Brendan’s lovely face lights up like it’s Christmas morning when I come through the door.
‘How was the deodorant audition?’ I ask, hugging him almost too hard.
My eyes flick around the waiting room as we pull apart. I can’t risk indulging the sense I have of coming home.
‘I think I fell into that dangerous middle ground of looking neither pongy enough nor squeaky-clean enough to convince real men to sign over their armpits.’
‘Honestly – no imagination!’
‘I know.’ He’s inspecting me from beneath those long eyelashes, looking for signs of trauma. There are no bruises, Christopher never laid a finger on me, but I think that Patrick was right when he said that something in my face has shifted with all of this.
‘Do you know when you’re properly coming back?’
I shake my head, not trusting myself to speak, look to Judith’s firmly closed door. I don’t know if I’m coming back at all, but I don’t tell Brendan that, simply accept the cup of hot pink tea he gives me and settle down to wait on the couch, just like a nervous patient anticipating their first session. Gemma didn’t risk it, made sure I was the one doing the waiting. I give the sofa a useless sort of pat: her presence is so strong for me now that I’m sitting here.
Here’s Judith now, clad in a pair of black-leather trousers which she carries off with aplomb, saying a warm goodbye to a couple I don’t recognize. ‘See you next week,’ she says, and I feel a sharp pang beneath my ribcage. I’d be lying if I pretended I wasn’t aching to come back. I’ve spent far too much of my life trying to outsmart disappointment by not admitting to myself I want things. Judith finally turns to me, giving me a cool smile.
‘Come on through, Mia.’
I perch on the sofa, trying not to feel twelve years old. Judith and I look at each other, neither of us speaking.
‘I’m really nervous,’ I say, immediately feeling better for naming it instead of choking on it.
She finally smiles.
‘Don’t be. How are you?’
I look out of the window at that familiar view of the park, not quite trusting myself to speak.
‘Amazing, terrible, happy, sad. If I had to do a psychometric test they’d definitely mark me down as a sociopath.’
Judith’s smile reaches right through her this time.
‘Not if they came to me for a second opinion. You look well, you know.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Love suits you,’ she says drily.
‘Judith, I’m sorry,’ I say, my hands reaching towards her and landing in my lap. ‘I know I let you down. I know I was dishonest and . . . and arrogant, but it wasn’t because I’d lost respect for you. I just couldn’t get off the train.’
And I’m not sure I’d even want to, if I had the last three months to live again, but I don’t say that. She looks at me, reflective, gives a slow nod.
‘When we banish parts of ourselves, they tend to come back to haunt us. I did try to get you to see that.’
‘I know you did.’ I try not to feel ashamed of how stubborn I was, how sure that I knew the way out of the forest. Scrub that – I was pretending they’d paved over the forest and put up a parking lot, to paraphrase Joni.
‘Annie obviously won’t be pursuing a complaint now.’ She looks at me, serious. ‘It sounds like you were incredibly brave.’
‘I still couldn’t save her—’
‘No, you couldn’t.’
Touché. Her smile is kind though.
‘Seeing her dad die like that, on the tarmac . . .’ I feel cold, shuddery, almost as if we’re still in the dark car park. ‘It was just . . . I can’t even describe it.’
Judith covers my hand with hers, warmth flooding through me at her welcome touch.
‘At least she’s not trapped any more. Her life was utterly impossible. You’re a big part of that. I’m still not entirely clear what his plan was?’
‘Patrick reckons he held on to the papers – well, got Gemma to – so he’d have something over Stephen Wright’s lot. He thought getting out of the way until the trial collapsed would be enough, but it was never going to be. I don’t think it was America he was heading for either. No point running to somewhere with an extradition treaty.’
‘Where would he have taken her?’
‘Somewhere she’d never have come back from. Mexico, maybe . . . He was so determined not to leave her that he screwed the whole thing up, left them with no choice but to get some faceless hit man to wipe him out. They didn’t know the police already had their hands on the documents.’
The rest of the family are back home now, the trial pending. Patrick’s promised me he’ll try to avoid calling Gemma as a witness, let the paper trail she gave him stand in for her, and I know he means it. I’ve kept in regular touch with Annie, but I’m in no position to be Gemma’s therapist. I think about her every single day. I’m comforted by the fact that Annie says that, although Gemma is very quiet, she’s talking to her about her feelings in a way she never did before.
‘Like I said, you were incredibly brave.’
‘It was just instinct in the end.’
Judith smiles.
‘I’ve always wanted that for you, Mia. More heart, less head. You could do that for your patients, never for yourself.’
A tear escapes, despite my best efforts.
‘Heart doesn’t seem like such a problem now.’
‘That’s a good thing.’
I told her about Patrick in the email I sent her last week, deeply grateful for the fact he didn’t let me fatally compromise myself that night in my flat, however much it stung my fragile ego. At least I could honestly say the relationship proper started once I was, at least nominally, off the case.
‘I’d know when to keep it in check!’ I say, my voice rising. I sound like Gemma, that wheedling desperation. ‘I wouldn’t go off piste. I promise you I’d treat supervision with the respect it deserves. Anything you want to impose on me . . .’
‘I’m not here to punish you, Mia.’ She steps back into silence, leaving me to chase my own tail for a minute or so. ‘I think you should come back,’ she says, smiling at me. ‘It’s not appropriate for you to go for the ACA board position, but, now I’ve seen you, I feel even more sure I’d like you back here.’
I almost can’t get a breath into my lungs, the relief winding me.
‘That’s OK, I just want to concentrate on patients for a while. And – I don’t want to take too much on.’ God, those words still sound like Russian to an achievement junkie like me. I run them through my head, check I can claim them. Yes, they’re mine to take home.
‘You’ve got a lot to think about, what with everything that’s happened. Have you seen Lorcan again?’
‘Not yet, but I will. My mum’s cooking him dinner to say thank you!’ Judith giggles, her eyes wide.
‘It all sounds rather marvellous!’ she says, rubbing her hands. She pauses, thoughtful. ‘I do think you should take a couple more weeks though. Personal therapy is also going to be very important.’
‘I know.’
‘I think you do.’ We sit there for a few seconds, this silence the healing kind. ‘The thing is, the ghosts can help us once we’ve made friends with them.’
‘Once they’ve stopped howling and pushing us down the stairs, you mean?’
‘Quite.’
‘The bits where we break and heal are where we’re strongest?’
‘That’s exactly what I mean, Mia.’
I pull my knees up so my feet are beneath me on the sofa, look out of the window at that familiar view of the park. I’m home.
Patrick’s parked at a jaunty angle on a single yellow, his hazards flashing like disco lights. I slide into the passenger seat.
‘I was hoping for a Panda,’ I say, kissing him hello. ‘You know; flashing blue sirens, go-faster stripes, the works.’
‘Jeez, you’re a hard woman to please. Have you not had enough excitement for one lifetime?’
We smile at each other, and I subtly inspect the bruises. Nearly gone, thank God – he’s starting to look like he’s just very, very bad at applying eyeliner.
‘Seriously, do you mind driving? The train doesn’t take long.’
‘I only drank all that wine cos I was trying to get into your knickers. I’m fine to pace myself.’
‘Thank you.’
It’s the little things I’m discovering.
We park up outside Lysette’s, but Patrick seems in no hurry to get out.
‘So is he really tall, this Jim fella? You know, rippling muscles, manly chest?’
‘Patrick, I haven’t seen him for going on twenty years. Hopefully I won’t see him for another twenty.’
He turns to look at me, face serious.
‘You thought about him though, didn’t you?’
I can hear it in his voice, the vulnerability: there was a time not so long ago when it would’ve made my flesh crawl. Not now. I look at the lighted windows of Lysette’s little house, then turn back towards him, take his hand.
‘I did, yeah, but it wasn’t about him. It was my shit.’ I hold his gaze, my own vulnerability surging upwards. ‘He was a just a stand-in. Another man I couldn’t really have.’
Patrick smiles, his body softening. You can have me, say his eyes. I trace his palm with my finger, and he reaches under the seat with his free hand.
‘I got a bottle of that Merlot you liked. You know, the one the peasants trampled the grapes for, with their sweaty peasant feet.’
‘I love a sweaty peasant,’ I say, leaning across to kiss him.
Lysette hugs me tightly, then stands on tiptoes to embrace Patrick. He thrusts the bottle at her a little too hard. I love the fact that it’s me alone who can detect his nerves, read his tiny tells. As he heads down the hall in front of us, Lysette mouths, ‘He’s HOT!’ her sparkly eyes wide enough for me to know she’s not just saying it.
The kitchen is full of children, Saffron in a pair of pyjamas with fluffy attached feet. She throws her arms around my legs, casting a suspicious scowl at Patrick, and begs me to tell her a bedtime story.
‘Oh God, PLEASE will you go and read to her,’ says Lysette. ‘It’s about an hour past bedtime but she wouldn’t go up till you came. She’s a nightmare when she’s this overtired – she’s like Lindsay Lohan after a three-day bender.’
I scoop her up, lifting her high enough so that she’s in Patrick’s eyeline.
‘Before I tuck you in, I want you to meet my friend Patrick. He’s lovely. I like him even more than you like Peppa Pig.’ I look at Patrick. ‘And that, my friend, is a compliment.’
‘I’m honoured,’ he says, then gives her chubby hand a respectful shake.
I drink more than I intend to, Lysette’s right hand inching towards my glass with dangerous frequency. ‘I’m just so glad you’re all right,’ she keeps saying, the words getting thicker with feeling as she gets tipsier. Ged and Patrick slip into an easy rhythm, going out for the odd fag on the patio (I didn’t know Patrick was a social smoker – I decide not to mind) and ferrying the plates to and from the kitchen so me and Lysette don’t have to raise a finger.
‘He is lovely,’ says Lysette in a stage whisper.
‘I know,’ I say, my eyes mapping her face, suddenly emotional. It’s a face I’ve known so long, watched shift and transform; she’s no less beautiful now, it’s just a different breed of beautiful.
‘I shouldn’t tell you this, I’m sure you don’t care, but I’ve been worrying about it since Saffron’s party. He’s much, much hotter than Jim. He looks a bit like a rattlesnake who’s swallowed a turnip.’ She mimes a straight line, and then a massive hump. ‘He’s as vain as ever, so he’s determined to stay skinny, but he’s got dad tum. He HATES it.’
I take a swig of Merlot, snorting with laughter that won’t seem to stop. Lysette clutches my knee, choking with giggles. Soon we’re both weeping with tears of laughter that are totally disproportionate to the joke, wine starting to trickle down the inside of my nose.
‘What’s the joke?’ asks Patrick.
I look at him, trying not to seem like too much of a sap.
‘Who’s the joke,’ I correct him. ‘No one you need to worry about.’