Laura’s parents, by now, were ‘deeply concerned’ about Laura’s mental health. It troubled them that they could find no outward index of her pain. She was eating normally, driving into college every day, even going to the cinema with her friends every Friday night. But Brian and Mary Haines remembered how Laura had felt after her grandmother’s death. They remembered how she had acted when the family dog was put down. They had come to depend on her weekly visits to Alison Reid – the last visible evidence that Laura was upset, and also, paradoxically, the last visible evidence that she was willing to do something to make herself better. The visits cost a hundred and thirty euro per session. Spending money, Laura perceived, made her parents feel happier. Spending money made Laura feel happier, too, but she was not eager to admit this.

Dr Reid showed Laura into her office.

‘Well,’ she said, folding her hands on her lap. ‘How are you holding up?’

Laura shrugged. ‘How do you think?’

‘I’m not sure how I’d be holding up, under the circumstances,’ Dr Reid said. She let an interval of silence pass before she said, ‘Are you eating?’

‘Yes,’ Laura said.

‘How much?’

‘Like, two meals a day.’

‘Of what would those meals consist?’

Laura shrugged again. ‘Whatever my mother gets up off her fat arse and manages to cobble together, I suppose.’

‘Do you feel hostile towards your parents at the moment?’

Laura shrugged.

‘It’s alright if you do, Laura,’ said Dr Reid. ‘Those feelings are perfectly normal.’

‘You’re always telling me my feelings are normal,’ Laura said.

‘Do you think they aren’t?’

‘How could they be? I mean, this isn’t exactly a normal fucking situation to be in, is it.’

‘What isn’t normal about it, Laura?’

‘My boyfriend is on trial for, like, murder. Is that normal?’

‘As I understand it, Richard is on trial for violent disorder.’

‘Yeah but we all know what that means.’

‘What does it mean?’

‘It means he killed Conor.’

‘And do you think he did?’

Laura shrugged. She noticed that Alison Reid’s skirt had begun to collect little balls of excess wool. She said, ‘Where did you get your skirt?’

‘I can’t remember,’ Dr Reid said.

‘Figures,’ Laura said.

After a moment Dr Reid said, ‘Is there anything you want to talk about, Laura? Anything particular on your mind?’

Laura sighed and looked at the floor. Again there was a space of silence.

She had decided that what she missed most about the life she seemed to have left behind was the public aspect of going out with Richard: arriving at parties together, savouring the fact that everybody paid attention to the tiny jokes and gestures that they shared, the signs that marked them out as a couple. Now when they were together they were always alone, in Richard’s bedroom. Their sex had become frowningly serious. Once, halfway through, Laura had begun to cry, and Richard had continued to pound away at her, grunting softly in anger or embarassment.