I kept to the plans for a whole fortnight, then I started to slide. Was it because I was lazy, or had no willpower? Well, partly. But that wasn’t the whole of it, oh no. I started to slide—just a little bit, just enough to come to Dexter’s attention, because I wanted to know what he was going to do about it.
“Can you show me the receipts for your bill payments this week, Lara?”
“Oh, no, I’m afraid I can’t.”
A silence. Rays of golden warning from above the spectacle rims. “Why not?”
“I, well, I’m not sure where they are. I think I’ve lost them.”
“Lost them? Didn’t we assign a particular drawer to receipts and bills?”
I quailed. I don’t think I’d ever quailed before. It was just as unpleasant as it sounds. “I know we did but…” I shrugged. “It’s all such a lot to remember.”
“It is, Lara, and that is why we have the spreadsheet.”
“Gah, the spreadsheet, the all-knowing spreadsheet,” I muttered.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice that milli-decibel above normal, indicating that he was extremely angry. He certainly wasn’t sorry, that was for sure. “My role is to give you the tools to build self-discipline. Your role is to use those tools. If you aren’t sufficiently motivated, then you’re throwing your money away and I might as well take on a new client.”
“No!” This was not the way I wanted things to go at all! How could I make myself clear, without being blatant? “Please don’t do that. I do need your help.”
“Then you need to make more of an effort.”
“I do make an effort. A really big effort. Honestly. It’s just that…”
“It’s just that?” He stirred the tea, an attempt to dispel tension that didn’t quite work.
“I don’t have much self-discipline,” I said softly.
“You don’t think you do. There’s a difference.”
“No, I know I don’t. I can’t discipline myself. So…”
“So?”
I began to panic. I wanted to press rewind. Maybe it was best if I just changed the subject. “Perhaps…somebody should do it for me…”
Oh, I said it! I said it out loud! Please let me unsay it, please open up the heavens and let those words fly up and evaporate between the clouds.
He looked away for a second. His adam’s apple bobbed. Then he looked back. “I thought that was what I was doing. What I was trying to do.”
“No, I mean…my willpower is rubbish. Perhaps I need more than the threat of being left to sink back into my old ways. Perhaps I need…sanctions. Of some kind.”
“Sanctions?” He seemed to almost be holding his breath. His fingers tightened around the mug handle.
“If I lose something…or forget, or just don’t bother with something…you know, your disapproval is quite powerful, but I have the feeling you…er…you might be holding some…stronger techniques…in reserve.” Why did I ever start this? I was cringing, fidgeting with the fabric corsage on my top as if I might rip it to shreds.
“Stronger techniques,” he repeated, and his tongue seemed to roll around the phrase, drawing all the juices of mortification it possibly could from it.
“You know, I don’t know what I’m talking about. Forget I said it. I’m just thinking aloud. Not even thinking. Raving. Blithering. Rambling. Babbling.”
“Hush.” He shook his head and half-smiled, holding up a hand to stem the tide of my verbal diarrhoea. “You want me to be more than an organiser? More than a life coach?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what I want,” I said miserably.
“Perhaps that’s the problem,” he said, considering. “Perhaps you need to be told. Perhaps you don’t want a life coach, Lara. Perhaps you want an authority figure.”
“Yes. That’s it. That’s it. That’s what I need. I need proper consequences, you know, like, um, like…”