Digital art byKatherine

Mary has a dear friend who lives, alas , nowadays in northern Scotland. Clare moved back there when her mother became unable to manage at home. Then Clare developed very severe problems with her feet and legs and had been offered psychotherapy by the pain clinic.
After Mary had  been talking to Clare on the phone she thought to herself,
I wonder if I should speak to a therapist because I am still grieving for Stan and it’s possible therapy might be able to tell me whether what I’m feeling is normal or whether I am going round the bend.
Mary found several counsellors near where she lived by looking on the Internet; she had interviewed five and decided on one called Margaret  Slipknot, Dr Slipknot had a room in a private hospital in the best road of the entire City.
Good morning, please take a seat over here, Margaret said to Mary.
Now you can tell me anything you like; it is completely confidential except that if you tell me you are going to kill somebody or commit suicide, I am obliged to tell your doctor or the police. Is that alright with you?

Oh yes said Mary that seems quite sensible because I understand the motivation behind it all, knowing several widows ; they have mentioned that they didn’t want to go on living alone.But I did not tell their doctor or the police because sometimes everybody feels like that and once they realise it they are quite happy, in a sense.They can accept it.I have got a very good friend next door call Annie and I know many colleagues at the university but since my husband died I feel as if there is a void at the centre of my being and whatever I do will not fill it.
Margaret. said, Perhaps this void has a role to play in your life.
What kind of role could a void have?.Mary gasped
Just say whatever comes to your mind.
A void is not something that people talk about very much and I’m not sure if it’s just the right word to describe what  I am sensing but it is more than just a little emptiness.
Stan used to make my dinner every night when I came home from the University and he also used to feed the cat and put the rubbish out not to mention listening to my thoughts about what happened to me while I was at work,  and all the people that I have met. So when I come home now feeling weary and tired I have to make my own dinner.
And do you make yourself dinner?
Not always. you see when Stan was alive I had a certain motivation to be a good and loving wife. I used to do a lot of planning to make sure that, even though he was going to do the cooking, that there were all the required ingredients in the cupboard plus also spices and herbs and garlic. I realise now that I have not bought any garlic for the past year.
People don’t usually come to see me just because they have not bought any garlic lately, the therapist cried.
When Mary heard the word lately she began to cry because late is a word used to denote people who are dead like the late Prime Minister, Winston Churchill.
I see that you are still feeling sad and there’s nothing wrong with that but I am a little concerned about how you will cope with all your new responsibilities as well as continuing your work and life with students, Which all the things you mentioned about your husband do you miss the most?
I think the thing I’m missing him most for is putting out the rubbish. He always insisted on doing this even when he was very ill and I find it hard to remember to do it when I never did it before.It seems to me that a woman needs a man to put out the wheelie bins out and collect big cardboard boxes which need crushing.I feel bad putting the wheelies out by myself in the dark.
That doesn’t seem very nice, Margaret cried, that you only miss your husband because you have to put out the rubbish now yourself. I know that I’m not meant to give you advice.I want to listen to you but I cannot really believe that the main thing that you miss him for is this.
Well said Mary, don’t push me; this is the first session we’ve had and I am still testing the water.In other words don’t you realise that I’m not going to tell you the most sacred aspects of my being until I feel like I can trust you.
I’m not implying that you are an irresponsible,  foolish person, but don’t you think after working for 20 years as a psychotherapist that you should know that even in normal life we don’t tell someone we’ve never met before the very intimate and secret aspects of our being. There are some people who do this when they are not taking into account the person who they are speaking to, who they have never met before.Except people do it on trains.
I see, said Margaret. I will wait until you feel able to tell me what you miss the most. I don’t suppose it’s sex because you are much too old for that, although that is one way that some people fill in a void.
Do you think that women feel that their womb is an empty space inside them and wish to put something into it, asked Mary
Everybody’s different; now even if you have sex it won’t fill your womb now as  I already mentioned I think you are too old to have sex.
Mary felt very angry,
How dare you say I am too old to have sex. Stan used to teach classes of pensioners about statistics and other topics and he told me that many of them said that they were still involved in a sexual relationship.Now we don’t know quite how far they would go in that way but they have an interest.I thought that therapists were not meant to make judgements about what their clients say to them.
Are you really a trained psychotherapist? You must be earning a lot of money to rent this room in a private hospital and as far as I can see you do not seem to have any common sense, let alone uncommon sense.
Margaret’s face went bright red,
I am sorry she cried, I was a little bit nervous when you told me that you were a mathematician And it threw me off my stride because I thought that you might be more intelligent than I am.
Intelligence by itself is not  enough;it can be used to make nuclear bombs; to start Wars ;to gather information about your enemies what you really need  is  time and care and the ability to listen without criticism or judgement for the person who is with you ;you must have met some other people who were quite intelligent .It seems to me that you need more Training so that you are able to deal with your issues of fear of the highly intelligent person. You don’t need to have a fear of them and we are just the same as other people except that for some reason we preferred the geometry of the spheres to dating boys when we were 16.
In my case, it was after I had an operation to remove my appendix and was convalescing for several weeks. I came across a book called “Mathematician’s delight” by W.W.Sawyer And I read it about imaginary numbers and complex numbers so then I realised that mathematics was not just arithmetic and quadratic equations.
I don’t know whether I will come to see you anymore. What you said has taken away my faith in my judgement of people. You seemed the best therapist that I interviewed but now we’re starting I think I might have made a mistake.
Please don’t stop, said Margaret, I need the money!
So you think that I should continue seeing you here when you already proved yourself a little inadequate, merely to give you money. I am afraid I am not rich enough  to see you if I will have to see somebody else as well, since you are no good
I’ll tell you what said Margaret, let me give you another session completely free and see how we get on then.If you are still unhappy with me then, of course, you must find a different person. I realise my training was incomplete because we are all graduates or doctors and then we do five years training so we believe we are superior to most of the people who come for treatment but when I speak to my supervisor I will tell her that I think we all need to look at this question of superiority because neither you nor I  is actually morally or ethically superior to everybody else ;it can sometimes appear that we can see somebody is very inferior morally like  Hitler or Pol Pot but it’s now obvious most of the time
I’ll give you a call, Mary said when I have made my mind up; it is very kind of you to offer me a free session when you are so short of money. if I were your therapist, I would tell you that you were short of money because you are not very good at your job and therefore you will not have enough patients to make a living.On the other hand, it may be that you need to take an extra job, stacking the shelves in the supermarket to give you enough money to live on without exploiting human beings like myself.
However, I am glad that I realised that I feel this  void inside me because I now realise that I felt it long before my husband died and it must be linked to something else in my life, not just to him
Alright, said Margaret thank you very much for being so honest I hope you will come again.If not, I wish you good luck in finding someone who can travel with you on your journey into your new life.Thank you, said Mary. I will phone you soon, goodbye.
When she got home she told Emile, her cat.He said he wished he had gone with her to see how beautiful Margaret was.
That is very selfish, Emile.You need to hear what she says!

And so say all of us.

When Mary  got home after her Autumn shopping trip. she went into the kitchen where her cat was waiting anxiously
What have you bought,Mother, Emile  miaowed
I got some black patent Mary Janes in Clark’s Sale
You had some like that before.You said they were tight
Mary put the kettle on.It was copper coloured and cordless
Are we having our coffee now, the cat enquired?
Yes, but also I have read about a trick with tight shoes.Watch this.She  laid the shoes on newspaper and poured boiling water into them
Oh,mother, that seems. cruel he phoned 999
Hello, my mother has poured boiling water into her shoes
Why?Is it to wash her feet?
No, but I am worried the shoes might be hurt.
We’ll send the  ambulance immediately
Meanwhile Mary had emptied out the boiling water.She took off  her socks and put the new shoes on.
There , you see.They will  fit now
The  doorbell rang.Two policemen  ran in.
We hear you are causing suffering to your shoes
Is that illegal ,Mary murmured?
Almost.When Boris lets Parliament begin we believe hurting leather shoes will become a crime
Is it  because we are in the EU?
No, it’s only we British people who care about the pain of objects made from  dead animals.So as soon as we Leave Boris will pass a  new law
Is he a dictator,Emile miaowed?
We can’t answer that,Sir.You speak good English but where are you really from?
What is your first language?
Are you implying I am an illegal immigrant?That I swam in up the Humber or swam with seals off North Norfolk before coming to Weybourne a well known way for Conquerers to enter England? I am not Julius Caesar and he landed near Deal.There is a big plaque there.Not put there by him!
Yes, are you from the Ukraine or   anywhere in Eastern YouRup?
Are they like YouTube?
Don’t mess with us.We can arrest you.We are the Police and soon we’ll have our own State!
But you have no paw-cuffs. have you?
We can use string, the policeman said creatively
That sounds much  more cruel  then putting  hot water into my shoes,Mary said politely but with a certain edge to her voice.
The policeman looked foolish.Yes,madam.
And cats can’t have passports, as yet.They go  to a Cattery on the North Yorkshire Moors for their holidays.Some go to Cornwall.
Am I going, asked Emile? I don’t want to go  all by myself.
No,I am renting a cottage in  Hunstanton where pets are allowed.And the sands are white and the cliffs coloured in three layers
Thank you, replied Emile.I am happy to hear that.Can I have a bathing suit,Mother?Are there rock pools?
Ask LP Hartley