When She Was Bad(67)

Ed held up his hands.

‘That’s exactly what I think we need to explore in today’s session. I’m hoping Jana will be able to guide us in terms of how far we can push her.’

In my imagination I have Ed turning pink when he said the name of Laurie’s foster mother, but I think that might just be time’s embellishment.

We’d arranged that Kristen, Ed Kowalsky’s research student, should meet Laurie and Jana at the front door and take Laurie off straight away for another soda while Jana came up in the lift to find us and update us on what had been happening.

When the knock came, Ed practically flew from his seat, but if Jana was surprised by the door swinging open even before her knuckles had left the surface, she didn’t show it. When she entered the room, she brought her peculiarly calm aura with her, along with her faded denim jacket and jeans and a light floral scent.

‘I don’t know if you guys knew that Laurie started at a preschool last week? Just a coupla days a week. I’m happy to say that’s going really good. The teachers are really happy with the way she interacts with the other kids. There was just this one incident . . .’

I wondered if Jana could sense how Ed and I were leaning in towards her, not wanting to miss anything.

‘Well. It was nothing really. The teacher said she wouldn’t even have mentioned it if I hadn’t asked her to report back on every little thing. It was at recess and one of the boys pushed another boy off the swing set, and he hurt himself and was crying and Laurie picked up this plastic thing – I think it was a plastic rake or something, you know so they can pretend to do the gardening? – and she gave the little boy a bit of a whack before the teacher got there and stopped it all.’

‘The aggressor, you mean? The boy who’d pushed the other one?’ I wanted to get the facts completely straight.

‘No, that was the odd thing. It was the one who’d been hurt. The teacher took her and the other boy aside and explained why it was wrong, and apparently she was very contrite and even gave the boy she’d hit a big hug. Like I say, it wasn’t a big deal.’

Jana’s hair was long and loose today and she shook it back in an unconscious gesture like you’d shake out a sheet before pegging it out to dry. A brown hair elastic was looped loosely around one narrow wrist and she slipped it off and tied her hair back in one fluid, practised movement. It made me aware of my own hair, coarse and yellow, tucked behind my ears, the ends of it brushing my shoulders. What is it about women that we allow ourselves to be so defined by the things we are not? By the qualities we lack?

‘Do you remember, Jana,’ Ed said, ‘that we talked before about how Laurie was during these episodes which, as you rightly say, are hardly unusual in a child of her age? Do you remember you said she was almost dissociated from her normal self? Have you noticed any more of that behaviour?’

Jana cocked her head to one side in thought. The smooth slope of her cheekbone shimmered in a slanting shaft of late summer sun.

‘She can sometimes seem like she’s somewhere else, ya know, in a different world – but then kids are like that, aren’t they? It’s good for them to be able to escape into their own heads, don’t you think?’

I frowned, wanting to pin her down.

‘But there’s a difference between daydreaming and entering a fugue state . . .’

‘I don’t think we need to bother Jana with the technical jargon, Anne,’ Ed broke in. His voice carried an edge of something. Warning? ‘After all, she’s not here to diagnose Laurie but just to observe, right?’

‘Sure. No, I totally get that. It’s just I think we need to be absolutely sure what we’re dealing with here, because if Laurie really is dissociating rather than just drifting off like any normal four-year-old might . . .’

‘I do hope you’re not expecting Jana to define normality, Anne?’

This time the warning was obvious.

‘I mean,’ he went on, ‘the greatest philosophers in the world have struggled with that one, so I think maybe we’ll just give Jana a break and allow her to do her job, which is to care for a very vulnerable little girl. I have to say, I think she’s doing brilliantly well.’

Nowadays he probably wouldn’t get away with it. A modern-day Jana, with her college diploma and her natural intelligence, might call him out on his patronizing tone. But those were different times. Men like Ed Kowalsky were still sure of their places in the world. They felt entitled to condescend with impunity, would certainly not have recognized it as that. Anyway, Ed was far from the worst in that regard.