Of course Roland saved the most difficult question for last. ‘Making emotional connections really isn’t a priority for me right now.’
‘But I thought the lack of emotional connections, your inability to connect with people in a deep, meaningful way, is what we’ve spent the last year working on?’ Roland glanced down at his pad and the copious notes that he’d been scribbling.
‘I’ve emotionally reconnected with my family over the last year. That has to count for something,’ Will insisted. He’d left home over twenty years ago and hadn’t felt the need to return that often. After three years at Manchester University and a first-class degree in international finance, economics and business, Will had been headhunted by a global investment bank. They’d funded an MBA at Wharton Business School in Philadelphia and after that there’d been five years working in their Berlin office, three years in Paris and a brief stint in Hong Kong before he’d been transferred to New York then subsequently poached by New York’s largest privately owned investment bank.
It had been a glittering career by anyone’s standards. There’d been performance-related bonuses and corner apartments with iconic views, each one bigger than the last. It was a world away from the family home and the family florist in Muswell Hill.
Of course, Will had dutifully phoned his mother, Mary, every Sunday morning. And he’d been back for hatches, matches and, more recently and tragically, despatches. Less infrequently, they’d come to visit him. So, yes, he had a family. He liked them. But it turned out that he liked them a lot more when there was a wide expanse of sea and several time zones between them.
This last year, Will had seen his family on a daily basis. And although he was meant to be on a career sabbatical, he’d somehow ended up working in the family business. Roland should give him props for that, and also for managing not to kill his half-sister, Sage, who hadn’t even been thought of when Will had first left home, and who made being annoying into an art form.
‘Of course, family ties are important, defining, as are the family ties we break.’ Roland folded his arms, but Will wasn’t going to wander down that particular path again. He folded his arms too and made sure to maintain eye contact with Roland until his therapist sighed. ‘So, Will, remind me of your last romantic relationship? The woman who hit you with her shoe?’
Roland had many admirable qualities, but his total recall of some of the more humiliating moments of Will’s life wasn’t one of them. ‘Dovinda? She didn’t hit me with her shoe, she threw her shoe at me,’ he clarified. ‘And we weren’t in a relationship. We were just seeing each other. Dating. That’s what you do in New York.’
They’d been through this. Several times.
‘So, no one in New York is in a relationship? How . . . odd.’ Roland, face still stuck in neutral, shook his head. ‘Remind me why Dovinda threw her shoe at you?’
Will had walked right into this one. ‘Because she wanted to transition towards being in a relationship and I thought we both understood that although we enjoyed hanging out together, and yes, having sex with each other, that was as far as it went.’
‘This has been a recurring pattern in your relationships with women,’ Roland noted, writing something in his pad.
‘Again, they weren’t relationships.’
They’d been through a lot in this room. Between 6 p.m. and 6.50 p.m. every Thursday evening, Will had confronted hidden truths, long-buried secrets, voiced things that he never thought he would. There’d been pain, raw emotion, even tears, but breaking up with Roland might be the hardest thing yet.
Also, Roland was wrong. Will’s avoidance of deep, emotional connections with other people had nothing to do with the defining moment of his life, which had brought him to Roland’s consulting room. When he’d lain on a trolley in an ER cubicle at New York Presbyterian Hospital, convinced that he was having a heart attack. And OK, he’d lived in New York for over five years and there wasn’t a single person that Will had felt he could call, but that hadn’t been the issue. The issue had been that he had a glittering career, a fancy Tribeca apartment, lots of money in the bank, all the latest tech, gadgets and expensive trainers, but suddenly the most important thing in his life was a gnawing, stabbing, desolate pain in his chest. The dynamic, successful, driven person he’d forced himself to become no longer existed and he’d reverted back to being a terrified, powerless twelve-year-old that—
Roland cleared his throat and Will was back in the room, back in his present, which was so much better than his recent past. ‘You’ve come back from a very difficult set of personal circumstances and bedded down with your family this last year, so obviously you can make and need emotional connections, despite your claims to the contrary. But outside of family, I want you, off the top of your head, to name one other person in your life who you’ve ever felt a connection with,’ Roland suddenly demanded, and immediately Will could feel panic rising in him, like bile. ‘Someone who you weren’t afraid to be vulnerable with. Someone you loved unconditionally.’
There wasn’t one. But even so, there was an answer that immediately came to mind. ‘Muttley,’ he said without hesitation. ‘Dogs count too, right?’
Just thinking of his childhood dog, a Jack Russell crossed with god knows what, put a smile on his face. Muttley had been his constant companion. He’d walk Will to school then be waiting when he got out. They’d spent hours playing endless games of fetch. And there’d been other hours, in the dark, when Will had whispered his secret worries and fears to the dog and pressed his face into his warm, dank fur when he could feel the tears starting.
That was love. That had to be love. But . . .
‘I’m not getting a dog!’ Will stated very firmly.
Roland raised his eyebrows by a couple of millimetres. ‘No one’s suggesting that you get a dog.’
‘Getting a dog, even fostering a dog is a huge commitment. Huge.’
‘No one’s telling you to foster a dog either.’ Roland sighed again. The clock was showing that it was fifty minutes past the hour and it was time for Will to say his final goodbyes.
But he didn’t want to leave things unresolved, which only went to show how much he’d grown as a person. ‘Maybe I could take a dog for a walk sometimes. Volunteer at a rescue?’ Will frowned. ‘What would be the harm in that?’
Given the solemnity of the moment, Roland frowned too. It was the most animated that Will had ever seen him. He waited for Roland’s goodbye speech, which, as ever, would be insightful and thought-provoking.
Roland put down his pen all the better to give Will one last incisive look. ‘I’m sure I’ll be able to find you a slot when you want to resume our sessions,’ he said with a slightly wistful smile. ‘Until then, good luck.’
3
Margot
‘I am kind. I am strong. I am positive. I attract kind, strong, positive people into my life. I am deserving of love. I am a great dog owner.’
Usually Margot tried to be more effusive with her daily affirmations, which painted a picture of the very best version of herself and sent it out into the universe to be transformed into truth. But she was in the back of an Uber – the driver had already taken offence when she asked him to swap Talk FM for Magic – and she was with her best friend Tracy, and Tracy didn’t really get the whole positive affirmation thing.