Page 35 of The Two of Us at the End of the World

“That might be an exaggeration—” said the woman.

“Might it?” said the Girl.

“Well, I don’t know, to be frank,” said the woman. “I only know that we were called and given your name. That’s where my knowledge, our involvement begins. But yes, these are strange times. Given the circumstances. Maybe they were hoping you could help them.”

“But doctor–patient confidentiality,” said the Boy. “That’s still a thing, right?”

“It is a thing, yes,” said the woman. “But, if you’ll let me be frank again, it’s just not everything. And not, I’m afraid, the most important thing. Not in this case.”

“She’s not a case,” said the Boy. “We’re not a case.”

“No,” said the woman. “Of course not. Clumsy word. I apologise.”

“What’s the opposite of clumsy?” said the Girl.

“Well,” said the woman, leaning back in her chair and studiedly looking at the bottom of her cup like she had a thesaurus hidden in there. “I don’t know. Graceful? Elegant?”

“Sensitive” said the Boy.

“Sensitive is good,” said the Girl, looking into the woman’s eyes. “What’s the sensitive way to ask someone to do what you want us to do?”

“Well,” said the woman, “if I can…”

“Please don’t ask me if you can be frank,” said the Girl, and the Boy heard the tension pulling her voice tight as piano wire. “Not again. You keep saying ‘frankly’, or that you are going to ‘be frank’, or asking if you can be ‘frank’, which is a weird question, and every time you say the word it makes me wonder why you keep repeating it, as if you are not being frank whenever you don’t. Like lying is your default setting and so you need to flag the true bits, the frankness.”

The woman nodded slowly.

“Is there any more coffee?” she said. “Sorry, but I had to get up at 4.30 to be here…”

“No,” said the Girl. “That was the last of it.”

“OK,” said the woman. “So, I told you who I am and what we are…”

“Scientists,” said the Boy.

“Well, they are. They do reproductive science, I’m not quite the same,” she said. “I’m a psychologist. A behavioural scientist.”

“You do people,” said the Girl. “As in manipulate them, right?”

“Optimise outcomes,” said the Boy.

“Yes,” said the woman. “I try and read people and situations and get the best results.”

“Like a salesman. Or woman,” said the Girl.

The woman bowed her head sideways in acknowledgement.

“You’re both clever enough to know I haven’t arrived unprepared. We’ve researched you both, and they sent me, rather than one of my male colleagues because we judged that you’d respond better to an older woman.”

“I don’t know,” said the Girl. “Certain amount of that would depend on how often they told us they were being frank.”

“Yes,” said the woman, “I rather fucked that up, didn’t I? Best-laid plans, and all…”

The Girl nodded and looked at the Boy.

“Swearing doesn’t seem your style,” he said. “Is that part of what you’re doing? Changing your vocal style, manipulating?”

The moment hung in the air, as slow and lazy as the dust-motes drifting in the slash of still-too-early morning sun slanting through the air between them. Then the woman’s smile morphed into something more like a grin, making her look younger. More unguarded. More trustable.