A real life Irish Oprah. I should try and get Mum and Helen along for a session, they’d appreciate it.
‘And who are your ISOs?’ Mike asked drily.
‘I haven’t got any,’ I said in surprise.
‘No one ever saw you when you were on drugs?’ he said. He sounded sarcastic.
I felt despair. How could I ever get these eejits to understand that taking recreational drugs was normal? That if any ISO of mine came to group they’d have nothing to report other than ‘She enjoyed herself.’
‘I’ve lived away from home for the last eight years,’ I said. ‘And I hardly think my flatmate’s going to jump on a plane from New York.’
Mike gave another knowing laugh.
‘Neil’s wife is his ISO,’ he said. ‘ISOs are usually wives.’
‘Well, I don’t know what Neil’s wife is doing coming here,’ I said. ‘He’s not an alcoholic’
‘Is that right?’ asked Mike. I detected scorn. ‘How do you know that?’
‘Because he told me.’
‘Did he indeed?’
Neil and his wife were already in the Abbot’s Quarter, as were the others – Misty, John Joe, Vincent, Chaquie and Clarence.
Neil looked as sweet and neat as a little boy who’d just made his Confirmation. I gave him a reassuring smile, not that he needed it. He gave me a kind of downturned clown’s smile back. I knew it would be a very dull session and I was slightly disappointed. I’d been so looking forward to finding out about John Joe shagging a sheep.
Neil’s wife, Emer, looked even duller and plainer than she had the day before. I automatically despised her because she’d kicked up such a fuss about Neil’s drinking, or lack of. I couldn’t bear killjoys. I was prepared to bet she was another member of Right-wing Catholic Mothers Against Pleasure, just like Chaquie. She was damn lucky Neil hadn’t told her to feck off for herself.
Josephine came in and made us all introduce ourselves. Then she thanked Emer for coming, and started asking her questions.
‘Would you like to tell the group about Neil’s drinking?’
I sighed, four pints on a Saturday night wasn’t much of a story. Josephine looked at me. I was afraid.
‘Well,’ Emer said in a quivery voice, ‘he wasn’t that bad, I suppose.’ She looked at the lap of her skirt as she spoke.
He wasn’t bad, at all, you stupid cow, I thought. I gave her a dirty look.
‘Was he often drunk?’ asked Josephine.
Emer gave Josephine a big, rabbit-caught-in-the-head-lights stare. ‘No,’ she said, her voice wavering. ‘Hardly ever.’
She shot Neil a look, then went back to her skirt.
My contempt for her increased.
‘Did he behave badly to you and your children?’
‘No, never.’
‘Did he ever disappear for days at a time?’
‘No.’
‘Did he ever keep you short of money?’
‘No.’
‘Did he ever verbally abuse you?’
‘No.’
‘Did he ever hit you?’
‘No!’
‘Was he ever unfaithful to you?’
‘No.’
I started to sigh to convey my boredom with what Emer wasn’t saying, then remembered Josephine and thought better of it.
Josephine spoke again. ‘He must have been bad sometimes, otherwise he wouldn’t be in here.’
Emer shrugged her bony shoulders and didn’t look up.
‘Are you afraid of your husband?’
‘No.’
‘I’m just going to read something out for the group,’ said Josephine. ‘The questionnaire you filled out when Neil first came in.’
‘Don’t!’ Emer exclaimed.
‘Why not?’ Josephine was gentle.
‘Because… because it’s not true!’
‘So it’s not true that Neil…’ Josephine picked up a sheet of paper ‘… that he broke your nose on three occasions, broke your jaw, fractured your arm, burnt you with cigarettes, put your fingers in the joint of a door and slammed it, threw your youngest child down the stairs where she went through the glass panel of the front door and had to have forty-eight stitches…’
‘DON’T!’ she screamed, her hands up to her eyes.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It was one thing to lie about how much he drank, but I was shaken by the horrors she had accused him of.
Neil glared at Emer as she sat sobbing.
Everyone looked as shocked as I felt.
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat – not just because I’d chosen one of the crappy ones – but because I didn’t like the psychotherapy game so much any more. It had been such fun to start with, but it had become serious and frightening.
‘What do you have to say to this, Neil?’ Josephine asked quietly.
I breathed out. Thank God Neil was getting a chance to defend himself.
‘She’s a lying bitch,’ he said slowly and thickly. He didn’t sound like such a nice man, the way he said it.
‘Are you?’ Josephine asked Emer conversationally.
There was another silence which stretched on and on unpleasantly. I could hear my own ragged breathing.
‘Are you?’ Josephine asked again.
‘Yes,’ Emer said. Her voice was shaking so much she could hardly talk. ‘None of what I wrote on that thing is true.’
‘Still protecting him?’ said Josephine. ‘You’d rather put him ahead of yourself?’ I wished Josephine would shut up. Emer had said none of it was true and I wanted it left there.
I yearned for group to be over so we could do something nice and normal like go for a cup of tea.
‘Ahead of your children?’ Josephine said softly, as Emer sat hunched over in her chair.
Another of those lengthy, excruciating silences. My shoulders were almost up around my ears with tension.
‘No,’ came the muffled reply.
My heart sank.
‘What’s that Emer?’ said Josephine kindly.
Emer looked up. Her face was red and wet.
‘No,’ she said tearfully. ‘Not ahead of my children. He can belt me but I want him to leave the kids out of it.’
I looked at Neil and his face was suffused with rage. He was unrecognizable as the friendly, twinkly man he’d been twenty minutes before.