Jeremy sat with his head in his hands, putting it simply, he had been very rude to his friend. His old friend.
“Listen.” He had said. “I’ve got better things to do with my time than e-mail a bunch of maladjusted morons, who find it easier to talk to a screen than a human being.”
He had flapped his hand, saying “just… just close the door behind you.” His friend left the office without speaking.
This was it. This was the breaking point. He had known Tom most of his life, and he didn’t deserve to be treated like that. He needed help.
The surgery could get him in for a late appointment Friday. He took it. He hadn’t seen Doctor Doherty for several years, despite being on his books since he was a kid. It was a pity really. He had always liked him. He enjoyed the old man’s friendly and steady paternalism, his deep-seated kindliness.
He was politely asked to sit and state his business.
Jeremy felt a sudden jolt at the idea that he would have to put things into words. He mumbled a little then blurted out “I just want to cry all the time, I… I think I need help.”
“Good. Good” said the old doctor, as he started shuffling paper work, eventually producing a bulging manila envelope. “It’s Mr. Ross, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Ross”
“Just relax for a moment while I…” He trailed off while continuing to examine a number of papers.
From where he sat, Jeremy could see out of the window, across the car park, to a row of large yellow bins. He wondered what was in them. Not just stacks of paper, he thought. No, probably bloodied and bent hypodermic needles, soiled dressings, incontinence pads, the odd scabby… something or other. He shook his head. Bins nowadays put him in mind of his own inevitable decay; his inexorable slide into old age and senility. God! He needed help.
“Let’s have a look at you then, shall we?”
The doctor looked Jeremy up and down as if he could divine the root of his problems by a cursory appraisal of his general state of being.
“Just slip off your jacket.”
As Jeremy slid out of his jacket, Doctor Doherty watched him closely, his brows knitted slightly, his head a little set to one side. Jeremy waited as Doherty continued to stare.
“You’re thirty…six?” Doherty stood by Jeremy’s envelope on the desk and read long-sightedly from it.
“Yes.”
“Do you drink?”
“Of course.”
“How much do you drink?”
“Oh… two or three beers, twice a week maybe.”
“Smoke?”
“No, I’ve given up.”
Doherty smiled wearily. “Drugs?”
“A bit.”
“Cannabis, heroin… cocaine?”
“Cannabis.”
”Roll up your sleeve.”
Jeremy revealed his forearm. Doherty leaned forward and slipped a black cuff up his arm.
“How long have you felt this…depression?” Doherty inflated the sleeve and watched the pressure gauge.
“I don’t think it is depression.”
“No?”
Air hissed from the machine.
“That seems fine. You say you’re not depressed?”
“No. It’s sadness. I know there’s a distinction; probably sounds a bit…”
“Undo your shirt.”
Jeremy obliged. “… a bit unusual. But I think it’s more of a general world-weariness than depression.”
“I see.”
“Yes, it’s…”
“Quiet please.” Doherty listened to Jeremy’s heart. “Thank you.”
“More a sort of existential…”
“Yes, well I can hardly treat you for…”
“Oh! No, of course not. I wouldn’t expect you to.”
Jeremy rested his elbow on the desk and leaned his chin on his hand. “Listen, can I tell you about a dream I had last night?”
“Please do.” Doherty sat back and began tapping his fingertips together.
“It was, I don’t know, evening I suppose. And I was walking along the top of a sea wall, on my own. It was very narrow and I was having a job keeping my balance. Anyway, suddenly I was confronted by a tower; well, more like a mountain really. It seemed to be made of paper; well not paper as in paper Mache, but stacks of paper.”
Jeremy sighed. “It was huge, like a mountain. I knew what it was because I had seen it before. No, not seen it; dreamt it. The truth is I’ve been having this dream a lot lately …always the same. As I get closer to it, it starts to move, just trembling at first, as if some awesome power was waking it in some way.”
Jeremy’s glazed eyes refocused across the desk. Doherty was nodding softly. He waved for him to go on.
“Well, the next thing is it teeters and comes crashing down on me… and I pass out.”
“Yes.” Doherty said, slipping Jeremy’s envelope back into his pile. “So, sadness you say; strange dreams and a propensity towards tears?”
“Are you married? Remind me.”
“Christ, no. I mean I was. But I’m not now.”
“Separated?”
“Divorced.”
“And your job. You’re working are you?”
“Yes.”
“That’s right. I remember. Some sort of Office Manager, am I right?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, well that may explain it then.”
“Might it?”
Doherty leaned forward. “Have any trouble with emails do you?”
Jeremy’s eyes started to fill with tears. “Oh! God! Yes… emails…” he whispered.
Doherty smiled. “It’s all about change, do you see. It’s about the invisible revolution… the arrival of the market economy. It’s no different I imagine, from what’s happened to those of us working in the Health Industry. Free-floating anxiety, that sort of thing, is it?”
“Absolutely, but I never imagined that natural progress could have anything to do with it. I mean you get used to change, don’t you?”
Doherty chuckled. He glanced at the clock and opened a large desk diary and rocked backwards and forwards until he fixed the focal length of his eyesight on the page.
“I’d like to see you again Jeremy, now we seem to have hit on the nub of it. Just to see how you are getting on. I’m afraid we have something of a waiting list. You’re not intending suicide are you?” He didn’t look up.
“Not immediately, no.” Jeremy grinned.
The doctor sat back and smiled. “This is not uncommon you know. Sadness is not necessarily a bad thing to feel. Believe me. Sadness, if you identify it correctly, is not going to do you any harm. It may even help, if you can identify just what it is that makes you sad. Sounds rather simple doesn’t it? But it really is as simple as that.”
“Emails”, Jeremy muttered again, and started crying. “That’s it! Bloody emails.”
He sat sobbing for a minute or so, then finally looked up at the old doctor with an expression of serine admiration. Jeremy wanted to take him home, put him in an armchair by a raging fire, make him a milky drink and fetch his slippers…