From How the Light Gets In, M.J. Hyland:

Rennie Parmenter is waiting for me in the counselling room. It's a small room upstairs where the dormitories are. It has no window, a round table in the centre, two chairs, a small heater, and a box of tissues on the floor. Rennie is short, has greasy red hair, and is wearing a loose woollen v-neck jumper without a t-shirt underneath.

When I sit down, Rennie gets up and slams the door shut.

'Oopsie,' he says. 'Sorry. There must be a blizzard outside.'

I wonder if it's still snowing and whether I'll get to go out and walk around in it. I've never walked in snow before. This will be my first white Christmas.

Rennie talks to me for what feels like hours. His vocabulary is pretentious and annoying.

When I say, 'You use a lot of very big words,' he doesn't realise I'm being sarcastic and says, 'Well, you see, I like to think of myself as a member of the wording class. That's my little joke. Perhaps you might see yourself in the same way one day, but you'll need to value yourself a lot more than you do right now.'

'I see,' I say.

He tells me his life story and a heap of information I don't need to know. He tells me that he visits every Tuesday and Thursday, without ever breaking for lunch. This business of not eating lunch might explain his bad breath; the bad breath a person gets from not eating.

'Gosh,' I say.

Rennie is bursting with gormless good intentions, proclaiming - when his life story is done - that it's time for a 'nice two-way chat'.

I am being 'briefed' for my 'new journey' he tells me, as he leans forward.

'So,' he says, 'I wonder to myself...how did pretty young Louise with the big IQ get herself into this mess? How did a capable sixteen-year-old girl manage to turn herself into an alcoholic?'

How could such an idiot be a counsellor? What kind of moron thinks that there's a rational explanation for all human behavior? What kind of fool thinks that perversity can be explained? It's obvious. I felt like garbage for one reason or another and drank to make myself feel better even though it could ruin my chance of escape. What's so hard to understand about that?

I would like to kick him in the shins, but instead I turn what has happened into a story with a tidy beginning and middle and end, throwing in all kinds of motivations for my behavior. He seems happy with this version of events, especially when I talk about my behavior being motivated by a deep need for approval and acceptance.

I tell the story without blaming anybody but myself, except that towards the end I make the mistake of saying that Margaret is a smothering kind of individual and that the house was riddled with rules and that maybe has made some of my behavior worse.

He pounces on this comment as an excuse to launch into what Lishny has warned me is Rennie's famous How many people are at this table? routine.

'Okay, Louise,' he says. 'So you're in a terrible mess. Let's logically analyse the real cause, shall we?'

This is so ludicrous I'm even more amazed that I don't kick him.

'Sure,' I say.

He gets up from his chair and opens the door.

'I can hear Gertie downstairs in the kitchen,' he says, waving in that general direction. 'Is it her fault that you're in this mess?'

'No,' I say, 'It's not her fault.'

He shuts the door and sits down. 'Okay. Well then, is it my fault?' (he puts both hands on his chest, one hand crossed over the other as though he's Jesus Christ lecturing an apostle).

'No, it's not your fault,' I say.

'All right, then. How many other people are sitting at this table, Louise?'

'There's one other person sitting at this table.'

'Correct,' he says, his buttocks flying off the seat with all the excitement. 'And is that person Louise Connor?'

'Yes it is.'

'And is she a person who points the finger at other people for her own faults?'

'No, she isn't.'

He nods his head and swallows something that isn't food. 'Then you are ready to accept that you have nobody to blame but yourself.'

Rennie leans even further across the table. His face is too close to mine; a breathy claustrophobia. I have to move back in my chair to escape him. Oblivious to the effect of his breathing on my face, he remains in this thrusting forward position and wipes the table own with the sleeve of his sloppy jumper.

The impression this gesture creates is that he intends to have me lie down on my back across the table for some dubious, and possibly naked, examination.

'Well, are you ready to accept this? Are you willing to accept this adult responsibility for your own actions?'

'I am,' I say, remembering Lishny's warning that this is the only way to make the interview stop.

Rennie stands up. 'On that basis I think we can make real progress.'

He comes around to my side of the table, and rests his hand on the top of my head like an amateur priest at a dry christening.

'Perhaps you'd like me to leave you alone for a moment to think through what we've talked about, all right?'

'Okay,' I say. 'Thank you very, very much.'

#38 - Compliments, but only the real ones (and I'm good at telling).