but in the daytime, working together, we seem to be getting along. I won’t voice this out loud, but he’s even proving to be more helpful than Lucy usually is. At least with ensuring things are running smoothly.
When he takes phone calls, he makes notes and actions them where he can. When he makes tea, I don’t need to redo them because the tea bag has been stewing for a full ten minutes. When he cleans something, it doesn’t need to be redone because at least thirty-three per cent of the item remains unclean.
It’s going swimmingly for the first few days, until this afternoon. That’s when it starts to go wrong.
In the synchronised way the days are going, we are ready for the first of three subjects who are coming for follow-up reviews. Each one will be in for a full hour, but the session should be over in half. We allow the extra time so there’s no rushing. We don’t force them to drink their tea quickly so we’re ready for the next client.
Roy is in for his final assessment. He’s the only client in who is part of my PhD study looking at the effects of beetroot juice – the same study Clive’s part of. I don’t know why I’m only just twigging on to this fact as Roy enters the building.
Having been okay with Clive’s presence, I’m struck by an overwhelming sense of dread that this meeting of two people might screw up the whole project. Like atoms colliding, but not in a good way.
‘Roy, can you wait here for a minute?’ I offer him the chair at the desk. ‘I just need to sort a couple of things. I’ll be with you shortly.’
‘No problem,’ Roy says before taking up the seat.
I’m not sure how delaying things is going to help. Clive is already busying himself with preparing a tray of tea and biscuits. I panic myself into indecision. Will it really matter if they meet? Would it in any way affect the outcome of the study? Will this act of kindness result in the failure of my PhD? It’s certainly not the done thing to introduce the subjects.
As I don’t have answers to these questions, I hesitate on my journey between the desk and the kitchen. I’m not sure whether to dispense of Clive for this appointment to ensure the purity of the study, and I’m not even sure how I’d explain it or what I would do. The fire exit has an alarm and chucking him out that way will get me in lots of trouble, and garner attention we don’t want, and it’s already too late for that without ushering Roy out.
There is no way of preventing their meeting. Apart from the fact that Clive is in the little kitchen alcove, they’re already in the same room. There isn’t even a wall between them. The only thing that is between them is me.
‘Everything okay?’ Clive asks.
My fingers are on my neck. One. Two. Three. Four.
I’ve done it without realising.
Five. Six. Seven.
I’m not even doing it properly. I’ve not checked where the second hand of the wall clock is to know when I need to stop counting.
Eight. Nine. Ten.
And what do you do when you don’t know how to stop? When there is no end to the habits you’ve created for yourself?
Clive walks over. And that means there is nothing stopping this meeting.
My feet are rooted to the spot. My pulse is thumping harder than it ever has before. And the more beats I feel – Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. – the more I realise that rather than gathering them to take a reading, I’m letting them slip away without being used. I’m taking my pulse, not to garner a figure, but purely for the comfort of feeling the rhythm.
I should stop. I need to stop. But the panic won’t allow me to let go.
It’s Clive that makes me. Without much warning, as my breathing gets shallower and my heart beats harder, he takes my arm and gently eases it away from my neck.
Fourteen. Fourteen isn’t there. My fingers are off the carotid enough that I’m not able to feel the whoosh of blood through the artery. I have no way of knowing whether it has been and gone or not. The sensation is startling, as if a great gush of wind is pushing itself into my lungs and is running out again as quick as it arrives.