Before I Let You In (20 page)

‘So Eleanor is a bit mental recently because of all the baby hormones and something to do with feeling like she’s losing her identity.’ Fran had barely made it through the door before her sister had started to let off steam. ‘And Karen’s been talking about a patient who creeps her out. She’s taking it too seriously, I think. I’m sure she knows me and Els are hiding something from her – we’re so rubbish at this whole surprise party thing. Plus she’s been going on at me about this guy at her work. I let her give him my number ages ago but he hasn’t texted yet. Maybe he thinks
I
sound like a loser.’

Fran raised an eyebrow. ‘Still trying to set you up with boring misfits?’

Bea grinned. ‘Yup. I’ve tried telling her I’m happy how I am, but it’s like she doesn’t believe I can be happy and single at my age … She’s only looking out for me. She just wants me to be happy.’

Fran shrugged. ‘Hmmm. I’m sure she is, it’s just …’

‘Just what?’ Bea’s tone of voice was sharper than she’d intended.

‘Forget it,’ Fran replied quickly. ‘Sorry.’

‘No, seriously, what?’

‘Well, it’s just that Karen’s looking out for you always sounds a bit like trying to change you. I know she’s your best friend, but is there seriously anything wrong with you being single?’

It was normal that Fran didn’t understand; it was a mystery to everyone how the three women were still friends after so many years. People didn’t understand their history was the cement in their walls. Still, with how she’d been feeling lately, her sister’s words struck a chord.

‘Karen doesn’t mean anything by it. It’s just what she does. She likes to feel that she’s helping in some way. And this guy doesn’t sound too awful …’

‘Okay, point taken. So he’s a psychiatrist?’

‘Um, no. He works in IT.’

Fran’s head snapped up and Bea laughed. ‘Don’t give me that look. Michael works in IT and it hasn’t done Karen any harm.’

Her sister frowned.

‘What? What do you have against Michael? You always make that face when I mention him.’

Fran shook her head. ‘I don’t trust him, Bea. I can’t put my finger on it, but I just don’t trust him at all.’

43

Karen

Karen knocked twice on the door and waited. She didn’t think she’d ever been this nervous about speaking to her boss in all the years he’d mentored her. She liked to think that Robert liked and respected her, but the practice had and would always come first with him, which made what she was about to tell him particularly difficult.

‘Yes?’

She pushed open the heavy oak door and stepped in, letting it close quietly behind her. Posh doors; there were too many jumpy people in this building as it was without loud bangs causing hysteria.

‘Karen, hey. How are you? I couldn’t help noticing how quiet you were at yesterday’s meeting.’

She walked over to his sofa and sat herself down like a patient, despite the fact that Robert was behind his desk. He took his cue, and got up and went over to sit opposite her. His sharp, manly scent followed him; expensive, the kind that made a woman’s blood pump regardless of the man wearing it. Not hers, though. He’d worn it for years; she’d become immune to it. It reminded her of late-night study sessions, cramming for exams she was sure she would fail despite looking confident to the outside world. She could honestly say that Robert was the only person who’d seen her panic; she’d let down her defences and he’d seen the real her

Now he sat back, watched her in silence. She wondered what he saw. Did he notice her hair, splayed out around her head in frizzy waves, a contrast to her usual glossy straight style? She’d been up so late the night before that she was certain her eyes held dark purple shadows, stark against her too-pale complexion. She must have looked a complete mess, but Robert didn’t pass comment.

‘I think I have a problem with a patient.’

She watched him stiffen slightly, a movement that most people would have missed.

‘What kind of problem?’

‘A conflict of interest.’

He relaxed a little, leaned forward, placed his elbows on his knees. ‘You know them personally?’ This was a problem he could deal with. She knew he was just going to suggest they move her patient to another psychiatrist, shuffle things around. As if it was that straightforward.

‘Not exactly. She’s conflicted about an affair she’s having with a married man. It’s possible that her feelings are a manifestation of a deeper issue involving her experiences of relationships, but that’s not the problem here. I believe I know the husband. And the wife, actually. It’s Eleanor.’

‘Eleanor the super-mum?’

She smiled. ‘More like Eleanor the harassed these days. Did I tell you she’d had another? Noah. He’s just a few months old.’

‘And you say her husband’s been having it off with one of your patients? Ouch.’

‘Don’t say “having it off”, Robert, it sounds bloody awful. But yes, I think he’s the one Jessica is referring to.’

Robert shifted in his seat. ‘You think? She hasn’t told you outright?’

‘No, that’s the problem. She came to see me about an obsession she has with the wife of the man she’s sleeping with. She’s been messing with her. Her words.’

He was starting to look uncomfortable again; clearly his hopes of a quick fix were fading. Any minute now the vein in his neck would start twitching.

‘Messing with?’

‘Just little things, she says, making life difficult for her. It sounds as though the poor woman is going to go crazy. And that’s the thing: you should see Eleanor. She’s a mess, missing appointments, losing things …’

Robert frowned. ‘That just sounds like every new mum I’ve ever met.’ Noticing her raised eyebrows, he added, ‘Yes, I have met a few in my day. Therapy was all the rage for the yummy mummy crowd at one point.’

‘This is different, Robert.’

‘It doesn’t sound it, Karen. Unless you’ve got some hard proof that this woman is causing your friend harm, you absolutely cannot take this any further. I know I don’t need to remind you of patient confidentiality. I don’t think anything you’ve said suggests a serious threat. Unless there’s something you’re not telling me?’

She wanted to tell him more, but in truth she didn’t have more to tell that didn’t make her sound crazier than most of the people they saw every day. Eleanor losing her car with baby Noah inside and swearing blind that someone had moved it. The letter she herself had received. The idea that someone had been outside her house in the dead of the night and a strange
feeling
about this girl, the feeling that she was playing with her, that she had no intention of using her therapy sessions to improve her mental well-being; she just wanted to toy with Karen’s. She had nothing concrete on Jessica Hamilton. Should she mention seeing her with Adam? Then he’d ask her if she’d told Eleanor, and she’d have to lie to her boss, or admit breaking the rules. Had she been wrong to tell her friend her suspicions?

‘No, nothing.’

‘I’m not saying you’re wrong about this, Karen, but you’re reaching here. You’re seeing associations that don’t exist and you’ll end up doing more harm than good, to your patient, your friend and yourself.’

‘You’re right.’ She made to stand up to leave, deflated, let down. She’d expected Robert to tell her that her fears weren’t unfounded and to help her find some way through what was going on. She was so sure she’d been doing the right thing. It was like in those movies when you screamed at the helpless woman to get help,
Just tell someone!
And the strong male character was supposed to fix things, yes? Liam Neeson didn’t tell his daughter it was unlikely she’d been kidnapped and it was just a coincidence those men had put a hood over her head and shoved her into a car. He didn’t make her feel like a hysterical female. He bloody helped her.

‘Don’t go.’ She froze an inch off the chair and lowered herself back down. ‘I need to ask you, Karen, is everything all right with you?’

Had he not been listening? Of course she wasn’t all right; couldn’t he see the state of her? He was the only person in her life – including her lover – to whom she’d admit not being okay, and he’d basically told her she was imagining things. How long had he known her? She’d never been inclined to dramatic overreactions. She’d never tried to find drama where it wasn’t. God knows, she’d had enough of the real thing.

‘Not really, no,’ she said. ‘I’ve been conflicted about this since I began to suspect that Jessica Hamilton was using me to inflict further damage on my best friend. I’m worried about Eleanor; she’s an absolute mess.’

‘And you feel like this is your fault?’

‘I suppose I feel guilty that I’m not there enough for her.’

‘But if her problems are being caused by Jessica Hamilton and her cheating husband, then there’s no way you could be responsible for that.’

‘No, I’m not responsible for her husband’s actions, or Jessica’s if that’s truly what’s going on, but I could …’

Oh, he was good. She’d entered her own little therapy session without even realising. She supposed that was why his name was above the front door.

‘I see what you’re doing. You’re intimating that I’m transferring my feelings about not being there for Eleanor on to my patient in order to assuage my own guilt.’

Robert opened his hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘I should know better than to try and out-psych a psychiatrist. But do you think that might make sense? Don’t you think that by assigning blame for Eleanor’s inability to cope to an external source, you’re absolving yourself of the need to act?’

‘You sound like a bloody textbook, Robert, not a friend. And your theory has one flaw.’

He raised one eyebrow – something she’d never been able to do, and had always been a bit in awe of. Michael said it made him look like the Rock.

‘A flaw? Never.’ He smiled.

‘If I’m trying to absolve myself of action, then why is action all I can think about? Why am I constantly wondering what to do for the best?’

‘Because you can’t bear to leave a friend in need. You are determined to be the one who helps everyone, the one everyone turns to, even when you can see what it’s doing to you. Look at yourself. You have a good relationship, your own home, a career that you’re set in for life, promotion imminent, and you’re falling to pieces worrying about the fact that your friend can’t make her doctor’s appointments.’

‘I—’

‘You nothing. As your boss and your friend I’m telling you to go home, take a bath or go for a run or do whatever it is that you do to de-stress these days and come back tomorrow with your mind on your patients and nothing else. Do you think you can do that?’

His voice had a warning tone to it, one she hadn’t heard before. One that said she’d better be able to do that, or the next step wouldn’t be an afternoon off work.

‘Of course I can,’ she lied. But even as he smiled and told her he was there if she needed him, she realised he knew she was lying as much as she did.

44

Karen

Karen put down her book, too agitated even to lose herself in someone else’s story. There was the usual noise from outside: the shouting of teenagers excited about something and nothing, enjoying themselves and not even contemplating that at 8 p.m. there might be children trying to sleep or shift workers grabbing their precious catnaps. It made her think of her own selfish teenage years, nights on the playing fields with Bea and Eleanor, actually managing for full hours on end to be a normal teenager, happy, unencumbered by her past. She got so good at it that sometimes there would be moments when she’d even forget what had happened altogether, until the tinkling sound of a girl’s laugh would shove her back there.

Then they’d discovered White Lightning and she could practically obliterate her memories completely, searching for absolution at the bottom of the plastic two-litre bottle. The only time she wouldn’t dream was when she’d been drinking – the only nights she could guarantee not to see
her
face imprinted behind her eyelids. Then there was just the comedown the next day to deal with. Not the normal alcohol shakes – mouth like a mouldy sock and mild paranoia – but the screaming reel of memories like a ghoulish episode of
This Is Your Life
. A punishment for the blissful hours during which her emotions had been numb. She spent so many days locked in her bedroom, tears flooding down her cheeks and the TV so loud that her head pounded to the beat of whatever daytime junk she was using to stop her parents hearing her cry. And every time she would tell herself that the short reprieve wasn’t worth the pain she would go through the next day. That it was getting harder and harder to pull back the Karen she was trying to be.

But she never stopped. Not until the evening it had all gone wrong. The evening that had brought her past rushing up to meet her present. The others, Eleanor and Bea, laughed about it now, albeit nervously, with the giddy hindsight of people who had never had the worst happen to them, but she couldn’t bring herself to join in, because to her it was more than just a silly near miss. To her it was fate trying to send her a message:
Look what happens when you try to be normal. Look what happens when you try to forget. You can never forget, because when you do, people die.
She stopped drinking.

She lifted the remote and flicked on the TV, her fond memories tainted now, like a child who had picked up a pretty stone to find a woodlouse stuck to the bottom. It seemed to her sometimes that on darker days, usually when Michael was away, she couldn’t allow herself to think about the past at all. And she definitely couldn’t allow herself to contemplate the future. So it was easier to distract her mind with trashy TV and Sudoku. Those things were much less painful.

45

Karen

Karen prepared for her next session with Jessica Hamilton as though she was going into battle. Her conversation with Robert yesterday had rattled her – if she was honest with herself, his comments about how she was dealing with things scared her. Every time she closed her eyes she could picture Jessica sitting with her dirty pumps on the sofa, and the look on her face when she’d been talking about the pregnant woman stuck in the rocks.
‘They blew her up.’