Stephen Leather - The birthday girl

'Okay, Mersiha, Dr Brown will see you now,' the receptionist said.

'Great,' Mersiha said under her breath as she pushed herself up from the sofa.

'Be nice,' Katherine warned, but Mersiha had already slipped into the inner office.

Dr Brown was sitting behind his huge oak desk as usual, almost dwarfed by his big leather chair. Mersiha reckoned he used the oversized furniture to compensate for his lack of stature, but in fact it had the opposite effect – it served only to emphasise what a small man he was. 'Hiya, Dr Brown,' she said. 'How are you today?' It hadn't taken Mersiha long to realise that the quickest way out of the psychiatrist's office was to be pleasant.

The more she smiled, the more she seemed anxious to answer his questions, the sooner he'd tell her that the session was over and that he'd see her the same time next week.

'I'm fine, Mersiha. Sit down, why don't you?' Mersiha flopped down on to one of the two grey sofas by the window. Dr Brown waited until she was sitting before he got up from his own seat and walked around the desk. 'How's school?' he asked.

'Mainly Bs,' she said. 'I got an A in chemistry, though.'

'It's still your best subject?'

Mersiha nodded. 'Chemistry and art. Pretty eclectic, huh?'

Dr Brown nodded. 'How are you sleeping?'

Mersiha shrugged laconically. 'Okay, I guess.'

'Dreams?'

'Sure. Everybody dreams.'

Dr Brown smiled. Mersiha smiled back. She'd grown to enjoy the verbal jousting with her therapist, though she knew it was important not to antagonise him too much.

'I meant bad dreams. Nightmares.'

'Some,' she admitted. 'But not as much as before.'

'What about sleepwalking?'

Mersiha smiled sweetly. 'If I walk when I sleep, I wouldn't know about it, would I?'

Dr Brown smiled back with equal sweetness, but his eyes glittered like wet pebbles. He walked over to a floor-to-ceiling bookcase and picked up a wooden figure and took it over to the sofas. He handed it to her as he sat down. 'Have you seen one of these before? It's a Russian doll. They call it a matrioshka.'

Mersiha held the smooth wooden figurine and studied it. It was a peasant woman with a green and red shawl around her shoulders, big black eyes and scarlet lips. It was in two pieces that seemed to be screwed together. It felt heavy, as if it was solid. 'Sure. I had one of these when I was a kid. It's pretty.'

'How long have you been coming to see me, Mersiha?' Dr Brown asked, holding out his hand for the doll.

Mersiha shrugged and passed it back to him. 'Two years, I guess.'

'It's more like three,' Dr Brown said as he set the doll down on the table. 'Imagine that's you,' he said.

Mersiha sighed theatrically, but Dr Brown flashed her a warning look. He was serious. 'Okay,' she said.

Dr Brown tapped the doll with the flat of his hand. 'It's hard outside, it looks solid. When you first came to see me three years ago, that's what you were like. Hard. But the hardness doesn't go right through. As you know, it comes apart. Try it.'

Mersiha twisted the two halves. They separated easily. Inside was another figure, slightly smaller but in a different paint scheme. It was also in two halves. She moved to pull them apart, but Dr Brown held up his hand to stop her.

'That's the stage we've got to, you and I. During the conversations we've had, I've come to know a little bit about what goes on inside your head, your thought processes. But you've only told me so much.'

He nodded at her, encouraging her to pull the second doll apart. She did as he wanted. Now there were three dolls on the table. 'But as you can see, there's more to be discovered inside the second shell. And it goes further than that. Keep on going.'

Mersiha unscrewed the third doll. There was a fourth inside.

And a fifth inside that. By the time she'd finished there were seven dolls standing on the coffee table in front of her. Only the smallest was solid. Dr Brown picked it up and held it between a finger and thumb. 'This is you too. This is the real you, at the heart of all the shells.' Mersiha stared at the wooden doll. The face seemed to be staring back at her with wide eyes. 'You've surrounded yourself with shells, Mersiha.

You've protected yourself by putting layers and layers on top of your real feelings.'

Mersiha pulled her eyes away from the doll. Dr Brown was giving her his earnest smile, trying to put her at ease. It looked artificial and his eyes were as cold as the painted eyes of the Russian doll. 'I'm not doing it deliberately,' she said.

'No, I know that,' the psychiatrist said. 'It's a defence mechanism. You're frightened of being hurt again because of what happened to you when you were younger. That's why you find it difficult to make friends. You've told me that yourself, haven't you? You've lots of acquaintances, but no real friends.

Perhaps you're worried about letting people get close to you.'

'I love my dad,' she said. 'And Katherine.'

Dr Brown smiled, and this time there was more warmth in it.

'I know you do. And they love you. And you know they'll always love you. No matter what you do.'

'I guess,' Mersiha said. She knew that the psychiatrist was trying to get some show of emotion from her. She concentrated on the blinds on the window behind him and counted the slats. Once, soon after she'd started the Wednesday afternoon sessions, Dr Brown had almost made her cry until she'd seen something in his eyes, a look that made her realise that he had wanted her to break down. She'd only been thirteen at the time but she'd vowed that she'd never give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry. Her tears would be his trophies.

'Why do you think you don't have many friends?'

'I don't meet many people I want to be friends with.'

'Even at school?'

Mersiha snorted. 'Especially at school.'

'What do you mean?' Dr Brown asked.

'They're just kids,' she said.

He smiled. 'They're your age,' he said quietly.

Mersiha thought for a while before answering. 'They haven't been through what I've been through.'

The psychiatrist studied her for a few seconds. 'Would you like to tell me about it?'

Mersiha stared at the blinds, still counting. Twenty-six.

Twenty-seven. 'No,' she whispered. 'No, I don't think so.'

Mersiha sat in the front passenger seat of Katherine's Toyota Corolla. It was an automatic and still had its new-car smell, despite the half-filled ashtray. The car had been a birthday present from her father, but Katherine seemed to treat it with contempt. It hadn't been washed since the day it had arrived outside their house, wrapped in a huge red bow. There was a paint scrape on the rear left side and the back seat was covered with old magazines.

She sighed and leant back, pushing her hands against the roof of the car. The time she spent alone in the car while Dr Brown briefed Katherine was often worse than the counselling sessions themselves. It didn't seem fair. Mersiha wished that psychiatrists had the same sort of client confidentiality code that priests and private detectives had. Katherine insisted on the post-session chats with Dr Brown, despite Mersiha's protests and pleadings. In a way Mersiha was glad, because it gave her an added incentive to keep her secrets locked deep inside. There was no way she would open up to Dr Brown if he intended to tell all to Katherine.

Mersiha yawned and stretched. When she opened her eyes Katherine was walking towards the car, brushing her blonde hair behind her ears. 'Okay, kiddo, let's go,' Katherine said 'Do birds sing in the woods?'

Katherine looked across at Mersiha and raised an eyebrow. 'I hope that's the only version of that saying you use.'

Mersiha widened her eyes innocently. 'What do you mean?' she asked.

Katherine grinned. 'You know exactly what I mean.' She started the car and eased it forward. 'Chocolate chip?'