One he’d thought he might be able to help. He’d taken time with her, developed a rapport, thought he was getting somewhere.
‘On the plus side,’ Delilah adds, ‘my granddaughter phoned me.’
Joe puts his pint down. ‘What did she want? Is she OK?’
‘Keep your knickers on, she’s fine. She wanted to know if she and Jake could stay with me on Saturday night. Sarah’s got a last-minute Ann Summers party.’
‘They can stay with me. Why the hell didn’t she ask me?’
‘Might have been Tupperware. Do they still do Tupperware parties? And she said she’d called you once already and you’d bitten her ear off for disturbing you when you’re with patients. You come too. If you stay over, I won’t have to worry about getting called out if another rough sleeper decides to get himself knifed.’
‘That’s the spirit.’
His mother grins at him. ‘How was your first day back?’ she asks.
Joe takes his time. ‘It went well, actually. Mainly admin, getting in touch with people to let them know I’m available again. And I’ve got a new patient.’
‘Well, I hope to God it’s not another potential student suicide. If I have to scrape another kid off the pavement at the bottom of St John’s tower … God, I hate exam term.’
‘You should talk to someone.’
‘I do. I talk to you.’
‘I mean someone with whom you can have a professional relationship. Can’t the police organise it?’
‘And trash my reputation as the most heartless bitch in Cambridge?’
‘Well, I don’t think suicide is on the cards for this one, although you can never be sure. Very anxious young woman. High achiever, holding down a responsible position, terrified she might lose it if she’s diagnosed with a mental illness. I suspect she’s been concealing symptoms for some time.’
Joe stops himself. He’d been about to refer to Felicity’s adventure on the common but that had involved the police. His mother might know about it.
‘You said “young”.’ Delilah’s face has darkened. ‘Is she attractive?’
‘Didn’t notice.’
Delilah breathes out, noisily, through her nose. ‘Another young woman, Joe? Is that wise? I mean, so soon after—’
Joe interrupts, before his mother can speak the name he dreads hearing. ‘Mum, her youth, and her looks, are irrelevant. I’m not allowed to date patients. Plus, starting a relationship with a woman suffering mental health problems would be—’
‘Tediously normal for you?’
Joe slips his hands between the seat and his thighs to stop them shaking. ‘That was not a relationship,’ he says.
‘If only you’d made that clear to her.’
‘She wasn’t even a patient. And I did make it clear. She refused to accept it.’
Delilah has the grace to look away. ‘All I’m saying is you got too close. You mean well, but there are boundaries and you’re the one who should be defining them.’
Joe drinks some more, and tells himself his mother knows nothing about the enormous task of getting society’s most damaged to learn to trust. Delilah imagines there is a rule book, that actions and reactions are entirely predictable and controllable. She has no idea that every day he is battling chaos. He will finish his pint and go. There are times when he can’t be with his mother.
‘How’s your scar?’ Delilah asks, as her eyes fall to Joe’s midriff.
‘Healing,’ he says. ‘And no, I’m not going to show you in public.’
Silence.
‘So, can you help this girl?’ Delilah asks after a moment, and it takes Joe a second to realise she is talking about Felicity again.
It is a good question. He has only given himself six weeks. And something tells him Felicity Lloyd is a very troubled young woman.
‘Because if you can’t,’ she goes on. ‘You should refer her to someone else. Before she brings you down with her.’
21
Felicity
Felicity parks her car on the edge of Midsummer Common and walks the short distance to her terraced cottage. She is hot, in spite of the air conditioning in the car and is grateful for the breeze that being closer to the river brings. The scent of evening honeysuckle drifts towards her as she unlocks the door to her courtyard garden. Keen to get inside and unload her shopping, she feels the familiar fear stealing over her. Once again, she is afraid of what she might find in her own home.
The kitchen is as she left it. No empty beer bottles – she doesn’t drink beer – in the recycling bin. Dropping the bags on the pale limestone floor, she runs quickly around the house, checking the master bedroom and bathroom on the ground floor, the