Page 36 of Deep Blue Sea

‘Diana Denver?’

She looked up. ‘Olga Shapiro,’ said a woman standing by the door. ‘Would you like to come this way?’

Dr Shapiro was younger than she had expected – prettier too, with long blond hair and a pencil skirt that showed off her figure – but she had come highly recommended. The consulting room was a surprise too: vaguely Swedish, with a modernist grey sofa and an oval mustard rug, a big splash of colour in the middle of the room.

The therapist sat in a chair opposite Diana and tilted her head.

‘Not what you were expecting?’

‘I was imagining a life coach sort of thing,’ said Diana. ‘More New Age. Or maybe something Dickensian. You know, full of books and dust and photos of philosophers on the walls.’

‘Would you be more comfortable in those surroundings?’

‘No, not really,’ said Diana, feeling as if the analysis had already begun. ‘It’s just this seems a bit more formal, like a real doctor’s. A bit too . . . medical.’

‘And if it’s a real doctor’s, then whatever is troubling you must be really serious, is that it?’

Diana gave a nervous laugh. ‘Yes, something like that.’

‘Well, let me put your mind at rest. I’m not here to judge you or assess you or trick you into saying anything, I’m just here to listen. So let’s have a chat, talk about what brought you here and take it from there. You should see if you like me first, see if we hit it off. No pressure, okay?’

Diana nodded, relieved. She had thought that sitting in the therapist’s chair would be like awaiting Stasi interrogation under a hot and unyielding spotlight.

‘All right, do you want to tell me how you’re feeling?’

She looked down at her hands. ‘Well, I lost my husband ten days ago. So I’m not feeling too great, as you might imagine.’

‘Grief is one of the hardest emotions to predict, actually. There are lots of different ways people experience it, but it does tend to go through stages. How are you feeling about it right now?’

‘I feel . . . mad.’

‘Mad?’

‘No, not insane or anything,’ said Diana quickly. ‘I mean in the American sense, you know? Angry, but not only that. I’m frustrated and irritated and I just can’t seem to get my head around it.’

Olga Shapiro nodded. ‘It’s only logical that you’re going to be overwhelmed with emotions at a time like this. You can’t expect to be able to process it all in the space of a week. May I ask how your husband died?’

‘Suicide; at least that’s what they’re saying.

’

‘I see. And you don’t agree with that assessment?’

‘I don’t know. Really I don’t. There are too many questions and there shouldn’t be. Death is supposed to be a full stop, isn’t it, an end, but it doesn’t feel like that. I can’t get closure and it’s sending me mad. I can’t sleep, I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s like a treadmill of mental torture.’

‘You don’t feel as if he’s really gone?’

Diana hung her head, not wanting the woman to see the tears that were forming.

‘I can’t accept what has happened because I don’t understand it . . .’

She choked off and the doctor handed her a box of tissues with a kind smile.

‘I’ve had two miscarriages and one stillborn child in the last two years. All that death – or absence of life, whatever – it’s very hard to take.’ She looked up, her eyes pleading. ‘Is it me? Have I done something to make it happen?’

Olga Shapiro did not react.

‘Did you go and see someone about it?’