Primary obsessions, p.18
Primary Obsessions, page 18
“Yeah, sounds like,” Terry said, turning back to his berryless scone, gathering his fallen pens and pencils with the tip of a brown leather shoe.
* * *
“Dr. Manley, this really does feel like a stunning turn of events. After becoming an anti-PC hero online, Michael Collis has now been charged with the very murder of which he accused Sanjay Desai. Do you and other mental healthcare professionals feel vindicated? Is this a learning moment for Canada?”
“Well, Sam, I’m a Buddhist, and not to put too fine a point on it, but I believe that every in-breath and every out-breath are potential learning moments.”
Annick rolled her eyes so hard she thought she might lose them.
“Nevertheless, we’re all familiar, even those with no mental health training whatsoever, with the phenomenon of projection. Too many of us have come to cope with our own deep-seated anxieties about ourselves, about our own worthiness or unworthiness of love, by imagining all of our own faults exaggerated in the countenances of others. So for young Michael Collis to take to social media in such a cruel and foolish way, to denounce young Mr. Desai for the very crime which he, allegedly, committed, strikes me simply as an exaggerated version of what so many of us do nearly every day. When Mr. Collis eventually goes to trial, he may well do so as the first defendant in history to plead someone else’s insanity.”
“Thank you, Dr. Manley. You’ve been listening to Dr. Cedric Manley of the West Coast Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Clinic here on 604 at Six. My thanks to Dr. Manley. I’m Sam Gill filling in for Roxanne Tremblay and we’ll be right back after your hourly news break, when Kevin Sartorelli will tell us what we can expect from our Canucks in the coming NHL season…”
Cedric really did have a perfectly mellifluous voice, Annick thought as she parked a block from the Jerusalem Artichoke, opened the driver’s side door and staggered towards the restaurant. She was running on fumes now, not an hour’s good sleep behind her for days, but Arwa would have a grainy pot of cardamom-scented Turkish coffee for her; the silty, strong stuff, the caffeine fiend’s equivalent of freebasing.
Even before the coffee, though, she was shot through with a joyous wakefulness by the sight of Sanjay, sitting next to his mother, greyish and timid but free, now, and smiling subtly from the corner of his mouth at something that Supriya was saying. The sight of them blurred behind a wall of tears, but through it Annick saw the impression of her patient rising from his seat, running to her, and she threw her arms around him. Supriya stood and smiled, not even trying not to cry, not even wiping the tears that were streaming down her cheeks.
“Okay, sweetie,” Annick said. “If I stay in this hug any longer it’s an ethical breach.”
Sanjay smiled, fully this time, and sat down at the table.
“They brought us hummus and eggplant to start,” Sanjay said, and Annick couldn’t stop smiling at him, proud of him for some reason, beaming with affection.
“Thank you, Sanjay.”
“Marhaba, Annick!” said Mahmoud, leaning in for a hug.
“Bonsoir, Mahmoud.”
“And good, you brought back your beautiful friend.”
“Yes,” said Annick, “and a very hungry young man. Eh?”
“Yes,” said Sanjay, smiling boyishly, and Supriya laid her hand on the back of his neck, and kissed his cheek.
“Very good, very good.”
“You know, Mahmoud,” Annick said, spotting an opening. “Supriya here is also an artist.”
“Really?”
“Well, yes,” Supriya answered with smiling reticence. “A poet.”
Mahmoud clutched his chest. “Ah, poetry. This is the true Palestinian religion. Not Islam, not Christianity—poetry! Did you know I am named after a poet?”
“Mahmoud Darwish?” guessed Supriya. Mahmoud made the same face he would have if she’d presented him with a massive novelty cheque.
“Yes! You know Mahmoud Darwish? Oh, my God—beautiful and cultured, your friends, Annick! Come,” he said, reaching out his hand to Supriya. “I want to show you my new pieces, can I?”
“Yes, sure,” Supriya said, rising, then turning to the table. “Are you two okay?”
“Yes, Mom.”
“We’re great. Go see the artwork.”
“Yes, they are fine, come, tell me your favourite poem by Darwish…”
Annick grinned as she watched them on their way to the back of the restaurant, and happily ran a finger through her missing hair. Arwa touched her warmly on the shoulder as she put down the pot of Turkish coffee, and Annick poured tiny cups for herself and for Sanjay.
“I was hoping we might get a chance to talk one-on-one for a second,” she said.
“Yeah,” said Sanjay. “Me too.”
“How are you doing?” She asked it in a way that he knew it was a real question, not small-talk detritus. Sanjay shrugged.
“I mean, relatively? I’m thrilled. It’s—I don’t really know how to say it, like, how much better it is to be back home now, to be in my own clothes. But the thoughts?”
“Yeah?”
“The thoughts have been really bad. And I’m scared, like—all the people, who saw that post about me…” Thick, wet tears dropped out of Sanjay’s large brown eyes. “The worst part of it all was how scary it all was, and, I don’t know—it’s, like, fucked up and everything, but even though I’m out, I don’t know. I feel just as scared.”
Annick nodded. She reached a hand across the table to Sanjay, grabbed his fingers and squeezed.
“This has been a trauma, Sanjay. They catch the real bad guy, that’s only the end in the movies. It’s the end of your legal troubles, but the mental and emotional toll of this experience? Taking care of that is going to take a lot of work.”
“Yeah,” Sanjay managed through his tears. “I know. Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yes,” he sniffed.
“You know I’m a psychologist, not a psychiatrist—I’m agnostic when it comes to meds. But it may be worth talking to your GP about something to at least have on hand, Clonazepam, Ativan, something along those lines just for the panic over the next few months.”
“Yeah.”
“You’ve heard of post-traumatic stress, right? Nobody could go through what you’ve just endured without coming away shaken. You’re not going to shrug this off, and no one should expect you to. You come by what you’re feeling very, very honestly, Sanjay.”
He smiled weakly, nodding his head.
“And listen, if given what we’ve been through over the past week or so, you feel like you want to proceed with a different psychologist—”
“What?” he asked, in a startled panic. “Did I do something wrong? ”
“What? No, Sanjay. Not even a little bit. But some people might feel like this... experience we just went through together—if it changed the therapeutic dynamic between us, involved me too much in your personal life—”
“All you did was help me! Before, and then during this whole thing. I just—I don’t want another doctor. I feel safe with you. Please don’t make me see somebody else. Please, Dr. Boudreau?”
Annick did her best to still the trembling in her lower lip. “Of course, Sanjay,” she said. “Of course. I’m going to be heading back East for the next couple of weeks, my dad just got out of surgery—”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay. Thank you. I just mention it so that you know that, for the next little bit, I won’t be around. But I’m going to leave you with my cell number, my email, and if you need anything, Sanjay, at any time—I want you to reach out to me, okay?”
“Okay.”
“I’m really proud of you, Sanjay.”
“Why?”
“You’re here.”
As Mahmoud returned to the table, he was smiling broadly, the crook of Supriya’s elbow resting in his hand.
“Okay! Okay, it’s decided, we’re going to work together,” Mahmoud announced triumphantly as they returned to the table. “Your beautiful friend Supriya is going to supply the text, and me the photographs. It’s going to be amazing.” Supriya smiled shyly, sitting down.
“I’ll do my best.”
“Oh, you don’t have a choice, a true artist always does their best. Same with the psychologist. Same with Arwa, tonight, she gonna make you the most beautiful—lamb, chicken, you ever had a Palestinian dumpling?”
“Only you, Mahmoud,” Annick said. He slapped her hand with the floppy, laminated menu.
“My wife hears you, I’m in the street, that’s it!”
“Okay, I’ll keep it down.”
“Let us prepare the meal for you, okay? No menus.”
“No menus.”
“No menus.”
“Yeah, okay. No menus.”
“Good!” Mahmoud took off at close to a run, back to the kitchen, and Supriya turned back to Annick.
“He’s a character.”
“He’s the best.”
“Dr. Boudreau, this Saturday evening we’re going to have a little party at our home, a welcome back party, and it would mean so much to us if you would join us.”
“No, Mom—she’s going out of town.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, my father’s just got out of surgery—”
“Oh no!”
“—in Halifax, yeah. So I’m going to be with him. But to be honest with you, Supriya, I think I would’ve had to respectfully decline, anyway.”
“Really? Why?”
Annick turned to Sanjay, smiled, reached and squeezed his hand one more time.
“Because Sanjay already has friends. I’m his doctor.”
* * *
“You sure you’re gonna be okay?”
“I will, baby. Thank you.”
“Because if you need me, I just need a few days to swing it and I can hop on a plane. You can explain to everybody in Halifax what an Asian person is.”
“Why would I ever share the secret to my happiness?”
Annick leaned over and kissed Philip for longer than he was allowed to stop the car in front of the airport.
“You give ’Méo a big hug for me, okay? Tell him I still expect that moose hunt.”
“I will.”
“You should sleep.”
“How long have you known me? When have I ever fallen asleep on a plane?”
“I know, but—it’s been a crazy couple weeks. If you can rest, do it.”
“I’ll have plenty of time to sleep when you’re on that moose-hunting trip.”
“Alright, alright. Fly safe, baby.”
“It’s not up to me.” She gave him one more kiss, then took her rolling carry-on from the small car-share trunk. “Je t’aime, mon amour.”
“Me too.”
Annick felt her shoulders relaxing in the security lineup, just as everyone else’s were tensing up. She lifted her small suitcase into the large plastic tray, pre-emptively removed her sneakers and quietly celebrated the fact that her merino leggings didn’t have pockets to empty.
It was a long way to the Atlantic Ocean, but in something close to a miracle, she’d found a non-stop flight, and she’d brought a book, a popular history of Louisiana, that she had promised her father months ago that she would read, so that they could plan a family trip to visit the far-flung Boudreaus of bayou country.
She boarded shamelessly into business class, stowed her case with dignity and attached her seat belt, laying out a rough plan for the flight. The coffee at this end of the plane ride would be passable, and given two movies and a healthy chunk of reading about the expulsion and resettlement of her ancestors, she’d be there. Relatively painless.
But as the plane slipped up through the low clouds over the Fraser River, the wheels retracting loudly into the body of the craft after takeoff, the seat belt sign still illuminated, in the second row window seat of business class, Dr. Annick Boudreau was fast asleep.
Author’s Note & Acknowledgements
G.K. Chesterton based his most beloved detective, Father Brown, on the man who had saved his soul; I have similarly based my detective on the person who saved my mind (besides an expansive waistline, that’s more or less all I have in common with Chesterton; he was a much better writer than I’ll ever be, and I have way, way better politics). Nevertheless, the moment she appeared on the page, Dr. Annick Boudreau became her own, made-up person—and though she shares the traits of kindness, professionalism and commitment with her inspiration, she is entirely fictional.
The German film about the Stasi that Annick and Philip had watched was the brilliant The Lives of Others (2006). The non-fiction of Daniel Francis and Jerry Langton provided indirect inspiration for some of the Vancouver underworld elements of the story—though all characters are of my own creation and wholly imaginary. The Jerusalem Artichoke, and its owners, Arwa and Mahmoud, are, sadly, also make-believe—but the good news is that the food is even better at the very real Tamam Fine Palestinian Cuisine in the East Vancouver neighbourhood of Hastings-Sunrise.
Though poetic licence was taken with the descriptions of my therapist-detective, no such liberties were taken with the depiction of the symptoms of primary obsessions OCD; it’s exactly as painful and pernicious as I’ve laid it out, and my knowledge of it is very hard-won, not through research but from experience. If you are experiencing these sorts of intrusive thoughts, let me only tell you two things: first, you have not done anything wrong, and there is nothing wrong with you but an overactive sense of moral obligation and a series of errors of interpretation. The only victim of these thoughts is you. Whatever thoughts you’re having, I promise you: mine were worse. Which leads me to the second thing: with help, you can get a handle on OCD, essentially defeating it, and life will turn into something so much better you could scarcely imagine it. Talk to someone you trust, a medical or therapeutic professional, family or friend. If you live in one of the too-common jurisdictions where psychological or psychiatric treatment is not state-provided and falls outside of your financial capability, a good place to start is with the book Overcoming Obsessive Thoughts: How to Gain Control of Your OCD by David A. Clark and Christine Purdon. Thank you to Tejpal Singh Swatch, the first person to whom I was able to admit my own OCD; thank you to Stephen Hui, who steered me towards cognitive behavioural therapy; and thank you to all of the family, friends and medical practitioners who have helped me to fight an illness that I once thought would make life not worth living.
This story takes place in a city that I adore, that has always been my home—I gratefully acknowledge the Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh nations, whose unceded territories Vancouver was built upon, and—hopefully, as we start to make amends—alongside.
Thank you to Dr. Lee Trentadue and Dr. James Schmidt, along with my own therapist (who, like many great heroes, will remain anonymous), for answering procedural and professional questions about the work, ethics and responsibilities of psychologists. Grosses bises à Mamie, ma grandmère Alberte Boudreau. My pal Sam Wiebe was an invaluable help and source of encouragement, and I’m grateful both for his work and for his friendship, as I am grateful for bosom buddy Rob Simmons, whose counsel over duck confit at The Argo will always be sought and appreciated. Thanks to my agent, John Pearce, and to Chris Casuccio, at Westwood Creative Artists; thanks to Anna Comfort O’Keeffe, Brianna Cerkiewicz and everyone at Douglas & McIntyre, with whom I have always loved working; profoundest gratitude for Caroline Skelton, whose patience and editorial skill made for a much better novel than what could have been; thank you to copy editor Nicola Goshulak, the only person on earth whom I’m willing to admit knows the geography of Vancouver better than I do, and to proofreader Lucy Kenward. Thank you to Zoe Grams and Ariel Hudnall at ZG Communications—if you heard about this book, it’s likely thanks to them.
Thank you to my mystery-loving mother-in-law, Pauline Tong, especially for making possible the two very brightest lights in my life, my wife, Cara Ng, and my daughter, Joséphine Ng-Demers.
And, to Cara: whatever the diagnosis is, caring for an ill spouse takes a grace and selflessness that I hope I could, but will never have to, match in return. I could not be more grateful to have you beside me. Je t’aime.
About the Author
Charles Demers is an author, comedian, actor, playwright, screenwriter and political activist. His collection of essays, Vancouver Special (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2009), was shortlisted for the Hubert Evans BC Book Prize for Non-Fiction. He is also the author of a novel, The Prescription Errors (Insomniac Press, 2009). He is one of the most frequently returning stars of CBC Radio’s smash-hit comedy The Debaters, with a weekly listening audience of 750,000. Demers lives in Vancouver, BC, where he is working on a second book in the Dr. Boudreau Mystery series, Suicidal Thoughts.
Charles Demers, Primary Obsessions
