I wonder, if I close my eyes tightly enough, if I’ll be able to hold the image of his face until next time.

Chapter Nine

KAT

I retreat to my office, shutting the door firmly behind me; an accepted sign for ‘Do Not Disturb’. I groan as I plonk down into my chair, wondering at what point I’ll feel I’ve got this. Wondering if everyone feels like this, like a fraud, like at some point someone more capable will realise I’m not equipped to do ‘grown-up’ effectively, never mind do so with employment responsibility. I stretch my arms out, nudging my computer, which whirs into action and shows Daniel’s Facebook page. It fans the pain I’m trying to ignore. Now isn’t the time to be looking at this.I minimise the screen, then grab my pad to start making a list of jobs to do. Rhys’s telephone number is at the top and I sit back to think about his visit, and how Susan looked when he stood by her. How do you describe someone for whom fear and need mix with every breath they take? She was certainly more engaged than the times I’d talked to her on my own. Less dismissive. He wasn’t so obviously surplus to her requirements, and yet she was constrained somehow – at least when I was around too – as if she was pinning her mouth and heart closed. The water though, the reaching out to him, something happened. There’s something there. Perhaps he is the person to help her. He certainly read what she needed.

My office door flies open. ‘Kat! Just the woman.’

Mark stands tall and proud in the doorway, apparently oblivious to the fact that door shut equals knock first. It irks me, but probably only because he made me jump, which always pisses me off. Daniel would do it on purpose, just for shits and giggles. Jump up at me whilst I daydreamed out the window, washing the pots. Hide in the wardrobe when I crept into bed early in the morning after a night shift. Then he’d laugh at me when I would visibly jump, forcing me to punch him on the arm as a result. Mark is still standing in my doorway: feet apart, arms stretched above him. He uses the door frame to steady his weight, and the fleeting vision of frame coming away from door, followed by him face-planting on my office floor, is just about amusing enough to temper my wrath at his barging in.

‘I’m on my way out now,’ he says, patting his bag as if to prove it. ‘But I just wanted to check on Susan Smith before I left. Has there been any progress? Is she talking yet? Someone mentioned a visitor?’

‘Yes. He’s gone now though.’ I leaf through the folder I’ve just picked out. If I don’t engage, he won’t come closer. I won’t smell him, and therefore Daniel. But like a man with too much confidence, and little understanding of subtle body language, he steps over the threshold. He is now officially in my office. I supress a tut.