Therapy

show his face in the Groucho or his tennis club or anywhere people know him. The cartoon seemed to cut particularly deep. He went off and looked up the story of Venus and Mars and Vulcan and discovered that Vulcan had a gammy leg. He seemed to think that was a diabolically clever touch, though I think it’s just coincidence myself. Yes, Laurence has a bad knee, didn’t I tell you before? He gets sudden piercing pains in the knee joint for no apparent reason. He’s had surgery but it came back. I’m sure it’s psychosomatic. I’ve asked him if he can remember any childhood trauma associated with his knee, but he says not. Which reminds me, the other day I remembered an accident that happened to me when I was a little girl...
     
    Well, I’ve told Laurence I will. Sleep with him, of course. Yes. He’s been in such depths of depression about the Public Interest story that I felt I must do something to cheer him up. No, of course it isn’t my only motive. Yes, I probably had made my mind up already. Well, almost. The P.I. business just tipped the balance. So I’m taking two days off from work and we’re making a long weekend of it. The weekend after next. Leaving Thursday evening, returning Monday afternoon. So I’ll have to miss my sessions on the Friday and the Monday. Yes, I know I’ll have to pay for them, Karl, I remember that little speech you made when I started. Well, if you detect an underlying note of hostility I daresay there is one. Considering I’ve hardly missed a session in three years, I should have thought you might have waived the fees on this occasion, after all it’s a kind of emergency. To save Laurence’s sanity. I expect he would pay the fees himself if I asked him, but you probably wouldn’t approve of that, would you?
    I don’t know yet, Laurence is making the arrangements. I said anywhere, as long as it’s abroad, and preferably warm. I felt we had to go away somewhere. My house is out of the question, of course, and it wouldn’t feel right in his flat either, not the first time, anyway. It’s very small, and sometimes you feel the whole sordid West End is pressing against the walls and windows trying to get in: the restaurant smells, the traffic noise, the tourists and the dossers... Yes, I did ask him about that young vagrant. It seems he started camping out in Laurence’s porch a few weeks ago. Laurence tried to get rid of him, but in a very Laurentian way ended up inviting him in for a cup of tea. Bad move. Then he gave him some money to find a bed for the night. Very bad move. Of course the youth came back soon afterwards, hoping for more largesse. Laurence claims he hasn’t given him any, but he’s certainly abandoned any attempt to get rid of him. I told him to get the police to move him on, but he wouldn’t. “He isn’t doing any harm,” he said. “And he keeps the burglars away.” Which I suppose is true, in a way. The flats are unoccupied most of the time. But I suspect Laurence lets him stay there because he’s lonely. Laurence is lonely. I think he likes having somebody to greet as he goes in and out, somebody who doesn’t read Public Interest. I had a dream last night about that cartoon, by the way. I was Venus, Saul was Mars and Laurence was Vulcan. What do you make of that?
     
    Well, we’re going to Tenerife, I’m afraid. Laurence went to a travel agent and said he wanted somewhere warm abroad but not long-haul and that’s what they came up with. I wish I’d made the arrangements myself now. Laurence is not really up to it. Sally always used to book their holidays. The Canary Islands sound nice, the name I mean, but I’ve never heard a good word about them from anybody who’s actually been there. Have you? Been there. No, I don’t suppose you would. Harriet went to Gran Canaria once and said it was ghastly though she tried to deny it yesterday not to depress me. Perhaps Tenerife is nicer. Well, it’s only a few days after all, and at least it will be warm.
    I’ve told Zelda that I’m going on business — that Laurence is setting an episode of TPND in the Canaries, a story about a package holiday, and that we’ve got to cast some local people for it. It’s a rather implausible alibi, actually. Not the idea of the Canaries as such, because they do film the occasional episode on location, and in fact Laurence is rather taken with the package holiday idea, imagining the Springfields waking up in their hotel room on their first day,