Page 64 of Vivacity
He nods. ‘Well done for acknowledging that. I know it’s not easy. How would you feel about delving a little deeper into that part of you that feels worried about not delivering? Perhaps it has something it wants to share?’
I rub my wrist, back and forth. I’m practically giving myself a Chinese burn at this point. ‘I’m not sure.’
‘No worries. Go ahead and close your eyes again if that makes you feel more comfortable, and try to take a couple of slow breaths in and out. You’re safe here. It’s just you and me.’
From anyone else, I might find that sentence creepy, but Philip’s vibes border on the paternal, and I realise I do feel safe with him, or as safe as I could feel with any stranger who’s asking me to bare my innermost fears and vulnerabilities.
‘What can you tell me about this part?’ he asks, his voice slow and steady. ‘Can you ask him for more detail on why he feels anxious about not delivering?’
I squeeze my eyes and my wrist equally hard. ‘He—uh—is worried you might be… displeased.’ Actually, what I was aboutto say washe’s worried you might get cross with him,but that sounded incredibly babyish, so I paraphrased just in time.
‘I would never be displeased. I’m not here to judge you, Ethan. Not at all. But why does he think I’d be unhappy with him?’
‘It’s unimpressive that I can’t come up with the goods. Disgraceful. And—humiliating.’ I have the strangest feeling that I’m parroting the words.
‘Those are strong words. Is that part saying those words to you?’
I screw my face up in concentration. ‘I think… he’s remembering them? Or someone is saying them to him?’
‘Okay. Can he tell you who is saying them to him?’
The revelation is a bucket of freezing water to the face. ‘Oh. My dad.’
‘Ah. I see. And can you see this part? Can you see or feel how old he might be?’
Fuck. He’s little, I realise. A lot younger than Jamie. ‘Ten? Nine?’ I have the strangest sense of young energy inside me. A little boy. A little boy repeating words to himself likehumiliatinganddisgraceful.Over and over.
‘Does he know why his father was saying those things to him? Can he tell you?’
I don’t speak for a moment. I can’t. I’m so paralysed with the shame of it all. I’m an ice block, totally isolated in my humiliation, frozen out by my father’s icy rage and powerless to thaw. Days and days and days of it. The pain is so fresh, so visceral, it’s as if it’s just happened.
‘Um, he took me to lunch to meet his friends, as a special treat, because he said I’d be running the company one day. He’d given me extra pocket money to invest—he said it was going to be our investment club that we did together. And at lunch he told me to tell him and his friends about the stocks I’d chosen. Butthe companies I’d bought that month had done really badly, and I’d lost money.’
I remember it so clearly. The smell of cigars at the golf club where we went for lunch. My blue exercise book lying on the table,Kingsley Investment Clubwritten in my best handwriting on the front. The neat rows of the stocks I’d chosen, columns pencilled in with the share prices updated daily. Every evening, Dad brought home theFinancial Timesfrom work and I copied the previous day’s closing share prices into my little model portfolio.
But clearest of all is Dad’s face when I told all his friends that I’d made the wrong calls that week, lost our little club fifteen percent. It was like thunder, like a black storm cloud. I didn’t know much, but I knew a fifteen percent loss in a week was humiliating.Disgraceful.
You’d be out on your ear if you were a real fund manager,was all he said in front of his friends. Someone laughed, Dad lit another cigar, and Charles Montague leaned over and spoke kindly to me.
Fuck, Montague was there. I’d forgotten that. They were still friendly enough, back then.
No one in the market saw that profit warning coming,he said, or something to that effect.Don’t be too hard on yourself. My boys wouldn’t know a stock portfolio if it hit them in the face.
‘Dad held off until we’d said our goodbyes,’ I continue, my voice scratchy, ‘but he laid into me when we were walking to the car. Said I was a disgrace, and that I’d humiliated him back there. But’—I clear my throat—‘the worst bit was that he didn’t speak to me for two weeks afterwards. Not at all. He completely ignored me at dinner every night. It made Mum really sad, but he told her in front of me that I didn’t deserve his attention. I hadn’t earned it.’
I break off then and hang my head, screwing my eyes as tightly shut as I can and pressing my lips together, fighting for control. There’s a pause as I do. When Philip speaks, his tone is filled with compassion.
‘That is an incredibly painful memory to share, and I’m so sorry. Can you—can you feel that that little boy is separate from the adult version of yourself? Do you have a clear view of him?’
I nod. The pain of reliving the memory might be tearing me apart, but I can see him so clearly. Blonder hair. A skinny, anxious little thing. I hadn’t had my growth spurt by then. And so fucking eager to please.
‘How do you feel towards him?’
‘I just—I just feel so fucking sorry for him. I want to give him a hug.’
‘So do that. Take all those paternal feelings that you have for your own son, and give this very brave younger version of you a hug. You are absolutely allowed to parent these younger parts in a way that they’ve been lacking until now.’
It’s the weirdest thing, but I imagine myself doing just that. The compassion, the love, I feel for him is pouring out of me. In my mind, I hug him tightly.
