As The Crow Flies

As the Crow Flies

Sitting comfortably at last in the therapist's overstuffed armchair, I looked up and smiled. She, over-dressed and conspicuously prosperous, smiled coldly back.

Doctor Ursula Ingram took up a tube of hand cream, which had lain upon her desk, and squirted some of the cosmetic into her left hand. Then, with a well-rehearsed gesture, she put the tube of cream back in its place. She watched me, while rubbing her hands together, massaging the cream into the palms, the backs of her hands, her fingers and her wrists in a ritual clearly intended to signal the start of a period of hard work.

For me, who had for thirty years earned his living with physical labour, this performance seemed insincere or, at best, naïve. I did not for one moment believe that Doctor Ingram understood hard work, grinding, destructive physical labour for an hourly pittance.

Still massaging the expensive, magnolia scented cream into her forearms, she asked,

“What brings you here to me, to my practice? Why do you feel in need of therapy?”

“My agent suggested it”. I was paying Doctor Ingram an incredible sum of money to talk down to me for an hour, so I swallowed the sassier answers which sprang to mind. “I have become unproductive.”

“Do you regret that?” I threw my head back and laughed aloud at this inanity, treating it with the respect I felt it deserved.

“No. Not at all”. I leant forward in her client's chair, undoubtedly an expensive furnishing but uncomfortable for all that. “I have worked hard all my life, manual jobs mostly, back breaking labour some of it, and I didn't have the money to retire at the end of it. Now I do. Have money that is. Enough to come to see you, Doctor”.

“My congratulations. I understand that your book sold well. That is why you are suddenly so well situated?” I relaxed into the chair, resting my back against its support.

“Understand? From where, might I ask? From my agent?” Were they friends, these two middle-aged London professionals? With a sudden passion and a fear which surprised me, I hoped not, hoped that I was not walking into a trap of their devising, while believing that this encounter was my trap for Ursula Ingram. Dr Ingram gave me a professional smile.

“From the newspapers. And, indeed, the television. You are famous, as well as rich.” I shrugged or rather winced, having exposed my own naivety and---well--- anxiety. We watched one another across the therapist's desk.

“Your agent wishes that you become productive again? That you produce a piece of work, which you have promised her, perhaps?” She knew who my agent was, obviously.

“Basically, yes. In a nutshell”, I lied. We observed a long silence, a pause in our conversation, which I estimated to have cost me twenty pounds.

“I've been staying in a lot. Not getting out and meeting people; she thinks that's bad for me, that I am becoming a hermit before my time.”

“There is a right time to become a hermit?”

“Yes. Certainly. Gladly. The world has little more to offer, less than ever. And I was never an outgoing person.”

“But now your introversion has become a problem? Compulsive perhaps?” I laughed again, regarding the Ingram sceptically with an upturned gaze.

“No. Not compulsive. Just--- thorough.”

“So why are you here? Just to waste a few hundred pounds now that you can?” Again, a pause. She had a point, of course. There was a reason for this expensive self-indulgence.

“I attended a meeting with my agent and a publisher's lackey of some sort. I wasn't entirely sober.”

“You are not entirely sober now. Might I ask what you have taken so far today?” I felt the skin at the outer end of my left eyebrow tighten, as it does when my tick is about to start. Hastily, I raised my hand and massaged my temple to conceal any slight spasm of the muscles around my eye.

“A cup of tea and a joint, quite my favourite breakfast”. I smiled but the Ingram remained grave.

“And at that meeting with your agent. Just a cup of tea and a joint?”

“Nooo”. The long drawn-out “o” sound, which I had intended to sound droll, came out sounding camp and defensive. I tried again. “No. Ketamine mostly. I was listing a bit by the time we got to the meeting and nearly fell out of my chair a couple of times---. If you have ever tried ketamine you will recognise my plight; I was mentally at my best, just the physical coordination you see is affected---.” I trailed off. I waited.

“You recently made an appearance on television, did you not? About two weeks ago it must be. I had seen excerpts of the programme and when you made this appointment, I went back to the coverage and watched your performance carefully.”

“That's torn it”, I thought, “surely she recognised her own biography in `The Little Black Book`”. At a conservative estimate, two million people had heard my drunken rant, had seen me brandishing Ursula Ingram´s old notebook at the camera. Embarrassed, I looked down at my hands.

“I do honestly regret much of what I said in that interview. I hope you don't feel personally insulted”.

“No, of course not. Like much of your audience, I suspect, pity was my dominant emotion”. Provocative bitch. But I have been playing this game for as long as her and she will not be able to feign ignorance much longer.

“It wasn't because of my drunken depravity that my agent suggested I come to see you”. Again, we observed each other in silence. Eventually and without emphasis she asked,

“Why did your agent suggest a therapy session?”

“She didn't suggest therapy, Doctor; she demanded that I speak with you about the little, black book. That's why I'm here”.

“The one in your novel or the one you showed us all on television?”

“They are the same. There is only one”.

She took her eyes off me for the first time since I sat down in her chair, gazing instead through the large window to her right. A crow alighted suddenly on the windowsill, almost as if the Ingram had summoned it with her glance. It stood for a moment staring in at the doctor with glittering, intelligent, black eyes. Ursula Ingram steepled her fingers, pressing the tips together with enough force to whiten the beds of her fingernails.

“You wrote a novel about a murderer, who was paid to kill his victims and who obtained a confession, written in a notebook, from his--- patron”. The crow pecked the window glass twice, tap tap. “You sold this novel as a work of fiction but now you have produced the notebook and have told the world that your novel was not fiction? I have understood the situation correctly?”

“Yes, Doctor, very succinctly put”. I reached into my jacket and took from my pocket the fateful book.

“Why? Wasn't it enough? The money you got from selling your story?”

“Oh yes. More than enough. But then you see, I got bored and disgusted with myself---" She snorted and turned her eyes to me again, no longer a client but a threat. Breaking my spell, she said,

“In your book, the murderer had a change of heart, took pity on the doct--- threw the confession away--- in the rubbish. It went to the municipal tip and was lost or burnt or something---“, she was almost incoherent, vulnerability bubbling up like lava from that hidden part of her mind, which had believed her secrets safe.

“There´s no time limit on a murder charge, Ursula. I may call you Ursula?” The hate in her eyes fed my soul. Possibly hoping also to be fed by the good doctor, the crow tapped on the window again, tap tatap, tap tap.

“I--- did not--- kill--- them”.

“I know”, I said, avuncular in victory, “but the murderer had demanded a confession as part of his price for wreaking your revenge”. I watched her now, wanting to weigh guilt and innocence. “You found him in the rehab clinic, where he had been sent for detox. Far from treating his addiction, you played on it, and then gave him money, paid him to kill at your orders''. I pointed the spine of the notebook at her like a wand and her right hand twitched, sending some trinket rattling across her desk. Frightened, the crow flew from the window. The doctor´s carefully curated features crumbled into an asymmetric façade. She looked away again, afraid to meet my gaze.

“Just before he died, he gave me this notebook; your confession, his insurance”. She shook her head, clearly not trusting herself to speak. I could smell the scent of her hand cream and hear her rasping breath in the quiet consulting-room. Ursula Ingram needed time, five minutes at least, to collect her thoughts but then she asked me,

“Is it money you want? Why are you here, if not for therapy? Why?” This last word she almost shouted in her desperation.

“I wanted to meet you at last, Ursula. And my agent wants me to give you this”. I carefully placed the little, black book on her desk and stood up. At the door I turned and said,

“I saw a nice-looking pub on the way here. I´m going there now to drink my lunch”, but Ursula Ingram, already engrossed in re-reading her words of so long ago, did not hear me leave.