Helena listened without comment. Nancy didn’t feel she came out of the story very well. When she had finished, there was a long silence that she didn’t feel a need to fill. She could hear the traffic outside, someone shouting, the drip of rain from the gutters.
‘I don’t have anything to say about the tragic death of this young woman,’ Helena said finally. ‘We talked about that before. My concern is you: the person who’s sitting in front of me.’
‘What if I’m right?’
‘You may be right, or you may be projecting your anxieties onto someone else. It may be that when you talk about this woman who wasn’t listened to, that you’re really talking about yourself.’
‘That sounds too clever for me.’
‘If there’s something suspicious about this case, that’s what we have police for.’
‘What if they’re not investigating properly?’
‘That’s not your concern. You can’t do anything about that. Your concern is to get better. Nancy, I don’t normally talk like this, but you’ve done a fine, brave job in coming back from what you’ve gone through. What happened to you, all that you lost, would have broken a lot of people. And now you’re putting your life together, isn’t that right?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘I’ve got a warning as well. I don’t know about the woman who died and I’m not sure you know either. I don’t know what you’re actually planning to do. I don’t know what you actually can do. But I can’t help feeling that you’re risking everything you’ve gained.’
‘I’m just asking questions,’ said Nancy.
‘I don’t like saying this, but one of the symptoms of your condition is seeing the world as a hostile place.’
‘Sometimes the world really is a hostile place,’ said Nancy.
‘But then it’s not your job to cure the world. It’s your job to cure yourself. With what you’ve gone through, your mind is like…’ Helena gestured with her hands, searching for the right comparison. ‘It’s like a beautiful, delicate piece of pottery. It got broken, shattered into a thousand pieces, and over the last months you’ve put it back together, piece by piece. But if it shatters again, you might not be able to put it back together so well.’
Felix came home earlier than usual. He was very wet, and he had a sombre expression on his face as he struggled out of his waterproof jacket and hung it carefully on the hook.
‘Why did you give Michelle our key?’ demanded Nancy as he was unlacing his shoes. ‘Why did you tell her to keep an eye on me?’
He straightened up, passing a hand through his damp hair. She saw how tired he looked.
‘Hang on, Nancy, before we get on to that, there’s something we need to talk about.’
‘What do you mean, before?’
‘I heard something today.’
‘What? Are you ill? What’s happened?’
‘No, I’m not ill.’ He laid a light stress on the ‘I’m’ that made Nancy take a small step back.
‘What is it?’
He sat down and she took the chair opposite him.
‘Bridie called me.’
‘Bridie?’
‘She said she’d gone with you to a viewing of a potential restaurant.’
‘That’s right.’
‘I thought we agreed we were going to trust each other.’
For a moment, Nancy thought she was going to shout at Felix. But he was right. Of course she should have told him. She looked him in the eye.
‘I’m very sorry I didn’t tell you,’ she said. ‘It was wrong. I knew it was wrong, and I feel bad about it.’
She waited. The expression on his face didn’t soften.
‘She said something else as well.’
‘About the restaurant?’
‘About you. She thought you might be…’ He hesitated, rubbed his face with his hand.
‘What did she think I might be?’
‘A bit hyper.’
‘I was not hyper.’
‘A bit…’ He searched for the word. ‘Grandiose.’
‘That’s a horrible thing to say.’
‘She’s your friend. She is anxious for you.’
‘I was excited. I thought she’d be glad for me.’ Tears pricked at her eyes and she blinked them away furiously.
‘She apparently warned you that it would be incredibly expensive, but you sailed right over that, as if money didn’t matter.’
‘It wasn’t like that at all.’
‘It’s what she said.’
‘Sam liked it. Sam thought it was a good idea.’
‘Nancy, you’re thinking of charging back into a highly stressful life. You don’t seem to remember that you’ve been ill.’
She stamped her foot, feeling as powerless as a tiny child.
‘I have been. I’m not now. I’m better.’
The more she said it, the more implausible it sounded.
‘There’s another thing.’
‘Yes?’
‘I ran into Seamus.’
‘Arsehole.’
‘He told me something.’
Nancy closed her eyes. Kira’s rubbish. She waited.
‘He was very awkward about it. He said that he hadn’t known whether to speak to me or not.’
‘What?’
‘He said you’d been the one to make a pass at him.’
‘What the fuck?’
‘He said you seemed troubled.’ Felix’s voice was dull and careful; he wasn’t looking at her. ‘He said he felt bad for you.’
‘And you believed him? You believed him rather than me? Come on, Felix, look at me. Look at me! Is that what you’re saying?’
‘I don’t know, Nancy. I just know what he said.’
‘What he said. What Bridie said. What about what I’m saying?’
‘Never mind what you’re saying. What do you think you’re doing? Take a good look at yourself. You told me that being sectioned was like being in hell, remember? Do you want to be in hell again?’ He leaned closer; she could see the tiny flecks of stubble under his skin and his eyes were bloodshot. ‘Do, you Nancy? If it were just one person. But are you saying they’re all wrong and you’re right?’