‘Except that these sessions are confidential,’ Hattie said, not unkindly. ‘No, we’re going to be drawing on rocks today. Good, solid, heavy rocks. The kind that weigh you down.’
Hattie wanted us to choose a rock that ‘spoke to us’, and then cover it in all the things we needed to get rid of, in order to be our best selves. ‘Words, images, random scribbles that represent your ugliest emotions and darkest thoughts. Whatever you like. But I want that rock to be covered! We’ve no time to waste, Gals. Get all of it out.’
What Hattie had failed to mention was that all the decent-sized rocks were in the river. She flat-out dismissed the palm-sized stones we chose, responding with, ‘Are your issues the size of a pebble? If your fears could fit in your hand, you wouldn’t be doing therapy.’
‘Actually, I’m doing therapy because the rest of you emotionally blackmailed me into it,’ Kalani muttered, even as she slipped off her leopard-print boots and rolled up her coral trousers.
‘Hah. You’ve never been blackmailed into anything in your life. You needed this more than the rest of us.’ Laurie laughed back, sliding down the muddy bank on her now filthy backside.
We spent an exhilarating few minutes wading through the freezing water, which ran quick and clear over the strands of waterweed covering the sandy bed. In the end, it became a competition for who could find the biggest rock, meaning that we all needed to help each other lug our boulders up to the grass.
Too impatient to wait for the moisture to evaporate, we pulled off our jackets and cardigans and used them to dry the rocks as best we could. Still, as we started to draw, the colours bled across the surface of the stone, making it impossible to create anything precise, or particularly legible.
I soon became oblivious to the others, getting lost in my own art as I tried to embrace the project. I started with a wobbly stick woman, surrounded by rolls of barbed wire. Another one, peering out of the top window of a tall tower, like Rapunzel only with shoulder-length, yellowish hair. I drew dark clouds of fear, and a waterfall of tears running into a squishy human heart, representing all the tears I’d seen and heard over the past eight years, and how, despite my attempts at keeping my guard up, every one of them had watered my heart. I depicted a long, empty road snaking all over the rock, leading to nowhere. Along the road, I added three headstones, and then a smaller one beside them – the point at which I started sobbing – because I lived with the dread of Muffin dying in the next few years, and, unless something significant changed, losing her would break me.
I drew a pile of smashed-up dreams, which, it turned out, looked like dead roses. I finished off with a broken clock because I’d realised over the past few weeks that my life was stuck, and then coloured every space that was left with a beigey colour.
Deirdre had mostly written words on hers, including ‘victim’, ‘invisible’, ‘rejected’, ‘stale’, ‘boring’ and ‘ugh!’
Kalani had drawn, amongst other things, a tiny bird in a cage, a ripped pair of knickers bearing the word ‘shame’ and her version of Munch’sThe Scream.
Laurie’s rock featured a bent-over woman dragging a giant wheelbarrow. Riding in the wheelbarrow were various other people who I presumed were her family. She’d written ‘control freak!’ in red across the rest of the rock, along with ‘guilt!’ and ‘never enough!’
‘Now, time to haul your lump of negativity into the river,’ Hattie said. ‘One at a time, off you go.’
Laurie bent down and gave her rock a good shove. It was hard to tell in the twilight, but it might have wobbled a few millimetres.
Hattie raised both eyebrows, waiting for Laurie to have another go.
After two more tries, Kalani stepped over to help. ‘I don’t care if this isn’t allowed. If we try to shift these ourselves, we’ll be here all night. Either that or one of us will end up doing our back in. No offence, Laurie, but that’s most likely to be you, and you need a working back more than the rest of us.’
‘She’s got a point,’ Deirdre added, coming to add a third pair of hands. ‘Is this allowed, Hattie?’
Hattie put her hands on her hips, eyes rolling up to the indigo sky above our heads. ‘What, is it okay for friends to help another friend ditch the crap that’s too heavy for them to deal with themselves? Honestly, Gals! This is the second-to-last session. Get with the programme!’
It still took plenty of sweaty, grunty minutes for us to roll the rocks back into the river where they belonged. We all had a few grazes and bumps by the end of it, but we supposed that this fitted the metaphor. Before making the final push down the bank, each of us took a moment to consider the words and images we’d drawn, to commit to getting rid of them, even if it did mean swallowing our pride enough to accept help.
‘What about you?’ Laurie asked Hattie as we tidied up the pens and wiped the sheen off our faces.
‘I did mine a few days ago,’ Hattie said. ‘This was a new session, and I wanted to try it out first.’
‘So who helped lug your rock in the river?’ Deirdre asked, eyes narrowing.
Hattie glanced at me. ‘I grew up on this land. I’m a lot more used to lugging big lumps about than you four.’
‘That’s not the point though, is it?’ Kalani said, her voice soft and serious. ‘Why risk hurting yourself, when we’re happy to help?’
Hattie picked up the pens, her smile twisting crookedly. ‘The point is, it was fine. I was fine.I am fine.When I need your help, I promise I’ll ask for it.’
I felt the Gals’ eyes sliding between my back and Hattie’s, all the way back to the house.
* * *
‘They aren’t going to let up, you know,’ I told Hattie once the others had left. ‘They feel hurt that you’re keeping something from them.’
She shook her head in frustration, empty cake plates clattering as she rammed them into the dishwasher. ‘I don’t ask them to share anything they don’t want to. I specifically said that they could use squiggles and symbols if they preferred to keep things private.’
‘Yes, but those things were feelings, thoughts and past experiences. Not a current cancer diagnosis. They know this isn’t just the menopause, so they’re inevitably thinking and worrying about the worst.’
