Therapist

It was her own movement that brought her out of her reverie. The rain drops scurried across the expanse of glass in front of her making her eyes work to focus. She never thought of it as a window since it could not be opened. It was beautiful and the view behind the rain was something she loved. But it was not a window. Anna’s office had no fresh air.

The movement that had pulled her back into the room was her forefinger tapping the pencil she loosely held in her right hand. She considered the movement precisely for a moment without moving her arms from their position; folded across her middle right on top of the left. The pencil she had used in her last session with Michael. (He preferred her notes to be in pencil because he struggled with finality.) She re-created the movement consciously this time, testing herself to recognise it. To unearth it from the disarray of her physical memories.

Tap.

Oh. She felt the recognition turn on within herself like a radio finally finding a clear channel. Her hand had tapped away ash from the cigarette she was so used to holding in this way. Anna turned and rested the pencil on her desk before focussing her eyes back beyond the rainwater and out to her view of London. She was nice and high over Embankment and could see all the way to Victoria in the distance. With the rain the city had been washed in blue light like an impressionist painting. The odd lights that were coming on in the buildings also blurred into the rain. She thought about these raindrops all newly formed that day now pelting to this place on earth. Driving the busy humans into shelter or under their umbrellas, braced against nature that was now spoiling their commute.

Anna did not judge them, she disliked getting wet. She walked herself back into the centre of her office. For a few moments she stood to take it in somehow it felt like she hadn’t really looked at it in weeks maybe months. Had she looked at herself too? Standing back from the glass now she could see it as an inexact mirror. Her hair was smoothed into a ponytail. Her eyebrows pencilled in place, the only part of her still naturally light blonde so she coloured them in to match her now darker hair. She couldn’t see the detail but she knew her eyeliner was gathered in the expanding creases of her eyes. Her cheeks were a little puffier than the image she had of them in her mind. Her shape was the same but one size larger all over than it had been a few years ago. Grateful for the evenness of the spread if not the spreading itself of her flesh. Her almost uniform of flowing wide black trousers and fitted jumper (easily replaced by a t-shirt in the summer) cut a distinct silhouette in the glass.

Anna’s computer made the calendar alert noise unexpectedly making her look away from the glass and losing the clearest image she’d had of herself in months. The alert informed her she had a spinning class booked in the cycle studio below the office block. She dismissed the alert knowing full well she wasn’t actually booked onto any class. She had missed so many, she wasn’t allowed to book any at the moment. But she kept them in so that the booking service couldn’t squeeze in a late client consult. It also meant people didn’t come to her office uninvited at this hour. She’d noticed that a few of her colleagues had terrible timing as they couldn’t imagine what someone else might be doing with the blank spaces in their calendars. It was suggested that this would be time to type up notes and keep files up to date but Anna did most of that in the immediate 10mins after her appointments. If she did it then her notes were always of a higher standard. Something that had been pointed out to her in reviews was that her patient files were precise and to the point. This seemed to give the management team a good deal of faith in her and for the most part they now left her alone. She had spent three years with the consultancy. She would need a clinical rotation soon. It was believed that they needed to keep their clinical skills refreshed every few years and it was something the consultancy mentioned in its promotion literature. Although it never went down well with clients who didn’t want their therapist to suddenly only be available at very reduced office hours and at a hospital clinic rather than this shiny comforting office. The reality was that her patients were mostly highly strung city workers. They needed her help with their stress, their sense of self and their fractured relationships with family friends, co-workers’ partners just as much as anyone else.

Anna undid the top button of her trousers, a clear demarcation in her day to move her mind away from professional matters. Although the question was what to move it to as she would have preferred avoid. Like the fact that she had installed a small hidden mini fridge in her office cupboard a couple of months ago. She’d come in one weekend to do it without anyone seeing. It contained miniature bottles of prosecco, wine and cans of cocktails.  She would use it so infrequently she would barely have to keep it stocked up. She had told herself it was for emergencies or impromptu celebrations and for particularly hard days. But the convenient bottles now formed part of her weekly shop, they were now saved in her favourite products; Ocado’s algorithms equal parts helpful and enabling. She had considered writing to them and suggesting alcoholic products shouldn’t be able to be categorised in this way. She hadn’t. She clicked ‘add to basket’. Anna selected a bottle of pink Cava. The rain made her want to pretend to be in Spain somewhere. She sipped straight from the bottle, stashing the foil and cork shaped screw top in a carrier bag to be taken down to a bin on her way to the station. She never left evidence in the office bin. She didn’t want gossip or patients spotting things about her life. This also extended to her lunch, post it notes, and stray hairs she pulled from her ponytail. As such the cleaners actually came to her office less, only to whizz through with a duster and hoover and only if Anna wasn’t there. She rewarded them with chocolates at every appropriate opportunity.

Anna enjoyed the way the fizz rolled through her mouth and caught at the edges of her throat. She returned to the window. The rain had settled in, no longer a shower but an established monotonous falling of raindrops. She returned to the fridge another three times, that was the fizz gone, the can of rum and coke popped open as she ordered pizza. Another reason why she needed to undo the top button of her trousers, because her healthy salads and stir fry ingredients were sat at home slowly turning in the fridge as she opted for a takeaway in the office again. Rather than her cold living room with Andi padding around in her slippers. Andi was Anna’s housemate through circumstance only they had lived together for over a year now because actually they got on well as almost strangers.

The pizza was sticky with volumes of cheese that Anna approved of. She scrunched her second can up in one hand while lifting the last piece into her mouth. Another can popped open, this time gin. She felt her head starting to get that strange expanding feeling it always did as the alcohol started to seep recognisably into her decisions. The rain pelted against the window and London was just a blur of electric lights beyond.

Anna’s stomach felt so full she decided she ought to lie down before making her way to the train. She lay on her patients’ couch. No patient had ever laid down for her she wasn’t sure why they needed full couch but it was another thing people expected of therapists.

“Actually, that’s your fault isn’t it” She said to the man that had taken a seat in her usual chair. “You’re to blame for the couches and the lying down and talking about relationships with parents”

“Why do you think it bothers you that people expect these things?”

“Oh, come on is there any real need for the accent?”

“Well I would have had one Anna”

“Yes, but is it needed here, right now?” She shot him a look.

“Would you prefer I spoke in Austrian?” he asked in his native tongue.

“You know I don’t speak Austrian”

“Maybe I spoke Polish?” The language rattled through her unexpectedly making her body tense. “You remember more than you realise you should give yourself credit”

“English is fine Mr Freud.” Anna didn’t need to look at him to see he was making notes about her dismissal of her father’s language and protesting a European accent a cousin of the one she had worked so hard to rid herself of.

“Well then Ms Wawrinka” he pronounced it correctly ‘vavrinka’ unlike so many no matter how much experience they had with her name. There came a point where she no longer corrected. She also disliked people who corrected others for her, trying to show some form of camaraderie when they had the most normal phonetically obvious names possible.

“It’s doctor” she sighed at him “but I appreciate the Ms instead of miss I would say that’s progress on your part”

“Always so formal Ania” She could hear the spelling in his accent. “That still makes you flinch a little, you have worked to disguise it well but I can still see your discomfort when we stray close to your childhood. Why do you reject and supress it so?”

“You’re going over old ground Mr Freud. It’s a little clichéd isn’t it, that you of all people jump straight into talking about my childhood as the root of my problems”

“Do you really believe there’s no value in talking about them, that it might give us some clues to your unhappiness”

“I’m not unhappy”

“You reject your heritage”

“Because I’m tired of correcting pronunciations and being asked if I like sausage”

“That was at university, now you work amongst professionals don’t you think they would like to know these things about you, how you grew up?”

“No, and I still find it a little stereotypical we are lingering over my childhood. Am I going to have to talk about this with both of you tonight?”

“Both of us?”

“Well you never come alone do you Mr Freud, I’m sure we could persuade your esteemed colleague to join us along later. It would kill two birds with one stone actually”

“Are you having delusions of more than one psychoanalyst? Now that is interesting, and are we both male?

“I’m not answering that”

“Why has it upset you so much that your new neighbours are also Polish?”

“It hasn’t”

“Ania, you can’t really expect to lie to me I’m an extension of your conscious”

Anna turned to look at him properly for the first time. He did appear to be more muted in the flesh than she always expected him to. Almost like the graininess of the photographs had created a film around his body. His brown herringbone tweed suit, small glasses perched high on his nose glinted in the lamplight. The lamp was new, it wasn’t part of her office he must have brought it with him.

“If you are, as you proclaim, an extension of my conscious why do you need to ask questions? Surely you can just know the answers?”

“Do you never question yourself Ania? The mind is clever and it will work hard to protect your Ego at any costs including hiding the answers to the most challenging questions we need to ask ourselves.”

“And what in your professional opinion is the most challenging question?”

“Who are you? And moreover, has this rejection of your heritage and childhood led you to this strange half-life you live with your patients, play acting at being the therapist they want to see rather than your own identity? Who are you hiding from them?”

“No, that’s not what I’m doing.”

“But Ania if I am an extension of your conscious as you put it doesn’t this mean it is not me asking you but yourself?”

Anna closed her eyes against his stare.

The bag of rubbish on her desk slipped over as the weight of the next finished can overbalanced it. The glass and metal rubbed over each other. Anna contorted herself to look over at the desk and see what had disturbed it.

The man that was sat at the desk looked up over his glasses. The scratching of his fountain pen on the pale-yellow pad of paper ceased. Anna wondered if he had been there this whole time.

“Do continue, I am listening” The man said.

“Hello Carl!” Freud levered himself out of the chair and strode across the room to shake Carl’s hand. This was new, Anna had never hosted both Freud and Jung at the same time.

“I know, I can’t believe we’ve never had a joint session this will be most interesting” Freud said turning back to Anna who cringed at not having her thoughts to herself.

“I was just observing Sigmund, I’m intrigued by your suggestion that Anna is hiding an identity from her patients with such a carefully cultivated presentation of what they expect to find when they walk in. And Anna’s discomfort.” Jung smiled kindly at Anna over his round spectacles.

“It is so helpful being able to feel the fluctuations in her heart beat and brain chemistry, if only we had that back in the day eh Carl!” Freud chortled as he made his way back to his seat.

“Are you staying at my desk?” Anna asked Jung.

“Yes, Anna.” He replied without looking up from his notes “I find it useful to embed myself in the environment you work in.”

“I’m not sure I’m up for this you know.” Anna said to the room at large wrapping her arms over her head.

“Another drink?” Jung asked from the desk. His inflection heavy on the word another.

“Therapists don’t judge, it is a safe space” Anna retorted annoyed he had responded to her thought before it was fully formed.

“Ania we are psychoanalysts, there’s a difference, or at least you believe so.” Freud chided.

“I’m not sure I know what I believe any more.” Anna looked at him “What do you think?”

“Well my thoughts are limited to yours, as are Carl’s because we are productions of your mind.”

“What?” Anna asked enunciating the word slowly spitting out the T

“You accept that Carl and I are not really here don’t you? We are part of your mind?”

“Yes I suppose”

“So we can only know, feel and believe what you know, feel and believe us to know, feel and believe because your brain controls your responses and ours. You are in charge” Said Freud.

“See, now I am in a pink dress” Said Jung “because your brain decided to test it’s boundaries.”

“So how are you useful to me? How has any of this over the last seven months been useful?” Anna groaned. A pit opening in her stomach.

“Well it’s nice when things change, us being here together is new.” Said Jung placidly.

Anna closed her eyes and tried to shoo them both out of the room with her own will.

It had been like this for months. Spending evenings alone running through theories with the two of them finding herself in a pit of questions that neither could answer. Which as they so frequently pointed out was because she didn’t have an answer. But it didn’t help with the question.

“Well mon cherie after months of exactly no progress with these two do you think it’s time for another opinion?” A new French accented voice filled the room. The new man was far younger than Freud and Jung. As he moved across the office her brain hummed trying to place the heavy dark eyebrows and hair.

“Jaques, you should have said you were going to stop by” Jung spoke from the desk, Anna detected a coolness to his voice rather than the warmth he used to speak to Freud.

“How can I not when you two are doing such a terrible job of cheering Anna up” Lacan lit a cigarette and came to rest himself against the bookshelves as though standing at a bar waiting for a glass of wine “I would pass you a drink Anna mon amore but I am not a poltergeist as I know you have discussed with these two gentlemen. But I don’t mind you drinking another”

Anna chose another gin and tonic. Forgetting that she had undone her trousers they started to fall down. Embarrassment swamped her.

“You haven’t worn good knickers in weeks Anna, and lets not pretend you really have any” Lacan said as soft smoke escaped from his mouth. Anna felt torn between being annoyed at his intrusion on her underwear situation or that he could apparently smoke a cigarette which wouldn’t set off the smoke alarm.

Anna sank onto the sofa and leant her body forward over her legs. The can held loosely in her right hand.

“I wish you would all leave”

“No you don’t” said Freud

“If you really did we would have already gone!” Said Jung

“But we are here for a reason” said Lacan

“I think the answer is somewhere in your research on identity?” muttered Anna from under her arms she had wrapped around her head again.

“No!” Scoffed Jung

“You need to talk to a therapist” Said Lacan.

“Oh fuck off the lot of you”

“I think Jaques is right, Anna” Freud said leaning forward. “We spent an awful long time talking about the role of a therapist, the role you see yourself in.”

“And identity, and how this features in many aspects of life, and perhaps your identity here is becoming too much and stopping you from having an identity outside of your office” said Jung

“Look at the accessories and shoes you keep here” said Lacan “ways that you adapt yourself to adhere to your patient’s projections”

“I don’t”

“You started with good intentions but never stopped” Jung interrupted

“Should you be able to interrupt me?” Anna asked?

“Simple matter of intrusive thoughts of course we can interrupt you” Said Lacan.

Anna held her head and this seemed to pause them. Lacan smoked casually, Freud looked at her and Jung continued to make notes. She glanced at the cupboards behind her desk, in them were stilettos, Moroccan slippers and even converse. She had earrings and bangles of every style scattered in a draw in her desk. Silk scarves bunched together. All to put on around her uniform.

“We know it’s to help your patients open up, make them feel like they are in the right place but Anna, is any of it you?” Freud looked as though he was going to reach out and take her hand.

“Does it help you to pretend the other part of you is also a different person?” asked Lacan. Anna flinched. “That if you can eventually pretend yourself into another identity you won’t be the girl who couldn’t pronounce Merlot correctly at university? You wouldn’t crave Tyskie beer and have people laugh at your cooking?”

“Do you think by using an anglicised name you can be rid of the embarrassment of talking about your babushka and forget how much you were teased for it. Forget how long it took you to catch up at school when you realised you were supposed to speak English?” said Jung

“There is a simple way to get rid of you all” she said, not daring to let the thought take full shape in case they batted it away again. “I can ask you to make a diagnosis, draw your final conclusions”

“Now that’s hardly fair, I’ve only just got here these other two clowns have been gathering insight for months!” Lacan pouted and ground out his cigarette.

“You must know everything they know because you are a part of my mind and therefore have access to all of it” Anna said over her shoulder

“She’s got you there Jacques” said Freud

“The question is Anna, do you want us to voice the diagnosis? Because if we know it you know it” Said Jung

“Carl is right, if we know something you have to know it too” said Freud

“And if we diagnose you, which we all can, you’ve studied the theories” said Lacan.

“Does that mean we will be gone?”

Anna tensed her whole face inwards and concentrated on keeping her eyes closed as she maneuvered herself to lie on the sofa again.

When she opened her eyes again a headache loomed out of nowhere and she couldn’t place the time. It became clear that the pounding noise wasn’t inside her head but someone knocking on her office door. A small woman in black jeans and a leather jacket peered round the door.

“Ah you are in here Miss Wawrinka, are you ok?” She asked. Anna noticed the vavrinka pronunciation.

“Umm, yes I must have fallen asleep. I was waiting for the rain to stop.” Anna stood and did up her trousers turning away from the woman’s placid young face. Anna balked when she spotted the mess on her desk, evidence of all that she had drunk that evening.

“You talk in your sleep then” Said the woman. “I thought you were on the phone, your Polish is good but your accent is rusty, my babcia would tell me off if I let mine get as bad as that.”

Anna glanced back at her over her shoulder as she tried to tidy away the crushed cans of gin and tonic and the miniature wine bottles. The knowledge that she had been speaking in Polish was as disconcerting as the idea she may have been speaking out loud. She felt ill. The woman was rolling a cigarette. Anna wanted to ask for one but she also wanted the woman to leave.

“You had a heavy session last night then? That’s a few more than usual. No wonder you managed to sleep all night on this thing” She sat down on the couch and bounced. “Do people really lie down here and talk about their childhood?”

“No, not usually, umm it’s morning?” Anna looked at the window the sky was still heavy and blurred by rain.

“yeah about 5:30 we clean at really early hours to make sure none of you lot are here”

“Ok, I feel sick”

“Yeeeeah, I would to.” The woman made a face at the bag Anna was holding of her empties. “Come on, let me buy you a coffee.” She walked over to the door, her cigarette ready in her hand. She looked at Anna expecting her to follow.

Anna picked up her bags and coat as the woman held the office door open for her.