Free Eye Contact by Fergus McNeill Page A

start to feel better, more in control,’ Jean assured him.
    She was wearing the same tight sweater she’d had on the first time he’d come here. He remembered the disappointment when he’d initially noticed her wedding ring, the abstract resentment towards a husband he’d never met.
    Someone for everyone . . . except him.
    Still, it was probably better this way. He could hardly be honest with her if there was any possibility of them getting together . . . and if he couldn’t be honest with
her
, what was the point?
    ‘Have you been getting enough exercise?’ she asked.
    ‘Doesn’t it show?’ He made a joke out of it but they both knew she wouldn’t respond to questions, only answers. ‘I’ve been swimming. There’s a pool just down the road from the station. I went twice this week.’
    In truth he’d enjoyed the water. Physically he was in good shape, not athletic but fit, with no excess weight on his six-foot-two frame. The exertion of lane swimming had helped to clear his head and leave him mentally calmer.
    ‘Very good,’ she nodded. ‘Regular exercise can be most beneficial to a person’s mood.’
    ‘It’s a good way to unwind after work,’ he agreed.
    She sat back in her chair and regarded him thoughtfully.
    ‘So, you enjoyed work more this week?’ A leading question.
    ‘I’m not sure that “enjoyed” is the right word.’ Harland paused, remembering the eerie eagerness he’d felt as the case started to unfold in front of him. Nobody in their right mind would enjoy that. And yet . . .
    ‘It’s been a better week,’ he admitted.
    She nodded very slightly. ‘How have you found things when dealing with your colleagues?’
    ‘That’s been fine.’
    ‘And what about . . .’ she glanced down at her notes ‘. . . what about Pope?’
    He forced a thin smile.
    ‘No problems with DS Pope this week,’ he answered honestly.
    No problems at all. The little shit was on holiday.
    ‘Okay.’ She studied him for a moment. He felt an uneasy sort of excitement, caught in her gaze, both worried and aroused by what she might see in his face.
    ‘So,’ she broke the spell, ‘no incidents at all since our last session?’
    He looked away and sighed.
    ‘No incidents. But there was a moment this morning where I found it . . . hard to keep everything together.’
    He glanced back to see her sit up a little in the chair – her ready-to-listen pose – then looked past her out of the window. He needed a cigarette.
    ‘Maybe you could tell me about it,’ she prompted.
    He bowed his head.
    ‘Things have been relatively stable recently. It’s not that the feelings have
gone
– they’re never gone – but they were . . . less painful somehow.’
    She nodded. ‘Go on . . .’
    ‘It felt . . .’ He frowned for a moment, struggling to clarify the intangible. ‘It felt as though I was sort of removed from it – as though it was
someone else’s
pain and I was watching it; sympathetic but not really part of it. And then I was interviewing a woman at Portishead, and something she said must have caught me off guard. All those emotions, all the pain . . . it all washed right over me, like the tide on that damned beach . . .’
    He shook his head, the words becoming difficult.
    ‘And then it wasn’t distant any more,’ he continued. ‘It was happening to me again. I felt like I was right back . . .’
    He paused, but she allowed him the moment. In his pocket, his fingers traced the edges of the cigarette packet. Just a few more minutes . . .
    ‘I was right back at the time when I lost her,’ he said at last.
    Jean’s eyes held him for a long moment.
    ‘And what happened next?’ she said quietly.
    He allowed himself to recall the crisis, experiencing yet again the crushing weight of loss, the chasm of despair opening up in front of him.
    ‘Graham?’
    He focused on the room – the beige carpet beneath them, the badly painted skirting boards, the small table – dragging himself back from the