The problem, really, is one of unintended consequences. It arose from a parental wish to relieve their child’s anxiety and extend the happy-ever-after era of childhood.
It was one of those summers when the family holiday consisted of ‘going out for days’ rather than the usual week by the seaside in a b and b. This kind of holiday always turned out to be more expensive and less restful than the b and b option.
Maisie, the four-year old daughter of the family, was an imaginative girl who had fears of ghosts in wardrobes and nightmare creatures under the bed. The current menace was Wee Willie Winkie who, in the nursery rhyme, was said to visit homes to check that children were in bed by 8 o’clock, with unspecified threats if they were not.
Night lights hadn’t worked and nor had rational discussion, so Dad decided to rid the family of this monster. He announced that on one of their day trips to the sea side they would bury Wee Willie Winkie in the sand and be free of him. Masie and Mum left Dad with a spade to do the deed. After this, fear receded (apart from the bob cats lurking outside the window).
As time went by Masie considered the idea of burial as a solution to fears and problems to be sound. She was keen to be involved in the interment of pets and moved on to burying one of her live goldfish which was proving to be tedious and unworthy of the time spent cleaning its bowl.
At school, the investigation of a series of thefts was dealt with by Masie burying the booty in the garden and so removing both evidence and her guilt in the crime. Once she had learned to drive and had inadvertently run over a neighbour’s pet dog, burial was the simplest way of avoiding the scene of reporting the incident and facing the neighbour’s grief.
Burying things wasn’t something that Masie did very often, but she did hold it in reserve as a solution to occasional problems too complicated or boring to deal with more openly. In fact, as well as physically burying problem items, Masie did have a tendency to bury any disputes with people rather than confronting them with a hope of resolving matters.
And so it was that once her relationship with Paul began to falter, and Paul’s coercive behaviour became more overt, Masie dwelt once more on the Wee Willie Winkie option. There were problems of course, not least that Paul was hefty and strong and very much alive.
For the first time, Masie realised the limitations of her father’s solution of burial rather than the more difficult confrontation of problems. If she was going to be happy ever after, or at least happier than she was at the moment, she would need to walk away and recover her equilibrium. At least Paul had given her the legacy of insight.
