She shakes her head, smiles sadly, and pours me another glass of wine. I haven’t seen her in the flesh for years, and she looks older but still gorgeous: laughter lines around her huge brown eyes, her hair cut into a stylish bob.
“I beg to differ,” she replies, more gently. “Even from what you’ve told me, I can tell that you are. You’ve lost a baby, and never had time to deal with that. You’ve lost your long-term partner. You’ve lost any sense of control over your life, and your response has been to shut down. Panic attacks, anxiety, social isolation…leaving behind your work, your friends, the things that make youyou. None of that is a sign of a healthy mind, my love.”
“Priya,” I reply firmly, “I know you’re a psychiatrist and this is an occupational hazard, but please stop trying to…shrinkme!”
She sips her wine, looks at me sadly, and replies: “Shrink you? Honestly, Ella, I don’t think I could make you any smaller than you are now.”
Her tone is kind, but her words are like poison darts. I am almost 40. I have no home, no nearby family, possibly no career. I have nothing apart from a stray dog.
I curl my arms around my knees, and bite my lip. I want to cry, but I think that if I do, I might never stop. I know she is saying these things for my own benefit, I know she is trying to help, not to be cruel – but it still hurts. Everything hurts. I am one big human-shaped sore spot.
“You know,” she says, sitting beside me and leaning into my side, “that this isn’t a sustainable way of life, don’t you? What do you think might happen next? You’re welcome to stay here for as long as you like, but it won’t change anything. You can run as much as you like, but you’ll still be you. The answer isn’t to try and live in a sensory deprivation tank, Ella – you need to open up, not close down. It’s the only way.”
“I could do something different,” I reply, “I could retrain. Do a job that doesn’t matter so much.”
“Yes, you could,” she says, stroking my hair back from my face. “People do, and sometimes that’s the right thing for them. But for you? I don’t think so. Even when we were young, you were always the most committed of all of us. Even when we had that holiday, after medical school, I remember you still being switched on…like that time we met those cute boys in that nightclub in Paris, and you tried to diagnose one of them with diabetes because he kept going to the loo…”
“Yeah. I think maybe he was just snorting cocaine, with hindsight.”
“Me too,” she says, laughing at the memory, “but that’s who you are. Your issue has never been that you don’t care enough – you care too much. From what you’ve told me, the way you’ve been living for the last few years, you’ve been doing your best to remove that part of yourself, exorcising it like it’s a malignant tumour. But it’s not, it’s an essential part of you. Even now, I’ve seen you sneaking away on your phone. I’m going to take a wild guess here and say you’ve been checking up on your patients.”
I stay silent, but she is right. I told the GP practice partners that I was on sick leave, rather than simply resigning, so I still have access to the system. I have seen that Dan has been given a clean bill of health and gone home with an after-care action plan in place; I have seen that George’s mole was low-grade and no further treatment is required. I have seen that Miranda has been attending her pre-natal sessions. I felt sneaky as I checked, like some kind of voyeur.
“I have,” I reply eventually. “But I don’t think I’ve been doing that because I’m a great person, Priya – I’ve been doing that to clear my conscience. To make myself feel better about leaving them.”
She gives me a little thump on the arm, and says: “You see? Even now, you’re trying to find the worst in yourself, trying to prove you don’t deserve anything good in your life. This man, Jake?”
I nod, and feel myself tense. I haven’t spoken to Jake since we left, and even hearing his name feels painful.
“Jake, who by the way is quite clearly the hottest dude in Dorset…”
“Possibly the world,” I reply.
“Possibly the world. Anyway, Jake – what kind of person is he? Is he an idiot? Is he reckless and compulsive? Does he have a disastrous life based on poor decision-making, drug use, low self-esteem? Or is he just, you know, a bit stupid?”
“No!” I bleat defensively. “He’s not like that at all. He’s kind, and measured, and thoughtful. He’s a successful businessman. He’s a million miles away from stupid!”
She grins at me like she’s proved her point, and continues: “Right. So, would a man like that fall in love with you if you were as much of a wreck as you think?”
“I see what you’re doing here, Priya, and I’m not buying it. I just think maybe he doesn’t really know me, not all the bad stuff, not the things that are lurking beneath the surface…”
“But you say you were close, that you shared everything with him. Why don’t you trust his judgement?”
Jeez. She is relentless, and I have a flash of pity for her patients.
“Okay, you win,” I finally say. “I don’t trust my own judgement. Is that what you want to hear?”
“I want to hear that you’ll get some help, babe,” she answers. “I want to hear that you’ll let me help you, or let someone else help you. I want to hear that you’re not going to give up on yourself.”
I am desperate for this conversation to end, to go to my bed in her spare room, to escape. Except knowing Priya, she may well follow me in and talk to me while I’m asleep as well.
“What would that look like?” I ask, hoping to shut her up. “Getting help?”
“I don’t know. We can figure that out. I have resources, colleagues, things I could suggest. You could even see my therapist.”
“You have a therapist?” I ask in astonishment. “But your life is perfect!”
“Nobody’s life is perfect, and yes, I have a therapist – and let me tell you, I am an absolutely horrible patient. I personally think my therapist hates me, but that doesn’t matter – she’s not my friend, she’s part of my support system. As is Martin, and the girls, and my book club, and the occasional glass of wine. We all need help sometimes, my love, it’s as simple as that. The tricky part for you will be accepting it.”
