The shop had been a favourite of my mother’s who liked to buy herself a celebratory Victoria sponge every benefit day. This she ate from her armchair with a tea towel spread over her knee and a glass of port at her elbow.
The campaign poster was printed on matt, off-white paper with a small horizontal note along the lower right edge: ‘Made from 100% recycled paper.’ The photo was of a man in his forties dressed in a safari shirt done up at the neck. In his breast pocket was a pen and pencil. He was wearing wire-framed glasses and his hair was parted on the side in a three-to-seven ratio, which is considered the ideal hair parting among Japanese businessmen. But Warren Crumpet was not Japanese or a businessman. He was an organic farmer and member of the British Soil Association who was promising to clean up council corruption and put the town’s finances back in the black. One of his more progressive ideas was to turn unused council land into market gardens and grow organic vegetables for commercial sale. His ‘Go Organic’ initiative would employ and retrain local residents and generate income for municipal projects. The poster’s message was simple: ‘Warren Crumpet for Mayor – Because Honesty Is the Best Policy.’ The first thing he had vowed to do if elected was to halve the mayor’s salary.
Mr Crumpet’s political platform made complete sense to me but clearly he had at least one detractor. Someone had defaced the poster with a thick black marker, drawing crude women’s breasts over the pockets of his safari shirt. ‘Tofu eater’ had been scribbled around his head like a halo or crown of thorns. The destruction of campaign advertising was a crime but I had yet to find an undamaged poster of Warren Crumpet.
When I reached the address of Bijou Poulet Psy Dram, I had to remind myself to remain positive. Her office was located in a dilapidated building above a fish and chip shop called the Sea Breeze. This was not a very prestigious location for a psychological expert. The white paint was peeling on the front door and litter had collected in the doorway. The handwritten card next to the buzzer read: POULET Psy Dram Therapeutic Chambers. As I held my finger down on the plastic button I noticed that someone had scratched ‘ITCH’ into the paintwork. The intercom crackled and a woman’s voice shouted, ‘Enough already!’
The door clicked and I climbed the stairs to a scuffed carpeted landing. There I found a second door. This had a peephole and a large framed photograph of a popular American actress. The photo had a caption in gold lettering, ‘Jodie Foster, Hollywood Screen Legend, Etcetera.’
The door opened and Bijou Poulet beckoned me inside. Her nails were long and made me think of the empress dowager Cixi who reigned over China for several decades and earned a reputation as a ruthless tyrant and dog lover. One of Cixi’s diplomatic initiatives was to give away toy dogs as gifts and she once bestowed a Pekinese on the daughter of American President Theodore Roosevelt.
Bijou Poulet was a stout woman with wide shoulders, chest and pelvic girdle. Her hair was very blonde except near the scalp where it was dark and streaked with grey. She was dressed as if for a French cabaret in a ruffled blue synthetic gown and silver shoes with very high heels. Around her neck was a glittery necklace with several of its paste gems missing. She did not appear to be American and I could not tell if she was Jewish but she did have a lot of framed documents on her walls. I could not read their contents but they appeared to have the seals and swirling signatures of academic diplomas. The qualifications would have pleased Mr Chin, who believed in getting ‘bang for buck’.
Bijou Poulet announced that a half-hour session would cost thirty pounds. I was asked to pay upfront before being led to a reclining sofa.
‘Remove your shoes and stretch out,’ she said, putting on reading glasses.
‘Can I keep my clothes on?’ I asked.
‘Do you enjoy nudity with women?’ She stepped back from me, frowning over the top of her glasses.
‘I thought it might be expected.’
‘Uh-huh.’ She pointed again to the sofa with the end of her pen before sitting on a swivel chair and placing a stenographer’s pad on her knee. ‘Ho-kay, I’ll need some background info-data for my files. Are you affiliated with the motion picture industry?’
‘No.’
‘Film, TV, docu-dramas, mini-series, pilots, commercials?’
‘I go to the cinema sometimes.’
She frowned and noted something down. ‘Are you married or homosexual?’
‘I’m single.’
‘So you’re not homosexual?’
‘One never knows, I suppose. I’ve read that people sometimes discover homosexual relief in mid-life.’
‘Uh-huh.’ She wrote something else down. ‘Allergies, phobias, unresolved anger?’
‘I’m not allergic to anything but I am afraid of spiders. Especially those large, hairy bird-eating spiders that live on tropical islands. I have a horror of a bird-eating spider falling from a coconut palm, down the back of my cardigan.’
‘That’s fear of the vagina.’
‘I’m not frightened of the vagina. It’s spiders.’
‘Psy 101: Fear of snakes is fear of the penis. Fear of spiders is fear of the vagina. It’s the ABC of my trade. You’ve probably had a traumatic birth or a brush with a forceful lesbian. Sometimes it’s a distant aunt or over-friendly neighbour. Fear and shame drive the female child to internalise the incident and bury it deep in her subconscious. It takes multiple sessions with a highly trained expert to normalise a traumatised victim. It’s a baptism by fire, catharsis, rebirth. I have a time plan to ease the financial burden of payments.’
‘But I thought most people were scared of spiders. And snakes for that matter.’
‘Leave the thinking up to those licensed to do it.’
This statement was not very encouraging but it was not my place to question a certified professional. It seemed like a good moment to clarify my goals. ‘I’ve been told by a reliable source that I am abnormal. I’m looking for relief by Monday.’
‘There are two types of abnormal, the chronically abnormal and the averagely abnormal. My professional guess is that you’re the former.’ She shook her head and exhaled noisily. ‘I’ve heard it all in my game. Violence, torture, murder, rape, damage to private property. I carry it with me. It’s all up here.’
Bijou Poulet tapped her temple and sighed in a significant way. She had not chosen an easy career path. I knew for a fact that suicide among psychotherapists was uncommonly high. So was suicide among veterinarians. I was glad I had not opted for a career in veterinary science. It cannot be easy giving animals injections.
‘At least you don’t see animals suffer.’
Bijou Poulet seemed startled by my comment. ‘What does the word beaver mean to you?’
‘Dam.’
‘Ho-kay, I’ll take that as a hostile response.’ She folded her lips and wrote a lengthy paragraph on her notepad. She then reread her notes, frowned and scratched her scalp with her long fingernails. When she finally looked up, her expression was serious. ‘Your illness has a name.’
‘That’s helpful.’
‘Joan of Arc complex.’
‘But Joan of Arc was a soldier. She led armies into battle against the British. I don’t agree with fighting. I think it does more harm than good.’
‘That’s only what you think you think. What goes on inside your mind is a different kettle of fish.’ She pointed to her temple again before motioning in the general direction of my groin. ‘You’re a victim of unnatural impulses, dangerous impulses if left unchecked. They’ve got to be controlled, suppressed, suffocated, metaphorically held down and beaten with a stick. Electric shock therapy is no longer available but there are other psychological routes we can pursue.’
‘This is not very good news.’
Bijou