‘And it’s an interesting job,’ he continues. ‘Getting inside people’s heads and seeing what makes them tick.’ He looks down at me. ‘Why are you frowning?’
‘I’m not,’ I say.
‘You are. Either that or your forehead has aged very suddenly.’ He wrinkles his own comically, which lightens the moment that shouldn’t feel heavy, but somehow does.
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I just think people’s heads, in the main, should be left alone. I don’t like the idea of anyone playing around in my mind.’ I do think that, but I’m also frowning because of Adele. How he’s telling her story at an angle. A little girl he used to know. It’s not a lie, but it’s not quite the truth.
He smiles at me, and I can’t help but enjoy the strength of his broad chest under my head as I look up. A farmer’s son. Maybe he avoids mentioning her to save my feelings, but it’s not as if I’m some ingénue who doesn’t get the situation. ‘Are you sure you’re working in the right place?’ he asks. ‘Head-tinkering is what we do.’
‘That’s why I stay behind my desk and don’t get on the couch.’
‘I bet I could persuade you onto my couch.’
‘Don’t get cocky, it doesn’t suit you.’ I poke him in the ribs and we both laugh.
‘But seriously,’ he says after a moment, ‘if you want help with your night terrors I can promise you I won’t give you a dodgy woo-woo book and send you on your way. I’m better trained now.’
‘That’s a relief,’ I say, trying to sound light-hearted, but I’m thinking of the notebook Adele gave me, and what David would think if he knew. I almost wish he had got up and left.
‘Maybe you should find that little girl,’ I murmur. ‘See if she still needs your help.’
He doesn’t say anything after that.
20
THEN
The rain hammers hard at the windows and it’s making Adele sleepy as she lies on her bed with Rob after his therapy session. She should be in the art room, but she’s bored of painting. She went to yoga to pacify the nurses – apparently it would help relax her, and it did, mainly from the dullness of it – but really she wants to be in the fresh air with Rob. Maybe out on the moors as a change from the lake. Even though they’re not supposed to go off the grounds without a ‘group leader’, they could probably sneak away and no one would notice. That’s the thing with hippies, as Rob says. They’re so full of trust. They don’t even lock the gates in the daytime.
‘I am awake,’ Rob says beside her, pinching himself. ‘Only just though. This is all so dreary.’
She giggles and sighs. She had hoped that the storm would clear the air entirely, but instead the fierceness has died down to this constant grey downpour, and he’s right, dreary is the word.
‘When is this going to work?’ he asks. ‘I’m so bored of counting my fingers. I half expect to see eleven one day.’
‘Good,’ she says. ‘If you do, you’ll know you’re dreaming. And then you can picture the door and open it to take you anywhere you imagine. Anyway, it’s only been a few days. Patience, young Jedi.’
‘If this is all a piss-take then my revenge will be sweet and terrible.’
‘Where will you take your dreams?’ she says. ‘When you can create the door?’ It’s comfortable lying here beside him. Not like with David, no heat of that passion, no pounding of her heart, but something different. Something calm and comforting. ‘Will you go home?’
He laughs then. Not his infectious warm laugh, but the short bark reserved for irony. She knows these things now.
‘Fuck no. Although I might dream of some decent food. This place really needs to learn to add some flavour to its lunches. Mmm.’
He’s trying to swerve the conversation, and she notices. She’s always thought he doesn’t talk about his family for her sake, because she no longer has one. Suddenly, she feels like a bad friend. So much has been about her, her loss, how to pick herself back up, how to move on, that she realises he’s never really opened up about his own world. He’s entertained her with tales from his drug-taking, but that’s about it. Nothing real. Nothing emotional.
‘That bad?’ They’ve been lying on their backs staring up at the ceiling, but now she rolls onto her side and up on one arm. ‘Is that why you took smack?’
‘No.’ He smiles. ‘I took smack because it feels good. As for family, well, I mainly live with my sister. Ailsa. She’s thirty.’ He sees her reaction to the age gap. ‘Yep, I was an afterthought, which is a really polite way of saying mistake. Anyway, I live with her now. And she’s a fuck-up, just in a different way to me, but thinks she’s God’s fucking gift. It’s all a bit shitty – you really don’t want to know about it.’
‘You’re my friend,’ she says, poking his skinny ribs. ‘Probably my only real friend other than David. Of course I want to know about it.’