can’t cope with what I might find.’
The waiter arrives with cutlery and they wait for him to lay the table. As he is walking away Joe says, ‘Felicity, has it occurred to you that all the problems you’ve been having recently, the fugue states, the memory losses at home, the voices, this sense you’re being watched and followed, not to mention completely forgetting about the fact that you’re married, they’re all caused by hidden and traumatic memories starting to re-emerge. These symptoms won’t go away. They’ll get worse.’
She pushes her hair back away from her face. ‘You can’t know that for sure.’
‘We didn’t find out what happened to you last night. You said you saw your husband in town and that you ran away from him. I can’t begin to count the number of questions that throws up.’
Her eyes drop.
‘You nearly got into serious trouble with the police last night. They’re still far from satisfied. They think you had blood on your dress. They’re going to want to check it.’
She looks up then, and this time there is defiance in her eyes.
‘You could have been hurt last night,’ Joe says. ‘You could have hurt someone else.’
Her eyes harden. In an instant, she has become a woman he would be wary of. ‘I’m going to South Georgia,’ she says. ‘There is no one there who can hurt me. There is no one I can hurt.’
The waiter comes back with their food. He makes a big deal about offering them sauces, condiments, a twist of black pepper. At last they’re alone again.
‘You really think the new job is a good idea?’ he asks her.
‘I had a private medical examination and the results have been sent through to my employers.’ She forks up some pasta and makes him wait while she eats it. ‘My new GP has a copy and has seen no reason to question it. My notes haven’t been sent to her yet, but even if they do arrive in the next few days, it won’t be a problem. I’m no longer in therapy.’
She carries on eating. Joe has yet to pick up his knife and fork.
‘I know you can cause me problems if you really put your mind to it,’ she says. ‘My question is, why would you?’
* * *
Confused and in need of a break, Joe allows her to change tack while they are eating, and the conversation veers away from therapy. Giving them both some breathing space, he tells her about his kids, about how Jake loves sport of all kinds and how diligent Ellie is at her lessons. He takes out his wallet and shows her photographs. He tells her what it was like growing up with a police officer mother and why he thinks his marriage went wrong.
In her turn, she tells him about the vast, white emptiness that is Antarctica, where the colours of the sky and the ocean take on a brilliance that the human brain can neither name nor describe, and about the heartbreaking beauty of the stars at night.
She is not the Felicity he has come to know and the unsettling edge is still there, floating like toxic weed beneath the surface, but she is fun and animated and there is a pleasure in her company. He wonders if perhaps this is the Felicity he would have known before her troubles began. As their coffee arrives, the streaks of gold on the horizon fade and the sky turns a deep turquoise. Joe catches a glimpse of a friendship that could have grown and become so much more, and he feels something that, were he to give way to it, could turn into a crippling sadness.
After the bill is paid he excuses himself to go to the bathroom and when he returns she is looking out towards the river, as though lost in thought.
‘You ready, Felicity?’ he asks her.
She doesn’t respond, although he is almost close enough to touch. He takes a step closer.
‘Felicity?’
Still nothing. He reaches out and touches her shoulder. She jumps like a burned cat and he steps back.
‘Just me.’ He holds both hands up in mock surrender, but the look on her face when she turned has unsettled him. For a second there, she really did look like someone else.
He walks her home because not to do so would feel rude and when she brushes her hand against his, twice, he does not move further from her. The scent of roses, stronger now that night has fallen, seems to