Estranged
by Ronnie Smith
Genre: Drama
Swearwords: None.
Description: A psychologist is called to assess a child by his concerned parents and discovers that it is the parents who need his help.
_____________________________________________________________________
I parked my car round the corner as requested and walked to the house. Number five, a bungalow in a rather bland street of identical bungalows probably built in the late nineteen sixties. Mrs Taylor must have been watching for me behind her curtains as she opened the front door as soon as I quietly unlatched the Iron Gate at the front of her neat garden. She was a petite woman in her mid-thirties, unfussily dressed in jeans and a white t-shirt. Her possibly dyed brown hair was cut short and she wore just a little make-up.
‘Doctor Fraser,’ she smiled nervously as I took her outstretched hand. I nodded and smiled without speaking. ‘Thank you so much for coming at the weekend, I hope it’s not too inconvenient.’ I shook my head, again without speaking. ‘I’m sorry about all the secrecy but my husband really does not approve of psychologists. He’s playing golf just now, he simply must have some free time with his friends, and I’m afraid I’ve disobeyed him in this case but we are kind of desperate.’ She ushered me into the hallway and thrust the fifty pound note that she had fished out of the pocket of her jeans into my hand. ‘I hope this is OK.’
I took the money and smiled again. ‘Thank you, it’s perfectly OK, as we agreed. Please, don’t worry. I understand your husband’s concerns, I come across them many times in my work. My job is to overcome them and then to help people. Now, what’s the problem?’
She relaxed a little and we sat down at the table placed exactly in the middle of the kitchen; a kitchen that seemed to have been recently and very freshly redecorated, a kitchen where absolutely nothing was out of place. I noticed the fridge door, covered in magnets from various resorts in Spain and Greece and the crest of Glasgow Rangers Football Club – ‘Aye Ready’… ‘Would you like tea or coffee, Doctor?’
‘Water will be fine, thank you,’ I said.
‘Well,’ she began, ‘As I said on the phone, we are concerned about our son, Jonathan.’ I nodded. ‘He always seems distracted. It’s almost impossible to have a sensible conversation with him about what he wants to do in life and his school work, in maths and science, it’s just dreadful. My husband and I can’t understand what’s going on. We know he’s not stupid but... I mean, at his age we were both top of our class and we knew what we were about…’
Her voice tailed off and then she seemed to find more strength. ‘You know, my husband’s an accountant, a partner in a good firm in Glasgow and I’m a pharmacist, we know how to work, we know that money doesn’t grow on trees out the back, but Jonathan! He doesn’t seem to care and there’s nothing we can say that scares him. I’m pretty sure he’ll end up working at McDonalds. We don’t really know what to do about it. That’s why I called you. A friend of a friend said you were very good at this sort of thing.’
I sat quietly for a moment, digesting this outpouring of information and wondering what ‘this sort of thing’ actually was.
‘How old is Jonathan?’ I asked. ‘He’s twelve and a half.’
‘Apart from the problems that you have outlined, does he cause any others?’ ‘What do you mean, Doctor, others?’
‘I mean is he badly behaved, unusually boisterous, sullen, uncommunicative, violent…?’
‘Oh God no. He’s perfect. He’s never caused us any trouble at all. He’s polite and helpful to everyone and his grandparents love him to bits. It’s just this lack of… focus I suppose you might call it.’
I took a sip of water. ‘I see. Then perhaps I should go and talk with him, hear what he has to say for himself.’ She started to get up. ‘No, no, Mrs Taylor. I’ll go and introduce myself, if you could just tell me where he is, please.’
‘Oh. He’s in his room. Right at the top of the stairs.’
‘OK,’ I smiled, ‘I’ll be about an hour.’ She smiled at me pleadingly from the table while wringing her hands. I am not one who usually comes to snap judgements, I’m not supposed to but I was beginning to suspect that Mrs Taylor might need more help than her son.
I quietly climbed the carpeted stairs, knocked the door of Jonathan’s room and heard him rush to open it.
Jonathan spoke first, ‘Hello, you are Doctor Fraser,’ he presumed.
‘I am indeed’, I said and we firmly shook hands. Tall for his age, with his mother’s face and hair. I have to say that I was impressed by his confident self-possession. He seemed, at first glance, to be perfectly focused on being a well-adjusted human being. His room was a perfectly normal boy’s environment, giving no overt cause for concern save for a poster of the current Glasgow Rangers first team squad, none of whose members I could name.
‘My mum told me you were coming. She said you are a psychologist and that we should have a chat.’ He appeared to be taking things quite matter-of-factly, without panicking, shaking his head or sniggering as might have been expected from a child of his age.
‘Did she tell you why we should have a chat?’ I asked, letting go of his hand.
‘They both think I have some kind of blockage with my school work. I don’t get very good marks in maths and science and they want me to improve. They, sorry not they, my Mum thinks you can help. Dad doesn’t know you are here and I’ve not to tell him.’
I smiled and held his gaze. ‘Do you think you have a blockage, Jonathan?’
‘I honestly don’t know,’ he shrugged. ‘I don’t like maths and science and, to be perfectly honest, I just don’t understand either of them.’ He became a little anxious. ‘I’m not trying to get bad marks and I don’t think I’m lazy. It’s just that my brain seems to shut down when we start on formulas and equations. They make no sense to me…’ He allowed himself a little self-conscious smile, ‘If x equals y and so on but I just don’t get why x should ever equal y.’
I nodded in my practiced sympathetic manner and waited for him to calm down. Actually I knew exactly what he meant. The whole maths experience had caused me considerable grief at school too but I had managed to suspend reality and just get on with it. ‘Well, let’s sit down and see if we can start to understand why this happens.’ I made myself comfortable on the bed, covered by a Glasgow Rangers duvet, while Jonathan plunged heavily onto the chair by his desk. I noticed his iPad beside me, still logged on, so I handed it to him. ‘What game are you playing?’ I asked, assuming that he was in the process of building an ancient empire or committing virtual but bloody mass murder in a desolate maze.
‘Oh! I wasn’t playing a game, I don’t really play games. I was watching an old BBC documentary on Harold Wilson.’
‘Ah, you were doing homework for history?’ I again assumed.
‘No, not homework. I like looking at all these guys, they are fascinating and Harold Wilson is probably the most interesting from that period.’
If I’d brought a list of questions with me I would have torn them up at this point. Now I would have to wing it, improvise, so to speak.
‘Really!? That is interesting. Tell me more about this, why Harold Wilson?’
‘Well it’s not just Harold Wilson, I like to get an understanding of how all our modern Prime Ministers communicated their ideas, offensively and defensively on TV. It’s kind of my thing at the moment.’
I looked up at the bookshelf above Jonathan’s desk and saw some very interesting biographies there: Rommel, Montgomery, Paton, Napoleon, Nixon, Kissinger, MacMillan, Khrushchev, Castro, Carter and of course Harold Wilson.
‘You’ve read all of these?’ I asked.
‘Yes, over the past few years,’ he smiled.
‘And what about Thatcher?’ I asked mischievously.
‘Well my birthday’s coming soon so I hope to get her then.’
I smiled. ‘So what’s the deal with Wilson then, explain it to me.’
Jonathan sat forward and looked earnestly at me. ‘Well, Harold MacMillan invented the fireside chat on TV, at the end of the fifties. He’s supposed to be the British Prime Minister who first understood how to use TV to communicate with the people.’
I nodded as I did actually know that.
‘However, Harold Wilson took the idea of the fireside chat to a new level because he carried the fireside around with him.’
‘Really! And how did he manage that?’ I asked, of course intrigued.
‘Well that was what the pipe and the rain coat were for, to put everyone at ease. You see he created a cosy brand, a harmless and very accessible caricature of himself that most people could identify with. It didn’t matter whether you loved or hated him, the pipe and the coat ensured that you knew who he was and that what you knew wasn’t intimidating. It was his common touch. Just like MacMillan’s fireside. What do you think, Doctor…?’
I stayed with Jonathan for an hour-and-a-half, much longer than I had promised his mother. Not because he had any problems but because I simply enjoyed talking with him and he taught me a few things. When I went back down to the kitchen she retook her seat at the table and looked at me with a mixture of hope and dread.
‘Well, Doctor, how is he, what do you think?’
I sat down across from her and smiled. ‘Mrs Taylor. your son is absolutely fine and I see no cause for you or your husband to worry. He may not be good at maths and sciences but that is not as a result of any medical or psychological problem. These subjects simply do not interest him.’
‘Oh my God!’ she exclaimed in horror, thrusting her face into her hands and then crashing her elbows onto the table.
‘Please, Mrs Taylor,’ I tried my best to reassure her. ‘Jonathan has an extraordinary interest in and understanding of the world we live in. He loves politics and history. He is a very fine young man and you should be proud of him. He’s so calm and balanced that I’m certain that he will have a very full and successful life, following his path…’
Without taking her face out of her hands, she quietly wailed, ‘Politics and History… So we really are looking at McDonalds.’
Swearwords: None.
Description: A psychologist is called to assess a child by his concerned parents and discovers that it is the parents who need his help.
_____________________________________________________________________
I parked my car round the corner as requested and walked to the house. Number five, a bungalow in a rather bland street of identical bungalows probably built in the late nineteen sixties. Mrs Taylor must have been watching for me behind her curtains as she opened the front door as soon as I quietly unlatched the Iron Gate at the front of her neat garden. She was a petite woman in her mid-thirties, unfussily dressed in jeans and a white t-shirt. Her possibly dyed brown hair was cut short and she wore just a little make-up.
‘Doctor Fraser,’ she smiled nervously as I took her outstretched hand. I nodded and smiled without speaking. ‘Thank you so much for coming at the weekend, I hope it’s not too inconvenient.’ I shook my head, again without speaking. ‘I’m sorry about all the secrecy but my husband really does not approve of psychologists. He’s playing golf just now, he simply must have some free time with his friends, and I’m afraid I’ve disobeyed him in this case but we are kind of desperate.’ She ushered me into the hallway and thrust the fifty pound note that she had fished out of the pocket of her jeans into my hand. ‘I hope this is OK.’
I took the money and smiled again. ‘Thank you, it’s perfectly OK, as we agreed. Please, don’t worry. I understand your husband’s concerns, I come across them many times in my work. My job is to overcome them and then to help people. Now, what’s the problem?’
She relaxed a little and we sat down at the table placed exactly in the middle of the kitchen; a kitchen that seemed to have been recently and very freshly redecorated, a kitchen where absolutely nothing was out of place. I noticed the fridge door, covered in magnets from various resorts in Spain and Greece and the crest of Glasgow Rangers Football Club – ‘Aye Ready’… ‘Would you like tea or coffee, Doctor?’
‘Water will be fine, thank you,’ I said.
‘Well,’ she began, ‘As I said on the phone, we are concerned about our son, Jonathan.’ I nodded. ‘He always seems distracted. It’s almost impossible to have a sensible conversation with him about what he wants to do in life and his school work, in maths and science, it’s just dreadful. My husband and I can’t understand what’s going on. We know he’s not stupid but... I mean, at his age we were both top of our class and we knew what we were about…’
Her voice tailed off and then she seemed to find more strength. ‘You know, my husband’s an accountant, a partner in a good firm in Glasgow and I’m a pharmacist, we know how to work, we know that money doesn’t grow on trees out the back, but Jonathan! He doesn’t seem to care and there’s nothing we can say that scares him. I’m pretty sure he’ll end up working at McDonalds. We don’t really know what to do about it. That’s why I called you. A friend of a friend said you were very good at this sort of thing.’
I sat quietly for a moment, digesting this outpouring of information and wondering what ‘this sort of thing’ actually was.
‘How old is Jonathan?’ I asked. ‘He’s twelve and a half.’
‘Apart from the problems that you have outlined, does he cause any others?’ ‘What do you mean, Doctor, others?’
‘I mean is he badly behaved, unusually boisterous, sullen, uncommunicative, violent…?’
‘Oh God no. He’s perfect. He’s never caused us any trouble at all. He’s polite and helpful to everyone and his grandparents love him to bits. It’s just this lack of… focus I suppose you might call it.’
I took a sip of water. ‘I see. Then perhaps I should go and talk with him, hear what he has to say for himself.’ She started to get up. ‘No, no, Mrs Taylor. I’ll go and introduce myself, if you could just tell me where he is, please.’
‘Oh. He’s in his room. Right at the top of the stairs.’
‘OK,’ I smiled, ‘I’ll be about an hour.’ She smiled at me pleadingly from the table while wringing her hands. I am not one who usually comes to snap judgements, I’m not supposed to but I was beginning to suspect that Mrs Taylor might need more help than her son.
I quietly climbed the carpeted stairs, knocked the door of Jonathan’s room and heard him rush to open it.
Jonathan spoke first, ‘Hello, you are Doctor Fraser,’ he presumed.
‘I am indeed’, I said and we firmly shook hands. Tall for his age, with his mother’s face and hair. I have to say that I was impressed by his confident self-possession. He seemed, at first glance, to be perfectly focused on being a well-adjusted human being. His room was a perfectly normal boy’s environment, giving no overt cause for concern save for a poster of the current Glasgow Rangers first team squad, none of whose members I could name.
‘My mum told me you were coming. She said you are a psychologist and that we should have a chat.’ He appeared to be taking things quite matter-of-factly, without panicking, shaking his head or sniggering as might have been expected from a child of his age.
‘Did she tell you why we should have a chat?’ I asked, letting go of his hand.
‘They both think I have some kind of blockage with my school work. I don’t get very good marks in maths and science and they want me to improve. They, sorry not they, my Mum thinks you can help. Dad doesn’t know you are here and I’ve not to tell him.’
I smiled and held his gaze. ‘Do you think you have a blockage, Jonathan?’
‘I honestly don’t know,’ he shrugged. ‘I don’t like maths and science and, to be perfectly honest, I just don’t understand either of them.’ He became a little anxious. ‘I’m not trying to get bad marks and I don’t think I’m lazy. It’s just that my brain seems to shut down when we start on formulas and equations. They make no sense to me…’ He allowed himself a little self-conscious smile, ‘If x equals y and so on but I just don’t get why x should ever equal y.’
I nodded in my practiced sympathetic manner and waited for him to calm down. Actually I knew exactly what he meant. The whole maths experience had caused me considerable grief at school too but I had managed to suspend reality and just get on with it. ‘Well, let’s sit down and see if we can start to understand why this happens.’ I made myself comfortable on the bed, covered by a Glasgow Rangers duvet, while Jonathan plunged heavily onto the chair by his desk. I noticed his iPad beside me, still logged on, so I handed it to him. ‘What game are you playing?’ I asked, assuming that he was in the process of building an ancient empire or committing virtual but bloody mass murder in a desolate maze.
‘Oh! I wasn’t playing a game, I don’t really play games. I was watching an old BBC documentary on Harold Wilson.’
‘Ah, you were doing homework for history?’ I again assumed.
‘No, not homework. I like looking at all these guys, they are fascinating and Harold Wilson is probably the most interesting from that period.’
If I’d brought a list of questions with me I would have torn them up at this point. Now I would have to wing it, improvise, so to speak.
‘Really!? That is interesting. Tell me more about this, why Harold Wilson?’
‘Well it’s not just Harold Wilson, I like to get an understanding of how all our modern Prime Ministers communicated their ideas, offensively and defensively on TV. It’s kind of my thing at the moment.’
I looked up at the bookshelf above Jonathan’s desk and saw some very interesting biographies there: Rommel, Montgomery, Paton, Napoleon, Nixon, Kissinger, MacMillan, Khrushchev, Castro, Carter and of course Harold Wilson.
‘You’ve read all of these?’ I asked.
‘Yes, over the past few years,’ he smiled.
‘And what about Thatcher?’ I asked mischievously.
‘Well my birthday’s coming soon so I hope to get her then.’
I smiled. ‘So what’s the deal with Wilson then, explain it to me.’
Jonathan sat forward and looked earnestly at me. ‘Well, Harold MacMillan invented the fireside chat on TV, at the end of the fifties. He’s supposed to be the British Prime Minister who first understood how to use TV to communicate with the people.’
I nodded as I did actually know that.
‘However, Harold Wilson took the idea of the fireside chat to a new level because he carried the fireside around with him.’
‘Really! And how did he manage that?’ I asked, of course intrigued.
‘Well that was what the pipe and the rain coat were for, to put everyone at ease. You see he created a cosy brand, a harmless and very accessible caricature of himself that most people could identify with. It didn’t matter whether you loved or hated him, the pipe and the coat ensured that you knew who he was and that what you knew wasn’t intimidating. It was his common touch. Just like MacMillan’s fireside. What do you think, Doctor…?’
I stayed with Jonathan for an hour-and-a-half, much longer than I had promised his mother. Not because he had any problems but because I simply enjoyed talking with him and he taught me a few things. When I went back down to the kitchen she retook her seat at the table and looked at me with a mixture of hope and dread.
‘Well, Doctor, how is he, what do you think?’
I sat down across from her and smiled. ‘Mrs Taylor. your son is absolutely fine and I see no cause for you or your husband to worry. He may not be good at maths and sciences but that is not as a result of any medical or psychological problem. These subjects simply do not interest him.’
‘Oh my God!’ she exclaimed in horror, thrusting her face into her hands and then crashing her elbows onto the table.
‘Please, Mrs Taylor,’ I tried my best to reassure her. ‘Jonathan has an extraordinary interest in and understanding of the world we live in. He loves politics and history. He is a very fine young man and you should be proud of him. He’s so calm and balanced that I’m certain that he will have a very full and successful life, following his path…’
Without taking her face out of her hands, she quietly wailed, ‘Politics and History… So we really are looking at McDonalds.’
About the Author
Born in Glasgow, Ronnie Smith has lived and worked in Romania for the past eight years and is getting back into the writing of fiction after a long break. He publishes in Romania, in English and Romanian, and hopes to be published more in Scotland in the future. He is currently working on a novel set in post-independence Scotland.