This week, The Kilkenny Observer welcomes Keela Ayres with her short story ‘The long haul’. Keela first submitted a series of short stories while a student at The Presentation Secondary School, Kilkenny.
By Keela Ayres
“It’s not a bother to you Sadbh. He’ll open up to you for sure.”
The sun cast its light over the wind chime, showering the office in a rainbow of jewelled fragments. Sadbh was getting yet another pep talk from Mrs Delaney, a well-meaning yet comical character known cruelly as ‘Insanely Delaney’ by the rest of the staff. Her greying hair was stacked in another one of her puzzling buns and she carried a faint whiff of coffee and cigarettes about her.
It was only Sadbh’s first week of volunteering since she finally got her Masters for counselling psychology in Limerick a few months ago. Since she was 15, all she ever wanted to do was to improve the wellbeing of those who needed it. Now just shy of 24, that dream was going to become a reality. Well, it would, if this yapper of a woman would ever leave her office.
“I just don’t know if I’ll be any good at connecting with him,” twittered Sadbh, fiddling with the pendant around her neck. Her outfit was a V-neck turquoise jumper paired with a royal purple maxi skirt. Her ‘battle armour’ as she liked to call it. She liked to convince herself that if she dressed confidently, it would translate into her demeanour. “Oscar is my first ever client. If I can’t help him, then what use will I be as a counsellor to anyone else?”
Mrs Delaney let out a curt snort, her left nostril erupting with a sharp blast of air. “Ah would you stop! You’re too hard on yourself girly, just give yourself a chance with this lad. It’ll take a while for him to feel comfortable anyway.” She rose from the padded chair across from Sadbh, dusting her collection of biscuit crumbs idly off her lap onto the periwinkle carpet. Sadbh bit back a scowl; that’s the third time that she’ll have to hoover up after her. “I’ll be off now; I have Debbie in a few minutes. You’ll be grand! You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t good enough!”
The arrival
Her words hung in the air as she scooted out the faded birch door. Sadbh gave the back of her neck a rub, as if she could feel their weight sink into her. A clock in the shape of a sunflower informed her it was five to two now, only minutes until Oscar’s arrival. She darted around the room to prep it for him, squeezing between the narrow gaps where the desk and the chair were perched. Poky as it was, Sadbh had made her space as inviting as she could. The other staff members delightedly remarked on the quirky details she had introduced, from the hand-knitted throws she spent countless nights on, to the pastel prints a late friend had painted for her that were proudly displayed on the peeling walls. The feel of an office is a reflection of its owner, she wanted it to be the colourful comfort in the vapid seas of beige and browns.
A careful knock accompanied by a blurry shadow that filled the grainy window nearly caused the Kit Kat wrapper to escape her grasp. “Come in!” she choked, crouching and giving it a frenzied toss into the wastebasket. A lanky figure slowly crept up and parked himself in front of her desk, cocking his curly head with a fascinated curiosity. “Are you Miss O’Keeffe?” Sadbh frantically leapt up to address him, only to knock her forehead off the desk’s scuffed edge. “Ow! Yes, that’s me. Although no need to call me that.” She settled herself into her armchair. Oscar mimicking her with a perplexed stare. A grin spread across her lips. “I don’t do formalities, it’s just Sadbh to everyone. Even you Mr Kennedy.” He allowed himself a soft giggle, a warm flush traced across his cheeks. The stiffness was beginning to fade, her first victory.
Curious
From the outside, he seemed like any other 17-year-old. Tall, pale, a crown of dark overgrown ringlets that fell just to his ears and a slight dent in his nose, broken from some sort of regretted gallivanting. His chin and forehead were dotted with acne and his eyes, the most intriguing shade of aqua. Aside from that and his clothes; a pair of black joggers, white platform trainers with mucky laces and a baggy hoodie covered with messily sketched eyes, you would wonder why he was even here at all. What could’ve happened for Oscar to end up here seeing her?
Sadbh cleared her throat and reached for her floral notebook, drawing her pen to the first ivory page. She was no longer slumped in the security of her cushions; she was responsible for this boy’s wellbeing now. “Is there any particular reason as to why you came to see me today?” she paused and waited for his reply, twiddling with her chain once again. Oscar’s brow began to knit in worry, his awkward shuffling answering for him.
The moment the question left her lips, the room was clouded with uncertainty again. His eyes inspected everything in the office but her, as if the intensity of her gaze would consume him from the inside out. Whatever it was that had happened, he wasn’t going to disclose it to her on a whim. Sadbh scribbled a careful note down, knowing she must proceed with caution. She allowed for a pinch of silence to settle between them. She had to let him advance on his own terms.
His sights finally settled on the sunflower clock before he offered a reply. “I’ve been feeling, I don’t know, like depressed? It’s been this way for a while now.” Sadbh adjusted her circular frames with her index finger before jotting down another sentence. “Do you know why you’re feeling this way, Oscar? Is there anything specific that caused this?” He focused in on the watercolour orchid above her cabinet, his right leg bouncing up and down in an erratic motion.
“School mostly. Being at home doesn’t help much either. It’s hard to pick just one thing.” Sadbh nodded, keeping a careful watch on his movements. His tone was low and defeated, almost as if he was convinced that what he said didn’t matter. But every twitch and fleeting focus on a new object told her otherwise. He wanted to be taken seriously, he just didn’t know how. At least he was giving her a sense of how to help him now.
Nightmare
“School was a nightmare when I was there too. All this pressure about exams and colleges! Don’t even remind me about the people in my year. You’ll be in 6th year soon, right?” she added. Oscar kept his head bowed to the carpet now but gave a quick nod. “I’m dreading it. I’ve no clue what I’m even going to do after I’m done secondary. I just want to get out of the house as quick as I can.” Sadbh knew she needed to focus on Oscar’s homelife. “What are things like with your parents? How would you describe them?”
He finally met her eyes for the first time since he walked in. But instead of fear or timidness, a burning rage was now etched across his features.
He let out a snicker cloaked in spite; “It’s their fault I’m even here to begin with. They never listen to anything I say because they’re too busy screaming at me. They don’t even know I’m here; my English teacher was the one who told me about this place.” Oscar folded his arms against his chest, a grimace replaced the polite smile that was now long gone. Sadbh had long forgotten her notebook, sitting with a confession that she was struggling to navigate. The mere mention of his family had cast a scorn over Oscar that she didn’t even think was capable. How could they not even know their son was in counselling?
“I understand that your family must be a sore spot for you Oscar. It seems that there’s some unresolved tension between you all. Does this stem from one parent or both?” Sadbh had to hazard her question without stammering. The gravity of the situation was only really beginning to sink in now. She reached for her notebook again, with Oscar observing the speed at which she wrote her paragraphs. The pen flew with a fluidity of purpose, only barely keeping up with the expanding thoughts that ran through her mind.
“Are you going to tell them I’m here?” he quizzed, still engrossed in the mysteries that lay in Sadbh’s notebook. Oscar now sat completely still and upright, as if frozen in place. She looked up to see him focused on the notebook, his new object of fixation. “What is said in my office, stays in my office. Unless I have reason to believe that you or someone you know is at risk.” He nodded, keeping his sight set on the floral lined cover. He hadn’t broken eye contact since she started writing again.
Without hesitation, Oscar dived across her desk and snatched Sadbh’s notebook from her in a mere matter of seconds. She let out a horrified screech, lunging to grab it back. “You’re not supposed to see that!” All professional courtesy went out the window as she began to tussle with Oscar, who kept an iron-tight grip on the spine of the notebook. The pair fell to the floor as they fought for the ownership, pushing and swiping like siblings in a barbaric scrap.
“What are you writing about me?! Who are you going to tell?” demanded Oscar, pulling at her long ginger plait as he held the notebook over his head out of her reach. Her waves cascaded free from the confines of the hair tie as Sadbh pushed his left arm away from her head and onto the carpet.
Private
“I’m not going to tell anyone, they’re my private notes!” she yelped, leaning over and finally snatching it back from him. Oscar burst open the cover and tore a bundle of pages out, showering the office floor in an explosion of paper scraps. Sadbh pushed him back in an attempt to salvage them only to be met with a panicked slap across the face.
Silence greeted them once again, minutes dragging by like hours. Sadbh sat defeated on the carpet as the paper laced her skirt. She tried choking back the lump rising in her throat but hot tears escaped her eyes, dotting her glasses as Oscar stood over her, his hand convulsing with guilt. “I take notes as a way of keeping track of each patient, I’m not supposed to show them to anyone. I understand you’ve been through a lot but this isn’t going to work unless you trust me.”
Oscar dropped to his knees so he could be at eye level with her, his face tear-streaked and scarlet with shame. He sobbed uncontrollably, hunched over in front of her as she could only watch in petrified shock. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m so sorry Sadbh. I want to trust you; it’s my parents I can’t trust. They’ll only try kick me out again or something worse. I just don’t want to feel like this anymore, I feel like I’d be better off if I wasn’t here.”
As his sobs got louder and higher, Sadbh embraced him and let him release the pent-up frustration he’d been hiding for so long. Every terrible thought, insecurity and memory that plagued him was entrusted to her. Things she wouldn’t wish on anyone. The session ended with him endlessly apologising and thanking her, to which she could only smile and say, “It’s my job, it’s what I’m here for.”
She spent the rest of the afternoon curled up at her scuffed desk, gazing mindlessly at the same print like Oscar had. She was determined to be in it for the long haul, nothing would change that. She just didn’t realise how hard it’d actually be.
“Keela Ayres is a 3rd year student, currently studying Arts & Humanities in Carlow College.
Her latest story involves the topic of mental health, and how one of the hardest things when dealing with it, is to ask for help. Despite being a fabrication of fiction, the issue is all too real.”
