All week I've had folk on their knees.

Break down, exposure, supplication. I've responded with cruelty, indifference, penetration. And in each case I'm certain my response was more beneficent than empathy and insight. (I would like to remind you, dear reader, that while I may be lascivious night and day, in eighteen years of therapeutic work I have never touched a client, neither in lust nor decorum). And so as I took my lunch on a park bench, the squeals of youth in their retarded clothing, the muggy air and the scotch egg I couldn't swallow- the whole day had a general air of flatulence about it - I took to wondering that while I have a certain influence on the lives of a few individuals, I didn't have enough actual power in life. I may exert a not inconsiderable power over life, but not within it. In the working world, I was a vagrant.

I threw the rest of the egg in the bin and, pushing aside a fleeting desire to collect butterflies, returned to my room. Within minutes R. arrived and as she folded her legs away from me I was aware of bringing a certain mischief into the room. The unexplored grief over her dead mother had sat for years, heavy as a bolus in her belly, and while it may have advanced her legal career, it made for little intimacy. Her avoidance took many forms and one of these was to throw questions at me. This time I let them fall, one by one, like little pins at my feet. This went on for twenty minutes but the silence broke her. She howled for her mother, sixteen years dead, she howled like an animal. The grief had yanked itself out. Her back was arched and juddering like god was trampling on her.

It was soon over. She sat there, slumped in the chair. All desire had gone from the room. I momentarily felt like a murderer. She seemed to grow pale and cold. Certainly, it was a death. I let her rest.