She’d envisaged Perry’s face. His amused, superior face. “You’re not serious, are you? This is just so . . .”
So lowbrow. Yes, Perry. It was. A suburban counseling practice that specialized in domestic violence. It was listed on their website, along with depression and anxiety and eating disorders. There were two typos on the home page. She’d chosen it because it was far enough away from Pirriwee that she could be sure of not running into anyone she knew. Also, she hadn’t really had any intention of turning up. She’d just wanted to make an appointment, to prove she wasn’t a victim, to prove to some unseen presence that she was doing something about this.
“Our behavior is lowbrow, Perry,” she’d said out loud in the silence of the car, and then she’d turned the key in the ignition and gone inside.
“Celeste?” prompted the counselor now.
The counselor knew her name. The counselor knew more about the truth of her life than anyone in the world besides Perry. She was in one of those naked nightmares, where you just had to keep walking through the crowded shopping center while everyone stared at your shameful, shocking nudity. She couldn’t go back now. She had to see it through. She’d told her. She’d said it, very quickly, her eyes slightly off-center from the counselor’s, pretending she was keeping eye contact. She’d spoken in a low, neutral voice, as if she were telling a doctor about a revolting symptom. It was part of being a grown-up, being a woman and a mother. You had to say uncomfortable things out loud. “I have this discharge.” “I’m in a sort of violent relationship.” “Sort of.” Like a teenager hedging her words, distancing herself.
“Sorry. Did you just ask about weapons?” She recrossed her legs, smoothing the fabric of her dress across them. She’d deliberately chosen an especially beautiful dress that Perry had bought for her in Paris. She hadn’t worn it before. She’d also put on makeup: foundation, powder, the whole kit and caboodle. She wanted to position herself, not as superior to other women, of course not, she didn’t think that, not in a million years. But her situation was different from that woman in the parking lot. Celeste didn’t need the phone number for a shelter. She just needed some strategies to fix her marriage. She needed tips. Ten top tips to stop my husband from hitting me. Ten top tips to stop my hitting him back.
“Yes, weapons. Are there any weapons in the house?” The counselor looked up from what must be a standard sort of checklist. For God’s sake, thought Celeste. Weapons! Did she think Celeste lived in the sort of home where the husband kept an unlicensed gun under the bed?
“No weapons,” said Celeste. “Although the twins have lightsabers.” She noticed that she was putting on a well-bred private schoolgirl sort of voice and tried to stop it.
She wasn’t a private schoolgirl. She’d married up.
The counselor laughed politely and noted something on the clipboard in front of her. Her name was Susi, which seemed to indicate a worrying lack of judgment. Why didn’t she call herself Susan? “Susi” sounded like a pole dancer.
The other problem with Susi was that she appeared to be about twelve years old, and quite naturally, being twelve, she didn’t know how to apply eyeliner properly. It was smudged around her eyes, giving her that raccoon look. How could this child give Celeste advice on her strange, complicated marriage? Celeste should be giving her advice on makeup and boys.
“Does your partner assault or mutilate the family pets?” said Susi blandly.
“What? No! Well, we don’t have any pets, but he’s not like that!” Celeste felt a surge of anger. Why had she subjected herself to this humiliation? She wanted to cry out, absurdly, This dress is from Paris! My husband drives a Porsche! We are not like that! “Perry would never hurt an animal,” she said.
“But he hurts you,” said Susi.
You don’t know anything about me, thought Celeste sulkily, furiously. You think I’m like the girl with the tattoos, and I am not, I am not.
“Yes,” said Celeste. “As I said, occasionally he, we become physically . . . violent.” Her posh voice was back. “But as I tried to explain, I have to take my share of the blame.”
“No one deserves to be abused, Mrs. White,” said Susi.
They must teach them that line at counseling school.
“Yes,” said Celeste. “Of course. I know that. I don’t think I deserve it. But I’m not a victim. I hit him back. I throw things at him. So I’m just as bad as he is. Sometimes I start it. I mean, we’re just in a very toxic relationship. We need techniques, we need strategies to help us . . . to make us stop. That’s why I’m here.”
Susi nodded slowly. “I understand. Do you think your husband is afraid of you, Mrs. White?”
“No,” said Celeste. “Not in a physical sense. I think he’s probably afraid I’ll leave him.”
“When these ‘incidents’ have taken place, have you ever been afraid?”
“Well, no. Well, sort of.” She could see the point that Susi was trying to make. “Look, I know how violent some men can be, but with Perry and me, it’s not that bad. It’s bad! I know it’s bad. I’m not delusional. But, see, I’ve never ended up in the hospital or anything like that. I don’t need to go to a shelter or a refuge or whatever they’re called. I have no doubt you see much, much worse cases than mine, but I’m fine. I’m perfectly fine.”
“Have you ever been afraid that you might die?”
“Absolutely not,” said Celeste immediately.
She stopped.
“Well, just once. It was just that my face . . . He had my face pressed into the corner of a couch.”
She remembered the feeling of his hand on the back of her head. The angle of her face meant that her nose sort of folded in half, pinching her nostrils. She’d struggled frantically to free herself, like a pinned butterfly. “I don’t think he realized what he was doing. But I did think, just for a moment, that I was going to suffocate.”
“That must have been very frightening,” said Susi without inflection.
“It was a bit.” She paused. “I remember the dust. It was very dusty.”
For a moment Celeste thought she might cry: huge, heaving, snotty sobs. There was a box of tissues sitting on the coffee table in between them for just that purpose. Her own mascara would run. She’d have raccoon eyes too, and Susi would think, Not so upper class now, are you, lady?