‘I do,’ Úrsúla said. ‘But it’s not exactly love. It’s more a kind of excitement that I don’t understand myself. When he looks at me I get the feeling that he feels sorry for me. A bit like the dog.’

The psychologist snapped his notebook shut and placed it on the coffee table between then, laying the pen on top of it. He 193flexed his fingers, leaned forward and rested his elbows on the knees of his threadbare corduroy trousers.

‘This confirms my diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder,’ he said. ‘It’s normal to demonstrate stress responses after a traumatic event, but traumatic stress doesn’t become a mental disorder unless it lasts more than a few weeks. It’s more than a year now since you left aid work, and in that time you’ve moved home and taken on a highly demanding role.’

Úrsúla was about to make the point that in comparison with aid work there was nothing remotely demanding about being a minister, but the psychologist raised a finger like a strict teacher.

‘Increased pressure can set off traumatic stress, and from what you’ve told me, it seems you have followed a pattern of numbing emotions so as to avoid having to deal with them. Then there’s some kind of trigger, and you seek out behaviour that sparks emotion.’

‘Compared to all the work I’ve done before, there’s not much pressure on a minister,’ Úrsúla said.

‘Then maybe the reasons lie elsewhere,’ the psychologist replied, clearly determined to stick to his guns. ‘Stress disorders can manifest themselves in forgetfulness and numbness just as much as in panic attacks and nightmares. People bury deep inside themselves experiences and memories that are too painful to deal with, and doing this deadens their emotions. But the numbness works against them over time because having no feelings leads to depression, and people seek out behaviour that sparks emotion. Generally that tends to be behaviour that to some extent is self-harming, as I believe your unfaithfulness to your husband is.’

Úrsúla said nothing. All this was nothing new, but all the same, it was an indescribable relief to hear someone put into words what she had fought with for so long.

‘Keep away from drugs or alcohol, and from this man you’ve been having an affair with, and I’ll see you next Thursday. Then I’ll go through a method of mental processing and we can assess whether or not it would suit you.’ 194

‘There’s one more part of the back story that I ought to add,’ Úrsúla said as she got to her feet. ‘It’s about my father.’

She was certain that the psychologist would have read about all this in the newspapers, but the expression on his face showed that he knew nothing.

‘What about your father?’ he asked.

‘My father was murdered in a prison cell many years ago, and this whole matter has surfaced again. You can read about it in the papers.’

‘Then that’s the trigger we were talking about,’ the psychologist said, jotting something down in his notebook.