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Barry looks at him and then at Dunlop, her back still turned. ‘Tell them what? What are you on about?’
She picks up a scourer and starts going at a dinner plate with a certain amount of vehemence.
‘It’s nothing – nothing you need to know, at any rate. In any case, don’t you always say – the less you tell the fucking cops the better?’
‘She’s right,’ says Jamie, grinding his fag into a saucer. ‘Better keep your nose clean, Pa, or they’ll have your arse back inside soon as look at you.’
***
MY SHADOW JOURNAL
Identifying projections
Projection is one of the most obvious ways in which you can see your Shadow in action. Projecting is the unconscious process of seeing qualities in other people that, in reality, are aspects of our own Self. Sometimes it’s positive traits that we see, but it’s more relevant here to focus on the adverse or negative qualities you perceive.
If you can identify when the process of projection is taking place, you can see the repressed parts of your Shadow that you are projecting on to other people, andthus gain a deeper understanding of your inner traumas, unresolved wounds, and negative emotions.
‘We must bear in mind that we do not make projections, rather they happen to us’
Carl Jung
Today’s exercise
Think about someone close to you, with whom you have a challenging relationship. What three things about them do you dislike the most? What do you admire? It’s possible that the traits you dislike are traits you are projecting on to them. Conversely the traits you like may be things you wish you had.
Jesus where to start with what I dislike about her. There’s the small shit like the whiny voice and the endless hand-wringing and that twirly thing she does with her bloody hair. The penny-pinching, the sanctimony, the paranoia. And OK, yes, I do accept that that last one is probably not so much a fucking colossal personality flaw as a reaction to what we did. She lives her whole life in a state of barely suppressed terror – that would fuck anyone up. And one thing I do know is I’m not projecting that. The paranoia, I mean. Whatever else my fucking Shadow is hiding it ain’t that.
What else pisses me off? The way she never leaves me alone for five fucking minutes. I’ve never been allowed to go to school so I only have one friend and I met her in confirmation class, FFS, and now she’s working nights so she can teach me herself but if I dare say anything like ‘What about fucking maths?’, all she does is give me that stare and say If I Don’t Like It I Only Have Myself To Blame. She obviously hasn’t read all this Shadow crap about accepting your dark side.
But what reallyreallydrives me insane is her victim act. Jung was fucking right about shadow archetypes – you can hardly breathe round here for the stench of singed martyr. Whenever I ask for anything, whenever I criticise anything – and I do meananything, even the way she cooks fucking spaghetti – she just goes into this whole Woe-is-Me rant. ‘You might not like the life I’ve given you, but believe me it’s come at a price. To me, even if not to you. Foreight yearsmy whole life has revolved around you – keeping you happy, giving you everything I possibly can even when you’re beingtotallyimpossible, even when it’s like walking on eggshells. The sacrifices I’ve made – I’ve done nothingbutmake sacrifices –’
Yadda yadda yadda. And that’s not projection either. Or rather, it is, but it’sherprojecting onme, not the other way round.
Like I said before, she’s the one who needs the fucking shadow journal.
As for what I admire. Aspects of her I wish I had.
That is a joke, right?
***
It’s just as well it’s dry, is the first thing that comes to Asante’s mind as he and Bradley pull up and park the car. God only knows what this place would be like in November rain – the whole area is pitted with deep tyre ruts, which two forensic vans, the dog unit and three more police cars are only going to make worse. As soon as they get out Asante can see why Gislingham assumed the killer had local knowledge: the car park wasn’t signposted from the main road and there’s nothingto suggest there’s a public right of way in any direction. It seems unnaturally quiet and the sight of white-suited CSI officers moving silently to and fro between the trees has the uneasy feel of near-future sci-fi.
Bradley is making a face now and he turns to see what she’s looking at. There are two people over on the far side of the car park, talking – rather vigorously – to the uniformed officer preventing access to the woods. A thin, elderly man in dungarees and apparently nothing else, and a younger woman in Doc Martens and a dirndl skirt, with dark-rooted dreadlocks tied back in a headscarf.
‘Who are they?’
‘Ah,’ says Bradley, ‘now that would be the camp.’
‘The camp?’
Bradley sighs. ‘Yes, well, that sort of thing is a bit of an occupational hazard in this neck of the woods. Along with the ley lines and all the rest of the mystic pizza shtick. I hasten to add that I do not believe inanyof that old clobber, but there are those who do, and our friends over there,’ she nods towards them, ‘number amongst them. I think that particular gentleman is one of the chaps who identifies as a druid.’
Asante smiles.
‘They’re generally harmless – just the odd bit of casual pilfering. And drugs, of course. I reckon a good half of them are stoned out of their heads on a pretty permanent basis. Local nimbys can’t stand them, of course – say they “bring down property values”.’
‘Now there’s a surprise.’