his head. ‘They’re gonna love it. Remember how hard you’ve worked and it’ll all be okay. I love you.’
‘Love you too,’ Toby mumbled, presumably in case there were hidden recording devices on the stairs.
Eleanor hauled the project over to the reception, careful not to knock any of the pieces off. There was no sign of Mrs Fenton. She wanted to leave the bloody thing there and get back to Noah – what if he’d woken and was crying? But she’d made a promise to Toby, and their relationship was fragile enough as it was at the moment. Plus experience told her that Noah would sleep soundly now until the minute they walked through the front door at home and she wanted to put her head down for a bit herself. He only ever slept in the day when they were out of the house; any time she wanted to work on her business plan or, God forbid, rest, he was wide awake and needing something. She’d never experienced this with Toby; by the time she’d become part of his life, he’d been sleeping through the night, even the loss of his mother not unsettling him for long. He’d been such an easy baby that this had been quite a shock to the system.
After what seemed like an hour – in reality a few minutes – Mrs Fenton strolled in, the smell of cigarette smoke trailing behind her like a line of ducklings following their mother. Eleanor took a deep breath, savouring the smell for a minute. Something Adam didn’t know about her was that until they had got together, she’d been a casual smoker. He’d made it clear on their first date that he hated smoking with a passion that came from having lost a parent to lung cancer, so she’d decided not to mention it, and had gradually given up altogether. Until she’d had Noah, she’d never considered taking it up again, but lately she’d been craving the feel of that rolled-up nicotine-filled paper between her fingers like she hadn’t in years.
‘Mrs Whitney, is there something wrong?’ Mrs Fenton appraised her casual Monday attire: black leggings covered in formula fingerprints where she’d wiped her hands down the sides and a loose navy smock thrown on to disguise the fact that her stomach still hadn’t completely made it back to pre-baby proportions.
‘Toby has this project for his environmental class this morning – is there someone who could help him get it there, please? I didn’t have a chance to walk it with him to his classroom; we were, um, running a bit late.’ She resisted the urge to go into a lengthy description of how stressful her morning had been. Mrs Fenton didn’t have children, and Eleanor doubted she’d understand how long something as simple as a shower and getting dressed could take when accompanied by the howls of a small human and the trials and tribulations of a slightly bigger one.
‘No problem.’ Mrs Fenton waved a hand at the dolphin. ‘Just leave it there.’
She swung to pick up the paperback she had hidden in her desk drawer, and in that second Eleanor truly believed she hated her and her simple day, and her ability to make herself a cup of tea without cringing when the kettle clicked too loudly or to flush the toilet after a wee.
‘Thank you, I have to get off.’ She barrelled back out of the school doors and instinctively looked over to the car. Or where the car had been, because now it was gone.
Part Two
31
Karen
‘So how have you been feeling since our last session?’
Jessica Hamilton raised her eyebrows at Karen. Was it just her imagination, or were they slightly less bushy than the last time she’d seen her? And was she wearing lipstick? Karen instinctively pressed her own lips together. She’d had Eleanor on her mind when she was getting ready that morning and she’d completely forgotten to put any lipstick on. She felt annoyed at herself for going to work without checking her make-up first, and for letting a patient make her feel inadequate.
‘Bored of answering these questions. Disappointed that you don’t have any insight other than ‘how are you feeling’. Stupid that I ever thought this would help.’ She leaned her elbow on the arm of the sofa and her forehead on her hand and looked thoroughly fed up.
‘And what were you expecting to have achieved by this stage?’ Patient is feeling uncomfortable at the new direction her sessions are taking, manifested