Avenue, but it was surprisingly light. Anna sat on a comfortable low sofa. Maddy, the systemic psychotherapist, sat across from her on a well-stuffed armchair. There was a coffee table between them with a large book of black and white landscape photos of Dartmoor and a box of tissues. Anna saw the tissues and resolved not to need them. She was determined that this session would be practical and useful, rather than emotional.
‘So, OK, it was Grace who recommend that you come and see me?’
‘Yes. She said you were a huge help. And Grace is … well … you know full well how resistant Grace would be to something like this.’
‘Right. So, Anna, what can I do to help?’
‘Good question. To be honest, I don’t think, really, you can do anything, I just need to … say some things. To someone who isn’t in my family.’
‘Great reason to be here. Ready, steady, go.’
‘Ummm. Right. God, hard to know where to start really. I suppose I should tell you straight off, that I have always wanted to kill my ex-husband.’
‘He drives you nuts?’
‘Well, yes, but that’s the least of it. It’s been a long time since we were married, but this feeling has been bubbling. Recently, I’ve actually fantasized about the different ways I could do it. Properly, really, actually do it. End him. And that gives me great pleasure. And satisfaction. And relief. I absolutely could do it. Any day now. I know it’s wrong, but I am starting to think that whatever punishment would be worth it, so y’know, the benefit would outweigh the cost.’
‘You strike me as someone who knows the difference between right and wrong?’
‘Yes, of course. Absolutely. I’ve worked out where I could get a gun and I know the exact trajectory of the bullet that would finish him instantly. Most people think it’s up through the roof of the mouth or side of the head, but a surprising amount of people survive those blasts. It’s far, far better to shoot directly into the heart, assuming the person actually HAS a heart, that is. Pretty much guaranteed to work. And I like the metaphor.’
‘Are you set on this?’
‘I absolutely will not do it. I just needed someone to know that I really WANT to. That’s all. Thanks. So, I’m probably finished then, I’ll just make a move. Don’t want to keep you. There are people in a genuine pickle needing your time, I’m sure.’
Anna stood up, looping her Hermès satchel over her arm.
‘Sit down, Anna. There are fifty-five remaining minutes that I think could be useful …? You will certainly pay for them, so you might as well use them.’
Anna thought for a moment, and then sat down again.
‘Great. Anything else you think I should be aware of?’
‘Let me think … Someone stole my baby seventeen years ago, and I haven’t been able to live since. I’m here, I know that, I exist, I can see I’m conscious in the mirror, but I’m not living. I’m just waiting …’
‘I see.’
The Box
Minnie waited until she heard the front door slam, then sat on the floor and looked at the box in front of her. Lee took a packet of crisps and a banana, and retreated to the bedroom so as to be near enough, but not in her space.
Minnie felt as though Hope had dumped her out to sea and here was a life raft bobbing on the horizon. In a strange way, she wanted to prolong the moment before she opened it, because she wasn’t sure she would cope if whatever it contained was any kind of rejection. Hope had always, until now, given Minnie a bedrock of security with her unflinching love, but Minnie had nevertheless always sought the attention and approval she wasn’t getting. Outwardly, and for her mum’s benefit, she had pretended she couldn’t give two figs about this Isaac bloke – after all, he had abandoned them both. In her true heart, though, Minnie had always longed to know him and to know why he left. Somewhere, in a blameful deep pit inside, she had questioned whether, perhaps, just maybe, it was because of her? Her logic was simple and difficult to refute.
Minnie believed that when a beautiful little new baby is put into your arms, you fell in perfect love entirely, and nothing nothing nothing would ever part you, unless a bus ran you down, or a bomb blew you up. So how could her own father, Isaac, who had made her, how could he have looked at her and then decided to leave? Was she not good enough? Not pretty enough? Did she cry too much? Did she personify everything he feared? Was he ashamed of her? Why didn’t he want her to meet all his family? Why didn’t he take her with him? Why didn’t he want Hope?
If, for some reason, the answers to all of these lifelong questions weren’t in that box, Minnie would have to continue to blame herself, so she was nervous. Now that Hope had finally told her the dreadful truth, she was starting to unpick and gradually understand why Isaac might’ve gone. Minnie wasn’t even his daughter – of course he would go. Perhaps he didn’t know that Minnie wanted a father very much. So much, that the prospect of opening this box, which Hope had said was some kind of contact with him, was making her tremble and gulp.
As Minnie took a deep breath, she closed her eyes and repeated a quiet
