Liz Jensen - The Rapture

‘Good to meet you, Bethany,’ I say, manoeuvring myself to offer a handshake. ‘I’m actually a therapist rather than a doctor.’

‘Same shit, different asshole,’ she declares, not taking my hand. Like me, she’s wearing black: the garb of mourning. Does she still believe, on some level, that she has died?

‘Gabrielle Fox. I’m new here, I’ve taken over from Joy McConey.’

‘I always start by giving you guys the benefit of the doubt. That means ten stars out of ten to begin with,’ she says, assessing my wheelchair. ‘But you get an extra one for being a spaz. Positive discrimination, yeah? So you’re starting with eleven.’ The notes mentioned she was articulate but I’m still surprised. You come across it so little in this kind of place.

‘Ten’s fine, Bethany. In fact, very generous of you. I specialise in art therapy. Subscribing to the theory that art’s a good way of expressing feelings when words fail.’

Her eyes are dark, feline, heavily outlined in kohl. Sallow, olive skin, a narrow, asymmetrical face: she’s what you’d call striking rather than pretty. Or jailbait. Her hair looks matted beyond redemption. She seems a far cry from the girl in the family photo. Has she spent the last two years soaking up the institution’s own brand of teen culture, or is this attitude intrinsic? In either case, she behaves like she’s up for a fight, and she looks like trouble, and she sounds like trouble — but then most of them do, one way or another. Preliminary assessment: she’s more intelligent and more verbal than most, but otherwise, so far, so normal.

‘The bottom line is, I’m here to help you, and encourage you to express whatever you want to express here in the—’ I am unable to say Creativity Workshop: it gets stuck in my throat. ‘Here in this studio. Whatever it is. No limits. It’s an exploration. Sometimes it can take you to dark places. But I’m on your side.’

‘A spaz who patronises me. Great. Great to have you on my side in dark places . Psychobabbling away.’

‘I’m just someone to talk to. Or if you don’t want to talk, I’m here to supply you with paper and art materials. Not everything works in words. No matter how big your vocabulary.’

She waggles two fingers at her opened mouth to indicate disgust. ‘You’re down to five. I can see you don’t belong here.’ She looks at me levelly. ‘So perhaps you should just wheel yourself off into the sunset in that spazmobile of yours. Before something bad happens.’ She circles the chair, then stops behind me, and leans down to whisper in my ear. ‘So you’ve taken over from Joy. Tragic Joy. I guess you’ve heard all about the distressing way she left?’ Her knowing use of cliche. strikes me as a possible clue to her inner clockwork. She speaks as though her life is an object held at a distance, a source of amusement — a fiction rather than a reality. ‘I warned her about what would happen. I warned her.’

I’m snared by this, as she intends, but I know better than to show an interest in my predecessor, so I gesture at the walls. ‘Is any of this work here yours?’

There is a game you can play: match the artwork to the wacko. But having spent time — more time than I ever intended — in casinos, amongst roulette wheels and backgammon tables and stacked chips, I know that it’s too much like poker, another pastime it’s wise not to indulge in.

‘Yeah, Joy was tragic but you’re tragic too, I guess,’ she continues, ignoring my question. ‘I mean, you bother with make-up, when no one’s going to take a second look, are they, no matter how hot you are, right? Unless they’re some sort of perv. No offence. But hey, Spaz. Reality check.’

If you show them an abusive word has got to you, they know they’ve won. And then they can do anything. And they will. ‘I asked if you’d done any of the work here,’ I say lightly. ‘And you can call me Gabrielle.’

‘You mean these great masterpieces?’

She glances around with disdain. The artwork features the usual range of motifs: flowers, anarchic fuck-the-system graffiti, graveyards, jungle animals, bulging breasts and engorged phalluses. But there are some oddities too. One of the kids, a skinny twelve-year-old boy who helped his father murder his sister in the name of family honour, has been constructing a huge papier michi. hot-air balloon, striped blue and white, which hangs from the ceiling above us like a big light bulb. It is an enterprising, ambitious, hopeful and joyous balloon, a balloon that is more whole in spirit than the boy who made it. It’s both consoling and intriguing, that art can do that. Look at a pickled brain, and you’ll see a putty-grey bolus, lumpy and naked as an exposed mollusc. But there’s space inside for a thousand worlds, none of which need be remotely compatible.

‘Perhaps it’s time to try making something in here,’ I suggest. ‘Is that something we could schedule in for you?’

It’s as though I haven’t spoken. I ride out the silence for a while, but then realise she’s playing a waiting game too. The fixity of her expression — contempt as a default mode — indicates that her mind’s lodged somewhere she considers safe. I catch Rafik’s eye and he looks at me with what might be sympathy, or even pity. He’s well-liked here. He’d be called ‘a rough diamond’ or perhaps even ‘a devoted family man’ in news reports of his violent death at the hands of a psychotic patient. I wonder how many Bethany Krall sessions he has sat through.

‘Bethany?’ I prompt eventually. ‘Any thoughts?’

With a sudden movement she perches herself on the central table and lets out a theatrical sigh.

‘First I get my ECT. Then Tragic Joy. And now you. So my thoughts are that Oxsmith is treating me like a fucking princess. You’re down to one star, missis.’ Turning to the inbuilt wall-mirror, she inspects her teeth, still caged in the same silver braces as in the family photo. ‘Hey. See anything interesting in there, Uncle Rafik?’ she asks, noticing his eye on her. ‘Fancy a high-risk blow-job?’ He turns away, and she cackles in triumph.

‘If you don’t feel like doing any artwork we can just sit together and watch movies if that’s what you want,’ I persevere.

‘Porn? Extra star for saying yes.’

‘Sure,’ I say, noting how quickly sex has entered the conversation. ‘Anything for a star on the Bethany Krall Competence Scale. If they have any porn in the DVD library. I haven’t investigated. How do you feel about watching hardcore sex?’

She laughs. ‘You’re babbling again. You people are so fucking predictable.’

She is right of course. If Bethany is disturbed minor number three hundred for me, I am probably therapist number thirty for her. She knows the tricks of the trade, its let’s-coax-it-out ploys, its carefully framed ‘open’ questions and neat follow-ups, its awareness of key words and phrases, a set of formulae I’ve been increasingly inclined to abandon since my accident. It’s clear that with a case like Bethany, the normal rules do not apply. I can see that at this rate, we’ll soon be going off-road. Gonzo therapy. What’s to lose? But for now, I stick to the well-worn track.

‘The art group meets here three times a week for sessions. But some people prefer working alone. I’d guess you might be one of them. I’ve got watercolour equipment, acrylics, inks, clay, or you can do computer imaging, photography, that sort of thing. My only rule is, no home-made tattoos.’

‘And if I don’t want to do any of that shit? Including date-stamping myself by decorating my tits with snakes?’

‘The content of our sessions is up to you. We could just talk. Or go for a walk.’

Her face sparks up meanly. ‘Go for a walk , like how?’ Her voice is cross-hatched with elaborate scorn. Exhausting, to maintain those levels of anger and yet have no specific target. How tired she must be.