When Your Eyes Close: A psychological thriller unlike anything you’ve read before!. Tanya Farrelly

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СКАЧАТЬ Nick

      Nick Drake pulled up outside the house named The Arches and cut the engine. He was twenty minutes early and there was another car, a dark grey saloon, parked in front of his. He looked at the long white bungalow illuminated by the half dozen lamps that lined the winding drive, and wondered if it were, after all, a good idea to have come.

      Shivering, Nick reached into the pocket of his leather jacket and his fingers closed round the pack of cigarettes that he kept there for emergencies. He noted that there were only two left. With trembling fingers, he placed one between his lips and held the lighter to the tip until it burned crimson. He lowered the window and inhaled deeply until the smoke filled his craving lungs, and he felt the rain blow in on the damp night air.

      On the passenger seat his mobile phone began to ring. He looked at the screen and saw Michelle’s name flash up again. Rain drummed on the windscreen and the phone rang out, and then blipped to inform him that she’d left yet another voice message. It was her fifth call in three days. He knew that he should call her back, but he didn’t feel like talking to anyone. Talking meant making things real. And he wasn’t ready for that.

      A few minutes passed before the bungalow door opened and a security light clicked on. A figure stepped into the rain, pausing to pull up the hood of an anorak before hurriedly descending the driveway. With head down, the woman made a dash for the grey saloon car. The heels of her boots clicked on the tarmac, and the indicator lights flashed amber as she hurriedly unlocked the car and slipped inside.

      Illuminated briefly by the interior light, Nick saw the woman pull the hood of her anorak down and run a hand through unruly dark hair. The engine started, and the grey saloon turned and reversed into the driveway, the headlights momentarily blinding Nick as the car turned and disappeared down the lane by which he’d come.

      For a few minutes he sat and stared out the windscreen. He drew on his cigarette until there was nothing more between his fingers and the tip, and then he stubbed it in the ashtray, closed the window and stepped out into the rain.

      The girl who opened the door was no more than seven years old. She looked at him with big brown eyes. Then a man’s voice came from a room within. ‘Kirsty, I told you not to answer the door.’ The owner of the voice appeared from what Nick imagined was the kitchen. ‘Go on in like a good girl.’ The man put an arm round the little girl’s shoulder to draw her inside. ‘Sorry about that,’ he said.

      Nick shrugged. ‘The name’s Nick Drake. I’ve an appointment for nine o’clock.’

      ‘Sure, come on in.’ The man stepped back and ushered Nick inside. The child stood behind the man and stared at Nick. He smiled at her, but she didn’t smile back.

      ‘Take a seat in here. Tessa will be with you soon.’

      Nick was shown into a room not dissimilar to the waiting room in the doctor’s surgery. A television played in the corner, the volume muted. He sat in a hard chair by the door and waited. The sound of children’s voices came from somewhere within the house.

      ‘Boys, quit messing around down there. Get to bed.’

      There was laughter, followed by the sound of running feet and then silence. Nick stared at the television.

      ‘Nick?’

      He turned to see a blonde woman in her fifties standing in the doorway.

      ‘I’m Tessa. Do you want to come this way?’

      Nick stood and felt the pain in his abdomen as he did so. Tessa put out a hand to shake his, and he followed her across the hallway and into a small, darkened room.

      ‘Please, take a seat,’ Tessa told him. Nick sat, and she sat opposite him and picked up a pen. She reached towards a small device on her desk and pressed a button. ‘I generally record the sessions, Nick, and send you the file. It can help to do self-hypnosis between sessions. You don’t have any objections?’

      ‘No, no, that’s okay.’ Nick waited, putting his hands between his knees to hide the tremor that had crept into them. He longed desperately for the last cigarette in the pack inside his jacket, knew that that would be the final one. Another bad habit curbed. Outside, the rain continued to thunder down, beating against the window.

      ‘How long have you had a problem with alcohol, Nick?’

      ‘I don’t know. I didn’t see it as a problem.’

      ‘But now you do?’

      He nodded. ‘The doctors say if I don’t stop drinking I could be dead in a year, eighteen months at the most. And I can’t get on the transplant list unless I’m six months clean.’

      Tessa scribbled something on her notepad. ‘Have you ever tried to give up before?’

      ‘Yeah, but it didn’t take.’ Nick thought of the AA meetings his ex-wife, Susan, had made him go to – the room of men, most of whom were there only because their wives had insisted. He’d lasted about three months, and then he’d finished up in a bar across from the meeting hall with two of the other recruits drinking whiskey until closing. And he’d thought it was all such a laugh – until Susan had left.

      ‘Any ideas why you drink, Nick?’ Tessa’s eyes flitted from the page to rest on him, and he fidgeted in his seat.

      ‘Does there have to be a reason?’ He knew that he sounded defensive, but he hadn’t come here for counselling. He simply wanted help to detox.

      ‘There usually is. There are various reasons, of course; it can come from pressure at work, or at home … It starts as a means to relax, or to escape … then over time it becomes the problem itself …’

      He didn’t answer right away; he tried to think back to when his drinking had got heavier. He’d always had a taste for it – had started when he was about sixteen. And as for escape, he’d felt like that for a long time too. He just wasn’t sure what it was he was trying to escape from. When things had got bad with Susan … then he had a reason. He guessed that that was when he’d really hit it hard.

      ‘I’m divorced. We fought a lot; I suppose it started then … or at least made it worse.’

      Tessa nodded. She didn’t say anything, didn’t judge him, and he imagined he wasn’t the first messed-up alcoholic divorcee she’d dealt with.

      ‘Have you ever been hypnotized before?’

      Her voice brought him back from his thoughts, back to the dim room and the sound of the rain outside.

      ‘No, never.’

      ‘Okay.’ She put down her pen and smiled. ‘If you’re ready, let’s get started.’

      They both stood, and Nick moved towards the chair she gestured to.

      ‘Hypnosis is nothing more than a deepened state of relaxation, Nick. I’m going to ask you to simply lie back, close your eyes and relax. You’ll be aware of everything that’s going on around you.’

      Nick lay back in the reclining leather chair and closed his eyes. Tessa placed a thin blanket over him. He didn’t feel relaxed. His body was tense, and he was aware as he lay still of the rapid beating of his СКАЧАТЬ