Don’t Stand So Close Read online

  Blue nodded. She leaned back, loosening up, and once again closed her eyes.

  Stella sat stiffly on the edge of her bed. She had developed the ability to be still, to slow her thoughts and to lose herself in the small details around her, to focus on anything but her inner life. The bedroom was vast. The fire in the hearth had not been lit recently and only a few twisted black logs were left behind. The bookshelves on either side of the art deco mantelpiece were filled with novels. Her textbooks were downstairs in the study and she hadn’t opened a single one of them in all the time she had lived at Hilltop. The windows were framed by heavy yellow silk curtains. In daylight, Stella could see out over the tops of tall pine trees and beyond to the undulating hills.

  On the first night she had spent with Max in this house, she had covered the walls and the ceiling of this bedroom with tiny fluorescent stars. With the curtains closed, the stars had glowed everywhere around them. Stella had curved herself around Max, tracing his vertebrae with her fingertips. She wished everything between them could be as she had always hoped. She still believed things might change.

  From where she sat, she could see Blue’s fair head resting against the side of the bath.

  Session Seven

  She had chosen her underwear carefully: a pink bra and a matching thong. As she walked to her appointment, she could feel the lace chafe between her legs, and she smiled, at the thought of his hands, his arms holding her. She unfastened the top two buttons of her school shirt. She was wearing perfume – she felt older, sexier.

  He watched as she undid all of the buttons, letting the shirt fall open. The cups pushed her breasts forward and she knew her nipples showed through the lace. She looked down at his trousers. She could see she had won. She gave a small smile, tipping her chin forward as she unzipped her skirt and let it fall to the floor. She turned around, so that he could admire the full effect of her thong. Quickly, she unhooked her bra, shrugging it off her shoulders and letting it fall. She turned back to him, walked over and sat down on his lap. She placed her lips against his and kissed him softly. His beard tickled. He smelt good. Just as she had imagined. She pushed his hair back from his face, looking into his sad eyes.

  ‘This can’t happen,’ he said.

  She whispered: ‘Tell me what you want me to do.’

  With one hand he unzipped himself, with the other, he pushed his fingers inside her.

  Next time, she thought, she would make him take her to a posh hotel with a really big bed. Or maybe to his house; she would like to see his bed. She smiled at the thought of the receptionist outside.

  ‘I want to make you happy,’ she said.

  Grove Road Clinic, April 2009

  Stella knocked on Max’s door. She waited. No answer. She knocked again, both irritated and disappointed, because she was fairly confident the office was empty. He was going to be late for her supervision session. Again.

  She went downstairs to find Anne. ‘I’m supposed to have supervision with Max,’ she said. ‘But he’s not in his office. Do you have any idea where he might be?’

  ‘He’ll be in late today,’ Anne said, knowingly. She began playing with the thin gold chain around her neck and she gave Stella a rather smug smile.

  ‘How late?’ Stella glared at her, as though Max’s tardiness was somehow her fault.

  ‘I’ll give him a call,’ Anne said. ‘You can wait in his office.’ As usual, she managed to give the impression that she owned the place.

  Stella stopped by the kitchen. She threw out the cold dregs of coffee and made another, much stronger pot. She bit into a white-chocolate-chip biscuit. Max was often lax about her supervision sessions: he cancelled at short notice, started late or ended early. She had put up with his casual approach without complaint, and for the most part it was worth it. He was a brilliant clinician with several years more experience than she had. She looked at her watch. Fifteen minutes of her hour with him were already lost.

  Max’s office was the largest in the building. The front windows overlooked Grove Road. Cream shutters masked the view of heavy traffic and double-glazing ensured the room was cocooned in silence. A second window, at the back of the office, overlooked the small garden, most of which had been swallowed up by an extension for the clinic. Stella could see the skylight in the roof of Paul’s office, and beyond that the courtyard with a fountain in the middle. Anne had been in charge of garden design.

  A medical examining bed covered with a fresh white sheet of paper stood under the window, and a screen with floral fabric was folded back at the side. When Stella used his office, she made sure to fold out the screen so the bed was hidden. She didn’t like the office to feel too cold, or too clinical.

  She saw herself, Max on top of her, on the examining bed.

  ‘Stella.’

  The sound of his voice triggered goosebumps along her arms. She felt her face flush as she turned.

  ‘I’m so sorry I’m late,’ he said. He did look genuinely remorseful.

  ‘It’s fine.’ As usual, she let him get away with it. She was both grateful for any small part of his attention and resentful he did not give her more.

  He placed his battered-looking briefcase down next to his desk; it was the same one he had carried ever since Stella had first known him. Like Max, it seemed to get more attractive with age. Max loosened his tie and sat down in the wingback chair opposite hers. Not classically good-looking, he was slightly shorter than average and what was left of his hair was cropped short. But his blue eyes were warm and full of life and when he looked at Stella she felt she was the most interesting person on the planet. This was the effect he had on everyone, patients included. And he was fully aware of his charm, hence his ability to get away with being late, being careless at times, and still maintaining tremendous goodwill.

  He leaned forward. ‘So, which case did you want to discuss?’

  He should know the answer to that question. Clearly he had not prepared for their meeting. Stella liked to believe that the reason he didn’t place too much emphasis on her supervision was that he trusted her clinical judgement and he knew she could work on cases independently. She knew she should be more demanding. She knew it was as much her own responsibility as his to ensure she got the supervision she needed. But in truth, she liked working autonomously and she also liked her status as his star pupil. And so, their relationship worked.

  ‘Lawrence Simpson – care proceedings,’ she said.

  ‘Yes. Tell me.’ He always rubbed his temple when he was concentrating. Stella told him about the difficult interview with Simpson and his refusal to disclose any meaningful information about his childhood or his relationships.

  ‘That’s all valuable information in itself,’ Max said, as she knew he would. ‘His defensiveness, his unwillingness to reveal anything about himself.’

  ‘I know, but it doesn’t give me anything new to add to what they already know about the case. It’s frustrating. I want to know who he really is. I owe it to the child to find out more. I want to make him let me in!’ She laughed; she sounded childish.

  Max did not make fun of her zeal. He was thinking, rubbing his temple harder. As he took off his glasses and rested them on his knee, Stella felt a familiar blend of anxiety and affection.

  ‘You could try a different approach,’ he said. ‘A test that isn’t self-report, so it doesn’t depend on him being willing to reveal anything about his personality in a straightforward way, through direct questions. I think you should try the Rorschach. If you administer it, we can rate the protocol together afterwards.’

  ‘Great,’ she said.

  His glasses were back on. ‘Was there any other aspect of the case you wanted to go through?’

  She sensed he wanted her to say no. Her resentment flared again.

  ‘What do you think about some sort of collateral information? Asking to interview a family member, or asking to meet with him and the child together, to observe contact?’

  ‘It’s a good idea a
nd we’ve already set that up with the mother. But I doubt he’ll agree. When we first sent out the interview schedule we requested an observation of contact and he refused – on the grounds that there have never been any concerns raised about his care of the child. Contact between the two of them is unsupervised, so the judge evidently agrees with him. If you ask for that now, you run the risk of antagonizing him further, and making him shut down even more. If I was you, I think I’d see how the second interview goes before we put pressure on him to let us observe him with the child. But don’t be too pessimistic, he might loosen up once he spends more time with you. You can handle him.’

  He smiled at her.

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘But I think he knows that the less he says, the more shaky the conclusions in my report will be. I don’t want my entire opinion section to be based on conjecture. And I don’t want it to be so brief it’s unhelpful.’

  ‘Your reports are excellent – there’s so little I have to query or change. And you’re talented and you’ve been doing this work for a couple of years now – so I think you’ve earned the right to be a little more confident than you are. I might just relax a little. Try to enjoy the next interview a bit more. Your client might be picking up on your anxiety and your need to get inside his head. If you … loosen up a bit, it might help him relax.’

  Stella nodded, wondering if she was being rebuked for being uptight.

  ‘There’s something else I wanted to discuss,’ he said. ‘Are you in a hurry?’

  ‘No.’ In fact there were still twenty minutes left of her scheduled supervision session.

  ‘You know about the developments with the legal funding authorities?’ he asked.

  ‘A little bit.’

  ‘I’ve just been to a meeting of the expert witness consortium. It’s clear that funding for these cases is going to become much more difficult to secure. Within the next year, there is likely to be a cap on the hourly rate we charge – in fact, the plan is to halve what we’re charging now. And if we don’t agree to work for the lower rate, we won’t get the work. And not only that – they want to put a cap on the hours as well. I’m getting some ridiculous requests, asking us to complete a psychological assessment of an entire family in sixteen hours.’

  ‘Why would someone agree to undertake a complex report in less than half the time they need?’

  He gave her a tired smile. ‘Because at the moment that’s the mainstay of our work.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Max had put a tremendous amount of energy into forging links with family law solicitors in central London. Funding for most of these cases was assured through the state and the contracts had been lucrative.

  ‘Does this affect my job?’ Stella’s work was entirely focused on the medico-legal arm of the practice. Up until this point, she had thought she was indispensible.

  ‘We need to start thinking more creatively about how we can diversify,’ he said.

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘You and I probably need to look at taking on personal injury work, so that we have a fall-back if the cuts in fees for family cases become untenable. If we can secure those kinds of cases, with private funding, we can charge double what we charge now in family cases. But we need to market ourselves more aggressively and we need to start networking. I’ve already asked Anne to draw up some marketing materials and I’d like you to work on the presentations with me. We need to raise our profile and expand what we do – and we need GPs as well as psychiatrists and health insurance providers to see us as a centre of excellence.’

  ‘OK. Sounds good.’ Stella found herself tongue-tied and inarticulate, as was so often the case when she was around him. She would be able to think more clearly and to take in the implications of what he had said once she had left his office.

  Max always made a point of presenting a positive front; she knew he wanted to nurture the morale of his employees. He managed to exude a robust energy, a combination of optimism and ambition. But while his plans sounded exciting and full of potential, Stella sensed that underneath all of his words he was afraid. She saw signs of strain on his face, and a certain evasiveness, an apprehension in his eyes when he smiled.

  Hilltop, 7.30 p.m.

  Blue’s cheeks were flushed a rosy pink after the hot bath. She had a large towel wound around her chest and her wet hair hung loose. After the striptease in the bathroom, Stella wondered if the girl might have other surprises in store for her. But for the moment, Blue held tight to her towel. The two of them remained very still. Blue at the doorway to the bathroom, Stella on her bed.

  Stella had no idea what to do with the girl.

  Blue moved first. She walked over and sat down on the bed next to Stella, unexpectedly close, so that Stella could feel the girl’s thigh pressed against her own and could smell the scent of lavender that still clung to her hair.

  Stella was aware of each part of her body, where her thighs touched the mattress, where her hands pressed down, where her feet touched the floorboards. She held herself rigid, a tightness knotting in her neck and her shoulders.

  She felt Blue relax and lean into her side. The girl seemed to have no sense of where her own body ended and Stella’s began.

  Stella shifted, leaned away.

  Blue was staring at Stella’s hands, at her engagement ring.

  Stella wanted Blue out of her bedroom. She wanted her out, immediately. But she had better be patient. She didn’t want to frighten the girl, or worse, to make her angry. She had no idea who Blue really was. She reminded herself how Blue must have suffered, locked outside.

  ‘How are your fingers and toes? Are they still burning?’ she asked.

  Blue shook her head. ‘No.’ She peered down at her feet, where all ten toes appeared to be a healthy pink. She held out her hands for Stella to inspect.

  ‘They look good,’ Stella said. But Blue’s nails were horribly short, with jagged, bloodied edges. She had bitten them right down to the nail bed.

  ‘You have so many nice things,’ Blue said. She inspected the room: the fireplace and the books, Stella’s dressing table with her perfume, her hairbrushes and her leather jewellery box.

  ‘Thank you,’ Stella said.

  Blue’s eyes lingered on Stella’s wedding photograph on the mantelpiece.

  ‘What kind of house do you live in?’ Stella asked.

  Blue didn’t answer. Instead, she twisted round to stare at the bed.

  ‘Which side does Max sleep on?’ she asked.

  ‘That’s none of your business,’ Stella said.

  ‘Why? He’s got to sleep somewhere. I’m just asking.’

  Stella declined to answer.

  Blue shook out her wet hair. It dripped down her back, leaving marks on Stella’s pale green bed linen.

  ‘You should get dressed,’ Stella said.

  ‘I need to comb my hair out first or it will get all knotted,’ Blue said.

  ‘Fine.’ Stella got up to find a comb.

  The art deco dressing table had rounded drawer fronts with large brass handles, and a round mirror that stood on a black glass top. Blue was watching her in the mirror, vigilant, guarding whatever motives or secrets she might carry. Stella chose a wide-toothed comb that would not pull too hard on Blue’s wet hair and held it out to her.

  ‘Can you do it?’ Blue spoke in the pleading singsong voice of a small child.

  ‘Come and sit over here then.’

  Blue sat on the low chair in front of the dressing table. She turned her back to Stella and faced the mirror, staring at herself. She seemed pleased by her reflection. Stella too was mesmerized by the angles of her face and the hollows under her cheekbones, by her delicate, pouting mouth and the creamy skin of her shoulders. Carefully, Stella took up handfuls of wet curls. She tried to pull the comb through gently, with short strokes, so as not to cause any pain, but every now and again she had to give a little yank. Blue did not complain.

  ‘I haven’t seen any kids’ stuff around the house,
’ Blue said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you got any children?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Are you going to have any?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She could understand that Blue would want to know, if she really believed Max was her father.

  ‘Does Max want children?’ Blue asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  What Stella did know was that she was in no fit state to be a mother. In her heart, she didn’t think it was going to happen for her. Once she had wanted a career rather than children, now it seemed she might end up with neither.

  ‘That’s weird,’ Blue said.

  ‘What’s weird?’

  ‘That you don’t know what your own husband wants.’ Blue pushed her fringe back from her small, chiselled face and looked up at Stella with bright violet eyes. The name could not be a coincidence.

  Stella switched on the hairdryer. The noise, harsh and loud, made conversation impossible. Blue’s hair reached halfway down her back, and once it was clean and dry, the colour was extraordinary: shades of blonde ranging from almost white to the colour of beach sand.

  Stella put the hairdryer down carefully on the glass table-top. ‘All dry,’ she said.

  Blue picked up Stella’s hairbrush and started to brush her hair, staring at herself appreciatively as she did so. The girl was such a strange creature, such an uneasy combination of sulky teenager and seductress. There was something appealing about her; something compelling.

  Blue placed the hairbrush down next to the hairdryer. She ran her hands over her hair, smoothing it down, and checking her profile. Several strands of her hair had been left behind in the hairbrush, and Stella placed it carefully back in the drawer, leaving them in place. She could collect them later, for DNA testing if the girl persisted with her claims about Max. Max could use his contacts at the labs.

  Blue showed no sign of moving from the dressing table, let alone leaving Hilltop. She seemed unperturbed to be wearing only a towel. Stella could feel her staring again, with her unnerving, intense gaze.

  ‘What time is he coming back?’ Blue asked.

  ‘I told you – later.’