‘It might help you feel more like yourself again,’ she tries, tentatively.
But Camilla shakes her head, her eyes filling with tears again. ‘I won’t ever feel like myself again.’
A silence descends on the grand, sad room. Phoebe runs through all the techniques she could try but for once finds herself struggling to know how to pull Camilla out from her darkness. And then an idea occurs to her.
‘How about this. I’ll get back to swimming if you get back to running.’
‘Really?’ Camilla raises an eyebrow, fixing Phoebe with a challenging expression that says she doesn’t really believe her. The expression just makes Phoebe feel even more determined. She wants to do something to make Camilla feel that she can trust her. And it strikes her now that maybe she’s been something of a hypocrite in the past. How can she expect her patients to follow her advice about exercising, eating well and finding time for the things that help their mental well-being when she doesn’t follow her own advice? Is she just a massive fraud?
‘Yes, really. Next time I visit, I promise I will have gone for a swim. I’ll tell you all about it and you can tell me about your run. Deal?’
Camilla might have lost the love of her life, and, for a while, all hope for the future, but Phoebe wants to show her that therearethings that could make her feel happy again. And she wants to do whatever she can to stop this woman’s daughterfrom feeling as though she can’t leave the room for fear of what her mother might do to herself.
She senses Camilla hesitating as she glances around the room that has been her whole world since returning from hospital.
‘I should stress,’ Phoebe says, attempting a wry smile, ‘me agreeing to go for a swim is a big deal. It’s been months since I last sorted out my bikini line.’
A loud noise bursts out of Camilla’s mouth. It takes Phoebe a second to realise that it’s laughter.
Within moments, Arabella appears at the door, looking flustered.
‘Is everything all right?’ She rubs her eyes, her hair mussed from sleep. She glances between her mother and Phoebe and back again, her eyebrows shooting up as she sees the smile on her mother’s face.
‘Everything’s fine,’ assures Phoebe. ‘Your mum has just agreed to go for a jog.’
Phoebe isn’t sure if Arabella would look more shocked if she’d said her mum had just agreed to do karaoke on live television. While naked.
‘Really?’
Phoebe looks at Camilla questioningly. She wouldn’t normally push a patient like this, but over the years, she’s got pretty good at getting the measure of people. And she can sense a steeliness beneath Camilla’s vulnerability. She just needs a helping hand.
‘Yes,’ nods Camilla determinedly. ‘You heard correctly.’
Arabella’s shoulders sink and she rushes to her mother’s side, reaching for her hand.
‘That’s wonderful, Mum!’
Mother and daughter lock eyes, a look of great meaning passing between them. Phoebe can see how tightly they hold each other’s hand. She casts her eyes up quickly at the ceiling, a trusty technique of hers. She will not let herself cry.
Arabella remains in the room, perched on the side of the bed, holding her mum’s hand, while Phoebe does the medical checks she needs to do. When it’s time for her to leave, they are still sitting like that, quietly holding on to one another.
‘I’ll leave you to it. It was lovely to meet you both. I can see myself out.’
Both women seem so caught up in one another that she isn’t sure they heard her at first. But just as she is about to leave, a voice reaches her from the bed. ‘And don’t forget your side of the bargain too, Phoebe.’
Phoebe nods, lifting her hand to wave goodbye.
‘A promise is a promise.’ And when Phoebe makes a promise to her patients, she doesn’t let them down. It’s a principle that might have cost her love life, but it’s what makes her so good at her job.
She’d better buy a swimsuit. And one that actually fits.
CHAPTER 16
If the cottage was messy before Jay left for his shoot, after Kate’s first day alone with Rosie, it now looks like a scene from one of those television programmes where people seek professional help to sort out the state of their homes. The kind of programme she used to watch from behind a pillow, cringing at how anyone could live like that. There are books and muslins and toys strewn everywhere, plates of half-eaten food from where Kate made several attempts to eat before being interrupted by her daughter’s cries, and a pile of nappy bags in one corner because she hasn’t found the energy to take them to the outside bin.
Kate reaches for her phone, wondering if it’s too early to call Jay to ask when he’ll be back. He was due home at seven. It is now 7.01.
How is it possible for one single day to feel about three weeks long?
