Shrinking Violet

"I can't remember the first time God spoke to me," said Violet. She
watched Dr. Ciaran French's face. Receiving no encouragement, or in
fact, any indication that he had heard what she had said, she turned a
little to her left to look out of the window onto the psychiatrist's
neat lawn. He appeared to be searching the rose beds for an answer to
her problem. He was the expert, not her. "He speaks to a lot of people
though. Doesn't he Dr. French?" The girl was only twenty-two. She had a
sweet voice and a shrewd mother. As a consequence, she was now a
household name and her parents were very rich. All this God talk
worried her mother. The woman was protecting her investment. Ciaran
looked at her. "You have conversations with him?" he said. "Chats?" He
looked out of the window onto his lawn. If he was honest with himself,
he tended to feel as though the house and garden were his wife's. The
Wimbledon-grade, green velvet was protected on three sides by
award-winning roses rich enough in color to distract the mind from the
vicious thorns that made them such effective protection. "Protection
against?what exactly," he had asked after she told him they were an
especially thorny variety. His wife didn't know for sure but imagined
that there were elements involved. She didn't mean the weather.
"Elements that are becoming increasingly visible in this area," she had
said. Apparently they were casing the leafier streets, looking for rich
pickings. His wife had a fondness for police dramas set in rural
England. The French's lived fifteen minutes from the city center. She
could identify with honest folk of uncompromising morals, certain of
their place and purpose in the world, being besieged by gangs of inner
city youths. On television, these malcontents left their squalid
tenements to visit the country on looting sprees, but were always
thwarted by a plucky young constable. "Have you told the Gardai?" he
asked. "Bloody Guards," she sniffed. It was a preposterous notion.
Perhaps they weren't plucky enough. He'd stared past her shoulder into
the garden. It was a manicured fortress, just like the house in which
he stood. They moved in when his father in law had finally moved out to
Glasnevin cemetery. He'd told his grand daughter, Una that her great
grandfather had left for a place with lots of trees and flowers because
it was quieter there. His daughter-in-law, Kate, overreacted. When Una
had asked to see Granddaddy, Kate had brought her to the graveyard. The
little girl had been close to her great grandfather. When she stood by
the grave and looked confused, Kate pointed to the headstone. Una had
started screaming, alarming the participants in a funeral forty feet
away. People stared. She wouldn't stop screaming until she was strapped
into the child's seat in her mother's Range Rover on their way back to
Ballsbridge. Then she started to hyperventilate and her mother had to
drive the wrong way up a one-way street to the private clinic on
Serpentine Avenue where her husband was Consultant Orthopedic Surgeon.
Kate and Ciaran had not been relaxed in each other's company since
then. She said she couldn't fathom how a psychiatrist could have told a
child such a thing. "They're more formal than chats," said Violet. "Go
on," said Ciaran. "It's more like he's telling me things. What's weird
is that I thought I'd be more afraid." "Why so?" "Well, it doesn't
happen every day. Does it?" "How did you know it was God?" "Come on Dr.
French. It was hardly my grandmother." "Had you been thinking a lot
about God?" "You mean, maybe I was expecting it? If it had happened out
of the blue, without warning, just a voice coming at me out of the air,
I'd probably have dropped dead. Definitely I expected it. Definitely."
Violet sat up, excited. He understood. "And what things did you find he
was telling you?" Asked Ciaran watching a neighbor's cat settle itself
on a coil of garden hose that had been left in the sun. The water
inside would be warm. What a perfect place for a cat on a hot July day,
thought Ciaran. Where was Haughey? The King Charles enjoyed keeping
cats out of the garden but his wife insisted it was bad for his heart.
Apparantly a dog of his breed and his breeding shouldn't be allowed to
exert himself too much. 'What exactly was he for?' Thought Ciaran. He
had a dog's life, that dog. " 'Nice one kid'. That was how our last
conversation started. But it was kind of sarcastic. Like I'd just
spilled a drink over his suit. It was just after a row with my mother."
After thirty years in private practice, Ciaran had become used to bored
housewives, stressed, workaholic husbands and their neurotic,
destructive children, but Violet Shandley was a good patient. He looked
forward to their lazy afternoon sessions. They reminded him of
drawn-out summer days at school, staring out of high window at boys
running and shouting on playing fields, monks walking purposefully but
peacefully through immaculately kept lawns. It was an uncomplicated
time - easy and uncomplicated. "Had you upset him do you think?" He
asked "Well, I knew what he meant. It was sarcasm in a way that only
those very close to each other can get away with." "You weren't upset?"
" I knew I deserved it. But I was fed up with everyone telling me what
I should do. All I wanted to do was learn the guitar." "And your mother
wouldn't allow it?" "She said it was a waste of time. She said I should
concentrate on my voice." "And that bothered you?" "It's not like I was
going to become a headbanger." Violet sighed and looked up at the
Wyatt-style plaster moulding on the ceiling. She hooked one knee over
the arm of her chair and lay back to look at the delicate detail. She
enjoyed these sessions. She pulled a Marlboro Light from a box and put
it between her lips but didn't light it. She'd been a little
disappointed when it turned out that there was no leather chaise-lounge
in Dr. French's office. He told her that he thought they were a bit
OTT. She'd asked someone else what OTT meant. Dr. French had the most
intelligent, wise and knowing look that Violet had ever seen. He always
said "Mmm," as though he knew exactly what she meant. When she had told
her friends that she was seeing a shrink, they looked impressed. Now it
was common knowledge but her mother was afraid of the idea that it
might be made an issue of in the press. This despite the fact that it
was her who had aranged for Violet to come here. Her mother was a very
closed person, reasoned Violet. She had very little understanding of
the relief, the relaxation that comes with having no secrets from the
people around you. Her body remained in a constant state of defence,
cocked, permamently on red alert, ready to fight, or flee at the
slightest sign of danger. For her mother, danger was all around. She
was not a relaxed person. Violet told her mother that she had a
negative aura. Her mother said that she was the most positive person
she knew and that Violet was an ungrateful little bitch. "Has that ever
happened to you Dr. French?" "I don't play the guitar." "I just wonder
whether what I do is utterly meaningless." "Do you think that its
meaningless." Ciaran wondered what it would be like to sit on one's own
and have intense conversations with Freud. 'Isn't life funny? He
thought. At sixty years of age, the most satisfying moment of his week
was spent coaxing an adolescent singer, already richer than he could
ever hope to be, through a crisis of confidence. When he was her age he
had trouble talking to adults. She was the most confident - in a social
sense - person that he knew. Her insecurity was not shyness. She had a
life most people yearned for, but already she knew it was soulless. He
liked the God thing. It was harmless, but her venal mother thought it
would turn people off her product. When he was this girl's age, Ciaran
had thought very seriously about becoming a priest. In a way, his
sessions with Violet allowed him to indulge in a little light
role-playing. "I'm still trying to decide what it might mean." "Hmmm,"
said Ciaran looking at his wife's lawn. "Does everything have to mean
something?" He asked.