I paused by the voice-activated speaker, the tiny object that controlled everything in the house. The music was coming from there. And it was a song I knew. The one you had played to me that first night in the hotel, your eyes searching mine, an embarrassment of emotion between us. You’d sent me a link to it after, when you were still chasing me. ‘Stay With Me’ by Sam Smith. Full of yearning, and pain. Just the way I felt about you, but I hadn’t put it on. Had I?

With trembling hands, I turned it off. The electronic voice said, ‘Hello, Suzi,’ and, viciously, I yanked its cable out of the wall. I had never wanted one in the first place, spying on me. But I had to be careful. With everything that was going on, it was harder and harder not to spiral out of control.

You didn’t really believe in weaknesses of the mind. When I told you of my intention to be an art therapist, you’d laughed. ‘Put it this way, if you came to me with a leg hanging off, would you want me to give you a pencil?’

‘It’s not the same thing!’

‘Course it is. Mental ill-health is a chemical imbalance – which doctors can help with – or it’s just feeling sorry for yourself. People should get out for a run, do some hard work.’

I’d looked disapproving. ‘What about the heart? Doesn’t that matter?’

‘Ever seen a human heart? It’s all tubes and blood. It’s like a tyre. If it’s leaking, you patch it up. Job done.’

I wished you were here now to tell me this. Because my heart was leaking, and broken, and I couldn’t seem to find any way to fix it.

Nora

Nora

After our first meeting, I didn’t see Suzi again for a day or two. I watched from my living room as her husband went to work and came back, as Suzi left the house to stare in puzzlement at her dying plants, or to drag the dog on a too-short walk. She glanced at Ivy Cottage as she passed, but didn’t come over, and I wondered how to speak to her again. My luck was in when, the next day, she locked herself out of the house. From my windows I saw her pacing in her front garden, agitated, the dog straining on his lead, and threw open the door. ‘Everything OK?’

‘Oh God, I’m such an idiot. I keep getting the alarm code wrong. There’s a call-out fee if it goes off, so I’m scared to try again.’

‘So you can’t get in?’

She threw her hands up. ‘Not till Nick texts me the code.’

‘Do wait over here, please – it’s so cold. We can have tea?’