But sometimes that was exactly what the problem required.
At the end of group, Dennis danced over to me. ‘Rachel, a chara, could I have a wordeen?’
Oh, here we go … ‘Sure. Now suit you?’
‘Down to the ground. And further! Right through to the centre of the earth and … out the other side.’
In a consulting room, he perched on the edge of the chair, fixing his bright eyes on mine. ‘I was thinking about Trassa. About … That’s a desperate thing that happened to her, you wouldn’t wish it on anyone. But, Rachel, wouldn’t I have had a trauma or something?’
‘Maybe you have?’
He perked up. ‘Was it the time Patch won the egg-and-spoon race out from under me nose? There I was, thinking I was coming home to a hero’s welcome and, at the last minute, the little feck whips certain victory from me grasp.’
Steadily, I eyeballed him.
‘But, Rachel, being serious, like. If that’s the worst thing I can think of, there isn’t anything there.’
‘What are you trying to say?’
‘That, well, it makes sense, doesn’t it, that Trassa would get addicted to something. Cause and effect, like. But with me, there’s no cause. So no effect.’ His curls bounced as he sat up and announced, ‘So I can’t be an alcoholic!’
‘Oh, Dennis.’ In less tragic circumstances, it would actually be funny. ‘Trassa is Trassa. But everyone is unique. People are addicts or alcoholics for all kinds of reasons and some for no reason at all. No obvious one, anyway.’
He cocked his head. ‘How d’you mean?’
‘Sometimes a trauma can occur when the person is too young to remember. Other times there genuinely isn’t any trauma, just excuses and justifications.’
‘How’s that now?’
‘Addicts are great at hard-luck stories – their parents didn’t love them enough or their boss doesn’t value them or their wife isn’t grateful – and that’s why they have to drink or use. But, Dennis, you’d drink even if you had no excuse. All that matters here is that you’re an alcoholic and you need to get well.’
He looked crestfallen. In a small voice he said, ‘I don’t want to be an alcoholic.’
I nodded. I knew. ‘Dennis? When you used to find your father passed out, looking like he was dead? What did that do to you?’
He dropped his head. ‘How do I know?’ he muttered. ‘You’re the expert.’
‘I’d imagine being a little boy of six or seven discovering his daddy and thinking he had died would have been devastating.’
His head remained bowed. Then he cast a furious look at me. ‘’Twas,’ he choked, his eyes wet. ‘’Twas.’
He curled inwards, making himself smaller. Roughly rubbing his face with his hands, he became a little boy before my eyes.
Well, that was easy, a lot easier than I’d expected.
I let him cry. He had a lifetime’s worth to catch up on.
‘There are probably worse crimes I’ve committed.’ It was Giles’s last session in group and he was in giddy good form. ‘But this memory is the worst I can think of.’ In a fruity voice, he asked, ‘Are you ready, children? Then let us begin. One night, after a right old time of it, I thought I was having a heart attack, so I went to A and E. I wanted an ECG. The picture in my head is me standing in the waiting room, yelling at all the sick and injured people, “I am having a cardiac arrest! I! Giles Freyne! And you know who I am!”’
‘Holy fuck,’ Chalkie muttered. ‘Morto for you, bud.’
‘The security guards were trying to catch me but I was sprinting around the place, whisking open the curtains around the cubicles. At one, I told the woman in the bed to get out, that I needed it. Then I said I had a gun.’
‘And had you?’ Chalkie asked.
‘Where would I get a gun?’
‘No? Okay. As you were.’
‘I tried to pull the drip out from the woman’s arm,’ Giles said. ‘Then the police came and arrested me. I told them I’d gone to school with the minister for justice and they’d be directing traffic for the rest of their careers. That’s the sort of thing’， he said, ‘I want never to repeat.’
‘You don’t have to,’ Trassa said. ‘So long as you go to your meetings and aftercare.’
‘Of course.’ He twinkled his eyes at her, acknowledging that, along with Chalkie, she was now one of the group elders. ‘I’m looking forward to not feeling ashamed. Or having to remember which lie I told to whom. And being relieved of all that planning – where I could get cash, when I could do a line, how to hide that I was buzzed. It was really hard work.’