Good Me Bad Me(84)

‘She came to me a while ago, said she’d seen some notes about you in my study while looking for a book. I tried to tell her it wasn’t true but she got so upset, said I was always putting my patients first. I couldn’t lie to her any more, I didn’t want to, so I told her but we agreed she wouldn’t say anything and she didn’t, not to anyone at school anyway, only to Sam.’

‘I’m sorry, Mike.’

‘You’ve said that a lot since I’ve known you. What exactly is it you’re sorry for?’

He doesn’t wait for me to answer, the conversation he’s having is more with himself than me. He’s trying to put things in the right place in his head. Tidy up, file them away. Reassure himself he didn’t get it wrong, so horribly wrong.

‘She had plans to expose you, you know. It’s there, written in an email to Sam, the last one she sent after school on the day she died. She’d bought a pay-as-you-go phone, was going to send out anonymous text messages, tell everybody who you were. Goddamn it, how did I miss how unhappy she was?’

‘It’s not your fault, Mike.’

Small nods of his head, but somehow it feels like it is, he replies. He stares at Phoebe’s laptop, looks at the photo frame of her again. I start to cry, it hurts me to see it up close. The damage I’ve caused, a terrorist in his family, shape-shifting each time.

When he notices I’m crying, he says, ‘You’re usually very good at hiding your feelings.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The bullying must have hurt, made you upset. Angry. Yet you never showed it. I knew you and Phoebe weren’t close but I never noticed any major animosity, any major concerns.’

He’s lying to himself. He noticed, in the same way he notices Saskia swimming through the motions. Drunk, high, depressed. Repeat. Drunk, high, depressed. His emerald city at home, fucked up. If he was honest with himself, if he was brave enough, he’d admit that it suited him not to notice, not to acknowledge the tension between Phoebe and me. He wanted me here, needed me. Access to my mind, a golden opportunity, one that would likely never come around again. Female killers, like I said, are rare.

‘We hid it from you, both of us.’

‘I should have been able to see it. So bloody absorbed with work, and –’

‘Writing about me.’

He nods, replies, yes, but at what cost.

‘Is that why you feel bad, you feel like you should have spent less time with me and more with Phoebe?’

He leans back in his chair, pushes his body against the leather. I know how it feels when you don’t want to talk about things but you’re still being asked. Nobody wants to talk about the things they feel guilty about.

‘Phoebe loved you so much, Mike. I could see that.’

He shakes his head, his turn for the tears to come.

‘She did, Clondine told me the night of Matty’s party at half-term that Phoebe idolized you, thought you were the best dad in the world.’

‘How could I have been, I was too busy, too busy involving myself with other people’s problems.’

‘That’s what she loved about you. The fact you care and try to help.’

My words anoint, rub soothing oil and balm into his loss, his guilt. I can see the game beginning to change in front of my eyes. I stand up, walk over to his desk, pour him another whisky. Drink it, I tell him, it’ll help. He does, he’s used to me helping. I’ve worked hard recently to make it so him and Saskia couldn’t be without me. Wouldn’t want to be. He watches me as I sit back down. I pick up the blue velvet cushion he placed on the chair in our first session together. I hold it, pull it into my chest. It’ll trigger a response, remind him I’m still a child, someone who needs love and care. Guidance. It’ll activate his desire, his need to be needed. A hero complex hidden underneath expensive shirts. Pride. A long way to fall if you get things like me wrong.

‘I’ve said some things I shouldn’t have, Milly. I’m sorry. I thought I’d worked everything out, I thought I knew.’

Knew what? Why did he call June?

‘Miss Kemp told me tonight she was so thankful for your help with the set design, she said you’d worked so hard at the last meeting, even went out and bought snacks for everybody. I hadn’t been able to think clearly since Phoebe’s death until today.’

‘You’re tired, Mike, from trying to look after everyone.’

‘That’s why I called June, I wanted to speak to her about something. I was so clear about it then but now I don’t know. I think I was looking for someone to blame and I’m ashamed to admit that that person was you.’

He runs his finger round the rim of the glass, pauses, then looks up at me.

‘I asked Miss Kemp what time you went out to get the snacks. She wasn’t sure, so much going on, but said you were only gone for five minutes or so.’

How would she know, chaotic keeper of the time.

‘Were you?’ he asks.

‘Was I what?’

He asks the next question quietly. Slowly.

‘Were you only gone for five or so minutes?’

Usually it’s the truth he wants to hear but this time the road doesn’t only lead to me, it leads to him. Too engrossed and obsessed with wondering about me, writing about me. The book has a different ending now, one he doesn’t want to write. He didn’t just invite me in for tea, he invited me to live with him, with his family. He’d never recover personally or professionally if he felt, or was held, responsible for misjudging me. He knows it as well as I do. So much to lose, lost so much already.