Annabel’s head and upper body were framed in the little window on the first floor of her house. From her admittedly sketchy knowledge of the upstairs, Laura knew she’d be at the desk in her office, working. Her face was lit up from below by the glare of an Anglepoise lamp and Laura could just make out the top part of her open laptop screen.
It was cold outside and Laura shivered in her thin jumper. She’d abandoned her orange coat in the car, thinking it might stand out too much in the gathering dusk. But now she was regretting the lack of it.
She cast another longing look up at the cheerfully lit window. Would it be so awful if she just walked up and rang the doorbell? She could come up with an excuse. Her yoga class wasn’t a million miles away from here. She could pretend she’d been driving back and decided to make a spur-of-the-moment detour. She rehearsed it in her head. I was desperate for a wee and I just thought, Why not call in at Annabel’s? You don’t mind, do you?
Breezy. Relaxed. Normal.
But on the road next to Annabel’s, her courage had failed her. She remembered the last time she’d done that, ringing on Annabel’s neat white door one Sunday morning with a bag of freshly baked pastries she’d picked up from the chic bakery near her flat. ‘Bought these to take to a friend’s, but she cancelled at the last minute, so I thought I’d bring them round here and force you to share them with me,’ she’d said. But Annabel hadn’t even let her through the door. ‘I’m afraid this isn’t a good time,’ she’d said, looking embarrassed and awkward. ‘I have company.’ But when Laura had looked in through the slatted blinds of Annabel’s living-room window on her way back to the car, the room was empty.
Suddenly mindful of that, Laura had pulled up her VW before getting to Annabel’s road and sat with the engine idling, trying to decide what to do, until a young woman with a buggy had tapped on her window and apologetically told her it wasn’t really legal to do that any more. ‘Bad for the environment. Urban pollution.’
So then she’d parked up properly and walked the rest of the way on foot: one of the disadvantages of having such an immediately identifiable car.
There was a house on the other side of the road from Annabel’s and slightly further down that had a tree in the front garden with low branches that reached over the wall and overhung the pavement. Laura was hovering in the shadow of that tree, pretending to read something on her phone. But really she was watching Annabel’s face as she concentrated on whatever she was writing.
She felt a stab of irrational jealousy towards whatever it was that was so holding Annabel’s attention. There was so much Laura wanted to discuss with her. She wanted to tell her about Hannah and how she felt she was making real progress in gaining her trust. That last session, when Hannah had described her trip to A&E and the nightmare of her fantasy world ripping apart at the seams, had been a real breakthrough. Annabel would want to be told that, surely? And to hear all the rest of her news?
Still something held her back.
Laura’s eyes filled with tears. It wasn’t fair. She was so giving of herself. Never with any expectation of something in return. To her patients. To her mother. And yes, to Annabel too. She’d always gone along with everything Annabel suggested. Always accepted she knew best. So why must Laura find herself always on the outside looking in?
A siren sounded in the distance, and Annabel glanced up. For a moment, Laura held her breath as the older woman’s widely spaced eyes seemed to look in her direction. Here I am. Please see me.
The siren grew fainter and Annabel turned back to her computer. Cold was causing a pain in Laura’s lower back and one of her toes was cramping. Yet still she remained under the cover of the tree, gazing up at the yellow-lit rectangle across the street.