Mum & Dad by Joanna Trollope

Author:Joanna Trollope [Trollope, Joanna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781529003383
Google: e_fVyQEACAAJ
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Published: 2020-02-25T00:00:00+00:00

Dr Mak looked oriental and sounded English. She was small and trim in a dark trouser suit, and she took Marta’s hand at once, even as she was speaking to Katie and Nic. She told them that she and Marta would go into her office to talk for a while, and then Katie and Nic could join them.

Marta looked to Katie both young and very troubled. She said, on impulse, ‘She’s only thirteen.’

Dr Mak didn’t let go of Marta’s hand. They were about the same height, standing there, but looked generations apart. She nodded.

‘I know,’ she said.

‘Do you mind?’ Katie asked Marta desperately. ‘Do you mind if we don’t come with you?’

Marta looked at the carpet. She shook her head but she didn’t speak.

‘We will be twenty minutes at most.’ Dr Mak smiled and turned to Marta. ‘This way, Marta,’ and they were gone.

Nic collapsed in a chair and put his hands over his face. Katie stood looking at Dr Mak’s closed office door. ‘Are we doing the right thing?’ she asked uncertainly.

Nic was weeping quietly. After a moment he said hoarsely, ‘It’s the only thing we can do.’

‘I’m so afraid.’

‘Me too.’

Katie perched on a chair next to Nic.

‘You know what I’m thinking?’

Nic took his hands away from his face and pulled a navy blue bandana handkerchief from his pocket. He wiped it across his eyes then blew his nose ferociously. He said, tensely, ‘I can guess.’

Katie looked down at her rigidly clasped hands.

‘I’ve got to say it. I’ve just got to say that in my mind, the continuum of self-harming is – is suicide.’

Nic didn’t look at her. He said, ‘It might be the continuum but that doesn’t mean it’s accurate.’

‘No. But it’s a possibility. A possibility that keeps haunting me.’

‘Me too.’

‘Nic . . .’

‘Look, Katie,’ Nic said suddenly. ‘It isn’t because of anything we’ve done or not done. It just is. It’s part of now, how life is for kids now.’ He glanced towards the closed door. ‘Thank God for therapists like Dr Mak.’

‘As long as Marta likes her.’

‘Yes.’

‘She has to like and trust her. She has to feel safe with her.’

Nic looked at Katie. ‘That’s the main reason I didn’t tell you. About Marta talking to me. I wanted her to be certain I was trustworthy.’

Katie looked away. ‘Yes.’

‘You don’t sound very convinced.’

‘Oh,’ Katie said angrily, ‘I don’t know what I feel. I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel, either. I sometimes – quite often, actually – don’t know if I can bear what’s happening, whether I can cope with it all.’

‘What’s the alternative? Abandon us all? Run away and join the circus?’

Katie regarded him.

‘Of course not.’

‘Well, then.’

‘D’you know,’ she said abruptly, ‘that I can say the unsayable to you. I really can.’

‘But you don’t like yourself for doing it.’

‘That too.’

‘And I act it out rather than saying it,’ he said, staring at her.

‘Yes.’

She looked towards the door again. She said, ‘They’ve been ages . . .’

‘I think,’ Nic said, ‘that it’ll take as long as it takes for Marta to feel safe.

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