gave him space to think about that and waited in the living room, nervously biting my nails. Twenty long minutes later he appeared in the doorway, fully dressed, eyes clear and hiding any proof of his despair.
‘Breakfast?’
The dining-room buffet had quite an array of food to choose from and customers went back and forth several times to avail of the all-you-can-eat menu. We sat with our backs to the display with cups of black coffee and empty placemats.
‘So you don’t eat, you don’t really sleep and we both like to rescue people. What else do we have in common?’ Adam said.
I had lost my appetite three months ago, the same time I’d realised I was not happy in my marriage. As a result of losing my appetite, I’d lost a lot of weight, though I was working on it through my How to Get Your Appetite Back One Bite at a Time book.
‘Broken relationships,’ I offered.
‘You left yours. I was left. Doesn’t count.’
‘Don’t take my leaving my husband personally.’
‘I can if I want.’
I sighed. ‘So tell me about you. Maria said you’d lost your spark over a year ago, which was a comment that has really stayed with me.’
‘Yeah, that has stayed with me too,’ he interrupted, with false animation. ‘I’m wondering if she’d realised that before or after she fucked my best friend, or perhaps it was during. Now wouldn’t that be a fine thing?’
I didn’t respond to that, allowed him to have his moment. ‘What were you like when your mother passed away? How did you behave?’
Maria had also revealed that detail over the phone, disclosing much of Adam’s life and his problems as though I was a long and trusted friend who knew all of this information anyway. I’m sure she would have been far more careful with her words had she known the real situation, but she didn’t, it wasn’t her business, and so I’d let her talk; her rant an attempt to justify her actions and also a way for me to be enlightened on aspects of Adam’s life that perhaps he wouldn’t have shared with me himself.
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s helpful to me.’
‘Will it be helpful to me?’
‘Your mother passed away, your sister moved away, your father is sick, your girlfriend has met someone else. I think that your girlfriend leaving you was the trigger. Perhaps you can’t deal with people leaving. Perhaps you feel abandoned. You know, if you can recognise your triggers, it can help with being aware of those negative thoughts before you drop into the downward spiral. Maybe when someone leaves you now, you connect with how you felt when you were five years old.’
I was impressed with myself but I seemed to be the only one.
‘I think you should stop playing therapist.’
‘I think you should go and see a real one, but for some reason you won’t and I’m the best you’ve got.’
He was silenced by that. Whatever his reasons, that didn’t seem to be an option. Still, I was hoping I’d get him there eventually.
Adam sighed and sat back in the chair, looking up at the chandelier as if it was that which had asked him the question. ‘I was five years old, Lavinia was ten. Mum had cancer. It was all very sad for everyone, though I didn’t really understand. I didn’t feel sad, I only knew that it was. I didn’t know she had cancer, or if I did I didn’t know what it was. I just knew she was sick. There was a room downstairs in the house where she stayed that we weren’t allowed to go into. It was for a few weeks or a few months, I can’t really remember. It felt like for ever. We had to be very quiet around the door. Men would go in and out with their doctor’s bags, ruffle my hair as they passed. Father would rarely go in. Then one day the door to that room was open. I went in; it had a bed in it that never used to be there before. The bed was empty but apart from that the room looked exactly the same as it used to. The doctor who used to tap me on the head told me my mother was gone. I asked him where; he said Heaven. So I knew she wasn’t coming back. That’s where my grandfather went one day and he never came back. I thought it must have been a fun place to go to never want to come back. We went to the funeral. Everybody was very sad. I stayed with my aunt for a few days. Then I was packed off to boarding school.’ He spoke of it all devoid of emotion, totally disconnected as his defence mechanism kicked in to block out the overwhelming pain. I guessed for him to connect, to feel the pain, felt too much to bear. He seemed isolated and disengaged and I believed every word he said.
‘Your father didn’t discuss what was happening to your mother?’
‘My father doesn’t do emotion. After they told him he had weeks to live he asked for a fax machine to be put in his hospital room.’
‘Was your sister communicative? Could you talk about it together, in order to understand?’
‘She was sent to a boarding school in Kildare and we saw each other for a few days each holiday. The first summer we were back at the house from boarding school she set up a stall in town and sold my mother’s shoes, bags, fur coats and jewellery and whatever else was of any value and made herself a fortune. Every single thing was sold and couldn’t be bought back by the time anyone realised what she’d done a few weeks later. She’d spent most of the money already. She was practically a stranger to me and even more so after that. She’s made of the same stuff my father is. She’s more intelligent than me, it’s just a pity she didn’t put her brains to better use. She should be taking Father’s place, not me.’
‘Did you make good friends at boarding school?’ I was hoping for some kind of circle where little Adam had love and friendship. I wanted a happy ending somewhere.
‘That’s where I met Sean.’
Which wasn’t the happy ending I was hoping for, as that trusted person had betrayed him. I couldn’t help myself, I reached out and placed my hand over his. The movement made him stiffen and so I quickly removed it.
He folded his arms. ‘So how about we drop all this mumbo jumbo talk and get straight to the problem?’
‘This isn’t mumbo jumbo. I think that your mother passing away when you were five years old is significant. It affects your past and current behaviour, your emotions, how you deal with things.’ That’s what the book said and I personally knew it to be true.
‘Unless your mother died when you were five years old, then I think it’s something you can’t learn from a book. I’m grand, let’s move on.’
‘She did.’
‘What?’
‘My mum died when I was four.’
He looked at me, surprised. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Thanks.’
‘So how did it affect you?’ he asked gently.
‘I think I’m not the one who wants to kill myself on my thirty-fifth birthday, so let’s move on,’ I snapped, wanting to get back to talking about him. I could tell from his surprised expression that I had sounded a lot angrier than I had intended. I composed myself. ‘Sorry. What I meant was, if
