The Therapist(76)

I follow Eve to the study, and we search the desk and its drawers. But there’s no sign of the keys.

‘Weird,’ Eve says. ‘I’m sorry, Alice, I’ll carry on looking once everyone has gone.’

She doesn’t sound too worried and another possibility adds itself to the ones already crowding my mind, none that I like very much. Could Will be lying? Maybe he’s put the keys somewhere else, or they’re in the pocket of the jeans he was wearing last time he went on a night prowl. But maybe it’s not him, maybe someone saw our keys on the wall by the fridge and took them. I look over at Tamsin, then at Tim and Maria. They are all frequent visitors here.

‘No problem,’ I say, except that it is a problem, because now I know that Leo isn’t my prowler, I won’t be able to sleep in the house when I leave the hotel tomorrow, not when a set of keys has gone missing.

I finish my cake, make my excuses and leave.

‘When is your friend arriving?’ Will asks, coming to the front door with me.

‘Friday,’ I say.

‘Well, let’s hope we can find the keys before then.’

Back at the hotel, my phone rings. It’s Ginny.

‘How are you?’ she asks.

‘I’m fine.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, why?’

‘I had a call from Leo. He’s worried about you, Alice. He said you were accusing him of prowling around the house at night, and something he didn’t understand about him spreading hair everywhere.’

‘It was a misunderstanding,’ I say. ‘And anyway, he’s exaggerating.’

‘Hm.’ She doesn’t seem convinced. ‘Are you still away?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m sorry, Alice, that’s what I don’t understand. You ask Leo if you can have the house for two weeks and then you go away.’

‘I’ll be back tomorrow.’

She sighs. ‘Are you going to tell me what’s going on?’

‘There’s nothing going on. Sorry, but I really need to go. Can I call you in the morning?’

‘Alright, but—’

‘Thanks, Ginny, I’ll speak to you then.’





Past


I like my new client. I can already tell she’s going to be more of a challenge but that’s OK. She sits opposite me, her slim legs crossed, oozing confidence. She is a woman at peace with herself. But we all have darkness within us and the deeper it’s buried, the more interesting it is.

I take my pad from the table and my pen from my pocket. I could use a laptop for my notes but clients still like to see a good old-fashioned notepad. The problem with using a screen, I guess, is that the client never really knows what we’re doing behind it, whether we’re taking notes or watching something on Netflix.

I begin asking her the standard questions and she raises an amused eyebrow.

‘Really?’ she says.

I frown and chastened, she sits upright, uncrosses her legs, straightens her skirt and turns her attention to giving me her answers.

‘Why are you here?’ I ask, when we get to the end. And then I give her the usual spiel about how anything she says won’t go further than this room.

This room. I look around it, at the pale pink walls, at the window that looks onto the road outside. There are no blinds on the window shielding us from prying eyes, just curtains which I can’t close, not at this time of the day. It’s why I’ve made sure we’re sitting towards the back of the room. Discretion, as always, is everything.

‘I don’t have any major problem,’ she says. ‘I just think that it would be good for me to be in therapy, to experience what it’s like. And to talk. It’s always good to talk, isn’t it?’

‘It certainly is,’ I agree.

So we talk, about her childhood – happy; her teenage years – no real problems; her career – she loves it. The one thing she doesn’t talk about is her husband. I know she’s married so that in itself is telling.

I put down my pad. ‘How long have you been married?’ I ask.

She looks surprised, so I look pointedly at her left hand, at the thin gold band on her ring finger.

‘I might be widowed,’ she says.

‘Are you?’ I ask.

‘No.’ I wait. ‘Seven years,’ she says. ‘I’ve been married seven years.’

‘Seven happy years?’ I ask.

‘Seven ecstatic years. Not an itch in sight.’

I suppress a sigh. She’s disappointed me.

I lean towards her and fix her with my eyes. ‘Do you know what Henry David Thoreau said about happiness?’

Now she looks disappointed. She leans forward too, stares right back at me. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I know exactly what Thoreau said about happiness. And it’s a load of bollocks.’





Thirty-Eight


The next morning, I check out of the hotel and cross the square to the house, my feet rustling crisp fallen leaves as I walk. I could have booked myself in for another couple of days but I don’t like being bullied, and making me afraid to stay in the house is a form of bullying. So, I’m going to do what I did before, and stay awake during the night. If I hear anything, anything at all, I’ll call the police.