‘OK, then,’ said Meg. ‘Let’s make it work.’
How do you feel? The very wordfeelmade Savannah want to throw up. At the thought of feelings, the anxiety in her chest rose like she’d been thrown into a pool and the water was filling her up from the inside, about to drown her. That was it, it was a drowning sensation.
‘Breathe through it,’ said the therapist.
‘I can’t,’ said Savannah.
‘You can, breathe in and breathe out.’
Somehow she managed. ‘It’s the word feelings, I … when people say how do I feel, it’s like I’ve a door locked and I open that door and everything comes tumbling out. I feeleverything.’
‘Perhaps because up to now everything was locked carefully away.’
‘Yes, everything was locked away,’ Savannah agreed, leaning back in the chair and trying to breathe. She’d been doing the sessions for three weeks now, two a week. It was very intense. But it was helping. It had taken three sessions before she’d been able to relax even a little bit. And then, things had come tumbling out of her.
‘I have the idea of water,’ she said to the therapist, who did not get up and offer her a glass. There were glasses with water on a low shelf near her. But that wasn’t what Savannah meant and the therapist, Claire, knew it.
‘Talk of feelings makes me feel this drowning sensation and then when I talk, it’s like all the liquid is pouring out of me, like I’m draining it out, and yet there’s still more, more and more and more. It’s like I’m undammed. The dam has broken. Do you think I’ll ever be better?’ she asked suddenly.
Claire looked at her and did that thing that Savannah found deeply annoying. She turned the question back.
‘Do you think you’ll ever be better?’
Savannah laughed. ‘I knew you’d say that,’ she said.
‘Excellent. So do you think you’ll ever be better?’
‘I don’t know, better than what? Better to be like what I was before. I’m trying to remember before, but it’s difficult. Because all I can think of is life with him.’ She didn’t say Calum’s name anymore.
When she spoke to Clary about her father, she said Daddy. The fact that Daddy had gone from their lives was something tricky for Savannah to explain. And yet Clary had so far not made the slightest noise about seeing him.
Eden said he’d left the country, but he’d be back. Eden had said: ‘Men like him always come back.’
His lawyers had sent Savannah a terse message that her husband would be back and they could resume their separation discussions then. An email which had made her hyperventilate. But she’d rung Eden. Eden had instructed her to ring any time she got upset.
‘I got an email and—’
‘Read it out to me,’ said Eden calmly.
She hadn’t said she was busy or that she was in a meeting. All Savannah could hear was some movement of chairs and a door shutting. And then Savannah was speaking to her again. ‘Read it out to me and breathe.’
Everyone wanted her to breathe. How did they think she’d survived this long without breathing?
Savannah had read out the email.
‘That’s OK, it’s good, he’s going through the lawyers,’ said Eden. ‘He’ll continue to go through the lawyers. You’re safe, you don’t have to see him again, ever, if you don’t want to.’
‘I don’t want to see him,’ Savannah had said.
‘Diarmuid has the best lawyers. Let them handle it. You won’t have any trouble from Calum ever again.’
‘I’m terrified of seeing him again,’ she said out loud now and Claire nodded.
‘Can you tell me where that sensation of terror comes from?’ Claire asked.
Savannah’s hands reached down to her torso, automatically touching her chest and then her belly.
‘Everywhere,’ she said, ‘everywhere. I can’t bear the thought of having to see him or hear him or have him near me. I close down, lock myself into myself to be safe. Because I’m scared.’
