and ushered Nick inside. The child stood behind the man and stared at Nick. He smiled at her, but she didn’t smile back.
‘Take a seat in here. Tessa will be with you soon.’
Nick was shown into a room not dissimilar to the waiting room in the doctor’s surgery. A television played in the corner, the volume muted. He sat in a hard chair by the door and waited. The sound of children’s voices came from somewhere within the house.
‘Boys, quit messing around down there. Get to bed.’
There was laughter, followed by the sound of running feet and then silence. Nick stared at the television.
‘Nick?’
He turned to see a blonde woman in her fifties standing in the doorway.
‘I’m Tessa. Do you want to come this way?’
Nick stood and felt the pain in his abdomen as he did so. Tessa put out a hand to shake his, and he followed her across the hallway and into a small, darkened room.
‘Please, take a seat,’ Tessa told him. Nick sat, and she sat opposite him and picked up a pen. She reached towards a small device on her desk and pressed a button. ‘I generally record the sessions, Nick, and send you the file. It can help to do self-hypnosis between sessions. You don’t have any objections?’
‘No, no, that’s okay.’ Nick waited, putting his hands between his knees to hide the tremor that had crept into them. He longed desperately for the last cigarette in the pack inside his jacket, knew that that would be the final one. Another bad habit curbed. Outside, the rain continued to thunder down, beating against the window.
‘How long have you had a problem with alcohol, Nick?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t see it as a problem.’
‘But now you do?’
He nodded. ‘The doctors say if I don’t stop drinking I could be dead in a year, eighteen months at the most. And I can’t get on the transplant list unless I’m six months clean.’
Tessa scribbled something on her notepad. ‘Have you ever tried to give up before?’
‘Yeah, but it didn’t take.’ Nick thought of the AA meetings his ex-wife, Susan, had made him go to – the room of men, most of whom were there only because their wives had insisted. He’d lasted about three months, and then he’d finished up in a bar across from the meeting hall with two of the other recruits drinking whiskey until closing. And he’d thought it was all such a laugh – until Susan had left.
‘Any ideas why you drink, Nick?’ Tessa’s eyes flitted from the page to rest on him, and he fidgeted in his seat.
‘Does there have to be a reason?’ He knew that he sounded defensive, but he hadn’t come here for counselling. He simply wanted help to detox.
‘There usually is. There are various reasons, of course; it can come from pressure at work, or at home … It starts as a means to relax, or to escape … then over time it becomes the problem itself …’
He didn’t answer right away; he tried to think back to when his drinking had got heavier. He’d always had a taste for it – had started when he was about sixteen. And as for escape, he’d felt like that for a long time too. He just wasn’t sure what it was he was trying to escape from. When things had got bad with Susan … then he had a reason. He guessed that that was when he’d really hit it hard.
‘I’m divorced. We fought a lot; I suppose it started then … or at least made it worse.’
Tessa nodded. She didn’t say anything, didn’t judge him, and he imagined he wasn’t the first messed-up alcoholic divorcee she’d dealt with.
‘Have you ever been hypnotized before?’
Her voice brought him back from his thoughts, back to the dim room and the sound of the rain outside.
‘No, never.’
‘Okay.’ She put down her pen and smiled. ‘If you’re ready, let’s get started.’
They both stood, and Nick moved towards the chair she gestured to.
‘Hypnosis is nothing more than a deepened state of relaxation, Nick. I’m going to ask you to simply lie back, close your eyes and relax. You’ll be aware of everything that’s going on around you.’
Nick lay back in the reclining leather chair and closed his eyes. Tessa placed a thin blanket over him. He didn’t feel relaxed. His body was tense, and he was aware as he lay still of the rapid beating of his heart and the discomfort in the right side of his abdomen. The hypnotist was standing near him. A strong woody fragrance that reminded him of his ex-wife permeated his senses as her soft rhythmic voice cut in on his thoughts.
‘Now I want you to completely relax your body. The more relaxed you become, the more susceptible your mind will be to suggestion. We’re going to start with your feet and work our way up to your head.’
Nick shifted in the chair. He opened his eyes slightly and saw Tessa standing over him, her silhouette dark against the dimmed light behind her. Step by step, she instructed him to relax each part of his body until his limbs felt heavy, the tension gradually subsiding as he sank deeper into the leather seat.
‘For a long time, you’ve been hurting, Nick. And you’ve been relying more and more on alcohol to deaden these feelings of pain; but it’s only by experiencing the negative things in life that you can also appreciate the highs. That’s why you’ve come here today, to reconnect with your emotions, to discover that in order to live again you have to feel.’
The woman’s voice was slow and methodical – practised so as not to jolt him out of his physical state of relaxation – but even as he listened to her words, he could feel himself fighting them. Did he really want to get in touch with his feelings about Susan, and the end of their marriage? Since meeting Michelle, he’d put all that behind him. He’d been feeling more positive than he had in years.
‘Focus now on an area of your life that gives you happiness. Something that makes you feel confident, that makes you feel proud. Notice how you feel inside, Nick: assured, happy and fulfilled and let these feelings grow.’
Michelle. They’re on their second date and he’s telling her about the time he got the call to design a house for a well-known rock star in south Dublin. His reputation as an architect is at its peak. A year ago, he landed the big contract to design the house which now stands on a clifftop proudly overlooking Killiney Bay. He’s taken Michelle up there to see it, has parked the car on the Vico Road and led her down the steps to the beach, where it’s possible to look back up at the house.
‘Did you meet him?’ she asks. ‘What’s he like?’
‘Sure, he doesn’t say much. You know the type.’ He reaches out then, cups her face with his hand and leans in to kiss her. The wind blows her blonde hair in her face, and she clings to him and tells him she’s freezing. It’s a cold night in February. He feels the spray from the sea blow in on the wind, and he kisses her again and tells her she’s beautiful.
‘What?’ she shouts, and laughs as his words are drowned by the roar of a train passing on the tracks above bound for Bray.
‘As you’re experiencing these good feelings, Nick, I want you to take a deep breath and squeeze your hand into a fist. Your subconscious mind will memorize these feelings of happiness and whenever you want to feel like this again, you’ll simply take a breath and make a fist again.’
They’re climbing the steps back up to the Vico Road to where the car is waiting. He tightens his arm around Michelle’s shoulders as she stumbles and steadies herself by putting both arms round him. Her laugh rings out in the cold night and he wants to protect her – to keep her safe in his arms. He squeezes his hand into a fist as the woman’s voice, coming from some place far away, tells him to do. He’s