The breath honked out of my nostrils like I had some kind of disgusting flu. ‘That’s it,’ said Amber. ‘Puff it out. Faster! Expel that rage from your body.’ We were sitting cross-legged on the floor of her treatment room, cushions spread out all around us. I’d arrived half an hour ago with tears streaming down my blotchy face, trying to avoid the nosy looks from the market traders setting up their stalls for the day. I’d called her the night before in desperation, and Amber – caring, kind Amber – had carved out an emergency appointment for me at 7.30 a. m. It was two days since my dinner with Mum and the emotional rawness that I’d been feeling before it was now more like an open wound. I had to work. I had to live. I couldn’t afford to bleed out. I collapsed back against the bank of cushions, exhausted. Amber smiled down at me from above, her dark fringe sw ept across her high forehead, her lips smudged with a sticky red gloss. She looked so beautiful and fierce. ‘Your body was holding on so tightly, wasn’t it? You did so well, expelling that rage. Pushing it out of your cells.’ If only it were that easy, I thought. Of course, she knew that’s what I was thinking. ‘What’s she talking about, right?’ she said, eyes dancing. ‘Trust me, I know how hard it is unravelling the bonds of a toxic relationship with someone you love.’ The words were like an electric shock. ‘I don’t think...’ My thoughts were scrambled, impossible to order. ‘Do you really think that’s what it is with Mum?’ I said. ‘Toxic?’ Amber looked down at the woven ethnic rug we were sitting on, her fingers playing with the fringing. ‘I’m sorry, that was me going too fast again,’ she said, her gaze coming up to meet mine. ‘Sometimes, when I can feel your pain in my own cells so acutely – it makes me try too hard to help you heal. I’ve been tuning into you since you called. It’s been agony, hasn’t it?’ Everything she said made our bond sound so tantalizingly intimate. It was food for my unhealthy craving to know her better – to understand her pain, to be more than just another name on her fat roster of paying clients. I’d tried a de ep-dive online, but nothing had come up – no Facebook account, no Twitter. I’d had high hopes for an Instagram account stuffed with inspirational quotes and photographs of her pretzeled into complex yoga poses against Ibizan sunsets, but there was nothing there either. If I was really devious, I could use the servers at work to penetrate way further than Google could, but so far I’d resisted the urge. A backdraft of defensiveness sw ept up. ‘I haven’t always described her right,’ I said. ‘She can be the most amazing Mum, too.’ And she could. I thought about that little island in the midst of our dinner when it was the two of us against the world, her delighting in my progress. But the truth was that it was only ever an island; it was never a continent. I k ept going, nevertheless. ‘She’s never boring, like some people’s parents are. She’s funny. She sees through people.’ ‘Does she?’ said Amber, her half smile telling me she heard something in my words I hadn’t intended to be there. The pesky subconscious up to its old tricks. ‘Yes,’ I said firmly. Why was I sitting here defending her, when this whole emergency appointment was about how much being with her had hurt me? ‘And she does love us. When she’s being difficult, I know it’s also because she wants to ke ep us safe. She can’t always control Dad...’ I faltered a little there. ‘So controlling us is second best.’ Amber’s smile was wider now, kindness in her eyes. ‘Do you think it’s possible both things are true?’ she asked. ‘What do you mean?’ ‘It’s hard to acc ept that two things that seem to conflict can both be
true. She does love you, no question, and that’s a precious thing. But what I’d ask you to reflect on is the fact that so many of your interactions with her – with both your parents – leave you feeling like this.’ Her voice rose as she warmed to her theme. ‘Fragmented, ashamed, no longer sure where your sacred ground is.’ I swallowed, a boulder sitting low in my stomach. My eyes skimmed the mantelpiece of the elegant fir eplace that dominated the left side of the room. Amber had strung some fairy lights over it – tiny white hearts, bohemian and chic – and a row of Christmas cards were lined up across the marble top. This was the worst possible time of year to feel so alone. ‘All I was trying to do was make it better.’ Tears started their inexorable roll down my chapped cheeks. ‘I wish she could understand that.’ There was a long pause. ‘I don’t know if you can make it better right now,’ said Amber, almost under her breath. The silence stretched out again, a void. ‘I saw you looking at the mantelpiece. What does Christmas mean to you, Rachel?’ Her words were still worming their way around my brain. I don’t know if you can make it better. ‘Christmas? Oh, it’s great,’ I said petulantly. ‘Josh has got his 2.4 children lined up behind him in formation, Sophie’s not even just got a boyfriend now, this year she’s got a fiancé, and... I’ve got a five-grand overdraft and a profile on Tinder where I knocked three years off my age. And I won’t even be able to drink my way through it.’ The thought of enduring Christmas sober, of the pantomime my family would stage every time a cork popped, was horrific. Amber laughed, but not in a mean way. ‘So you just need to swap them over, right? Knock three grand off your overdraft and make your Tinder profile truthful?’ ‘Exactly,’ I said, grateful for that incredible talent she had for breaking the tension. ‘And what about your parents? Where do they fit into this charming nativity scene?’ ‘I catch them staring at me, when we’re all chinking our glasses. Then they look away, like I won’t see the pity. Like I won’t see them silently asking themselves why I went so wrong. It’s like I was a discount item in the sales and now they wish they could swap me for the full-price version.’ ‘Maybe you’re not the one who needs pitying!’ shot back Amber. ‘From what you’ve told me, you’re the only authentic person in the picture you’re painting.’ Unease began to cre ep up my spine. I shouldn’t have told her. It was meant to stay inside the picture, not se ep out of the frame and into the world where it could stain us all. ‘Not Sophie,’ I said. ‘She doesn’t even know.’ Sophie was everyone’s favourite Christmas present. Pristine, unbroken. That was why we fought over her so fiercely. ‘But you do.’ My head was bowed, but I could feel Amber’s eyes trained on me. ‘I know it’s hard to talk about, but a part of you brought it here. When one part of us fights another, it can paralyze us.’ Tears prickled behind my eyes. ‘Let’s try to make a st ep forward together, take a look.’ ‘I don’t know...’ ‘Rachel, if these secrets are left to fester, they just find ways to r epeat. Families play out their traumas again and again, the same pain rippling through the generations. Personally, I think they move through the ages, but not everyone believes in past lives.’ ‘Past lives?’ I said, thrown. Amber’s eyes were blazing, her focus on me absolute. ‘Don’t think about that right now,’ she said. ‘Let’s just try to set you free in this incarnation.’ ‘Okay,’ I said, two whispered syllables. ‘What would that part of you say to me if it could speak? What would it say about Esther?’ It felt dangerous, her name in somebody else’s mouth. ‘I hate her,’ I said,
my heart drumming in my chest. ‘I know I’m meant to be a feminist and I should just blame Dad, but I feel like she came into our house and destroyed everything. And somehow she still won’t fuck off.’ Was it disgust that crossed Amber’s face? To me – in my flayed and vulnerable state – it felt like a slap. ‘I can hear myself,’ I added hurriedly. ‘I know how young she was. I know it’s unfair of me, and he’s the shit-bag cheater. But...’ ‘You’re allowed to feel your feelings, Rachel,’ said Amber, her expression restored to soft compassion, but by now I’d lost my footing. ‘I shouldn’t be telling you this. I don’t even know for sure. Mum’s always denied it and I’d never ask him... Perhaps it is just me, looking for excuses for why I’m such a fucking disgusting mess.’ I was staring at the ground, my body hot and shaky, but as the silence stretched into elastic infinity, I was forced to look up. ‘Slow down, Rachel, okay? Don’t abandon your own knowing to preserve the status quo.’ Her eyes blazed. ‘The status quo has been killing you.’ ‘They weren’t actually...’ I’d lost all articulacy, the memories too harsh for me to be able to neatly package them up into clear sentences. ‘They were in your parents’ bedroom together.’ She was doing that thing again, striking off the facts with her fingers. ‘You said your father was actually in bed.’ My voice wobbled. ‘That’s how I remember it, yeah.’ It was more than my voice; my whole world was wobbling with my profound feeling that it was me who was the real betrayer here. Amber’s eyes didn’t leave my face. ‘And your mother still wouldn’t believe you,’ she said, making the words come slow and weighty. They were like a wrecking ball. ‘I can’t do this, okay?’ I was almost shouting. ‘I’m not ready. I don’t know for sure.’ My face was buried in my hands, tears trickling through them onto the worn velvet. ‘They do love me. She loves me so much, that’s why she’s so controlling!’ Amber’s face was pure kindness when she r eplied. ‘I know that, Rachel, and of course we should honour it. What’s so sad is that it doesn’t make it any easier for you.’ That was it: I gave way to the sobbing, my body shaking and heaving with dirty, complicated grief. ‘Do you need some physical contact?’ whispered Amber, and I gave a muffled grunt of permission. Soon her arms were ringed around my shoulders: gradually I let myself sink into her, my tears soaking the stylish black silk shirt she wore, decorated with tiny white question marks. She was so chic, so pretty. Sometimes it was almost like a crush, the way I felt about her. I wondered idly how old she was, relieved to momentarily devote my thinking to something trivial. I had no idea. My sobs started to subside. ‘You’re such a brave young woman, Rachel,’ she said, the words whispered into my hair. ‘You’re doing so, so well.’ ‘Am I?’ I said, looking up at her. ‘Look at the state of me. I’m going to roll into the staff meeting looking like a panda that’s been sent from China to mate in London Zoo.’ A joke was always my get-out-of-jail-free card in those days. Amber acc epted it, laughing down at me before we pulled apart. ‘There’s your bravery, right there,’ she said, narrowing her eyes like she was gazing at a far-off star. ‘You’ve just gone headlong into the biggest, most painful trauma of your life, and you’re already looking for the light.’ I grinned, delighted with her assessment. ‘I’m trying,’ I said. ‘I really am.’ I paused. ‘I want this to change me.’ Amber cocked her head. ‘You’re perfect now, Rachel.’ ‘Jesus, hardly...’ ‘You’re perfectly imperfect, like all of us. Some of your behaviours are problematic, but you’re working on the reasons why, and shaming yourself won’t get you where you want to go.’ She smiled. ‘It’s time to stop listening to other people’s voices in your own head.’
It was almost spooky, the way she seemed to know me better than I knew myself after a few short weeks. She’d nailed it: all day, every day, I converted Mum’s judge-y commentary on my life into a hateful inner monologue. ‘You’re right,’ I breathed. ‘Life doesn’t have to be about what anyone else wants you to be,’ she grinned. ‘And how liberating is that?’ ‘Sounds like the fucking dream!’ I said. Amber’s moods – reflective, exuberant – every single one of them was as infectious as chickenpox. In that moment, I felt as if I was going to slay Thursday. That none of it mattered. I neglected to think about the fact that the parents I was happily throwing on the emotional scrapheap were footing the bill for my triumphant self-actualization. I looked down at my watch. ‘Shit, I’ve got to go.’ Amber looked over at me. ‘I shouldn’t offer – I’m sure it’s breaking every boundary there is – but do you want to borrow my make-up bag before you leave? I hear they shoot pandas in the wild.’ ‘Could I?’ ‘For one of my very favourite clients? Of course you can.’ I tingled when she said that; I lit up like that string of Christmas lights she’d slung so casually over the fir eplace. She knew it too: nothing Amber did was casual, however much she faked it. She reached into a stylishly battered brown leather bag that was slotted behind the sofa. The make-up bag itself was black vinyl, decorated with extravagant red hearts. For me, so hungry to vault the boundaries that stood between us, it felt like a precious piece of evidence. When I came back from the loo – having raked through every product in there, trying to assess what they told me about who she was in real life – she was staring out of the window onto the market. I handed the bag back to her as she turned to me. ‘Thank you,’ I said, the word too full. The day that stretched out ahead was starting to feel real. I froze. ‘I’m sorry if I couldn’t... if I wasn’t...’ My words faded again. ‘Don’t apologize,’ she said, fierce. ‘I’m not here to judge you. Don’t add any more inner critics to the list. I’m Team Rachel – I hope you know that by now.’ ‘I do,’ I said, my voice twisting with emotion. ‘The fact is,’ she added, ‘and I hope it’s not weird me saying it – I think we’d be friends if we met in real life. I can’t say that about many of my clients.’ ‘Me too,’ I said. I was surprised how it felt hearing that: it was thrilling and intimidating all at once, like a sixth former smuggling you into the pub and plying you with vodka. ‘I’m so lucky to have you,’ I said, my eyes drawn back to the row of cards. ‘If it wasn’t for you, the prospect of family Christmas would be basically killing me.’ How long would she be away for? The very thought of it was making me panic: these weekly sessions of ours were my lifeline. Amber contemplated me for a second. ‘You know, Christmas is a prime example of a time where you don’t have to sacrifice yourself for what other people want you to be.’ ‘What do you mean?’ I asked uncertainly. ‘That long break can be incredibly healing, rather than something that we have to dread. I rarely spend it with my family. This year I’m leading a retreat, scooping up a few Christmas orphans for something genuinely healing and peaceful.’ I couldn’t tell if it was an invitation or not. ‘But I have to be there for Christmas...’ I said. ‘I mean, it’s Christmas,’ I added stupidly. Amber smiled gently at my naivety. ‘You don’t have to do anything,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to be anyone, either. You can just be Rachel.’ It was a typical Amber statement: profound and meaningless all at once. To me, right then, it was a precious jewel, and I would take it away and treasure it.
Polish it until it became so valuable to me that it was dangerous, a talisman to guide me.