‘Or that he would leave, that your mother would drive him away? Is that what lay beneath your resentment of her?’

‘I knew he would never leave me.’

‘Do you think you were the reason he stayed?’

Kate had never thought about it like that, either. It was an uncomfortable idea. ‘I suppose so.’

Dr Wiseman continued writing. Kate glanced at the clock on the wall beside her. They had only ten minutes left and she was starting to panic it would not be long enough. Reluctant as she had been to start this process, now that it had begun she didn’t want it to end. When was she going to get an answer? ‘Was your father anxious?’ he asked.

‘About what?’

‘Anything. You, your mother, life in general.’

‘No.’ She looked through the blind at the blurred figures hurrying by in the rain outside. ‘Actually . . . yes, perhaps he was. I . . .’ She sat up straight. Memories were crowding in on her. ‘When I was about eight, or maybe nine, a friend of mine at school died very suddenly of meningitis. She sat at the desk next to me and she said she had a headache. I told her to go and see the nurse. The following day, the teacher came into the class to say that Jane had died in the night. I didn’t know what to think or how to react. It was incredibly sad, but I didn’t know what death meant. And in an awful way, life went on as normal.’

‘But not for your father.’

‘Exactly. Not for him. You see, Jane was also an only child. I think I understood then that my father was terrified of losing me. I remember him being quite strange around me for a while. I’d always been a bit of a tomboy, into climbing trees and fighting with the boys, and he had been very relaxed about that. But after Jane died, he was much more tense around me for a long time.’

‘In what way?’

‘Every way, I suppose. If I was going out into the garden, he wouldn’t forbid me to climb the trees, but he’d come out and watch me, just to check I came to no harm.’

‘How long did that last?’

‘I don’t know. A year, maybe.’ Kate thought about it. ‘But I suppose, in another way, a lifetime. I mean, he really worried about me a lot. I knew that. If I came home for the weekend, he would always say, “Drive carefully,” at the gate when I was leaving.’

‘Doesn’t every parent say that?’

‘I suppose so. But there was an intensity to it that I haven’t really thought about until now.’

Dr Wiseman nodded. ‘Given everything you’ve said, what do you make of the profession you’ve chosen?’

Kate took a long time to answer. It was a good question. ‘I suppose there is a disconnect, as with many people, I should imagine, between what drives my intellectual curiosity and what ideally suits my psychological temperament.’