her inbox, so it was a huge relief when she saw Bea walk in, dragging a handbag the size of her car. She wore trainers with her fitted pencil skirt and frilly-necked blouse and still looked unsteady on her feet. Her face was pale and her eyes dark-rimmed.
‘Jesus, Bea, you look like crap,’ Karen remarked as Bea threw her bag on the seat next to her and sat down opposite.
‘Thanks.’ Bea scowled. ‘Like I needed telling. Four people have asked me today if I need an ambulance. Do I seriously look like I’m about to drop dead?’
‘You look a bit like you already dropped dead and someone propped you up in your chair. Still not sleeping?’
Bea ignored the question. ‘Has anyone ever told you that honesty isn’t always the best policy?’
The waitress came over with their cake and Karen pushed a slice in front of Bea, who looked as though she might throw up at the sight of it.
‘You have got to be kidding. Can I just get three pints of blood and an IV, please?’
The poor girl couldn’t seem to figure out what the joke was, or how to respond. Looking like a deer trapped in headlights, she stared at both of them in turn before muttering, ‘I’ll just bring your tea,’ and scuttling off towards the kitchen.
‘Seriously – no patience for the flat-earth brigade today,’ Bea grumbled, pulling her phone out of her bag and placing it on the table. ‘And enough with the living-dead comments, you’re not exactly looking sparkling yourself. What’s up? Were you and Michael up all night doing the horizontal tango?’
Far from it, although she was right about Karen not looking herself. She didn’t feel it. She’d been thinking about Jessica Hamilton every quiet second since their last session, her words, her animosity towards the woman she prayed wasn’t Eleanor filling her head like honey in a jar, sticky and unyielding with no room for anything else to seep in.
‘I wish,’ she muttered. She didn’t want to mention Jessica to Bea. Bea didn’t have Michael’s gift for discretion – she’d want to know every last detail, and Karen wouldn’t even know where to start.
‘Where’s Eleanor got to?’ She was relieved when Bea changed the subject so she didn’t have to. ‘Have you heard from her recently? I didn’t know whether to keep my distance and all that; I didn’t want her to think we were interfering …’
A convenient excuse for Bea to forget about Eleanor and her problems the minute she was out of sight. It wasn’t that Bea was intentionally selfish; she was a good person – the best – and when she set out to be thoughtful, she excelled at it. It was just that thoughtful wasn’t a journey she set out on very often these days.
‘Did she tell you about what happened with Noah?’
Bea grimaced and nodded. ‘Yeah, what do you reckon social services will do? Are they going on a list?’
‘Most definitely on a list. What did she tell you?’
‘That she’d forgotten where she parked the car and called the police. Poor thing must have been out of her mind.’
Karen nodded but didn’t mention the part about Eleanor swearing blind that someone had moved the car. If Eleanor hadn’t told Bea, there was a reason for it and Karen should respect that – although she was dying to ask what Bea thought of the whole idea. Maybe Eleanor was just embarrassed.
‘I’m a bit worried that she’s showing signs of—’
‘Oh God, Karen, you’re not going to start the psychiatrist stuff on us again, are you? We agreed.’
They had agreed. They’d sat down early in her university days, when she’d perhaps been a little overzealous with the psychoanalysis and got carried away with the jargon. It was hardly something she could help. Psychology excited her: the way the past could account for much of the present, the way people’s actions could be examined and understood. People were literally textbook. There was rarely a problem that couldn’t be explained by careful assessment of the factors.
But unsurprisingly, Bea hadn’t taken well to hearing that her constant need for attention came from being the youngest female child of an overbearing mother and an emotionally absent father. In her own words, she was quite happy with her ‘fucked-up childhood’ and the person it had made her into, and she’d balked at talking about why her relationship with men was so unhealthy. Equally she had warned Karen never to mention to Eleanor that her constant mothering of