Beede removed his hand. He twisted around and pulled his chair closer, then clambered to his feet and sat back down on it. They were knee to knee.
‘You’re still not sleeping.’
It was a statement of fact.
‘No. I mean yes. I mean I’m absolutely fine. It’s just the…the roof,’ she back-pedalled, desperately, ‘it’s still leaking. And the builder, Harvey – Mr Broad – he keeps on stalling…’
‘Harvey Broad?’ Beede echoed, stiffening slightly. ‘Harvey Broad is your builder?’
‘And I’ve had a request from Fleet’s teacher to come in and see her,’ Elen continued (almost as if she hadn’t actually heard him). ‘I think there might be some kind of…of problem there.’
‘But mainly it’s Isidore,’ Beede spoke with a quiet authority, ‘he’s much worse again, isn’t he?’
She glanced up, dismayed. ‘Isidore’s fine. He’s fine. He’s…’
She groped around, desperately, for a better word.
‘Fine,’ Beede echoed, dryly. ‘Yes. I get the picture. Even if he did just steal a horse and ride it, bareback, along a busy dual carriageway.’ Her former – somewhat shaky – resolve seemed visibly undermined by this callous summation. Her shoulders drooped, pathetically.
‘So what now?’ he asked, observing the droop with a bitter pang. She didn’t answer him straight away. Instead, she unclenched the fist in which she’d held the tissue, observed it, balled up, in her palm, and then addressed her next few thoughts directly to it. ‘Things were so much better when you were around,’ she murmured, wistfully. ‘He seemed so much more…’ she paused, ‘so much easier…’
Beede also stared down at the tissue – not a little jealously, at first (I mean what had the damn tissue done to earn itself this gentle homily?).
‘Easier in himself, somehow,’ Elen continued (apparently undeterred by the tissue’s taciturnity). ‘But lately he’s grown so…’ she shivered, involuntarily, ‘dark. Dark. Just…’
A long pause: ‘just furious. Full of…’
A still longer pause ‘…anger. Bile. And then suddenly – out of nowhere – there’ll be that awful, that cruel…the…the laughter,’ she glanced up, fearfully, ‘you know?’
Beede nodded. He did know.
‘He’s homing in on the boy,’ she continued, warming to her theme now, ‘more every day. And at night, if I rest – even for a moment – then he’s up and he’s gone. He just…just flits…’
Beede’s expression did not alter. ‘You need to use those new tablets I gave you.’
She shook her head, looking down, focussing all her energies – once again – on the tissue.
‘Just for a while,’ Beede wheedled. ‘The other approach obviously isn’t working.’
She shifted in her seat. ‘I’d rather medicate myself,’ she glanced up, anxiously, ‘control myself. Don’t you see? To do anything else would just feel…’ she sighed ‘…detestable.’ She paused, shrugged, smiled resignedly. ‘And those other pills helped me enormously. They really did. I used them in conjunction with the ones from my doctor and was able to stay awake for several weeks, just taking quick naps, during the day, between clients…’
‘That’s crazy, Elen,’ Beede interjected, harshly, ‘and dangerous and short-sighted and irresponsible…’
‘I honestly believed,’ she interrupted, almost pleadingly, ‘in fact I still believe, that if I could just keep a close watch on him, build up some kind of a regular…a pattern, then things might have a chance – however slight – of falling back into place again.’
She closed her eyes. She frowned. ‘But everything’s the wrong…the wrong shape, somehow.’
Beede was still furious. ‘How on earth did you persuade me to get involved in all of this?’ he asked (and it was a question as much to himself as to anybody). ‘It’s just…It’s madness, don’t you see? You’re looking after a child, you’re running a household, you’re holding down a job…’
She dumbly nodded her acquiescence, a large tear forming in her eye and then sliding, plumply, down her cheek.
‘You’ve lost so much weight,’ Beede struggled, valiantly, to redirect his anger, ‘you’re so thin. I mean you look like you might just…just blow away.’
Elen shrugged (what did she care about that?). ‘Dory’s still exercising,’ she murmured, trying – and almost succeeding – to maintain her fragile equilibrium. ‘He’s really, really trying. And it’s so…so unbearably sad, somehow. He’s doing the breathing – the yoga breathing – which is all very positive and empowering and everything…’ she paused again, ‘but there are just so many repercussions which he doesn’t know about – which he can’t know about – and I don’t honestly feel like I can tell him – kill off that little bit of…of hope. But the more control he believes he has, the worse it becomes for everybody else. The less he goes under…I don’t know…when he does go…’ she bit her lip, ‘it’s just so much more terrible. I mean the consequences…And if the police get involved again…’
She shrugged, helplessly.
‘Dissolve a tablet into his tea,’ Beede instructed her, ‘or whatever he drinks before bed. That’s the most difficult time, isn’t it? The REM? When everything’s in transition? He’ll get to sleep much quicker. It’ll be deeper. And that’s bound to take the pressure off.’
‘Oh God,’ Elen clenched her hands together. ‘If only it were that simple…’
‘Try, at least,’ Beede cajoled her. ‘Think about Fleet. Your main priority has to be the boy. And yourself, obviously…’ he paused, frowning, ‘I’ve let you down recently. I can see that now…’
He scowled. ‘We’ve been short-staffed here for a while. I’ve been taking too much on. And then there’s this whole Monkeith situation. I seem to have become…’ he shrugged ‘…horribly enmeshed in the whole thing…’
A look of fleeting interest crossed Elen’s face. ‘Well it’s certainly a good cause,’ she gently chivvied him, ‘and so tragic. He was only eleven. Dory knows the godparents. He’s been doing some leafleting for them.’
‘I know,’ Beede’s voice sounded just a fraction sharper than before, ‘it was actually Dory who recommended me to them.’
‘Oh.’
Elen struggled to let the implications of this news sink in.
‘But I can play around with my rota here at work…’ Beede leaned over and grabbed a photocopied time-table from his desk, ‘juggle things around a bit. I’ve certainly got some holiday owing. I can try my best over the next few weeks to keep up with him during the day again. And then you can have a rest. A proper rest. Believe me, things’ll look ten times brighter after a couple of good nights’ sleep.’
‘But if he finds out…’ Elen covered her mouth with her hand and stared at him, over her fingers, almost in panic. ‘He’s grown so suspicious. So paranoid. If he has any kind of inkling…’
‘I know. I know.’
‘And if he realises that we met up earlier…’