The Therapist by B.A. Paris

Three

We’ve had a lazy Sunday morning, staying in bed late before going out to the garden, where we’re lying side by side on wooden loungers under an orange parasol that Leo found in the garage. The air is heavy with the heady smell of jasmine and the book I was reading is lying on my chest. I turn my head lazily towards Leo. He’s checking messages on his phone and, sensing my eyes on him, he looks over at me.

‘Paul has invited me to play tennis with him next weekend,’ he says. ‘And Connor has messaged to remind me about a Residents’ Association meeting on Thursday.’ He puts his phone on the grass and reaches for my hand. ‘Luckily, I’m not sure I’ll be back from Birmingham in time.’

‘I can always go,’ I murmur, closing my eyes at the feel of his touch.

‘I think it’s more of a man thing.’

My eyes fly open. ‘Wow, I didn’t realise we’d regressed to the 50s by moving in here.’

He grins and rolls onto his side, his blue T-shirt exposing a line of skin at the top of his shorts. ‘Don’t blame me. From what Connor said, everyone goes back to his for whisky after. He’s a whisky trader and has an amazing collection, apparently.’

‘And women don’t drink whisky,’ I say, dryly. I lean towards him and give him a kiss, happy to see him so relaxed. ‘When do you think your work in Birmingham will be finished?’

‘In another few weeks, I hope.’ He smiles. ‘I can’t wait to be able to come home to you every evening. Ever since you reversed into the front of my car at those traffic lights, it’s all I’ve ever wanted.’

I can’t help laughing. ‘Good try. We both know that it was you who smacked into my car.’

‘I did not smack into your car!’ he protests, but he’s laughing too. ‘I bumped, and it was a very small bump.’

He’s right, it was such a slight bump that I decided not to bother getting out of the car to check it for damage, mainly because it was a horribly wet January day. But he had come to my window and knocked on the glass, gesturing at me through the rain to open my window.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, drops of water rolling down his face. The lights had by this time turned to green and as the cars began to pass around us, he bent closer and I found myself looking into brown-green eyes that managed to be both admiring and apologetic at the same time.

‘There’s no harm done,’ I told him. ‘Really, I hardly felt it.’

‘There might be harm done,’ he replied. ‘I must have damaged your car at least a little bit.’

‘Honestly, it’s fine.’ I liked the way his hair, damp with rain, clung to his forehead, the hint of stubble on his chin, and began to wish he had done some damage, so that I’d have a reason to carry on the conversation. Maybe I should check. I unbuckled my seatbelt. ‘If it will put your mind at rest, shall we have a look?’

I walked to the back of the car, the collar of my coat pulled up against the rain, and bent to inspect the bumper. There was only the smallest of marks and I couldn’t swear that it hadn’t already been there because a few weeks before, I’d backed into my friend Debbie’s horse-trailer.

‘There might be some internal damage that you can’t see, so shall I give you my details in case your bumper falls off further along the road?’

I smiled. ‘If you insist.’

‘I do.’ He took a card from his wallet and handed it to me. ‘And can I insist that you give me your details, in case your bumper does fall off, and you’re too polite to tell me?’

Leo Curtis, I read, looking at the card. Risk-management Consultant.

‘I don’t have a card but I can give you my mobile,’ I told him. He called me that night.

‘I just want to make sure you don’t have late-onset whiplash.’

‘I’m fine, the car’s fine,’ I reassured him.

‘Then perhaps we can celebrate that fineness together,’ he suggested, making me laugh. ‘Can I take you out for dinner?’

‘I think that might be a bit difficult,’ I said regretfully.

There was an embarrassed pause. ‘I’m sorry, I should have guessed—’

‘No, that’s not what I mean,’ I interrupted hurriedly. ‘It’s just that I presume, from your card, that you live in London. I live in East Sussex. Meeting for dinner won’t be easy.’

‘Don’t worry – have car, will travel. Tell me, is there a wonderful restaurant not too far from where you live where I could take you to apologise for crashing into your life?’

‘Believe it or not, there is.’

And that had been the start of it all.

Now, Leo nods towards my mobile. ‘Anyone message you, or am I the favourite?’ he jokes, which niggles a bit but only because of how unfriendly Tamsin was.

‘Just one from Cara thanking us for last night, which is lovely of her as she already posted a message on the WhatsApp group – as did everyone else. They’re obviously very polite here. Did you see all the “New Home” cards we got? I put them in the sitting room, along the mantelpiece.’

‘Yes, I saw them. I suppose they’ll be there for weeks,’ he adds with a smile, referring to the way I keep birthday and Christmas cards on display for ages.

‘I know it’s weird, but people generally put a lot of thought into choosing cards so I can never bring myself to throw them straight into the bin.’ I give my body a stretch, then stand up.

‘Where are you going?’ he says, reaching a lazy hand towards me.

‘To make a salad to have with the steaks.’

He gives a contented sigh. ‘Sounds wonderful.’

I’m woken by a sudden movement, Leo sitting upright in our bed.

‘Who’s there?’ he shouts, his voice loud in the quiet of the night. It’s late, the shadows sitting heavy in the dark of our bedroom.

‘What’s the matter?’ I whisper. It feels like I’ve only been asleep for ten minutes. What time is it, anyway? I try and pull him back down but he shrugs me away impatiently.

‘There was someone here.’ His voice is sharp, urgent.

‘What?’ My heart jumps. I sit up, wide awake now, adrenalin surging. ‘Where?’

‘Here, in the bedroom.’ He fumbles for the switch on his bedside lamp, and the artificial white light momentarily blinds me. I blink rapidly a few times to re-focus my eyes, then scan the bedroom quickly. There’s no-one there, just the built-in wardrobes with their slatted doors and the chair in the corner of the room, piled with our clothes from the day before.

‘Are you sure?’ I ask doubtfully.

‘Yes!’

I raise myself onto one arm and squint through the partly open door into the bathroom, my mind already visualising someone hiding in the shower, a long-bladed knife held high above their head. Leo throws the covers back, startling me, and swings his legs from the bed.

‘Where are you going?’

He stands naked, his body tense. ‘To put the light on in the hall.’

He reaches through the partially open bedroom door and flips the switch on the wall. I listen for the sound of someone leaving the house in a hurry, disturbed by the light now flooding the landing and stairwell. But there’s nothing.

‘Shall I call the police?’ I ask, grabbing my phone from its charging pod.

‘Wait a moment. I want to be sure before we do anything,’ he says. ‘I’m going to check the other bedroom.’

I get out of bed and grab my cotton dressing gown. I feel less vulnerable now that I’m covered, but my heart is racing as I move to the door behind him.

‘I’m coming with you.’

‘No. Stay here, and if you hear anything, call the police.’

‘Wait.’ I hurry to the bathroom, quickly checking there’s no-one there, and grab a can of hairspray. I prise the lid off and hand it to him. ‘If you see someone, spray this in their eyes to disable them.’

At any other time, he’d laugh at this, a stark-naked man with a hair product as a weapon. But he takes it, holding the can by his side, his finger on the nozzle as he moves along the landing. I watch as he searches the guest bedroom, then his study, anxiety prickling my skin, my phone primed to dial 999.

‘Nothing,’ he calls. ‘I’ll check downstairs.’

‘Be careful!’ I wait a moment. ‘Can you see anything?’ He doesn’t answer, so I move to the banisters and look down to the hall below, where he’s disappearing into the sitting room.

He’s back in a few minutes. ‘The windows and doors are still locked and nothing seems to have been disturbed.’

‘Did you actually see someone?’ I say as we go back to our bedroom.

‘Yes… no… I don’t know,’ he admits. ‘It was just a feeling I had, of someone being in the room.’

‘It could have been a dream.’

He looks a bit sheepish as he puts down the can of hairspray. ‘It probably was. Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. What time is it, anyway?’

I check my phone. ‘Three-fifteen. You’d better get some sleep, you need to be up in three hours.’

We climb into bed and soon, he’s asleep. But I lie awake, grateful that Leo is here beside me, remembering all the times I’d start awake in my cottage, disturbed by the noises that would echo through it at night. I love that I have him to share things with, that I no longer have to face everything alone. Leo bumping into the back of my car was the best thing that had happened to me for years.

‘Do you know, that’s the first time you’ve shown the slightest bit of interest in anyone,’ Debbie had said, when I told her what had happened.

She was right. I was thirty-five and although I’d had three fairly long relationships, they’d all come to an end, not in an abrupt manner, but in a slow, I’m-not-actually-sure-where-this-is-going kind of way. I’d begun to think that I wasn’t cut out for long-term relationships and although there was a slight sadness that I might not find someone to spend the rest of my life with, it had never become a serious preoccupation of mine. But once Leo was in my life, everything changed.

After six months of the weekend commute, because Leo lived at his flat in London during the week and only came down to Harlestone at weekends, we both began to want more. One evening, we went out to dinner, and when he ordered champagne, my anxiety levels quickly rose at the thought that he might be about to propose. We had never talked about getting married and I didn’t want to spoil things between us by telling him that I needed time to think. As the waiter struggled to get the cork out, I wondered if maybe I should say yes. Spending the rest of my life in Harlestone with Leo suddenly seemed a lovely prospect.

‘Alice, I want to ask you something,’ he said, once the champagne had been poured. ‘I want to be able to see you all the time, not just at weekends.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Will you move in with me?’

Move in with him? Did he mean in London?

‘I thought for a moment that you were going to ask me to marry you,’ I joked to hide my confusion.

He reached for my hand. ‘I love you, but I’ve never believed in marriage and I’m not going to start now, not at my age. I’ve never known a happy one and it’s just a piece of paper anyway. It wouldn’t make us love each other more, how could it?’

‘That’s not what I meant,’ I said, taking a sip of champagne. ‘I’m happy not to get married. But when you say move in with you, do you mean to your flat?’

‘Yes.’

I couldn’t give him the answer I knew he wanted. Even though I was sometimes lonely in Harlestone, it was all I knew. I’d only ever lived in Harlestone. My friends were there. My life was there.

‘Can I think about it?’ I asked.

‘As long as you don’t take too long to decide,’ he said, smiling. ‘I want us to be together all the time, not just at weekends.’

I managed to avoid the subject of moving to London until six months ago, when Leo’s work began to take him to the Midlands. He didn’t exactly give me an ultimatum but when he asked if I would consider moving north, I knew I had to give a little if I wanted a future with him, which I did. I could do my job anywhere but he couldn’t, and if we moved to London, I could still get to Harlestone relatively easily from Kings Cross. But I needed some green around me so we agreed that he would sell his flat, and I would sell my cottage, and we’d find somewhere near a park with a garden. That way he could work out his current contract in the Midlands by spending Monday to Thursday in Birmingham, and Friday to Sunday in London with me. A new home for us, a new life for me.

My mind flits to what Leo said after the party last night, about us not needing anyone else. It honestly never occurred to me that he would want us to be together twenty-four/seven. It’s true that he’s a very private person, and extremely good at deflecting attention away from himself when questions become too personal. When I say that people are interested, he says they’re intrusive.

‘Who was that?’ I asked him one Friday afternoon. I’d been at the window of my cottage in Harlestone, waiting for him to arrive from London. Because of the terrible weather conditions – there had been some snow, which had turned to ice – he had left at midday, and as he got out of the car, a woman had appeared from seemingly nowhere and had begun speaking to him. Leo had tried to get away but the woman had been insistent, and I was sure I heard him telling her to leave him alone.

‘Someone wanting to know what it was like to live in the village,’ he’d said when I asked him about her, sounding more annoyed than he should have. We were in the early stages of our relationship, and I wondered fleetingly if she was an ex-girlfriend. But Leo, I realised quickly, hated anyone invading his personal space. It’s why he doesn’t have any close friends, apart from Mark, who he met a couple of years ago when he did some work for his company. Which is why I feel guilty, because I don’t agree that we don’t need anyone else. I love Leo but there are other people I need in my life, like Debbie and my other friends in Harlestone. They are my family and I already miss them. Luckily, here in London, I have Ginny, Mark’s wife, who has become a good friend and only lives a few miles away, in Islington. And hopefully, I’ll make some new friends here in The Circle.

I flip my pillow over and give it a thump to flatten it, then turn and look at Leo, his head half-buried under the covers, and realise something that I’ve never realised before, which is that family-wise, I’m all he’s got. He’s estranged from his parents and from the little he told me about them, they weren’t exactly the best role models.

He murmurs restlessly in his sleep and I feel a sudden rush of love. It’s not surprising he wants some stability in his life. Someone he can depend on.