The Healing Place Read online

CHAPTER 6

  Franz walked back into his office feeling he was going back into last night’s dream, walking the tightrope over the dark ravine with the unseen person stepping on to it behind him, unbalancing him – only now, as well as Phil and Ella being far away from him on the other side of the ravine, Sharma was walking away from him as well, disappearing down a dark corridor out of reach. Franz felt like running after him, begging him not to leave him.

  He knew what Sharma’s answer would be, because he had already said it: ‘You can only make these decisions in your own name.’ But what decisions?

  Tanya stood up as he came in. ‘I haven’t got very long,’ she said accusingly.

  ‘What can I do for you?’ He forced a smile.

  ‘You can stop undermining me, Franz. You’re letting in all these people with therapies that sound similar - holistic massage, therapeutic touch, that silly foot massage with that dozy girl who’s just come in, and Reiki - and those ways aren’t really holistic, like kinesiology is.’

  'You know the policy, Tanya. We provide seekers with choices. It's not our job to dictate or moralize or tell them one way is better than another. Inclusive, non-judgmental acceptance - yes?’

  Tanya crossed her arms over her chest. Franz felt he was reciting a formula that he had recited too many times.‘So you’ll just let anybody in who says they can do anything?’ she challenged.

  ‘No. They have to be qualified, preferably experienced, in what they do. They must be willing to work alongside others who may not share their own views, and they must disclose their affiliations to other organizations, whether professional bodies, political groups or – God forbid – religious establishments!’

  If he had hoped the final joke might lighten her response, he was only partly successful. She gave a half-smile and uncrossed her arms but said, ‘I think you’re getting it wrong, Franz.’

  He felt that sudden surge of anger again that threatened to overwhelm him. He tightened his smile and said, ‘I respect your opinion. But you read and signed the policy of The Healing Place when you joined us and it hasn’t changed.’

  The phone rang and he picked it up thankfully, turned towards the window and heard Tanya go out of the room.

  ‘I wonder can you help me?’ The voice on the phone was male and unmistakably Irish. ‘I saw an old friend I’d lost touch with come into your building a day or two ago. Name of Michael Finnucane.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Franz. ‘No one of that name works here.’

  ‘Maybe you might know him as Micky Finn? That was his nickname, in the old days.’

  ‘We have thousands of visitors in and out of this building at different times.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Well, I’m sorry for troubling you. I thought it was worth a try.’

  ‘No trouble,’ said Franz.

  He was about to put the phone down when the man added, ‘I suppose I couldn’t ask you to keep an eye out for him?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Franz, ‘though it’s unlikely.’

  ‘Right. But just in case. Him and me were good friends long ago, d’you see? The name’s Patrick Quinn.’

  There was a slight pause.

  Franz said, ‘If you leave me your number, then if I meet the man at any time I’ll ask him to call you.’

  ‘That’s great. I’ve been over from Ireland twelve months and I know quite a few people here now but I’d surely love to see him again. He and I were a team. I was that glad to see him in the distance!’

  ‘Your number is?’

  ‘Oh sorry, you don’t want to listen to me going on. It’s a mobile number. I’m working on site, building bridges. Tell him if he doesn’t get me at once leave a number and I’ll call him. I don’t hear the phone ring when I’m working; it’s too noisy.’

  Franz took down the number. ‘You’re a builder?’ he said.

  ‘A plasterer by trade, but I do all sorts. Labouring is where I could get the work here and the money’s not bad; I can’t complain. Well, I won’t take up your time, so.’

  As Franz replaced the receiver, he was annoyed to find his hand was shaking. He mustn’t lose his nerve, he told himself. To focus his mind, he went on one of his walkabouts of the building to chat to clients and get feedback.

  He spoke to two sisters emerging from an hour in the flotation tank, who enthused about its relaxing qualities. They sounded high, as though they had been smoking dope, and told him they felt refreshed now and ready to go into work at the travel agency down the road. At least they weren’t air traffic controllers, Franz consoled himself. The worst they could do, in their blissed-out state, was book clients on the wrong flights.

  He had been having doubts recently about whether relaxation was universally beneficial. Ella had watched a TV documentary about hospital patients who had been given complementary therapies after major surgery. The patients were unanimous in their praise. They felt wonderful, they said, relaxed and peaceful. But researchers had found their resistance to infection was significantly lower and their rate of post-operative complications higher, compared with patients who had had no therapy.

  Franz had expected Ella to follow her report to him on the programme with reasoned arguments, as an experienced holistic therapist, about why these conclusions were untrustworthy. But she had simply found the programme fascinating and said it raised some questions that needed to be considered.

  He wished, yet again, that Ella had not left The Healing Place. Her commitment to helping people towards better health was uncomplicated. Franz, juggling schedules and trying to balance the needs of seekers with the needs of guides to earn a living and the need of The Healing Place to pay for itself, felt he did not have the luxury of single-mindedness.

  'This place was not founded solely on care for people. Also founded on rebellion.' Why did people - Sharma and Ella - keep talking in riddles? Why did he find it so hard to grasp what they were trying to tell him, when they seemed to think it was simple? They were both concerned for him. He trusted their judgement. Therefore there must be some real cause for concern. But it didn’t make sense to him to accept some practitioners at The Healing Place and turn away others, with no good reason to justify the discrimination. He didn’t understand either Ella or Sharma’s insistence.

  Then there was his dream. And, for what it was worth, Phil’s prayer. But what use were abstract images and words about walking in the dark and tightropes if no one could spell out to him, in specific, practical terms, what it was that he was doing wrong and what he was meant to do to put it right?

  Why didn’t these people lend him their strength and support him in what he was doing rather than unsettle him with these unfathomable comments?

  Alison the receptionist came over and stood beside him as he stood in the main hall. ‘I noticed that crack a few days ago,’ she said.

  ‘Do you think it’s serious?’

  ‘Probably a crack in the plaster, don’t you think?’ she said.

  ‘Apparently not. A plasterer took a look at it and said it was worse than that. He asked if load-bearing walls had been removed.’

  ‘The builders would have put in RSJs if they had,’ said Alison. ‘My dad’s a surveyor. Do you want him to come and take a look?’

  ‘I’ve phoned the original builder,’ said Franz. ‘He should come on Monday or Tuesday.’

  ‘He’ll say it’s nothing, won’t he?’ Alison reasoned. ‘You don’t want to plaster over the cracks, Franz, if there’s something more serious behind it.’

  ‘I hope that’s not what I’m doing,’ he said sombrely. ‘Several people seem to be telling me that I am.’

  ‘In the literal sense?’ she asked. ‘Or something else?’

  She had a nice face, Franz thought. He had hired her for that reason, partly. She was not pretty, nor exactly young, but she was open and friendly and it showed in her eyes: she was ideal as a receptionist for The Healing Place, where people came in troubled, not knowing what they were looking for but hoping there might
be some remedy for their nameless dissatisfaction. Many felt better, before signing up for anything, just for having a chat with Alison.

  ‘I’m wondering,’ he said, ‘about some of the things I’ve been so sure of before.’

  She smiled. ‘Well, that sounds healthy, in itself!’ she said. ‘What kind of things are you wondering about?’

  ‘About our policy of inclusion,’ he said. ‘I’ve founded the place on that principle. I thought I was avoiding being small-minded. Now people I respect are telling me I’m avoiding using discernment.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  She looked surprised that he would ask her, as well she might. Franz realized he had never asked her opinion on anything regarding The Healing Place. So much for my freedom from prejudice, he thought wryly. I’ve seen her as ‘only’ a receptionist when here she is with potentially valuable advice to give, and maybe not only on the state of the ceiling.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I suppose there is a great variety of people who come to work here, for a variety of reasons.’

  ‘Not all of them equally deserving of our respect?’ Franz said.

  ‘I didn’t say that,’ she said quickly.

  ‘Don’t worry about being politically correct,’ he said, smiling. ‘I can handle honest prejudice.’

  She laughed and blushed slightly. ‘Well, some of the … guides, who come and lead courses here, and the therapists who give people sessions of this and that, seem needier than the clients.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Franz. ‘But that’s normal, isn’t it? Wounded healers, and all that?’

  ‘Not when they’re unbalanced,’ said Alison bluntly. ‘Then they just give their problems to everyone else.’

  He considered this. ‘Who would you say was unbalanced here?’

  ‘Oh no!’ she said, holding up her hands and laughing. ‘You’re not pinning that one on me! I’m saying nothing!’

  ‘Ah, I see – you mean me!’ he teased her.

  ‘I didn’t say that!’ She looked horrified.

  ‘Only joking,’ he said reassuringly.

  ‘I’m going to get a cup of tea,’ she said. ‘Shall I get one for you as well?’

  ‘Thanks but no. I’ve got paperwork to catch up on.’

  She went off almost at a run. He stood and watched her. He might take her up on her offer of the surveyor father, if the builder did try to minimize the ceiling problem. He was glad to have had the opportunity for this conversation, if only to get to know her a little better. He wondered if she had known – if all The Healing Place regulars except him had known – about Sharma’s marriage break-up last year, and whether everyone knew Alison better than he did as well. He did not, after all, know very much about anyone he employed.

  That being so, was it one of them setting foot on the tightrope behind him, about to topple him from his precarious position of the-buck-stops-here authority and send him hurtling into depths of darkness, beyond the help of anyone who cared about him? Did he even know which people did care for him and who might do him harm? He didn’t want to start getting paranoid. On the other hand, naivety was a dangerous virtue. He went back to his office, needing to phone Ella.

  When it was Maz who answered the shop phone and told him Ella was taking a break, having been vomiting this morning, he nearly asked what was wrong with her.

  What was wrong with him, that he had forgotten - all morning - that his girlfriend was pregnant and unsure about his reaction? How could his reaction have been to banish it so entirely from his mind?

  He felt that, of the cracks that were indeed opening up in his life, the crack in the ceiling of The Healing Place was the very least he had to worry about.