Therapy

condition, but when it came to the crunch, and the two hours were up, he wouldn’t stop. Eventually she said that if he didn’t stop harassing her she would move out of the house until he came to his senses. And he rather foolishly said, “All right, move out, see if I care,” or words to that effect, so she did. She wouldn’t tell him where she was going and she hasn’t told him since.
    Laurence is convinced that there is another man after all and that she staged this row so she could be with him. He thinks he knows who it is, too: the tennis coach at their sports club. It doesn’t sound like Sally to me, but you can never tell. You remember I told you Saul swore blind there was nobody else when he asked me for a divorce, and then I discovered he’d been screwing Janine for months. Laurence says Sally started taking tennis lessons a few months ago and shortly afterwards she decided to colour her hair. No, it doesn’t sound much to go on, but he’s quite convinced and in his present mood there’s no arguing with him. He isn’t coming to London this week because he says he’s too busy. I think he means too busy stalking the tennis coach. I don’t like the sound of it at all, but I can’t help feeling a guilty kind of relief that I won’t have to do another four-hour counselling session tonight.
    Laurence is taking up more and more of our time, isn’t he? Can’t you say something to get me off the subject? What about some free association? I used to enjoy that, we never seem to do it any more.
    All right.Mother. My mother. In the kitchen at Highgate. The afternoon sun is shining through the frosted kitchen window, throwing a mottled pattern on the table, and over her arms and hands. She’s wearing one of those old-fashioned floral print pinafores that crossed at the back and tied at the front. We’re chopping vegetables together for a stew, or soup. I’m about thirteen, fourteen. I’ve just started my periods. She’s telling me about the facts of life. About how easy it is to get pregnant, and how wary I must be of men and boys. Chopping up carrots as she speaks, as if she would like to cut off their willies... I wonder why I should think of that? I suppose it’s because I’m worried about Zelda. Of course I’ve told her all about the facts of life, but should I make sure she’s fixed up with contraception or will she take that as an encouragement to promiscuity? You don’t think that’s it? What then? Oh, go on, Karl, let yourself go for once, give me an interpretation. No, don’t — I know, it’s really about me and Laurence, isn’t it? Oh God...
     
    Well, Sally has got herself a lawyer now. Yes. Laurence had a letter from him asking if he’ll instruct his own solicitor to enter into discussions about a separation settlement. Also with a proposal from Sally that they should agree to go to their sports club on alternate days, to avoid embarrassing encounters. Apparently Laurence has been going down there and watching Sally practising with the tennis coach. She says it puts her off her game. I should think it would. Of course this has only convinced him all the more that she has something to hide re the tennis coach. Laurence told his solicitor to tell Sally’s that if she wanted to live apart from him she would have to do it on her own salary plus she could have back whatever she had contributed to their savings, which isn’t very much of course compared to what Laurence has earned in recent years. I think it’s a bad sign that they’re quarrelling about money already, and using lawyers, that was when things became really nasty between Saul and me. Oh dear, I have a dreadful feeling of déjà vu about all this...
     
    Well, things have gone from bad to worse. Laurence has had an injunction served on him to stop him going into the college where Sally works, or university I think it’s called now, Volt University or Watt University — something electrical anyway. Her lawyer wrote back to say that she considered herself entitled to half their savings because she supported him for years by her teaching when he was trying to make it as a scriptwriter. Laurence went to the University in a towering rage and ambushed her outside her office and made a public scene. She told him that he was out of his mind. Well, I think perhaps he is, poor sweet. So Sally took out an injunction against him, and if he goes there again he could be arrested. In fact he’s not even allowed to go within a