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Ella wasn’t sure how yet another disciple of Sherlock Holmes came to be sitting in her therapy room. She hoped it was chance, that the mish-mash of NHS referrals and consultations had placed him in the hands of a relatively junior government-funded therapist. How much she believed that, she supposed, came down to how much she bought into the Sherlock Holmes mythos. Perhaps some mysterious hand in some mysterious office had signed some document sending an obsessive believer in Sherlock Holmes to the therapist that had been the original refuge of John Watson. But probably not.
If someone had given her this client out of amusement, then it was a weak joke. She could not and would not reveal that she had already spent many hours of her life hearing about the wonders and the nightmare of knowing Sherlock Holmes.
It wasn’t just confidentiality. Ella recognised obsession and the general guidance for dealing with it in a therapeutic session is that, while allowing the client to talk about their passion enough to keep them comfortable, the patient should be weaned off of the topic as soon as possible.
This troubled man’s problem was nothing like John Watson’s. John Watson latched on to Sherlock Holmes in a time of need and after the man died his grief was, in Ella’s opinion, normal and healthy. Perhaps he had doubts about the death, but if he did he recognised them for what they were: wishful thinking, the overpowering desire the brain has to summon the face of a loved one in a crowd or the sound of their footsteps in an empty house.
Anderson’s obsession was textbook and it had very little to do with Sherlock Holmes. The sooner she could help him realise it the better.
“Do you ever listen to Buddy Holly?” she asked, several weeks into their sessions. Anderson has just paused during the retelling of a mysterious criminal event in Botswana, which had so far eaten up thirty-five minutes of their hour.
Anderson frowned. “Sometimes. Why? Is it code for something?”
“No,” Ella said, smiling reassuringly. “I just once knew someone who loved Buddy Holly.”
Anderson frowned. “What’s wrong with that? I personally like Rod Stewart but I’m not in therapy about it.”
Ella smiled to positively reinforce the opening up of the patient and his ability, for the first time, to talk of an interest outside of Sherlock Holmes.
“No. Except she’d been indifferent to Buddy Holly all her life. But one day she was sitting in her living room watching TV after a fight with her husband… and she flicked onto a programme about his music career. She told me afterwards that she instantly fell in love. This man had died before she was even born, but within a short while she was researching him, listening to his music, cutting out pictures of him. She changed her clothes to a style that he would have liked, fantasised about him during sex, and in the end the marriage broke down because her husband thought she was having an affair. When the truth of her obsession came out her husband insisted on her getting help.”
Anderson scowled. “I see where you’re going with this. I can assure you I don’t fantasise about Sherlock Holmes in bed.”
“No. But you do fantasise about him coming back. You see the parallels don’t you? Something was missing in her life, and so she needed something to fill that space. Most people have something like that – a hobby or a passion – but when it’s all they have it’s an obsession and it’s not healthy. Buddy Holly was a symptom of her isolation and loneliness and until that was fixed, she couldn’t move on. Your marriage and your career hit a rough patch shortly before Sherlock Holmes died. Not only that but he died in a way you fee partly responsible for. As long as you are convinced that he’s coming back you don’t have to deal with the guilt, or the emptiness in your life.”
Anderson was staring at the floor as she spoke. When she finished he was silent for a long time. Eventually he cleared his throat.
“You know, Sherlock used to call us all idiots.”
Ella frowned. “Who?”
“Everyone. I used to think he was being over-dramatic, but no. Everyone really is an idiot.” He dropped his head back and scrubbed at his face in frustration. “I’m not crazy. I’ve presented evidence to you repeatedly. If you stop and think about it for even a second it all makes sense and yet no one, not even John Watson, is actually using their brain because it’s easier not to believe in him! Do you think I like being unemployed? Do you think I’m expecting him to come back and clap me on the back and invite me to tea? No! He’ll come back and he’ll still hate me, although as I won’t have a job anymore he won’t ever have to be put off by my face again.”
Ella sensed her advantage. If she could make him see the dissonance in his thinking he’d be able to take the first important step forward.
“Then why?” she asked. “Why not just move on? It’s been two long years. Believing in him isn’t going to help him come back sooner, and even if he does things can’t go back to the way they once were. If all it does is get you funny looks and therapy then why not just let it be?”
Anderson’s looked thoughtful, Ella watched, mentally urging his thought processes onwards. Eventually he seemed to settle on an answer.
“Because I’m not alone.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Because I’m not just one crazy person shouting in the street.” He held up his phone. “I could show you a hundred photos taken in London and sent to me from all over the word. ‘I Believe in Sherlock’, ‘Sherlock Lives’, ‘Richard Brooks Lied’. Stickers in windows, graffiti on walls… there’re a lot of people like me out there.”
“You still need a job,” Ella pointed out. “What about your marriage? Your friends?”
“We don’t just sit and talk conspiracy theories,” Anderson sneered. “We go down the pub. We have a quiz team. We talk. Yeah a lot of it is about him, but not all. And don’t you understand – he’s coming back SOON.”
Ella opened her mouth to reply, but Anderson jumped up.
“Got to go. Time’s up.”