COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN

Extract from the dairy of Mr A. E. Howard, a noted councillor on Marriage Guidance.

I hadn't been sure what to make of them at first. It had been two weeks since they had first made the initial appointment, and in that time we didn't seem to have made much progress. The couple were talkative enough – at times it was hard to get a word in. There was certainly no lack of communication on their part. It was just that they couldn't seem to agree. And today was no different.

I tried again. For the umpteenth time. "Is there any way for us to reach some kind of compromise?"

She glared at me, as if amazed that I'd dared make such a suggestion. "Hah! You might be able to, but we sure as hell can't."

The man sitting next to her tried to ease the situation. "The poor man is only trying to help."

She rounded on her partner. "Oh, that's right. Take his side."

"I'm not taking anyone's side."

"Well, you sure aren't helping."

This was how things had been since their first visit to my offices. Barely a sentence passed between them without some barbed comment being uttered. And while I've been, in the main, relatively successful on being a good Marriage Guidance Councillor, having steered many couples through some hard times, this was proving to be somewhat of an uphill struggle.

In an effort to move things on, I turned to the man. "I understand your line of work results in a lot of travelling for you."

"Doesn't it just," the woman muttered. I let the comment pass.

"I do travel quite a bit," he admitted. "My work takes me to quite a few out-of-the-way places."

"And you're a Doctor, is that right?"

"Not in the medical sense," came the reply, "but I like to think I make things better than they were."

"Oh, play the sympathy card, why don't you," the woman sighed. "I let him out of my sight for one minute, and he went off in that… contraption of his, without even a forwarding address."

He turned to his partner. "That was hardly possible. And if you remember, I did offer to take you with me."

"Ah, yes." I was referring back to notes from a previous session. "Now, I believe that relates to your first meeting. Why don't you tell me about that?"

He looked down at his shoes. "I don't really remember anything about that."

"Well, you were on an operating table at the time," she reminded him. "He'd been shot," she explained. "I was on call at the hospital, so it was down to me to get the bullets out."

"After which, you nearly ended up killing me all by yourself."

She shot him a look of contempt. "That wasn't my fault. I hardly knew you at the time."

"That's true," he noted.

"Anyway." She paused, before continuing, as if daring him to interrupt her. "Anyway, the next time I saw him was in the car park. He said he needed my help, but I didn't recognise him at all."

Her partner chipped in. "It's amazing what a night's rest can do for you. I felt invigorated, but with no real memory of who I was or what had happened to me."

I was curious. This had been glossed over before, and seemed to be a real stumbling block for them both. "Do you mean to say you had blanked out the memory of what had happened to you in the operating theatre?"

They seemed uncomfortable talking about this. "We can explain that later," the man eventually replied. "Anyway, after a few misunderstandings, we properly got together the next evening. And after an eventful night…"

"He left," she finished for him. "I ask him to stay with me, and he turns me down, the nerve of him! He just turned around and walked out of my life for the next few years."

"But I came back," he insisted. "I'm here now, aren't I?"

"Only because it suits you," she snapped, turning to me. "He went away for God knows how long, and then he turns up outside my house, as if nothing had happened."

The man protested. "Nothing did happen – not the way you mean, anyway."

I picked up on this. "You believed he had been unfaithful?"

She let out a short laugh. "He sure had the opportunity."

"And I swear to you," he told her. "Nothing happened."

"And how do I know you won't disappear the minute my back's turned? This isn't the first time, you know," she said to me. "He came back a few months after he left, with some kid in tow. And before I knew it, he left again. With her."

I'm supposed to be a neutral party in these situations, yet I couldn't help but take a dim view of this. "You do seem to be away for extremely long periods," I said to the man. "I can understand why your wife…"

"We're not married," they said in unison.

This was, to say the least, a surprise. Certainly, there had been no indication of this in their previous sessions. I looked from one to the other, stunned. "I beg your pardon? I had assumed you were husband and wife."

The man spoke. "We, ah… have an understanding. That's the phrase, isn't it, Grace?"

"Something like that," she agreed quickly.

Recovering from my momentary confusion, I addressed the couple. "Well, from whatever basis this understanding operates, it doesn't seem to be working, does it?" The two of them were taken aback by my outburst – and I must confess the words were out of my mouth before I could stop myself. After all, one must have a sense of detachment in these matters, but as the session went on this was becoming more difficult to maintain. I found myself breathing rather heavily as I tried to remain objective. "Have either of you ever considered marriage?"

"You mean, to each other?"

"That was the general idea," I suggested.

They both stared at me in shock, turned each other, and then back again. This was clearly something that had not been on the agenda. The young man shook his head. "It wouldn't work."

She seemed to hastily agree on this point. "He's a doctor – well, you knew that. I mean, we're both doctors. And marriage… well, it just wouldn't be practical."

"For either of us," the man added.

This was becoming impossible. I could see no further way forward, despite my best efforts. "Then why are you both here?" I exclaimed.

"Well…" the young man hesitated. "That's a good question. Why are we here, Grace?"

"Well, it was your idea," she replied.

"Was it?" he asked, uncertain.

"Sure. Don't you remember?" She said. "We'd been at the movies for the evening, and when we got back we had this argument, and you said…"

He snapped his fingers, remembering. "That's right. I said that if we'd behaved like that other couple, we'd soon be in need of help ourselves."

The situation was spiralling out of my control. "Excuse me," I persevered. "What other couple?"

"The couple in the film," the man said, as if it was the obvious answer. "What was the name of it, Grace?"

"When Harry Met Sally," she reminded him. "Jeez, your memory…"

"Let me see if I have this correct." I stammered. "For the past two weeks I have been attempting to counsel you both in an effort to get to the root of your problems, only to learn today that they were centred around a film?"

"Problems?" Realisation dawned as the man's face broke into a smile. "Oh, that. No, that was just an experiment."

I was now beside myself. "An experiment?"

"We just wanted to see how it would be if we didn't get along for once." The woman smiled at her partner. "We've never had a cross word, not really."

"Then why…?"

"Well, we felt we couldn't rationalise anything sensibly unless we had a referee of sorts. Like yourself," the young man offered a winning smile. "And you've been a great help to us both. It's been a fascinating piece of research."

"Research? Really?" I felt my voice crack. "In other words, you've been wasting my time for the past two weeks - playacting just for the sake of a foolish test?!"

"Oh, don't worry," the man reassured him. "We'll be sure to give you an honourable mention in the next issue of The Lancet."

"I, um… I don't think that's what he means, Doctor." The woman must have seen the look of distress on my face. "We might just have outstayed our welcome."

"You think so?" He looked from the woman and then to me. "Ah. I think you may be right, Grace. Perhaps we should make our excuses and leave."

"Forget the excuses," she said, pushing him toward the door. "Let's just leave."

I watched them, stony-faced, as the door closed behind the young couple. Only then did I fall back in my chair, passing a shaking hand across my brow. A stupid test, that was all it had been about. And I felt humiliated, made to look a fool. I would probably be the butt of their jokes for some time. Oh, I like a joke as much as the next man, but this had been too much. To have my place of work invaded by two people who were probably laughing even now.

With everything else that had happened recently, this was the last straw.

I looked to the drinks cabinet. I'm not normally one to indulge during the day, but at that moment I didn't really care. Right at that moment I needed a drink. A scotch would do. Neat.

As I raised the glass to his lips, the door to my office opened unexpectedly, and the head of the young man popped through the gap. "Sorry about earlier," he said. "I think we might have overstepped the mark."

Something snapped inside me. The young man ducked as a full glass of scotch slammed against the door, the glass shattering under the impact. I barely took all of this in as I stared numbly at what I had just done. After a moment I was vaguely aware of the young man leading me to the nearest chair, talking in hushed tones as he sat me down. "Grace," he called out. "I think you'd better come in."

I looked up as the young woman entered. The look of concern that they both shared did little to raise my spirits as she loosened my tie and undid my shirt collar. Why should they care about someone like me? "Did we do this to him?" she asked as she took my pulse.

"We might have acted as the trigger, certainly," the man replied. "Perhaps there's some underlying cause." He addressed me directly. "How long have you been like this?"

My head was still spinning. "I've tried, I really have. But it just doesn't seem to be enough. I just can't hold it together anymore."

"He's rambling," I heard the man say. "Grace, you try. You understand humans better than I do." I think I must have misheard that last sentence. Not that it mattered.

The young woman sat opposite me so that we faced each other. She studied my face for a moment before speaking. "Why don't you start at the beginning?" she suggested.

I let the words tumble out. The problems I'd had trying to juggle work and home life, and the resulting troubles in my personal life. I had tried to make things work, and had kept things bottled up inside. I had reasoned that, if I could help other couples, then it should follow that my own should be just as straightforward. Except it hadn't worked out that way.

I'm not sure if I explained all this as clearly then as I've written it now, but some of it must have made a sort of sense to the young couple. "When was the last time you did something unexpected?" the woman asked.

"You mean, apart from throwing that glass?" I found a grim humour there. "Not for a long time. My wife and I have a good relationship. She has her interests, and I have my work."

"But isn't that a contradiction?" the man wondered. "It sounds as though your work has become your whole life, when it should only be a part of it."

The woman seemed to agree with this. "Aren't there any interests that you and your wife could do together?" I had to confess that I had no answer to this.

"This isn't really my field," the man stressed, "but I assume you still love each other?"

"Well, yes," I said. "That goes without saying."

"Ah, but does it? When was the last time you told your wife that you loved her?"

I looked at them both. "Does that matter?"

The woman took my hands in hers. "I think you have some way to go if you have to ask. As the Doctor says, romance isn't really his thing – well, not usually. But he is right. You need to stop letting your work take over your life, and maybe focus on what's really important."

The three of us talked until late into the evening, having cancelled all other appointments for that day. I have to admit that it was the first time I had ever been so open with anyone. Usually it was I who would be addressing other people's relationships. This time I had to look at my own situation, and whether it was worth saving.

During our long conversation, there were issues raised that I hadn't even mentioned to my wife. My dear Eleanor, who must have wondered where I was. Normally I would have been home by this time, but I had much to ponder over. I had allowed myself to become so wrapped up in other people's problems, to the point where they overtook my own. I had let my own life take second place.

By the time the Doctor – he never told me his name – and Grace bade their farewells, I felt a sense of release, as though a heavy burden had been lifted from my shoulders. Through their words of encouragement, they had given me a fresh outlook on life, and the knowledge that it wasn't too late to try again, and learn from the mistakes I had made.

And since that day, more than a year ago, my life has indeed changed for the better. Eleanor and I spend more time together, and we found we did have a mutual interest in history and nature. It took some time for me to get the balance between work and home exactly right, but it has been well worth the effort.

I often wonder about the Doctor and Grace, and how their lives may have changed. Thinking back, I can see that while they were close, they were not a couple – at least, not in the traditional sense of the word. But their bond of friendship was clear, and whatever life has in store for them, I am certain that bond will never be broken.

Extract ends.