Mr. Thistle has a blind spot where Nat’s house is concerned. He describes it in his pamphlet with a single word: “monstrosity”. He is not the only one impervious to its charms. I have also discovered that despite its great age, it is not a listed building of any grade whatsoever.

It is one thing for a house to be accidentally built upon a graveyard, but quite another to actually preserve and maintain human remains in the attic. I am not as scared as I was after seeing Nat’s horrible collection. His grim artistic “dabblings” are not so disturbing, after all. I believe this because, in retrospect, it was the first time he had shown genuine interest in anything since I learned of his depression, with its alarming presenting problem, eight weeks ago. “Unwholesome” as his obsessions are, they represent at least a step up from the relentless and singular death wish.

I still haven’t discovered the root of Nat’s depression. I feel that his morbid fascination is only a result of living in that house, but his disturbance goes much deeper. It occurs to me that I’ve been rather like a mother to him: he comes to me almost every day, and I fulfil many of his needs, both real and symbolic. The phrase that he wrote—“I am hidden”—still intrigues me. His behaviour is in many ways that of a baby. I have therefore decided to undertake a course of primal therapy with him. I have used this with a couple of cases over the last few years and it has been most beneficial. I too found it helpful when I undertook a special course during my training as a psychotherapist. I am a little apprehensive in that I’ve never practiced it on someone who is in such a deep state of despair. The only studies of such cases are American (more precisely Californian), where such therapies supersede one another at an alarming rate.

TUES JAN 29

I saw Nat today, our first meeting since he showed me his artworks and assorted bizarre objects. He spoke in great detail of another nightmare, which he called a dream, about a “Deathman” pursuing him in a crumbling sewer. It is easy to suggest that such nightmares are the product of a mind that has dwelt too long on fiendish things. I believe, however, that it is clinical depression that has led him down this path.

Nat confirmed my suspicion that the pattern of his life has more or less returned to its original state, except of course for the overt death wish. The doom-laden feelings have always been with him. He agreed that they are so great a part of his personality that he would feel lost without them. I put to him my analogy of the helpless baby, and a flash of recognition lit up his “old” eyes. Almost eagerly, he agreed to the proposed primal therapy. Had he not once said that he felt “no age at all”? We both concurred that this line of enquiry looked promising. I favour it because it relates much more to bodily memory, ergo it cuts through virtually all of the inhibitions that the patient may harbour in hypnotism, which relies on a conscious effort and a will to “let go”.