1
LIV
Tuesday 7 p.m.
Seven o’clock on Tuesday evening was the time I had been dreading since Jay had first told me that he had booked the appointment for us. I had been counting down the hours with an impending sense of dread. I’d had a knotted tummy and racing heart all day. I hadn’t told anybody about it, not even my family knew. It was too…personal. The truth was, I felt embarrassed about it all; I didn’t want anyone to know where we were going.
At five to seven, Jay reversed the car parallel with the pavement, then he reached across the gearstick for my hand and gave it a squeeze.
‘You okay?’ he asked.
I nodded, afraid that if I tried to speak, I’d end up crying.
‘We’d better go in,’ he said, releasing my hand. I climbed out from the passenger seat and stepped onto the footpath. A bus went past; the hiss of the hydraulics rent the air as it slowed to stop at traffic lights. I kept my head down, keen not to be seen by anyone we knew. The clinic was located on the first floor above asolicitor’s office. There was a door to the side marked with a neat brass plaque dulled by age which read:
Julia Walsh Counselling & Psychotherapy
As Jay pressed the buzzer on the door, I scanned the street quickly to make sure nobody was watching us.
‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ he asked once again, sucking in through his teeth while we waited to be let in.
‘I don’t think I’ve any choice.’ I still didn’t think we needed to be here but Jay clearly felt differently.
Eventually, we heard the click of the door being released and we pushed it open. I trudged up the stairs behind Jay, noticing the scuffed walls and how the thin carpet had worn away on the knee bend of each step. Jay was panting when he reached the top. After he had caught his breath, he placed a hand on his belly and grinned at me. ‘Think I need to lay offTea & Treatsfor a bit.’ Tea and Treats was our nightly ritual once we had put Finn to bed. We’d put on a series on Netflix, we’d have a mug of tea and something sweet – usually a packet of biscuits or a large bar of chocolate. Neither of us were in particularly good shape but we didn’t care; we were happy the way we were. We were both of the belief that life was too short to spend it worrying about a few extra pounds. Despite my reluctance to be here, I couldn’t help but grin back at him. He always knew how to make me smile. I linked his arm and we continued down the landing until we entered a waiting room. Six plastic chairs ran along the perimeter of the room and a coffee table littered with tatty, dog-eared magazines stood in the centre. We sat down and waited to be called.
I had always thought people only did marriage therapy when there was something badly wrong in their relationship so when Jay had first mentioned it to me, I had laughed. I was surehe was joking but when he showed me the list of accredited therapists he had found in our area, I knew it was no joke. It was only when I studied his face that I realised he was deadly serious. At the very least, marriage counselling was for couples who argued or were trying to navigate tricky situations like infidelity or addictions; it wasn’t for couples like us. We loved one another and frequently told each other so. We always kissed goodbye heading out the door to work in the mornings. We watched Netflix curled up on the same sofa together whilst working through a packet of chocolate Digestives. We never fought. I can’t remember ever having a proper argument; of course we often disagreed about things but we were always able to talk about it calmly and reach a compromise. We made a point of always sorting any disagreements before they festered. We weren’t a couple that raised our voices or shouted.
After a moment, the door opened and a woman appeared and shook our hands.
She smiled warmly. ‘I’m Julia, you’re both very welcome.’
‘I’m Jason – Jason O’Dowd,’ he said, introducing himself, ‘but everyone calls me Jay.’
‘And I’m Olivia,’ I mumbled, lowering my gaze to the pockmarked floorboards.
‘It’s nice to meet you both,’ Julia enthused. She was a petite woman, with a narrow face, dark, beady eyes and a pointed nose that reminded me of a mouse. ‘If you want to follow me in here, we’ll get started.’
We both followed her into the room and sat down in the seats she gestured to. Immediately, I felt my heart start up again.
‘I want to begin by saying that this is a safe space and everything that is said here remains entirely confidential.’ She circled the room with her index finger. ‘So, would one of you like to tell me what brought you here today?’
We both shifted uncomfortably and I felt my cheeks flare.
‘I’ll start then,’ Jay said eventually. ‘We’re almost eight years married and we have one son, Finn.’ As I listened to him describing the issues we had been having, I kept asking myself, how we had got here? How had things got so bad that this was where we had ended up?
‘Would you agree with that, Olivia?’ Julia asked, pulling me out of my thoughts.
Immediately, I felt my chest tighten and my cheeks flush. It was like being back in school again.
‘Sorry… I…’
‘Jay was saying that whenever he raises the issue, you tend to change the subject. Would you say you are avoiding it, Olivia?’
Julia held my gaze until I had no choice but to look away. I shifted position in the chair.
‘Do you have a tendency to avoid difficult discussions, Olivia?’ she tried again.
I squirmed, my eyes darting to Jay for help, begging him to say something to take the attention off me.
