Read Online (1998) Denial by Peter James - Free Book Online

mantelpiece, Amanda Capstick told her therapist this.
    Her therapist’s name was Maxine Bentham, and she was a distant descendant of the philosopher Dr Jeremy Bentham. Jeremy Bentham had been a passionate advocate of the right to happiness, and believed people should be free to live unhindered by restrictive legislation. Following his beliefs, Maxine believed that too many people spent their lives choking on guilt. People should be freed of the restrictive baggage with which life saddled them.
    She was a solid woman, not fat, not matronly, just snug, and had a warm, attractive face with fair hair cropped boyishly short, and a sharp, alert expression. She was dressed as usual in a black ankle-length designer smock that fitted like a sack, her fingers were crusted with chunky rings, and a lump of quartz crystal the size of a small planet hung from her neck.
    Amanda sat in a wicker armchair, and sipped her mint tea, which had gone tepid. It always gave her a boost to behere. Therapists weren’t supposed to give opinions unless specifically asked, but Amanda had told her she
wanted
opinions. Maxine was like a wise aunt and she made Amanda feel comfortable and secure. She wished she were able to talk to her mother the way she talked to Maxine. Her best friend, Roxy, had a great relationship with her own mother, they were like mates, and Amanda had always envied that. She and her mother got on fine, but they were not
mates
, and probably never would be.
    Her mother was a sixties flower-child who had never really moved on, never fully got her life together. She was much closer to her sister, Lara, although she found her husband, a workaholic investment banker, tedious. And she adored their three young children, her nephew and nieces.
    Maxine squatted cosily on the floor, leaning against a sofa, calmly looking up at her, waiting for her to continue.
    ‘
Brian!
’ Amanda said. ‘You know, I don’t even like the name! I can’t believe I ever even went out with someone called
Brian
!’
    Maxine smiled. Her voice had a transatlantic tinge from ten years in San Francisco. ‘This is interesting, Amanda. Can you remember when you first started to dislike his name?’
    ‘I don’t like anything about him!’
    ‘I’m not buying into that. I don’t think you’re ready to dislike everything about him yet. I’m still not sure you’re ready to let go. I think you’ve got to the top of one hill, which is great, but there’s a higher one in front of you.’
    ‘I’m there!’ Amanda said, determinedly. ‘I really am.’
    ‘Why do you think that?’
    Amanda stared at the lines of grey daylight she could see through the slats of the Venetian blinds. Down in the street below, a trendy terrace a few blocks from Portobello Road, some driver of a car or a van or a truck was thunking his horn; it was an ugly sound, jarring.
    ‘Because . . .’ Amanda said. She waited for another blast of the horn to stop, wriggled in her chair, crossed her legs, then uncrossed them again. It was a grey, muggy day. Evenin a T-shirt and lightweight jeans she was too warm in this normally cool, airy room. The horn stopped but immediately it started again. An alarm, she realised. Then, mercifully, it ceased. ‘I have a date!’
    Perspiration was running down her.
Christ I hope I’m not going down with some lurgy! And, if I am, I hope to hell it’s better by tomorrow
!
    Maxine looked pleased, not thrilled but pleased. ‘You have?’
    ‘I haven’t accepted an offer of a date since . . .’
    Maxine gave her the space to think.
    Finally Amanda smiled. ‘I guess for seven years.’
    ‘Since you first slept with Brian?’
    ‘Yes.’ Amanda blushed and grinned like a schoolkid. She always felt like a kid in here.
    ‘OK, Amanda, all this is good. What is not so good is the way you are handling Brian right now. What I want to see from you is
rejection
. What I’m actually seeing is
denial
. You hadn’t been taking his calls, you hadn’t been responding