The Counsellor

By Gillian Jackson

The unexpected death of Maggie Sayer’s husband shatters her perfect world. Struggling to make sense of her grief, it becomes evident that a complete change and a positive focus is the only thing which will help her to carry on with life.

Training as a therapeutic counsellor provides this focus, bringing her into contact with people who desperately need her help. Julie and her children are living in fear of an abusive husband, Janet is crumbling under the weight of a secret she has kept for over forty years, and Karen has never recovered from her mother’s violent death.

Maggie is drawn into her client’s problems as she seeks to empower them to move on with their lives. And then she is faced with her own ethical dilemma when she meets Peter...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Primedia eLaunch
• Release date: Mar 28, 2013
• ISBN: 9781610615013

Gillian Jackson

Gillian Jackson is the author of several psychological thrillers, including Abducted and The Accident. She initially pursued a career in childcare before moving on to train as a therapeutic counselor and eventually to a role in the voluntary sector with Victim Support. Her five years with the organization provided a wealth of experience and insight into the criminal-justice system, which has enriched her understanding of human nature and her writing.

Book preview

Prologue

1996

Maggie Sayer smoothed the soft green fabric of the rather expensive dress over her hips, turning to check the effect in the shop’s ornate cheval mirror. It was perfect, well apart from the figures on the price ticket but everyone deserves a little spoiling sometimes it’s good for the soul. The reflection presented not only a stylish, well cut dress but a happy, confident woman who at twenty nine, slim with shining auburn curls an olive skin and hazel eyes, was convinced that life could not be more perfect. Chris, her husband of three years had booked a two night break at a fabulous country house hotel in celebration of their wedding anniversary at the weekend, the anticipation of which buoyed Maggie’s present good mood, bringing a light flush to her cheeks. She was a woman in love who knew that her love was reciprocated.

Turning her attention to the young sales assistant hovering close by and obviously anxious for a sale, Maggie smiled, telling her she would take the dress.

Stepping out of the comfort of the warm shop, the bitterly cold late September wind tugged roughly at her coat as she quickened her step to avoid being late. Hugging the collar closer to her throat she laughed into the biting wind, even the wild, murky weather couldn’t dampen the high spirits of the day.

But what Maggie Sayer did not know that afternoon, was that before her anniversary weekend was over, she would become a widow.

The pale autumn sun struggled to break through the gray clouds as with barely a minute to spare and taking the stairs two at a time, she pushed at the heavy office door, completely unaware of the impending news waiting to shatter everything she held dear. As the door reluctantly creaked open Maggie almost collided with May, the office supervisor, a thin wiry woman of indeterminate years, generally thought to be well past retiring age and who appeared to be unusually agitated, shifting her weight from one leg to the other. Something was wrong. The tension in the atmosphere was almost tangible as Maggie became aware of the eyes of colleagues’ focussed in her direction. May began to speak, the words stilted, distant, unreal. All Maggie heard was ‘Chris…hospital.’

Shaking her head, a thin nervous smile flickered briefly across her lips, this couldn’t be happening; it must be a mistake or some sort of sick joke. May, normally a morose character, spoke kindly but with a demeanour which gave away how serious the situation was.

‘I’ll take you.’ May’s voice was barely a whisper as she gently took Maggie’s arm to steer her out of the office, with sympathetic glances following their every step, confirming the worst possible scenario imaginable.

The Friday afternoon traffic was heavy and the usually short journey to the hospital took what seemed to be an age. Maggie thought she ought to be asking questions, ‘When? Who? Why?’ but her mouth was dry and the words refused to come, as if her brain was trying to function through a thick fog. Later she would remember getting out of the car to be ushered down an endless hospital corridor, with the smell of cleaning fluid and over-cooked cabbage lingering in the air. Lifts hummed and pinged, travelling ceaselessly up and down with a disembodied voice announcing each floor number. Maggie stood in a doorway, an observer, watching as nursing staff worked frantically around a high hospital bed, shouting indistinguishable words to each other. The man on the bed was bare-chested with monitors clinging to his body. Broad shoulders and soft blonde hair did resemble her husband, but it couldn’t be him. Chris stood tall and strong, with blue eyes that crinkled at the corners when he laughed, and he laughed a lot. This man’s hands were still. Chris’s hands were large, busy, and capable. Hands which could tackle repairs with ease, hands that effortlessly opened jars which she had wrestled with, hands that could hold and comfort her when she was sad and hands that gently cupped a spider to release it outside rather than killing it. It couldn’t be Chris. He was the strong one, the one to make all the plans, like their anniversary weekend. He was the organizer, the practical joker, the life and soul of the party. He was her husband, her best friend, and her protector.

For two days the man lay on the bed whilst doctors performed endless tests and monitored him. Maggie felt utterly useless, all she could do was stay as close and as long as they would let her. A massive brain haemorrhage they said, there was nothing they could do, he would never recover. Holding his hand, willing him to get better, she could not face the reality that he had already gone and it was only the machinery keeping his heart beating and his lungs working. They left her alone with him, telling her she must say her goodbyes. Chris’s parents had already gone, his mother led by her solemn husband, looking pale and on the point of collapse.

Maggie thought of all their plans, the weekend away, the family home they would one day exchange their little flat for, the children that now would never be born, the places they wanted to visit but never would. Life without her husband unfolded before her like the mouth of a cavernous tunnel reaching out to engulf her into its inky darkness. Chris was the only man she had ever loved, three years was not enough, not nearly enough…

Chris was dead and a huge part of her died with him. Spiralling into a deep, dark depression, she could no longer function, didn’t want to function. He was dead. Maggie felt as if she was dead too.

Chapter 1

2011

‘I just love daffodils,’ Maggie announced chirpily as she walked briskly through the reception area of the doctors’ surgery.

‘Remind me to put some on your coffin,’ came the quick reply from the receptionist.

Maggie leaned on the counter, laughing,

‘You know Sue; you have a completely negative attitude to Monday mornings. Would you like to talk about it?’

Sue answered with an exaggerated smile, moving away to pick up the telephone. Carrying the daffodils to her room, Maggie buried her face in their bright yellow trumpets, savouring the evocative scent of spring and new beginnings. She took off her coat and hung it on the little hook in the corner. At forty-three, she was still an attractive woman, five foot six with a slim build and naturally curly rich brown hair, as yet showing no gray and cut short to frame her heart shaped face. Expressive hazel eyes enhanced her appearance, not a classical beauty but certainly an attractive woman. Scanning her diary for the coming week she noted that there were two new clients to see, although the first, Julie Chambers, had been due to start a couple of weeks ago… and a month before that too.

‘Could be a ‘no show’,’ Maggie thought, although she hoped not. Julie was a GP referral and Dr Williams must be keen for her to come as he usually didn’t give second chances, and any ‘no shows’ were put back on the waiting list. Julie was the first appointment that morning, booked in for 9.30am, after which there was a client who was coming to the end of her sessions, and in the afternoon a private client followed by a meeting with her supervisor.

Maggie Sayer was an excellent counsellor having developed an interest in therapeutic counselling after firsthand experience of its benefits fourteen years previously when her husband had died quite suddenly. Naturally she’d been devastated, only getting through the funeral and its associated bureaucracy with the help of her own, and Chris’s family. People tried to be kind and she received the usual platitudes, but also some insensitive and unhelpful comments.

‘You were married such a short time, life will soon return to how it was before.’

‘How callous,’ she screamed inwardly, as if Chris had never existed. Three years of marriage may not be long but she couldn’t begin to imagine life without him, it seemed as if they had been part of each other forever, his death made her feel like her heart and soul had been physically ripped out of her body.

‘Why not get yourself a puppy?’ A well-meaning neighbour had suggested. Could a puppy replace a soul mate? Worse still were the friends who began to avoid her simply because they didn’t know what to say. Words weren’t always necessary but a hug, or someone to listen, who wasn’t embarrassed at the mention of Chris’s name would have been welcome.

As the weeks passed Maggie had sunk deeper into herself, living an unreal existence, craving, whilst at the same time hating the solitude and wanting only the impossible, Chris.

She had returned to work but functioned only in the physical, her heart and mind rarely in attendance with her body. Mistakes appeared in her work; sometimes she would sit in front of the computer screen in an apparent trance. Colleagues tried their best to help but it became obvious that she needed more time to grieve.

Prescribing anti-depressants and a month off work, her GP tentatively suggested that Maggie should consider staying with her parents or a friend for a while, a proposal which brought a vehement refusal; she would have none of it. Staying in her own flat was important to her, it was Chris’s home too and the place where she could sense his presence, remembering the times they had shared and imagining that he could still walk through the door at any time. Their home was the place where she felt closest to him, still able to sense his masculine presence. During the first few weeks, Maggie had stood for long periods of time beside his open wardrobe door with her face pressed into his clothes, breathing in his scent, pretending he was still alive. Although that had passed and his clothes were long since donated to local charity shops, she still took comfort from the home they had shared and couldn’t bear to leave. Maybe some time in the future but not so soon. So she had left the surgery with a prescription and a telephone number for a local counselling service.

That was the start of Maggie’s interest in therapeutic counselling. It was a long hard struggle and there were times when she had to force herself to go to the appointments and times when she was unable to speak when she got there, yet eventually Maggie began to see these sessions as her life-line and with the support she received from the counsellor and later from group sessions, she came through the other side of her depression and life once again took on some semblance of normality. The experience however had changed her whole outlook on life prompting a re-evaluation of where she was going. Her clerical job no longer seemed worthwhile and a strong desire was growing within her to help others who found life hard to cope with. In doing this she hoped to find the fulfilment she was looking for and some degree of peace in her life.

Fourteen years later, having worked as a counsellor for the last ten of those years, Maggie was a forty-three year old widow, without children; not what she had anticipated for herself, yet she had found the contentment she longed for. Her work brought some measure of fulfilment, her own life experience having given an understanding and empathy with others which equipped her well in acting as a catalyst for many clients who, like herself, had become overwhelmed by what life had thrown their way.

And yes, she had also found herself a puppy. The neighbour had been premature with such a suggestion so soon after losing Chris, but as time went by Maggie did feel the need for companionship, so five years ago she’d adopted a mongrel pup from the local animal sanctuary. His mother had been a Labrador and his father of dubious pedigree but he seemed to favour his mother and Maggie had fallen in love with his golden silky coat and huge ears. An oversized tongue, which hung almost permanently from the side of his mouth, gave him quite a comical appearance and Ben had proved to be an excellent pet. True she had never cured his taste for wallpaper, but gradually, as he stripped the walls of each room, Maggie had re-decorated using paint which was thankfully not to his taste.

Chapter 2

Julie Chambers did arrive for her appointment and was sitting in the waiting area at 9.30am promptly where Maggie met her and invited her to come through to her room. Julie was in her late twenties, twenty-eight according to the medical notes. Generally, Maggie made a point of not reading Dr Williams’ lengthy notes on his patients, except for any basic details that may be relevant. This gave her an open mind with no pre-conceived ideas; a blank canvas allowing her to form opinions directly from the client and enabling a relationship to be built on mutual trust.

Julie’s gray eyes darted around the room, not so much appraising the surroundings, but more as if searching out potential threats. For such a young woman she appeared weary, not just physically but what would have once been described as ‘world weary’. A slightly built woman Julie was what Maggie might enviously call petite, but there was little else to envy about her appearance. She had the makings of an attractive girl, but obviously didn’t take much care of her looks for one reason or another, with long straight hair sitting flatly on her scalp and pushed carelessly behind her ears. Julie wore no make-up and her skin was sallow, with premature lines already visible around the eyes and mouth. Her clothes too had a washed out, worn look, a gray tracksuit with a thin jacket, quite inadequate for the present spell of cold weather. Old trainers completed her appearance; to her credit everything was very clean, but certainly not fashionable or even practical.

Maggie dismissed first appearances, smiling warmly whilst inviting the younger woman to sit down. The room they were in was shared with a colleague in the same large health centre. It had been arranged with as much care as Julie’s appearance seemed to lack, Maggie having been the influence in the décor, with her male counterpart being content to leave that side of things to her. It was a square room with a high window and cream blinds to keep out the sun, unnecessary today with slate gray skies above, and a cold wind blowing. The walls were painted in a neutral shade of cream with a couple of tasteful landscapes to break the monotony. The only furniture was a large desk underneath the window, a small bookcase with glass-fronted doors and two comfortable chairs beneath an inexpensive Ikea standard lamp with a small coffee table to the side of one of the chairs. The fresh daffodils were on the corner of Maggie’s desk, completing a very simple but warm, comfortable and welcoming room.

Julie took a seat as Maggie closed the door then settled herself in the other chair. The first meeting was usually the most difficult for the client and often for the counsellor too. Julie had no idea what would transpire during this first visit. She was half expecting to be bombarded with questions and was unsure if she had been right to come at all. Maggie’s first task was to outline what was known as ‘the triple harm clause’, which incorporated the three exceptions to confidentiality.

‘Thank you for coming and being so prompt Julie.’ She began,

‘My name’s Maggie and before we start today there are one or two things I need to mention. We have up to an hour for this first session, and everything you tell me is confidential, but there are some exceptions to this, for example, if I feel that what you’re telling me indicates that you may harm yourself, someone else or particularly a child. Is that okay with you?’

‘Yes……… but I think I’m probably wasting your time.’ Julie began.

‘Now why would that be?’

‘Well, I really don’t know why I’ve come. Dr Williams kept saying he thought I would benefit from counselling, but I don’t exactly know what counselling is, so how can it help?’

‘That’s very honest of you. Perhaps you’d like to tell me why you went to see Dr Williams in the first place and then we can chat about how we can help you and if you have any specific questions then I’ll try my best to answer them for you.’

‘I suppose…well, I’m rather accident prone and I’ve seen Dr Williams two or three times for little things since the New Year, and I have two children so I often see him with their complaints too.’

‘What do you mean by ‘accident prone’’ Maggie asked gently.

Julie lowered her head.

‘Here we go’ she thought, ‘the questions are starting.’ She looked up at the woman sitting opposite her, trying to read her expression, feeling suddenly like a little girl in front of the headmistress when she was usually so strong. God knew how she’d had to be strong for her children, but it was hard, so hard, and she was getting tired. Tears began to prick the back of her eyes; she swallowed hard and sniffed in an effort not to cry.

Maggie spoke softly, ‘If I ask any questions that you don’t want to answer, that’s fine. My only reason in asking is to make sure I understand what you’re telling me. If I misunderstand, I won’t be of much use to you.’ she smiled, willing her client to open up.

Julie looked down again, fiddling with her hands. Maggie noticed how bitten down her fingernails were, some of them appearing to be quite sore. There were a few seconds of silence but she was comfortable with this, never feeling the need to rush her clients. They needed time to think and to decide whether she could be trusted, after all, this relationship was all of ten minutes old.

‘I fell down the stairs a few weeks ago and my ankle was swollen. Dr Williams checked it out for me, and then I cut my arm in the kitchen about a week or so later. I strapped it up myself, but it became infected so I had to come to the surgery again.’ Julie’s short account seemed a little rehearsed; however Maggie accepted her story as true, asking next,

‘Is that when Dr Williams suggested you might benefit from seeing me?’

Julie reddened slightly and Maggie realized she was asking too many questions and decided to take it a little more slowly.

‘I haven’t read any of your medical notes. That’s how I prefer to work. My job as a counsellor is to listen to you, without forming any opinions or judging you in any way. I hope that by our meeting together you’ll feel confident enough to share any concerns you might have, no matter how trivial you think they are. We all need someone to talk to at some point in our lives.’

‘Even you?’ Julie asked. Maggie laughed softly.

‘Especially me,’ she said light heartedly, yet truthfully. ‘But this hour is all for your benefit Julie. You can talk about whatever you want to and if I ask anything you’re not happy with, you don’t have to answer, you can tell me to butt out if you like.  It’s all about making you a little stronger and helping you to focus on what’s right for you.’

A very slight smile flickered across Julie’s face. Maggie looked into her watery gray eyes, trying to see into the soul of her client. They were dull eyes with no spark of the life which should be evident in such a young woman, but there was a measure of intelligence behind those eyes and a wistfulness which gave her the feeling that Julie had never quite reached her potential and could have such a different life to the one she was apparently living. Maggie could feel a connection, an empathy and already felt concerned for this new client and a desire to help her find whatever it was that she was looking for. Julie paused for a few moments then began again,

‘I did tell the doctor that I had been feeling a bit weepy lately and finding the children hard to cope with.’

‘Would you like to tell me about that too?’

‘Yes…I think I would.’

********

Maggie tidied her desk, grabbed her coat and scarf and hurried towards the door. The session with her latest client had proved to be a promising start. Julie hadn’t opened up completely, but had talked about feeling tired and generally unhappy with life, only becoming animated when talking about her children, obviously the joy of her life, yet reluctant to talk about her husband, Jim. She had gleaned from the session that Julie had a boy of eleven, Simon and a three-year-old girl, Chloe. Simon was due to start secondary school in the next school year and his mother was anxious that he may be bullied or fall in with the wrong crowd. Nothing had actually given foundation to these worries, but they still presented a problem to Julie which Maggie took seriously. Yet looking back on their hour together she sensed that there were other more difficult issues troubling this new client and her hope was that she would be able to reach out to her to offer the kind of help which was needed.

The next client of the day had come bustling in wreathed in smiles. Things had been working out well for this lady and they had previously agreed to make this their last appointment. It was always satisfying to see a client gain in self-confidence and begin to make their own decisions, and this lady was a classic example, ending her sessions with a new sense of empowerment and Maggie was genuinely pleased for her.

********

Home and lunch were next on Maggie’s agenda. Opening the front door, Ben bounded up to greet her, expecting his usual fuss before she’d even shrugged off her coat.

‘Come on then, garden for now and walk after lunch.’

Ben knew the routine and ran through the kitchen to the back door. Letting him out, Maggie quickly closed the door to keep out the chill wind that was getting up, smiling as she watched him sniffing around from the kitchen window. The move from her little flat in the town centre to this terraced house in the suburbs had been partly for her dog. The flat had served its purpose for nine years after Chris died. The familiar things they had bought and memories of their life together there consoled her to some degree, and had felt at times like a warm, comforting blanket which she could wrap around herself whenever the need arose. Maggie would always be grateful for the financial security which Chris’s practical thinking had provided. There was sufficient provision to enable her to give up her job and train as a counsellor when the time was right.  Also in time, it felt right to move on to what would be a more permanent home, a comfortable little house only a few minutes’ drive from town and the surgery it was perfect, situated in a pleasant area close to open fields, which Ben had come to regard as his own personal space. The house was manageable, with two good-sized bedrooms, a lounge, kitchen-diner and a small garden for Ben with a patio for Maggie.

Whilst she stabbed at a potato with a fork, preparing it for the microwave, there was a whining at the back door. Letting Ben in he brushed up against her legs making her think how good it was to be missed. Opening a tin of tuna to complete her meal, Maggie looked down at her ever hopeful pet.

‘It’s no good looking at me like that, there’s only enough for one here. You can have your biscuits.’

Ben sat with his head on one side, his ears cocked and his long tongue lolling from the side of his mouth. All he needed to do was

Reviews for The Counsellor

[miss lastname · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I read her book the pharmacist ,and it was ok. So I thought I’d give another a try. Honestly this book bored me. Several sub stories that didn’t really go anywhere unexpected, with a small bit of sappy dime store romance at the end. The Book dragged on, and I kept thinking ok what’s the main plot? Problem is there really wasn’t one. Maybe you will like it, but it sure wasn’t a good read for me.

[Elizabeth Gonzalez · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Learning the way Counselors work it is pretty neat as well as understand other people minds

[Erika Grobb · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I liked the concept of bringing patients with their stories into the bigger story. I hated how the ending felt like a piece of pie dough glued onto the end.