A Boneless Kiss

By Gerald Wixey

Helen Mably suddenly vanishes, a sex-obsessed academic with a brilliant mind and a deeply disturbed past. Twenty years earlier Helen was a carefree precocious teenager, until she was raped by three policemen in a police social club. Helen’s memory of the event has been clouded by her father’s betrayal. Chief Inspector David Mably was the policemen’s boss and he always maintained that he never covered anything up, just persuaded Helen that if she pressed charges, she would be exposed to sharp defence barristers and intrusive journalists.

Stuart’s an Oxford journalist, who finds out about Helen’s disappearance from her father. David Mably gives an urgent appeal to Stuart’s newspaper about Helen’s plight. Stuart and Mably have a history of vitriolic antagonism towards each other, Mably thought Stuart nothing other than a hooligan, who deflowered his innocent daughter. Stuart saw Mably as a vain, domineering, intolerant perfectionist who never loved Helen. After the interview Mably gives Stuart the first few pages of a journal that Helen intended to publish. It briefly outlined the assault and her intention to write an explicit account of the incident itself and the subsequent cover up. Although Stuart and Helen were in an intense relationship at the time of the attack, he knew nothing about the event.

When Stuart finds Helen they soon realise that her father’s motives are more about supressing not only Helen version of the rape, but something much darker. Together they expose a conspiracy that started in a police social club, involves systematic abuse in a care home and reaches all the way up the ladder to a junior minister in the Home Office. Unknown to Helen, the reconciliation with her father is achieved by one more betrayal on his part.

A dark, psychological mystery about a disturbed woman who finds a degree of justice, but will forever feel the dark hand of her father’s treachery close by.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gerald Wixey
• Release date: Jan 7, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310353017

Gerald Wixey

It would be fair to describe my working life as being too dull to be worthy of a mention. Apart from a whistle blowing incident that crashed through the official secrets act and got me on to the front page of the Observer that is. This was enough excitement compressed into a few months and involved Atomic Energy Authority police and late night meeting with journalists, worthy of a novel in itself.My writing gives me what was so lacking in my employment. It moves me in that extreme way that excites the young. It heightens the emotions, keeps me awake at night and when I eventually sleep, it bursts into my dreams and wakes me up. I’ve become obsessed about my craft. All of my titles concern themselves with the politics of relationships, anything from the dynamics of children running wild in the playground to the more perfidious aspects of adult liaisons. I’m especially drawn to the darkly illicit world of lovers, hypocrites and gossips. I occasionally dwell in the mind of the more extreme, the corrupt, the violent and even the homicidal. I write books that explore relationships, dark, erotic, suspenseful and perfect reading for night owls.I’ve a wonderful wife and three strong, independent children. That should have been enough to discourage an overzealous approach to socialising and arguing. Should have, fortunately it tempered my attitude to both to a degree. I started writing as a tribute to my father, a short tempered rogue, raconteur, ex-boxer and a man who I knew would put his head through a brick wall to defend his family. In fact thinking about it, he did just that a couple of times. Also a fond remembrance of my first twenty four years in this world. Raised in a busy pub, pleasure was everywhere and common sense nowhere. At present I am studying for a Degree in Creative Writing with the University of Oxford. I have always lived in and around Wantage, a peaceful down-land market town on the edge of the Berkshire downs.

Book preview

243

A Boneless Kiss

Copyright © 2014 by Gerald Wixey ISBN: 978-1-78280-320-1 - A Boneless Kiss

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All characters and events in this publication, other than those in the public domain are Fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

Also by Gerald Wixey

Salt of their Blood

4 Bones Sleeping

Small Town Nocturne

A Boneless Kiss

Beneath - Carnal Secrets from the Boneyard

Contact Gerald Wixey via his website @ geraldwixey.com or his Facebook page.

Helen Mably

I twisted around in my bed, sat up and stared out of the window, it was still dark and the man alongside was sleeping the deep sleep that his vigour fully deserved. I thought back to a curiously, abstracted night. Oh, he wasn’t distracted, just the opposite. But I had this feeling, all through the thundery early evening, something, some crisis was approaching. We made love accompanied by lightning flashes darting across the leaded glass of the bedroom window. Followed by the heavy, sombre rumbles of thunder. It’s a neat example of how preoccupied I felt, counting the seconds between an arcing lightning flash and then waiting for the grumbling, complaining window rattle of thunder. I counted as my lover moved inside me… he didn’t seem to notice my troubled state.

No rain though, that was another sign, although I couldn’t think what it meant. I slid out of bed, the feeling of encroaching doom wrapping its unwelcome cape around my shoulders. Something dreadful was trying to trip me up, something so outrageously shocking was heading my way and I listened to its thunderous warning coming through the open window. Perhaps my already unstable life was turning into some sort of gothic nightmare, or perhaps it was just another of my grotesque hallucinations? Everything critical, every crisis in my life happened in the summer months, usually during hot spells and this was the middle of a long dry spell. I stared down at the man, took a deep breath and silently threw some clothes on. I waved him a cheery farewell and walked out onto an already humid August morning.

I glanced towards the east, heavy cloud gave no clue of the sunrise and the gates of the Parks were never opened before then. No one else alive in the world, just the way I liked it, too early for joggers and dog-walkers, even the University staff had yet to make an appearance. I was waiting by the park gates for a few minutes, before the security guard finally arrived puffing away. He unlocked the gate, sniffed the air – should I have showered? He winked as he ushered me through and I entered another silent, early morning world. I strolled in an anti-clockwise arc around the Parks, stopping by the footbridge I’d crossed with my first love all of those years ago. I considered going over, but I hadn’t crossed it since that one time with him and to do now seemed a desecration somehow. I followed the Cherwell’s river edge and walked on, the sound of a cheerful blackbird failed to lift the gloom that had enveloped me.

I pulled up quickly when I saw the man. I was sure that he was dead, curled up on a park bench in the recovery position, a heavy parka wrapped around him – well he never needed that I thought. The temperature had barely dropped below twenty degrees all night. The park gates shut at sundown; he must have been on the bench all night. I walked closer, so many empty cans of Special Brew under the bench. I was surprised for a couple of reasons, finding a dead body for a start, that was a first and the drunks and deadbeats didn’t end up in this part of town. This was the exclusive preserve of the privileged undergraduate. I stared at his face, my gaze fixing on the habitual stubble on his chin and the wispy grey hair that he scrapped over his head.

I whispered to myself, ‘Why do they always look the same.’ The arm of the park bench stored the habitual deadbeat’s survival kit. As if to confirm this, I whispered, ‘A packet of rolling tobacco, a packet of cigarette papers and a box of Swan Vesta matches. Where’s the hypodermic big boy?’

I turned my gaze back to the man’s face, still convinced that he was indeed dead, it looked as if all of the signs from my fearful, doom-laden night were proving me right. I edged closer, barely a few inches from him, I was about to poke him in the chest, when the right eye opened and it stared unfocused off into space. I jumped back. Despite this shock, I was still convinced that he was dead. I mean you hear of dead people’s eyes opening well after they die. I was holding my breath when the other eye opened and seconds later, his mouth swung open like an empty excavator bucket.

I spoke softly. ‘Are you ok?’

He tried to sit up but fighting too much beer and lungs that barely functioned had turned this into some sort of monumental struggle. Hardly King Sisyphus rolling a huge boulder up a steep hill, but the analogy worked well enough. The drunk fought gamely against his weak constitution and gravity, until finally, he managed to sit upright. Then something startled him, his eyes widened just like those of a tethered goat that suddenly spots a prowling tiger, his eyebrows raised and he stared at me. It was so obvious that he recognised me. I felt my own mouth hang open, I’d never seen the man before.

The voice, roughened by years of tobacco croaked just two words, ‘Helen Mably.’

I stepped back.

‘Helen Mably... what do you want?’

I shook my head and whispered. ‘I don’t know you.’

‘It wasn’t me.’

‘What wasn’t?’

I pushed the heel of each hand into my temples and rubbed hard, but still couldn’t remember his name.

‘Helen,’ he spoke my name like I was a long-lost friend. ‘It wasn’t my idea.’

I blinked at him. ‘What?’

His voice had become just a hoarse whisper, ‘You and that bastard father of yours, both as bad as each other.’

I leaned closer. ‘What about my father?’

‘He fucked me up completely.’

That’s funny I thought, he did the same to me.

He rambled on, words running into words. I listened intently. ‘He stuck the knife into me, hung me out to dry good and proper. And as for you, I bet you’re still a cock-teasing bitch.’

I struggled to breathe, it felt like something heavy was bearing down on my chest. I spat the words at him. ‘I remember you.’

More irony in that brief statement of mine, I couldn’t be sure who he was.

‘It wasn’t my idea.’

What little colour he had left in his cheeks drained away and he turned, leaned over the wooden arm of the bench and threw up in one smooth movement. I’d seen drunks perform this enough times, usually to make room for more strong lager. He wiped his mouth in the voluminous sleeve of his coat and stared up at me. I took a step closer, repelled enough by the thought of sour beer, stale tobacco and fresh vomit drifting up into my face, I held my breath. I looked deep into his black rimmed, bloodshot eyes and brought my arm back. He just stared up as if he knew what I was thinking; I wanted to slap his cheek as hard as I could. Instead I turned and rushed away.

His voice followed me, wrapping itself around my shoulders like the filthy parka he was wearing. ‘You deserved it.’

I hurried on for twenty yards or so, with my heart pummelling against my rib cage, I pulled up suddenly and looked back. Perhaps the shock of him seeing me had killed him, but he was still gazing at me and rolling a cigarette at the same time. My thoughts scrambling around in my head, what happened back then?

I remembered confronting three men and got that spectacularly wrong. From the first minute they set eyes upon me, I got it so wrong when they were provoking me. Just as they got it wrong, it became a dazzling delusion empty of any insight. A high farce of confusion, I used to go over it time and again and never found the same answer. The three men leered away at me. Naively, I pulled a stool up by the bar and sat. A high stool and a short skirt made for a less than graceful manoeuvre. Their eyes never left my thighs, which to begin with, I was comfortable enough with. The filth that started to come my way suddenly made me think that this was a mistake.

I blinked and stared down at the deadbeat. He lit his cigarette, took a wheezing, shallow inhalation and shouted. ‘What are you looking at?’

What was his name and how did he know my father?

I wanted to scream. This caused more chaos within; did I scream because I couldn’t recall his name? Or was it because I couldn’t remember what he did to me? But it brought into sharp focus how my father behaved. Everything else was so blurred, apart from that one thing.

My father betrayed me that night. Even giving the pedantic, self-righteous bastard his official title, Chief Inspector David Mably betrayed me.

I took one look back and my antagonist was opening a can of beer. No longer was I his sole focus, he had more pressing things to consider.

Despite being enveloped by the heavy, early morning humidity, I shivered.

Stuart

Ex-Chief Inspector David Mably sat in our small office rubbing his hands in obvious agitation. His daughter had disappeared, the police were soon to be officially involved. Mably looked understandably distraught. A man in his mid-sixties now and still strikingly good looking, with his high cheekbones, a thick headful of white hair, which he was forever combing back with his right hand. Stark blue eyes and a mellifluence to his voice that I imagined would have made him a bit of a lady-killer. If he was interested that is. I always felt that he was a prude, in fact his daughter told me just that on many occasions. An easy target to shock and Helen Mably did it on a daily basis.

Twenty-three years earlier, I loved Helen with a passion that arrowed its way through my chest cavity, all the way into the bull’s eye that was my heart. Balanced nicely by her father’s revulsion towards me, my hot summer’s relationship with Helen nauseated him as much as my delinquent ways horrified. My boss always said that if Mably could’ve locked me in a cell and thrown the key away, he would have done just that. Perhaps my presence in the confines of our small office caused another kind of tension to course through him. He’d been retired for a couple of years now, close friends for over forty years with my boss, who was about to run a front-page piece about Helen’s disappearance. Mably wanted Jack to do the interviewing, rather than some hysterical Fleet Street tabloid. I wondered about the wisdom of this, an independent, provincial newspaper might give it more authenticity, a national more publicity.

What surprised me most was that Mably requested my presence. Although what insight he hoped I might bring was beyond my simple comprehension. Jack had briefed me at length, but not about Helen’s disappearance. I was told in no uncertain terms not to be my usual flippant self, don’t provoke the good inspector. Listen, take a couple of flattering pictures and then disappear myself.

‘I’m pleased you’re both here. I need all the help I can get.’

My big mouth dictated that I tell Mably a few home truths. This was a man who wouldn’t acknowledge my presence for years. I stared at Jack briefly before saying, ‘I’m sorry to hear about Helen.’

Jack offered the merest of smiles at my response. He straightened his already perfectly positioned tie, lit a cigarette and said. ‘What do you want to talk about David?’

‘Helen of course, sometimes I think that I never knew her really. I certainly never understood her that’s for sure.’

That’s a really sad admission for any parent to make, I raised my eyebrows and glanced across at Jack. Do any of us know the innermost thoughts of our children? We might not know what goes on inside their heads, but who would actually admit to that?

‘David, you must be so proud of her.’ Jack leaned forwards in his seat, ‘a lovely, intelligent and successful woman.’

Mably rested his elbows on the arm of the seat, brought his hands together and steepled the fingers together. Then he sighed, ‘I’m told she was bright, amusing and good company.’

The use of tense in this brief exchange punched me between the eyes. Jack’s use of words signifying a woman alive, Mably used the past tense as if he already feared the worst. Jack once again avoided my glance across at him.

‘I didn’t know her,’ Mably said. He sighed again and looked me square in the eye. ‘I guess you knew her better than me?’

How did he expect me to respond to that? I felt myself colour up a couple of shades. I did my best. ‘I’ve seen her a few times recently, but the last time we talked at any length was straight after Christopher’s funeral.’

I don’t know why I brought his son into the discussion. To me, it seemed that Mably refused to accept Christopher’s existence most of the time. I watched him squirm, perhaps I was still doing Helen’s bidding, even after all of this time. Jack glanced at me and frowned. I think that it was the look of a moderate scolding. I looked down at my desk.

Mably tried to ignore my barb and twisted in his seat a touch, he cleared his throat before saying. ‘Missing persons are never a police issue. I mean priorities dictate that unless foul play is suspected, manpower is always directed elsewhere. I still have a little influence, but everyone knows that only a few cursory checks will take place.’

Jack said, ‘The fact that she was well known locally will generate a lot of publicity in the media. That must be a positive?’

‘I realise that I’m clutching at straws.’ Mably turned back to me. ‘But you knew her, I hoped she might have told you something.’

‘She always seemed happy enough.’ Whenever we met, I always assumed that Helen never wanted to talk in any great depth, about her past anyway. Some parts of our lives we like to lock away in the attic of our minds, rather like a demented grandmother. We lived different lives in different worlds. Helen’s the cloistered, academia of an Oxford College, mine a cosy, hassle-free small-town world. It might have only been fifteen miles apart for a crow flying in a straight line, but a different universe to mine.

And it seemed David Mably as well.

Jack leaned forwards. ‘When did you last see her?’

‘Helen stopped talking to me years ago.’ He shrugged and whispered, ‘did she mention that to you?’

‘She said that things were always a bit tense between you.’

I didn’t need to look at Jack, I sensed his agitation, the sighs, the fiddling with his cigarette packet. He wanted his old friend to himself. Jack resented Mably seeing me as his best hope. Me, a man who along with Helen, ran him ragged. A tearaway in my youth, forever in trouble, but Helen had disappeared and he needed my help. I should have had no real issue with him these days. But my resentment simmered away, any antipathy I felt towards him was always directed by Helen anyway. She needed me to hate him as much as she did. Helen directed men with a Machiavellian flair, a talent I found amusing, others would call her a provocative tease, or worse.

She even managed to get me arrested after a fight in an Indian restaurant. Not that she did the fighting, that was down to me, Helen stirred me up more effectively than a tub-thumping preacher on a Welsh hillside. Like most men, we danced to a beautiful young woman’s tune. While she danced on a table in a packed Indian restaurant, a brief fight flared and died within a few violent seconds. That in itself was a distraction when you’re trying to fight. Helen waved the hem of her short summer dress around like an accomplished flamenco dancer. Her shapely legs on show underneath light-coloured tights. But no knickers, oh Helen was well aware and comfortable with the open mouthed stares that this generated.

We were both barely eighteen and some would call that sort of behaviour just high spirits. I strutted around in a small town, looking for trouble, creating some when I couldn’t find any. Some people thought Helen had a malicious side to her, I just found her a touch mischievous, a young woman learning how to twist men around her little finger. She just liked a good time, enjoyed a drink and liked the company of men. I’ve often wondered if her excesses were a simple rebellion against a strait-laced father. I’m not so sure, not so much a mutiny, I think she just liked walking on the wild side. That summer, I saw so much of Helen and she constantly railed against having her life mapped out by over-bearing parents. We’d been at primary school together, then she went to a girl’s grammar school, then a place at Cambridge. She was a lovely, bright girl and I adored being with her.

Her father was a stickler for rules and regulations, never loved by his colleagues, he was always respected though. Immaculate in his uniform, highly polished black brogues, heavily starched shirt and perfectly knotted tie. I began to feel a degree of sympathy for a man that had caused me much grief. There, thinking only of myself again, I’d given him more aggravation in return. I’ve seen him testify in court over the years and he was a prosecutor’s dream, credible, rational, impassive and organized whenever he was on the witness stand. As someone reporting on events, I thought he always came across as too stiff and unfeeling. Too formal, something Helen would confirm. Mably thought that men should be brave and women virtuous.

Lost in my reverie, I looked up and saw Mably staring at me, could he read my thoughts? Finally, he said,.. ‘I’m worried this could get really messy. Maybe I let her down, Helen certainly thought I did, years and years ago. I only did what I thought was right, she’s never forgiven me.’

This was not the material for a grieving father. Nothing for the front page here, a priest would be more appropriate I felt. Jack tried to steer him away from the confessional and back towards a father’s appeal for news about his daughter. ‘David – what do you want me to put in the newspaper?’

Mably held his hand up towards Jack and carried on staring at me. ‘Did she ever tell you about an incident that happened when you and Helen were…?’ Mably trailed off, unable to mention that we had once been teenage lovers.

I shook my head. ‘She said nothing.’

Mably suddenly lost interest in me and turned back to Jack, ‘I suppose an appeal, the usual guff, a few lines about a successful woman,’ Mably sighed, twisted in his seat and looked down at the floor.

I was stuck on Mably’s description of an incident. ‘What incident?’

‘Nothing.’ Mably shouted and brought the flat of his hand down on Jack’s polished mahogany desktop. ‘Salacious gossip.’

Jack jumped and I stared, Mably’s flash of temper had gone. Like a solitary meteor, it had flashed and disappeared within the blink of an eye. Mably shook his head. ‘She was an unstable woman in many ways.’

‘Helen certainly wasn’t unstable.’ I snapped this back.

I stared at him and his face took on the expression of someone that had just trod in something left on the pavement by a big dog. He glanced back towards Jack and said. ‘Tell your minion to keep his opinions to himself.’ He brought his stainless-steel gaze back to me. ‘If I have your permission, I’ll continue uninterrupted this time. There are things that happened that I can’t discuss.’ Mably turned back to Jack. ‘Do you need a photograph of me before I go?’

Five minutes later, we both watched as Mably shut the door. I waited until his slender profile paced past the office window before saying. ‘Why on earth did he want me in the same room? It only made both of us feel awkward.’ Jack said nothing, so I pressed on. ‘Anyway, since when did you become his father confessor?’

Jack ignored that and said. ‘Why did you provoke him?’

‘He implied that Helen was mad.’

‘Unstable was the word he used.’

‘Same thing, anyway I resented it.’

‘That was obvious and while we’re at it, why did you have to mention Christopher?’

‘Because she was closer to her brother than she was her father,’ I smiled, shrugged and said. ‘Just to remind him I suppose.’

‘Remind him?’

‘That I’m on Helen’s side.’

‘We’re all on Helen’s side.’

I shook my head, ‘I’m unsure that Mably was ever on her side.’

Jack reached down into his brief case. He pulled out a few pages of neatly typed A4 paper. He carefully placed it on the table and slid it across to me. ‘This landed with me this morning. It’s supposedly a journal Helen is writing, the first ten pages anyway. No letter, nothing to say who wrote or if its genuine. A few notes saying that this was a sample of a manuscript that was being submitted to literary agents and publishers. Also a line saying that if anything happened to her in the meantime, someone she trusted has the complete manuscript.’

I asked the obvious question. ‘Why would she say if anything happens to me?’

‘This is unsigned, it could be from anyone.’

Could be from anyone, maybe. But I needed to believe it was from Helen. I looked at the banner headline.

Helen Mably’s Journal

I quickly scanned the brief forward. Then my mind switched off as the letters merged into a gelatinous mass of black and white.

I heard Jack. ‘Did you know? You must have heard something?’

‘Well it doesn’t mention any specifics, just a traumatic incident.’ I shook my head. ‘I can’t think what it could be. We spent so much time together that summer.’

‘C’mon, she must have said something, you were as thick as thieves back then. Pillow talk?’

I felt myself colour up again. ‘She never said a word.’

‘Is she making this up? If it is Helen.’

‘I need to read the whole journal.’

‘We haven’t got that luxury.’ Jack pointed at me, ‘Do you think she’s some kind of fantasist?’

‘Was she in danger?’

‘Who from her father? Don’t be stupid.’

I stared at Jack. ‘Well they haven’t talked for over twenty years. At Christopher’s funeral Helen never sat with her parents. She sat at the back with me, rather than with that knob of a father.’

Jack took a deep breath and sat back. ‘He’s a very interesting character. Don’t look like that.’

‘Hah, dull, repressed, an anal retentive.’

‘I never realised you were a student of Freud?’

‘Get on with it.’

‘OK, he can be a touch dull, but Mably is an obsessive. He’s vain, domineering, can’t tolerate criticism, is a perfectionist, has trouble showing affection, but is totally competent and fully functional. Even you would have to admit that he was very good at his job.’

‘He can’t show affection, that’s for sure. You heard what he said, they haven’t talked for years. Helen hated him and he never loved her.’

Jack raised his hand, ‘You’re basing that on the comments of a highly strung seventeen-year-old girl. How many young girls have said the same thing about their parents and never meant it?’

‘Plenty I guess, why did he say that he let her down?’

‘Might have let her down,’ Jack shook his head. ‘Did Helen have a similar personality to her father?’

‘I didn’t think so, but she was stubborn and liked things her own way.’

My mind slipped back, random images and events were crystal clear. Helen rang me just before she was due to go off to university. She asked me for a lift. As always, I jumped at the chance to be near her. I needed to talk, but she was subdued all the way up and we hardly exchanged a word. I assumed leaving home and the giant step she was about to take was causes this distress.

‘Stuart, Stuart – wake up.’ Jack’s calm, but insistent cajoling brought me out of my daydream. ‘Stuart, you’re miles away.’

I shrugged and said, ‘I took her to university, when she started.’

‘What’s the significance in that?’

‘Don’t you think that odd? She asked me virtually the day before she was supposed to start. We hardly spoke. All the way, it was painful.’

‘She must have been nervous, a life changing event, leaving home and all of that.’

‘Helen said something, she said that something terrible had happened and she was never going home again – ever. I asked her what, but she said nothing and it looked as if she was fighting the tears for the rest of the journey.’

‘Why didn’t you tell the good inspector that?

‘It’s just come to me.’ I drummed my fingers on the table. ‘Anyway, why didn’t you mention the manuscript to Mably?’

‘Never mind about that, what did Helen say to you?’

I shook my head. ‘Just those few words, that was it. She said nothing else. Don’t you think her parents would be the ones to take her to university?’

‘She never mentioned an incident?’

I shook my head. ‘I can’t recall.’ The only thing I was sure of, twenty-three years ago, I was in love with Helen. I glanced at Jack. ‘I told her everything.’

Quick as a flash Jack came back at me. ‘And it seems that Helen Mably told you nothing.’

Helen Mably

I walked the short distance from the University Parks to the Science block with the growing realisation that a hint of recognition had entered my subconscious. The shambling wreck I’d just been talking, was it possible that he worked for my father? Was he the young rat-faced policeman that hurled verbal abuse my way all those years ago? What was his name?

I walked down the corridor, stopping at Harvey Malkovitch’s door. We were friends as well as colleagues. I was technically his boss and unlike most academics, he was habitually early getting to work. I opened the door and smiled, Malkovitch never blinked at my ragged appearance, nor my breathless retelling of my recent encounter and how this deadbeat somehow knew both my father and me. I watched as he began to scrape away in his notebook, a full-faced, heavy featured man, with thick, black wavy hair. Full of life, I smiled again, although if he smokes three cigarettes an hour, which he’s done during this session, if he always smokes at this rate, he’s a fifty a day man and heading for a coronary. Not that I minded the smell of tobacco and the nicotine did seem to concentrate both of our minds. Harvey’s whole focus is with my desolation. A contented and confident man, which I liked, he’s also older than me, which I didn’t.

I always railed against the obvious enjoyment Malkovitch got whenever I talked about my past. Plus the fact that he wore an habitual bow tie, had pictures of smiling children scattered around his consulting room and wore a shirt two sizes too small. I soon developed a morbid fascination as to which of his shirt buttons would burst, especially when he bent forwards in his messianic zeal, which he always did whenever I revealed something of a sexual nature. A subject he prompted in a less than subtle manner. Malkovitch leaned back when he smoked, waved his arms around a lot and had more energy than is good for an overweight smoker.

‘Do you mind me taking notes?’

I shook my head. ‘Why should I, I’m sure you take notes at home when you talk to your wife.’

Malkovitch nodded and smiled. ‘I’m not quite that obsessive.’ Malkovitch suddenly threw me. ‘How did this fixation develop?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘With your father.’

‘Why talk about my father? What about this drunk?’

‘Well you think they’re obviously linked. But you barely mention your mother and never anything at all about