Spider - Michael Morley [21]
She answered quickly, ‘There is a path, it’s a public walkway, but I’m not following it, I’m wandering away. I’m drawn to something, I think I hear a waterfall, but I can’t see it. Yes, I can hear running water. As I’m searching, I see red-spotted mushrooms near some small logs that have been cut up; they’re those fairy-tale mushrooms.’
‘Forget the mushrooms, they’re probably poisonous or at least hallucinogenic. Let’s move on. Imagine something spooks you. You look around and there’s an animal there, just a few paces away from you. What is it?’
‘Orso!’ she said quickly, then screwed up her eyes and struggled to find the right English word.’
‘Orso grizzly, not orsacchiotto, not a teddy bear. It’s a big slow black bear, its arms are open wide and it has a shiny snout and bright white teeth.’
‘What do you do?’ After his ordeal at the psychiatrist’s earlier that day Jack found himself comforted by being back in control and on the right side of a Q and A session.
Orsetta licked her lips and concentrated. ‘I move slowly. Very slowly. My eyes never leave the bear. If it takes a step nearer, then I’m going to pick up one of those small logs near the mushrooms and smash its leg, or maybe its face. Then I will run.’ The thought of violence made her open her eyes. She blinked as she adjusted to the ugly lighting in the bedroom.
Jack started to regret what he was doing. He was only a fraction of the way through a mental scenario that had already told him more than he now felt he had a right to know.
‘So?’ said Orsetta, sensing his discomfort. ‘What has the great Perceiver learned from his strange questions about woods and animals?’
If the wine hadn’t clouded his judgement, he would have made small talk while they waited for their steak, but now hewas too relaxed tocensor himself. He went with the flow. ‘You’re an optimist and a romantic,’ he said. It was a statement of fact, not a compliment.
She tilted her head quizzically in an attractive way. ‘Why? How do you come to that conclusion?’
‘Your trees were green – evergreen – you saw sunlight. If you’d described the forest as black and wintry, then it would have been more indicative of pessimism. Colours are often keys to our moods. And never forget, Mother Nature is a great undercover spy. Deploy her like I just did, send her on a mission deep into another person’s imaginings and fantasies, and she will always return with their secrets.’
‘Go on,’ urged Orsetta, finding herself surprisingly excited by the revelations. It was almost as though he was a voyeur in her imagination, a secret traveller in her private inner world.
‘You’re very sensual,’ Jack said, carefully and almost clinically. ‘I suspect you’re also intensely passionate –’
Orsetta reddened a little. ‘Scusi?’
‘I’m only telling you what I deduced from the descriptions you gave, the language you used.’
Orsetta still looked puzzled.
‘Let me explain. I asked you what season it was, and you didn’t just say “summer”, you also told me what you saw, how you felt and what you heard. You described the effect on almost all of your senses. You mentioned how you could smell – the pines in the forest – what you could hear – the birds and the animals – and how you felt about the place – that it was lovely.’
He saw so much and yet I told him so little, Orsetta thought as he topped their glasses up. It felt as though with one flash of his profiling skills he’d x-rayed her entire personality. ‘What did the water mean? I heard water but couldn’t see it, what did that mean?’
Jack cleared his throat. ‘Okay. The water you mentioned – well, water often represents our interest in sex. At the moment I don’t think you’re in a relationship as the water you talked of was out of sight. But you’re seeking it, and it was loud enough to be heard even though you couldn’t see it – that’s indicative of the need for powerful, intense sexual closeness.’
Orsetta swallowed hard. She wished she hadn’t asked. Her mind was picturing waterfalls and the pair of them having sex in the water. She