Even. Nigel Barley

began sputtering in her coffee like a drowning woman doing an impression of a Gaggia.

      ‘You don’t want me for an enemy,’ she hissed or perhaps it was the milk-steamer.

      ‘Well, we don’t have to get into a fist fight about it but if I’m the most scary form of revenge you can find, then I really have no reason to be frightened of you, have I? Then again, the Law Society have some quite demanding ethical rules and regulations – admittedly far from universally applied – but I suspect that someone who cuts corners in her private affairs very probably does so in professional matters too and wouldn’t want any close scrutiny.’ I could see that one went home. There was a bit more hollering and posturing of course – insults rained down upon my poor mother, my face and my genitals and then we were done. I left enough to pay for my tea and half a judicious tip and then I adjusted my false moustache and left, ducking round a woman with a backside of tragic proportions to block off pursuit. I took particular care to make sure I was not followed and headed home. I must cut down on facial interactions. Any job that involves contact with members of the public is so draining.

      ***

      ‘And then there is the matter of your appearance,’ Rhodda is saying. ‘Every time I see you, you look different.’ She looks down at her notes. ‘I see that for our last session you were blond and had a beard and dressed like a scruffy hippy. Low self-esteem minus doubt equals affirmation of self.’ So that’s the sort of stuff she writes down.

      ‘No one says “hippy” any more. Anyway, I would have given my jeans another quick once-over with the iron but you keep saying I shouldn’t re-press anything.’

      She ignores that. ‘Today you are red-haired, clean-shaven and every inch the city gent.’ Beneath the notes, her lap looks forlornly empty. Perhaps she needs one of Mrs. Fromsett’s asymmetric cats to complete her. The light glints evilly off her glasses. ‘It’s absolutely classic. You can’t desperately run away from yourself like this by adopting a series of disguises. Whenever you look in the mirror, it’s still going to be you. You must see who you are and embrace it. It’s the only way to find the peace of mind you claim you are looking for.’ She, on the other hand, always looks exactly the same. I diagnose this as an attempt to claim invariance and objectivity, to deny the see-sawing of these unsatisfactory sessions.

      ‘There are good reasons for all that. How do you know I don’t work for MI6 or maybe there are a dozen people out there waiting to slap paternity orders on me?’

      For a moment, I think she is about to throw her pencil at me, then she sighs and pulls down the hem of her tweed skirt. That must be really itchy against her legs. I become aware of how much black sock I am showing and uncross my legs to ease my trousers down from the knee.

      ‘Do you sometimes think that people are spying on you, reading your mail, intercepting your telephone calls? Do you think people are plotting against you at home or at work? I’m not sure I believe your denials. These are deep issues and we shall have to work our way to a resolution of them but it strikes me as significant that you immediately link identity and paternity. I would suggest that’s strongly diagnostic. Does the absence of the one imply the absence of the other to you? Do you see having children as the only way to attain adulthood and stability of self? It’s not uncommon in men of your age. Or women either.’ Said a little sadly. She’s broody, pining, poor thing. An incomplete cat would be a good idea. It would fill in the blank. She doesn’t want to say any more but she can’t help herself. ‘Then there’s the matter of your leg.’

      I’m not sensitive about my legs but the left is slightly shorter than the right or maybe the right is longer than the left. Without corrective shoes, it gives me a limp. Like the Labour Party, I naturally lean, just a little, to the left. Apparently, in such cases, it is normal for the right to be shorter than the left so, even in my asymmetry, I am a deviant. With the shoes, it’s virtually undetectable, my first disguise then.

      ‘Ultimately, it’s all part of the fear of death that is natural to our human condition.’ A shadow flits across her face and I am momentarily startled until I realise it is just that. The sun, through the curtains, has ducked behind a cloud. ‘Your absurd dressing-up is just like an inversion of those hooligans who go round scribbling their names on Underground trains. You are claiming different identities to hide in.’

      Meaning what? That all those babies tumbled from the ready wombs of the world are really just splodges of graffiti executed, not with spray cans but the nozzles of erect penes? ‘Do I fear death? I would say I never think about it.’ The funereal lilies over her shoulder mock me. They have started to turn black and sweaty from the inside, like the face of a corpse decaying from within, the bugs bursting through the membranes of the digestive system and turning their own container to sludge.

      She pounces triumphantly. ‘Then I would suggest you should think about it. Does the idea of your own impending and unpredictable mortality bother you? I’m afraid our time is up.’

      ***