Yesterday I was lying, today I’m telling the truth.
– World famous boxing promoter Bob Arum
The doc looked at the clock on the white wall, watching the second hand tick downwards. She was late, more than an hour, and didn’t answer the phone call or respond to the text message. He wasn’t surprised. Figuring she’d be difficult, he scheduled a two hour block for her appointment. Taking his eyes off the clock, he rubbed the empty space on his ring finger and closed his eyes for a moment, more nervous now than he’d been for years. She’d put on quite a show.
As the AFL’s chosen psychologist, the doc had treated many different, difficult personalities with mixed success. Footballers came to him as broken jigsaws and wanted to be put together. The clubs wanted them whole. Andrew Demetriou did too. He’d been generous with his praise. The doc saw through it. Demetriou wanted answers and doubted he’d get them. The doc wasn’t sure.
The single knock was soft. Looking at the door, the doc wondered if he’d actually heard it. He stood, taking two steps to the door, stopping when another soft, single knock sounded out. Touching his empty ring finger, he drew a deep breath and went to the door, opening it.
She stood, slight, slender, feet together, arms by her sides, at attention. ‘Hello Harry,’ she said.
‘Kim,’ the doc said, extending his hand. She hesitated a moment then shot her hand out, letting him engulf it and release after one motion. She drew it back slowly, as if savouring the contact. ‘Come in,’ he said, stepping back, holding onto the door. She smiled, a timid act, and hunched a little as she walked through the doorway. He closed it behind her. Kim smelt like expensive flowers. ‘Sit,’ he said, pointing at the armchair.
She sat carefully, slowly, putting her handbag on her lap, over the short black skirt, her smile gone. She frowned while picking fluff from the black blouse. The doc had noticed the tag sticking out adjacent to her neck when she’d walked through the door. He hated protruding tags. They made a person look ridiculous.
Sitting, he asked how she was.
‘I’m fine,’ she said, the frown increasing, as if she’d be otherwise. ‘How are you?’
It was a challenge he ignored. This interview would be tough. He decided to start tough. ‘What are you here for?’
‘Andrew told me to see you.’
The doc nodded. ‘Did you want to see me?’
‘Why would anyone want to see you,’ she said.
He smiled. He’d expected the Gen-Y aggression, yeah, like, whatever. Demetriou hadn’t needed to warn him. ‘Andrew is a good judge,’ he said.
She shrugged. ‘He keeps saying the AFL is concerned for my welfare.’
Leaning forward, the doc played it tough. ‘Andrew told you to see me,’ he said, tapping himself twice in the chest with his right thumb. ‘How much longer are you going to do what Andrew wants?’
She drew a sharp breath and opened her mouth to speak but shut the words inside. The frown turned into a scowl. ‘I can do what I want, not what anyone says.’ She looked at the floor, then the pattern stockings. Picking invisible fluff from her left leg, she smiled and looked at the doc. ‘Did you want to see me?’ she asked. ‘How much longer are you going to do what Andrew wants?’ She laughed and crossed her legs.
The doc paused, a professional pause, he called it. He sat back and laughed at her. ‘Andrew wants you to stop lying. I agreed to see you because Andrew thinks you need help. You’re here because you think you need help.’
‘I’m here because he told me it would be free. I’ve never seen a psychiatrist before so I wanted to see what happened.’
‘You’re about to be examined,’ the doc said. ‘Mentally. Some people find that tough.’
She shrugged. ‘It’s been easy so far.’
‘We’ve only just begun.’
Kim shrugged again.
‘Why were you late?’
She looked at her watch then looked up and smirked. ‘I had to do a thing,’ she said. ‘So I couldn’t get here on time.’
The doc smiled. ‘You had to do a thing? What the hell does that mean?’
Shrugging, Kim opened the handbag and took out her phone, glanced at it and put it away. ‘I was busy with something.’
‘My receptionist called you.’
Withdrawing the phone again, pressing buttons, she held it up. ‘I heard the call but I was busy.’
‘Turn that thing off and put it away,’ the doc said. ‘You can waste your own time, not mine.’
She made an angry pout and put the phone away, zipping the bag shut slowly. The pout was replaced with an insolent stare.
‘Now I have your complete attention I’m going to give do something I don’t normally do,’ the doc said. ‘I’m going to work in reverse. Normally I start at the beginning, but I can see you’re impatient so what I’m going to do is start here and work backwards to last year.’ He looked at her. She had his eyes locked. He stood up, went to the fridge and poured a glass of water, offering her one and pouring another at her nod. He put one glass on the coffee table in front of her and sat down with his.
‘I think you’re in trouble,’ he said.
She picked up the glass and sipped then put it down.
‘I think you’re acting like a skank with bad hair who has trouble with attention to detail. You’ve got a protruding tag at the back of your neck.’
Her right hand found the tag and tucked it away. The doc couldn’t tell if her face flushed because of the makeup. Her eyes hardened and she clenched her teeth.
‘You were hopeless on TV the other night,’ the doc said. ‘I was embarrassed for you. It was hard to watch. You were in a position to help yourself and you blew it.’
‘I said it was hard,’ she said, the words loud.
‘Life can be as hard as you make it,’ the doc said. ‘People want you to stop lying, Kim, and you can’t do it.’ He sipped water and put the glass on the coffee table. ‘You’re the kind of women writers have built detective novels on for a hundred years, the crafty femme fatale who doesn’t have any shred of accountability or responsibility. Everything you do is centred on self, what you can derive for you at the expense of everyone you encounter.’
Kim couldn’t speak.
‘You come across as trash,’ the doc said. ‘And you’re making a living from it, but you’re thinking it’s going to last forever. You don’t realise it’ll last as long as you can handle embarrassing yourself in public, as long as you can deal with the shame.’
‘Don’t talk to me like that,’ she yelled. ‘You don’t know me.’
‘I’ve seen you on TV,’ the doc said, waving his right hand dismissively. ‘I know you’re an opportunistic liar and you revel in the public spotlight. The media love people like you, because you sell newspapers and generate hits on websites. You’re too stupid to understand the media is using you and as soon as they’re done, Andrew is going to drop all the comfort and the soothing words and you’re going to have to realise that adults need to be accountable.’
Kim pushed strands of long, black hair from her face. ‘I’m hardly an adult,’ she said, voice composed. She clasped her hands together on top of the bag.
‘You’re hardly a child,’ the doc said. He’d noticed her hands shaking as she moved her hair. ‘And you’re not emotionally mature.’
She met his stare easily. ‘Let me tell you what I think,’ she said. ‘You’re a middle-aged bitter man who thinks he can tell me what I’m feeling. You keep touching your ring finger, so I think you’re recently divorced or separated and that’s made you angry at women.’
The doc forced a smile and held up his hand, palm out. ‘Take a close look at the ring finger,’ he said. She leaned in and looked. ‘See the scar?’ Kim sat back. ‘My wedding ring got caught on a ladder when I was stepping down. I had four stitches in that cut.’ He put his hand away. ‘I told my wife, that’s it. I’m not wearing it anymore.’
Kim shrugged. ‘Whatever, I don’t care.’
‘I don’t think you do either, but you should.’ The doc looked at the scar. ‘Though there are many things you should care about, you should care about yourself first and foremost. You should think about what you’re doing with your life and the impact you’re having on other people.’
‘I got used,’ she said. ‘And I didn’t like it.’
The doc waved his right hand, a dismissive gesture and shook his head. ‘Amazing how you think you’re the only girl alive who had a fling with a footballer and got punted. You can’t be that naive. Don’t you know footballers do that all the time? Don’t you know men and women have been screwing each other for centuries and breaking up? It’s called pump and dump. How can you possibly think you were any different?’
‘They shouldn’t have treated me like that.’ She closed her eyes for a moment then snapped them open. ‘It made me angry.’
‘Kim, I understand anger, I see it every day and analyse it. When you first emerged I thought what you were doing was technically brilliant but manifestly flawed, on a moralistic level. Ever since your affair you have lied repeatedly without fear of consequences. It has been a complete loss of dignity.’
‘I hate what happened to me,’ she said, dropping her eyes to bag, fingering the zip tag, flicking it back and forth.
‘You lied about being pregnant,’ the doc said. ‘That doesn’t make you unique. Women have done that forever, often because they feel their relationship is in trouble. Women have been known to get pregnant in hope they will keep their men.’
‘It’s men that get women pregnant,’ Kim said, eyes on her bag. ‘Yet men always blame the woman.’
The doc forced a smile. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘A condom conquers all, but it is shared responsibility. If I was a woman there wouldn’t be one bullshit excuse for me not to be on the pill.’
‘I’m on it,’ she said. ‘Not that it’s any of your business.’
‘You lied about being pregnant, Kim. With all the advances in modern medicine and technology, how could you think you’d get away with it?’
‘I thought I was pregnant.’
‘Next time you think you’re pregnant, get a home pregnancy test and use it before you go to the media or to the AFL.’
Kim looked up and said nothing.
‘You stole nude photographs from Sam Gilbert’s computer and published them without consent. That’s two kinds of offences. And you justified it by claiming the fight for women’s rights.’
‘I didn’t like how I’d been treated,’ she said, palms out. ‘I’ve already told you that. I don’t think women should have to put up with it.’
‘Men shouldn’t either, yet people of both genders are routinely used for sex without any emotion involved. Heartache isn’t gender based.’
‘It happens to women more.’
The doc sighed. ‘So you helped ruin Ricky Nixon’s career by telling the world you had sex and took drugs with him in a room paid for by the Herald/Sun newspaper. No matter what illicit behaviour he was involved in, you set him up.’
‘He got what was coming to him,’ Kim said. ‘You don’t know what he is like.’
‘He knows what you’re like,’ the doc said. ‘And you’ve admitted he was trying to help you.’
Kim shook her head. ‘You don’t know what he was like. You can’t know what any of it was like.’
‘Now you’ve said you were lying.’
She shrugged.
‘There is a famous boxing promoter named Bob Arum. He’s promoted some of boxing’s biggest stars, including Muhammad Ali and Oscar De La Hoya.’
She made no sign of recognition.
The doc pressed on. ‘Bob Arum, as boxing promoters can be, isn’t always on the level. Once, he famously said, I was lying yesterday, today I’m telling the truth.’
She stared blankly.
‘You’re still living in yesterday,’ the doc said. ‘We’re all waiting for today, when you start telling the truth.’
‘I’ve already told the truth,’ she said.
‘Which lie was that,’ the doc asked?
She flicked the zip tag back and forth, taking a deep breath and fixing him with a defiant stare. ‘Always keep them guessing,’ she said.
The doc shrugged. ‘In the past year you’ve lied, committed theft, breached trust and privacy laws, taken hidden video, helped destroy a man’s career and brought the AFL industry bad publicity. St Kilda almost won a grand final last year and they’re hopeless this season. What you’ve done has been cold, calculated revenge, just because someone you had sex with didn’t want to see you anymore.’
‘He made me get with his mates,’ Kim said, her voice wavering for the first time during the session.
‘Kim, I know you’re young, but people often engage in behaviour that involves more than one lover. I’m not saying what they did was right, but my father always told me to think before acting. Don’t put yourself in a situation you can’t control, he would say. Before I do anything, I think about those words. Those words helped me be responsible when I was young and they’ve helped me be accountable for my actions as an adult.’
Kim licked her lips, sighing.
‘Get up,’ the doc said. ‘Come over here.’ He stood up and walked to the mirror, beckoning for her. Reluctantly, she got up and slowly walked to the wall, stopping beside him. ‘Take a look,’ he said. ‘You’re wearing a Gucci watch, carrying a Prada bag and wearing Chanel No.5. Your hair is dyed, you’re slim and beautiful.’
Kim looked at her reflection.
‘You got all that stuff for free, right?’
She looked up at him, nodding deliberately.
‘Because you’ve been on TV, right?’
She shifted her gaze back to the mirror, gently pushing hair away from her face.
‘That reflection is a product of your manufactured life. Enjoy it while it lasts, because you’re expendable. These companies are going to stop giving this shit away when you’re no longer interesting. Most people want you to go away. They’ve had enough of your lies and the headlines you create. No one trusts what you say. Women, the people you claim to represent, don’t understand why you keep lying. Men think you’re a stupid bitch. The general consensus is you have limited intelligence and are willing to do anything to remain in the spotlight.’
Kim stared at the mirror.
‘You must understand how the media operates. They use people to make money. They love train wrecks, but even a wreck has a use-by date, which is about where you’re at. In a few months no one will care what you’re doing, and this lust you have for infamy will lead to a risqué series of photos in a men’s magazine and a Woman’s Day special about a new lover.’
Slowly she moved her head from the mirror to the doc. Her eyes were steady, no hint of tears, no indication of emotion.
‘Turn your eyes back to the mirror,’ the doc said. ‘You obviously like the reflection.’
She pushed her hair back.
‘You can have all you’re seeing,’ he said. ‘You just need to earn it. What happened to you was terrible. And I understand why you wanted revenge. Never a lie does a broken heart hear. But you’ve got to stop. Get a little Kim time, figure out what you want to do with your life when this all ends and you’re just a memory.’
Kim lifted the bag, slipped the handles on her left shoulder. She looked at him. ‘Yesterday I was lying,’ she said. ‘Today I’m telling the truth.’
The doc touched his temple. ‘Exactly. You can be Kim Duthie without the AFL’s involvement.’
Her eyes went to the reflection. ‘Today I’m telling the truth,’ she said. She turned to face him. ‘Thanks Harry. I know exactly what I’m going to do.’
‘Good,’ he said, watching as she went to his door. She opened it and stopped, turned around and smiled.
‘It was fun,’ she said.
Hours later, when the doc was nursing a beer and watching Collingwood hammer Melbourne, his mobile rang, Andrew Demetriou. He answered. ‘Hi Andrew.’
‘We’ve got a problem,’ Demetriou said.
‘How’s that?’ the doc asked as Travis Cloke kicked a goal for Collingwood.
‘Kim’s gone to the media. She told them about your session. She said you called her a skank with bad hair. She said you called her a crafty femme fatale who doesn’t have any shred of accountability or responsibility. She said you made her cry.’
‘She’s a liar,’ the doc said. ‘She didn’t cry. I recorded the whole thing. Do you want me to give the tape to the media?’
Demetriou gasped.
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