Tue 28 September 2004 

Went to Burford today to see Deborah Dobson.  She is a solicitor who was recommended by a friend of Roger's.  She was very informal and I was very open.  Although it all seemed fine at the time I do find myself somehow worried this evening.  I think it is because I am afraid of the implications of what Marion says to me and somehow I fall into the trap of even appearing guilty.  I am guilty, but not of what Marion implies or even accuses me of.  What I am guilty of is thinking I could help Marion by responding to her manipulative distress.  I say this quite categorically because some years ago I would have doubted it myself, but having seen her do it to Helen it becomes clear to me that this is exactly what she does.  I suppose I can't distinguish in my mind the difference - stop - rewind - No it's not in my mind - I can tell the difference between the error of her doing it and the guilt of doing it deliberately.  The significant issue for me is that I feel/think that she thinks that I think she's "guilty" in some moral condemning way, and for my own issues I respond to her misunderstanding as if it is up to me to clarify it for her.  It's like I want to help her feel alright about herself but I simply can't do that and I think it is my problem that I try.  This leaves me addressing the issue but trying to "understand" her but not in my terms but in hers.  It's that same old chestnut.  Seeing the world from her perspective instead of mine.  Back to the point - So what I do is think of the worst things that Marion suggests she thinks about me and try to work out what is not so wrong about them.  What is sad about that is that I "see" it from Marion's perspective - or at least her proposed perspective which I suspect is prejudicial from her own unresolved past.  I think part of what has upset or unnerved me is that two solicitors have written to me after the first interview saying that they can't represent me.  The first said that they didn't have the resources to back the case if it got complicated and the second (today) was from Darwin (Winston Venables-Harcourt) saying that there was a conflict of interest.  I phoned them to ask what that meant but they wouldn't answer the question.  Then, reasonably I am wondering what is going on.  I wonder if I am saying something, or giving out signals, which people just don't want to pick up.  However - it is possible that the first is simply accurate and the second has some other explanation.  On thinking about it I wonder if Marion has gone to them from Blackadders (unlikely) or if perhaps Patrick used them when Marion and he were splitting up. 

And then there was something that happened tonight that wants recording.  Helen wanted a pencil and her ruler.  I went into the kitchen to get a pencil from the pen holder by the phone and Marion, who was on the phone, immediately closed her diary which she was evidently using in the conversation.  She was bothered by my looking for a pencil when I might be trying to read her diary.  She interrupted her conversation to say, pointedly, "What do you want?" I explained and she said "There's one over there." Pointing to a pencil on the table.  I collected it and went to the sitting room and gave it and the ruler to Helen.  She asked what that was about.  She was referring to the communication in the kitchen.  I said I didn't know but I thought Marion was bothered by my interrupting her phone call.  Later Helen went to the loo.  Marion seemed to take this opportunity to go into the toilet to speak with Helen.  I suspected that it was because she heard me say what I said to Helen.  Helen came out of the loo and so did Marion.  When Marion was out of ear shot Helen said to me that Mummy was being unkind about me.  She said "First she came into the shower room and invaded my privacy and then she said that there was no need for you to hover around her when she was making a telephone call." "Hmm." I said "I think she was worried that I might be looking at her diary or something." That was the end of that. 

Now something else has just popped into my mind.  Some time after this Marion was complaining about the incident and I said that it sounded as if she imagined I was trying to read her diary.  "Like you imagined I was in your office going through your papers the other day?" "What?" I said.  She reminded me of a few days ago when I had found some documents on my desk that I didn't recall leaving there and I had asked her if she put them there.  She had said that she had not been in my office and I had left it at that.  But it came to her mind this evening in response to the diary incident.  Just now my thoughts are that Marion does take opportunities to pry (I know because she has rummaged through other people's papers on their desks in their offices with me there.  I have told her that I don't think it is right to do it and asked her not to but she seems proud of herself.) and that is what she is afraid that I might be doing.  But it reminds her, defensively, of a question I put to her the other day which could just as easily have been about her placing some documents legitimately on my desk.  So I then get suspicious that she was actually in my office prying.  She's one creepy woman. 

Then we have to deal with the mediation tomorrow.