The Maidens

They were very fond of that house. It was at the foot of Primrose Hill in north-west London, and painted the same bright yellow as the primroses that grew on the hill in the summer. Honeysuckle climbed up one of the outside walls, covering it with white, sweet-smelling flowers, and in the summer months their scent crept into the house through the open windows, climbing up the stairs and lingering in the passages and rooms, filling them with sweetness.

It was unseasonably warm that Monday evening. Even though it was early October, the Indian summer prevailed, like an obstinate party guest, refusing to heed the hints from the dying leaves on the trees that it might be time to go. The late-afternoon sun flooded into the front room, drenching it with a golden light, tinged with red. Before the session, Mariana drew the blinds, but left the sash windows open a few inches to let in some air.

Next, she readjusted the chairs into a circle.

Nine chairs. A chair for each member of the group, and one for Mariana. In theory, the chairs were meant to be identical – but life didn’t work like that. Despite her best intentions, she had accumulated an assortment of upright chairs over the years, in different materials and various shapes and sizes. Her relaxed attitude to the chairs was perhaps typical of how she conducted her groups. Mariana was informal, even unconventional, in her approach.

Therapy, particularly group therapy, was an ironic choice of profession for Mariana. She had always been ambivalent about groups – even suspicious of them – ever since she was a child.

She’d grown up in Greece, on the outskirts of Athens. They’d lived in a large ramshackle old house, on top of a hill that was covered with a black-and-green shroud of olive trees. As a young girl, Mariana would sit on the rusty swing in the garden and ponder the ancient city beneath her, sprawling all the way to the columns of the Parthenon on top of another hill in the distance. It seemed so vast, endless; she felt so small and insignificant, and she viewed it with a superstitious foreboding.

Accompanying the housekeeper on shopping trips to the crowded and frenetic market in the centre of Athens always made Mariana nervous. And she was relieved, and a little surprised, to return home unscathed. Large groups continued to intimidate her as she grew older. At school, she found herself on the sidelines, feeling as if she didn’t fit in with her classmates. And this feeling of not fitting in was hard to shake. Years later, in therapy, she came to understand that the playground was simply a macrocosm of the family unit: meaning her uneasiness was less about the here and now – less about the playground itself, or the market in Athens, or any other group in which she might find herself – and more to do with the family in which she grew up, and the lonely house she grew up in.

Their house was always cold, even in sunny Greece. And there was an emptiness to it – a lack of warmth, physical and emotional. This was due in large part to Mariana’s father, who, although a remarkable man in many ways – good-looking, powerful, razor sharp – was also highly complicated. Mariana suspected he had been damaged beyond repair by his childhood. She never met her father’s parents, and he rarely mentioned them. His father was a sailor, and the less said about his mother, the better. She worked at the docks, he said, with such a look of shame, Mariana thought she must have been a prostitute.

Her father grew up in the slums of Athens and around the port of Piraeus – he started working on the ships as a boy, quickly becoming involved with trade and the import of coffee and wheat and – Mariana imagined – less savoury items. By the time he was twenty-five, he had bought his own boat, and built his shipping business from there. Through a combination of ruthlessness, blood, and sweat, he created a small empire for himself.

He was a bit like a king, Mariana thought – or a dictator. She was later to discover he was an extremely wealthy man – not that you would have guessed it from the austere, Spartan way they lived. Perhaps her mother – her gentle, delicate English mother – might have softened him, had she lived. But she died tragically young, soon after Mariana was born.

Mariana grew up with a keen awareness of this loss. As a therapist, she knew a baby’s first sense of self comes through its parents’ gaze. We are born being watched – our parents’ expressions, what we see reflected in the mirror of their eyes, determines how we see ourselves. Mariana had lost her mother’s gaze – and her father, well, he found it hard to look at her directly. He’d usually glance just over her shoulder when addressing her. Mariana would continually adjust and readjust her position, shuffling, edging her way into his sight line, hoping to be seen – but somehow always remaining peripheral.

On the rare occasions she did catch a glimpse into his eyes, there was such disdain there, such burning disappointment. His eyes told her the truth: she wasn’t good enough. No matter how hard she tried, Mariana always sensed she fell short, managing to do or say the wrong thing – just by existing, she seemed to irritate him. He disagreed with her endlessly, no matter what, performing Petruchio to her Kate – if she said it was cold, he said it was hot; if she said it was sunny, he insisted it was raining. But despite his criticism and contrariness, Mariana loved him. He was all she had, and she longed to be worthy of his love.

There was precious little love in her childhood. She had an elder sister, but they weren’t close. Elisa was seven years her senior, with no interest in her shy younger sibling. And so Mariana would spend the long summer months alone, playing by herself in the garden under the stern eye of the housekeeper. No wonder, then, she grew up a little isolated, and uneasy around other people.

The irony that Mariana ended up becoming a group therapist was not lost on her. But paradoxically, this ambivalence about others served her well. In group therapy, the group, not the individual, is the focus of treatment: to be a successful group therapist is – to some extent – to be invisible.

Mariana was good at this.

In her sessions, she always kept out of the group’s way as much as possible. She only intervened when communication broke down, or when it might be helpful to make an interpretation, or when something went wrong.

On this particular Monday, a bone of contention arose almost immediately, requiring a rare intervention. The problem – as usual – was Henry.

3

Henry arrived later than the others. He was flushed and out of breath, and he seemed a little unsteady on his feet. Mariana wondered if he was high. She wouldn’t have been surprised. She suspected Henry was abusing his medication – but being his therapist, not his medical doctor, there was little she could do about that.

Henry Booth was only thirty-five years old, but he looked older. His reddish hair was speckled with grey, and his face was covered with creases, like the crumpled shirt he wore. He also wore a perpetual frown, and gave the impression of being permanently tense, like a coiled spring. He reminded Mariana of a boxer or a fighter, preparing to give – or receive – the next blow.

Henry grunted an apology for being late; then he sat down – clutching a paper coffee cup.

And the coffee cup was the problem.

Liz spoke up immediately. Liz was in her mid-seventies, a retired schoolteacher; a prim stickler for things being done ‘properly’, as she put it. Mariana experienced her as rather trying, even irritating. And she had guessed what Liz was about to say.

‘That’s not allowed,’ Liz said, pointing a finger, quivering with indignation, at Henry’s coffee cup. ‘We’re not allowed to bring in anything from outside. We all know that.’

Henry grunted. ‘Why not?’

‘Because it’s the rules, Henry.’

‘Fuck off, Liz.’

‘What? Mariana, did you hear what he just said to me?’

Liz promptly burst into tears, and things degenerated from there – ending in yet another heated confrontation between Henry and the other members of the group, all united in fury against him.

Mariana was watching closely, keeping a protective eye on Henry, to see how he was taking this. For all of his bravado, he was a highly vulnerable individual. As a child, Henry had suffered horrific physical and sexual abuse at the hands of his father before he was taken into care and shunted around a series of foster homes. And yet, despite all this trauma, Henry was a remarkably intelligent person – and it had seemed, for a while, as if his intelligence might be enough to save him: at eighteen he got a place at university, to study physics. But he only lasted a few weeks before his past caught up with him; he had a massive breakdown – and never fully recovered. There followed a sad history of self-harm, drug addiction, and recurring breakdowns landing him in and out of hospital – until his psychiatrist referred him to Mariana.

Mariana had a soft spot for Henry, probably because he’d had such rotten luck. But even so, she was unsure about admitting him into the group. It wasn’t just that he was significantly more unwell than the other members: seriously ill patients could be held and healed very effectively by groups – but they could also disrupt them to the point of disintegration. As soon as any group establishes itself, it always arouses envy and attack – and not just from forces on the outside, those excluded from the group, but also from dark and dangerous forces within the group itself. And ever since he’d joined them a few months ago, Henry had been a constant source of conflict. He brought it with him. There was a latent aggression in him, a bubbling anger, that was often difficult to contain.

But Mariana didn’t give up easily; as long as she was able to maintain control of the group, she felt determined to work with him. She believed in the group, in these eight individuals sitting in a circle – she believed in the circle, and its power to heal. In her more fanciful moments, Mariana could be quite mystical about the power of circles: the circle in the sun, the moon, or the earth; the planets spinning through the heavens; the circle in a wheel; the dome of a church – or a wedding ring. Plato said the soul was a circle – which made sense to Mariana. Life was a circle too, wasn’t it? – from birth to death.

And when group therapy was working well, a kind of miracle would occur within this circle – the birth of a separate entity: a group spirit, a group mind; a ‘big mind,’ it was often called, more than the sum of its parts; more intelligent than the therapist or the individual members. It was wise, healing, and powerfully containing. Mariana had seen its power first-hand many times. In her front room, over the years, many ghosts had been conjured up in this circle, and laid to rest.

Today, it was Liz’s turn to be spooked. She just couldn’t let go of the coffee cup. It brought up so much anger and resentment in her – the fact Henry thought the rules didn’t apply to him, that he could break them with such disdain; then Liz suddenly realised how much Henry reminded her of her older brother, who had been so entitled, and such a bully. All Liz’s repressed anger towards her brother started surfacing, which was good, Mariana thought – it needed to surface. Provided Henry could stand being used as a psychological punchbag.

Which, of course, he couldn’t.

Henry leapt up suddenly, letting out an anguished cry. He flung his coffee cup onto the floor. It split open in the centre of the circle – and a growing pool of black coffee spread out onto the floorboards.

The other members of the group were immediately vocal and somewhat hysterical in their outrage. Liz burst into tears again, and Henry tried to leave. But Mariana persuaded him to stay and talk through what had happened.

‘It’s just a fucking coffee cup, what’s the big deal?’ Henry said, sounding like an indignant child.

‘It’s not about the coffee cup,’ said Mariana. ‘It’s about boundaries – the boundaries of this group, the rules we abide by here. We’ve spoken about this before. We can’t take part in therapy if we feel unsafe. Boundaries make us feel safe. Boundaries are what therapy is about.’

Henry looked at her blankly. Mariana knew he didn’t understand. Boundaries, by definition, are the first thing to go when a child is abused. All Henry’s boundaries had been torn to shreds when he was just a little boy. Consequently, he didn’t understand the concept. Nor did he know when he was making someone uncomfortable, as he usually was, by invading their personal or psychological space – he would stand too near when he spoke to you, and exhibited a level of neediness Mariana had never experienced in a patient before. Nothing was enough. He would have moved in with her if she’d let him. It was up to her to maintain the boundary between them: to define the parameters of their relationship in a healthy way. That was her job as his therapist.

But Henry was always pushing at her, needling at her, trying to get under her skin … and in ways she was finding increasingly hard to handle.

4

Henry hung around afterwards, after the others had left – ostensibly to help clean up the mess. But Mariana knew there was more to it; there always was with him. He hovered silently, watching her. She gave him some encouragement.

‘Come on, Henry. Time to go … Is there something you want?’

Henry nodded but didn’t answer. Then he reached into his pocket.

‘Here,’ he said. ‘I got you something.’

He pulled out a ring. A red gaudy plastic thing. It looked like it had come out of a Christmas cracker.

‘It’s for you. A present.’

Mariana shook her head. ‘You know I can’t accept that.’

‘Why not?’

‘You need to stop bringing me things, Henry. Okay? You should really go home now.’

But he didn’t move. Mariana thought for a moment. She hadn’t been planning on confronting him like this, not now – but somehow it felt right.

‘Listen, Henry,’ she said. ‘There’s something we need to talk about.’

‘What?’

‘On Thursday night – after my evening group finished, I looked out of the window. And I saw you, outside. Across the street, by the lamppost. Watching the house.’

‘It wasn’t me, mate.’

‘Yes, it was. I saw your face. And it’s not the first time I’ve seen you there.’

Henry went bright red and evaded eye contact. He shook his head. ‘Not me, not—’

‘Listen. It’s okay for you to be curious about the other groups I conduct. But that’s something we talk about here, in the group. It’s not okay to act on it. It’s not okay to spy on me. That kind of behaviour makes me feel invaded and threatened, and—’

‘I’m not spying! I was just standing there. So fucking what?’

‘So you admit you were there?’

Henry took a step towards her. ‘Why can’t it just be us? Why can’t you see me without them?’

‘You know why. Because I see you as part of a group – I can’t see you individually as well. If you need individual therapy, I can recommend a colleague—’

‘No, I want you—’

Henry made another, sudden move towards her. Mariana stood her ground. She held up her hand.

‘No. Stop. Okay? That’s way too close. Henry—’

‘Wait. Look—’

Before she could prevent him, Henry lifted up his heavy black sweater – and there, on his pale, hairless torso, was a grisly sight.

A razor blade had been used, and deep crosses carved into his skin. Blood-red crosses, different sizes, cut into his chest and abdomen. Some of the crosses were wet, still bleeding, dripping blood; others were scabby, and weeping hard red beads – like congealed, bloody tears.

Mariana felt her stomach turn. She felt sick with repulsion, and wanted to look away, but wouldn’t let herself. This was a cry for help, of course it was, an attempt to elicit a caregiving response – but it was more than that: it was also an emotional attack, a psychological assault upon her senses. Henry at last had managed to get under Mariana’s guard, under her skin, and she hated him for it.

‘What have you done, Henry?’

‘I – I couldn’t help it. I had to do it. And you – had to see it.’

‘And now I’ve seen it, how do you think it makes me feel? Can you conceive of how upset I am? I want to help you but—’

‘But what?’ He laughed. ‘What’s stopping you?’

‘The appropriate time for me to give you support is during the group. You had that opportunity this evening, but you didn’t take it. We all could have helped. We are all here to help you—’

‘I don’t want their help – I want you. Mariana, I need you—’

Mariana knew she should make him leave. It wasn’t her job to clean his wounds. He needed medical attention. She should be firm, for his sake as well as her own. But she couldn’t quite bring herself to throw him out, and not for the first time, Mariana’s empathy prevailed over her common sense.

‘Wait – wait a second.’

She went to the dresser, opened a drawer, rummaged around. She pulled out a first aid kit. She was about to open it when her phone rang.

She checked the number. It was Zoe. She answered.

‘Zoe?’

‘Can you talk? It’s important.’

‘Give me a sec. I’ll call you back.’ Mariana ended the call and turned to Henry. She thrust the first aid kit at him.

‘Henry – take this. Clean yourself up. See your GP if you need to. Okay? I’ll call you tomorrow.’

‘That’s it? And you call yourself a fucking therapist?’

‘Enough. Stop. You have to go.’

Ignoring his protestations, Mariana firmly guided Henry into the hallway, and out of the front door. She shut the door behind him. She felt an impulse to lock it, which she resisted.

Then she went to the kitchen. She opened the fridge and took out a bottle of sauvignon blanc.

She felt quite shaken. She had to pull herself together before she called Zoe back. She didn’t want to burden that girl more than she already had. Their relationship had been imbalanced ever since Sebastian’s death – and from now on, Mariana was determined to correct that balance. She took a deep breath to calm down. Then she poured herself a large glass of wine, and made the call.

Zoe answered on the first ring.

‘Mariana?’

Mariana knew at once something was wrong. There was a tension in Zoe’s voice, an urgency that Mariana associated with moments of crisis. She sounds afraid, she thought. She felt her heart beat a little faster.

‘Darling, is – is everything alright? What’s happened?’

There was a second’s pause before Zoe answered. She spoke in a small voice. ‘Turn on the TV,’ she said. ‘Turn on the news.’

5

Mariana reached for the remote control.

She switched on the old, battered portable TV sitting upon the microwave – one of Sebastian’s sacred possessions, bought when he was still a student, used for watching cricket and rugby while he pretended to help Mariana prepare weekend meals. It was rather temperamental, and it flickered for a moment before coming to life.

Mariana turned on the BBC news channel. A middle-aged male journalist was delivering a report. He was standing outside; it was getting dark and hard to see exactly where – a field, perhaps, or a meadow. He was speaking directly to camera.

‘—and it was found in Cambridge, in the nature reserve known as Paradise. I’m here with the man who made the discovery … Can you tell me what happened?’

The question was addressed to someone off camera – and the camera swung around to a short, nervous, red-faced man in his mid-sixties. He blinked in the light, looking dazzled. He spoke hesitantly.

‘It was a few hours ago … I always take the dog out at four, so it must have been about then – maybe quarter past, twenty past. I take him down by the river, along the path … We were walking through Paradise – and …’

He stumbled for a moment, and didn’t complete the sentence. He tried again. ‘It was the dog – he disappeared in the tall grass, by the marsh. He wouldn’t come when I called. I thought he’d found a bird or a fox or something – so I went to have a look. I walked through the trees … to the edge of the marsh, by the water … and there, there it was …’

A strange look came into the man’s eyes. A look Mariana recognised all too well. He’s seen something horrible, she thought. I don’t want to hear. I don’t want to know what it is.

The man went on, relentlessly, faster now, as if he needed to expel it.

‘It was a girl – she couldn’t have been more than twenty. She had long red hair. At least, I think it was red. There was blood everywhere, so much of it …’ He trailed off, and the journalist prompted him.

‘She was dead?’

‘That’s right.’ The man nodded. ‘She’d been stabbed. Many times. And … her face … God, it was horrible – her eyes – her eyes were open … staring … staring—’

He broke off, and tears filled his eyes. He’s in shock, thought Mariana. They shouldn’t be interviewing him – someone should stop this.

Sure enough, at that moment – perhaps recognising it had gone too far – the journalist cut short the interview, and the camera panned back to him.

‘Breaking news here in Cambridge – police are investigating the discovery of a body. The victim of a frenzied knife attack is believed to be a young woman in her early twenties—’

Mariana turned off the television. She stared at it for a second, stunned, unable to move. Then she remembered the phone in her hand. She held it up to her ear.

‘Zoe? Are you still there?’

‘I – I think it’s Tara.’

‘What?’

Tara was a close friend of Zoe’s. They were in the same year at St Christopher’s College at Cambridge University. Mariana hesitated, trying not to sound anxious.

‘Why do you say that?’

‘It sounds like Tara – and no one’s seen her – not since yesterday – I keep asking everyone, and I – I’m so scared, I don’t know what to—’

‘Slow down. When was the last time you saw Tara?’

‘Last night.’ Zoe paused. ‘And, Mariana, she – she was being so weird, I—’

‘What do you mean, weird?’

‘She said things – crazy things.’

‘What do you mean, crazy?’

There was a pause, and Zoe replied in a whisper, ‘I can’t get into it now. But will you come?’

‘Of course I will. But, Zoe, listen. Have you spoken to the college? You must tell them – tell the dean.’

‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘Tell them what you just said to me. That you’re worried about her. They’ll contact the police, and Tara’s parents—’

‘Her parents? But – what if I’m wrong?’

‘I’m sure you are wrong,’ Mariana said, sounding a lot more confident than she felt. ‘I’m sure Tara’s fine, but we need to make sure. You understand that, don’t you? Do you want me to call them for you?’

‘No, no, it’s okay … I’ll do it.’

‘Good. Then go to bed, okay? I’ll be there first thing in the morning.’

‘Thanks, Mariana. I love you.’

‘I love you too.’

Mariana ended the call. The white wine she had poured was sitting on the counter untouched. She picked it up, and drained it in one go.

Her hand was trembling as she reached for the bottle and poured herself another glass.

6

Mariana went upstairs and began packing a small bag, in case she had to stay a night or two in Cambridge.

She tried not to let her thoughts run away with her – but it was difficult – she was feeling incredibly anxious. Somewhere out there was a man – presumably it was a man, given the extreme violence of the attack – who was dangerously ill, and had horrifically murdered a young woman … a young woman who possibly lived a few feet away from where her beloved Zoe slept.