I had found them.
When I was fourteen, my parents talked me into seeing a counsellor after school on Mondays. They didn’t have to do much convincing. As soon as they told me I’d be able to ask all the questions I wanted and that this person was qualified enough to answer, I practically drove myself to school.
I knew they felt that they had failed me. I could tell that by their expressions when they sat me down at the kitchen table, with the milk and cookies in the centre and the washing machine going in the background as the usual distraction. Mum held a rolled tissue tightly in her hands as though she had used it earlier to dab away tears. That was the thing with my parents: they would never let me see their weaknesses but yet they would forget to get rid of the proof of them. I didn’t see Mum’s tears but I saw the tissue. I didn’t hear Dad’s anger at having failed to help me but I saw it in his eyes.
‘Is everything OK?’ I looked from one strong face to the other. The only time people can look so confident and as though they can face anything is when something bad happens. ‘Did something happen?’
Dad smiled. ‘No, honey, don’t worry, nothing bad happened.’
Mum’s eyebrow lifted when he said that and I knew she didn’t agree. I knew Dad didn’t agree with his words either but he was saying them none the less. There was nothing wrong with sending me to a counsellor, nothing wrong at all, but I knew that they had wanted to help me themselves. They had wanted their answers to my questions to be enough. I overheard their endless discussions about the correct method of dealing with my behaviour. They had helped me in every way they could and now I could feel their disappointment in themselves and I hated myself for making them feel that way.
‘You know the way you have so many questions, honey?’ Dad explained.
I nodded.
‘Well, your mum and I –’ he looked to her for support and her eyes softened immediately as she glanced at him – ‘well, your mum and I have found someone that you’ll be able to talk to about all of those questions.’
‘This person will be able to answer my questions?’ I felt my eyes widen and my heart quicken as though all of life’s mysteries were about to be answered.
‘I hope so, honey,’ Mum answered. ‘I hope that by talking to him, you won’t have any more questions that will bother you. He’ll know far more about all the things you worry about than we do.’
Then it was time for my quick-fire round. Fingers on the buzzers.
‘Who is he?’
‘Mr Burton.’ Dad.
‘What’s his first name?’
‘Gregory.’ Mum.
‘Where does he work?’
‘At the school.’ Mum.
‘When will I see him?’
‘Mondays after school. For an hour.’ Mum. She was better at this than Dad. She was used to these discussions while Dad was out working.
‘He’s a psychiatrist, isn’t he?’ They never lied to me.
‘Yes, honey.’ Dad.
I think that’s the moment I began to hate seeing myself in their eyes, and unfortunately it was the beginning of my dislike of being in their company.
Mr Burton’s office was in a room the size of a closet, just about big enough for two armchairs. I chose to sit in the dirty olive-green velvet-covered chair with dark wooden handles, as opposed to the stained brown velvet-covered chair. They both looked like they dated from the forties and hadn’t been washed or removed from the small room since. There was a little window so high up on the back wall that all I could see was the sky. The first day I met Mr Burton it was a clear blue. Every now and then a cloud passed, filling the entire window with white before moving on.
On the walls were posters of school kids, looking happy and declaring to the empty room how they had said no to drugs, spoken out against bullying, coped with exam stress, had beaten eating disorders, dealt with grief, were clever enough to not have to face teenage pregnancy because they didn’t have sex, but on the off chance that they did, there was another poster of the same girl and boy saying how they used condoms. Saints, the lot of them. The room was so positive I thought I was going to be ejected from my chair like a rocket. Mr Burton the magnificent had helped them all.
I expected Mr Burton to be a wise old man with a head of wild grey hair, a monocle in one eye, a waistcoat with a pocket watch attached by a chain, a brain exploding with knowledge after years of extensive research into the human mind. I expected Yoda of the Western world, cloaked in wisdom, who spoke in riddles and tried to convince me that the force in me was strong.
When the real Mr Burton entered the room I had mixed feelings. The inquisitive side of me was disappointed, the fourteen-year-old in me positively delighted. He was more of a Gregory than a Mr Burton. He was young and handsome, sexy and gorgeous. He looked like he had just walked out of college that very day, in his jeans and T-shirt and fashionable haircut. I did my usual calculations: twice my age could work. In a few years it would be legal and I would be out of school. My whole life was mapped out before he had even closed the door behind him.
‘Hello, Sandy.’ His voice was bright and cheery. He shook my hand and I vowed to lick it when I got home and never wash it again. He sat on the brown velvet armchair across from me. I bet all those girls in the posters invented all those problems just to come into this office.
‘I hope you’re comfortable in our designer top-of-the-range furniture?’ He wrinkled his nose in disgust as he settled into the chair, which had burst at the side and had foam spilling out.
I laughed. Oh, he was so cool. ‘Yes, thanks. I was wondering what you would think my choice of chair says about me.’
‘Well,’ he smiled, ‘it says one of two things.’
I listened intently.
‘Firstly, that you don’t like brown, or secondly that you like green.’
‘Neither,’ I smiled. ‘I just wanted to face the window.’
‘Ah-ha,’ he grinned. ‘You are what we call at the lab a “window facer”.’
‘Ah, I’m one of those.’
He looked at me with amusement for a second, then placed a pen and pad on his lap and a tape recorder on the arm of the chair. ‘Do you mind if I record this?’
‘Why?’
‘So I can remember everything that you say. Sometimes I don’t pick up on things until I listen back over the conversation.’
‘OK, what’s the pen and pad for then?’
‘Doodling. In case I get bored listening to you.’ He pressed record and said that day’s date and time.
‘I feel like I’m at a police station, about to be interrogated.’
‘Has that ever happened before?’
I nodded. ‘When Jenny-May Butler went missing, we were asked to give any information we had at the school.’ How quickly talk had come round to her. She would have been delighted at the attention.
‘Ah,’ he nodded. ‘Jenny-May was your friend, wasn’t she?’
I thought about that. I looked at the anti-bullying posters on the wall and wondered how to answer. I didn’t want to seem insensitive to this gorgeous