Rosaline glanced up from her burger, trying not to look as shocked as she felt. “You went to the doctor’s?”
“Yeah. Seemed I probably should to be honest. I know I bit your head off, but then I thought, Well, Rosaline’s pretty smart. Probably knows what she’s talking about.”
“You have way overestimated my competence.”
“Don’t be daft, mate. I’m just saying you’re worth listening to. And well, you was right. Turns out I’m a mental.”
“I don’t think,” she said, “that’s the technical term.”
“You don’t get to do that no more. As a mental, I get to decide what to call myself.”
“And ‘person with an anxiety disorder’ doesn’t strike you as more appropriate?”
He flashed her one of his sly smiles. “Bit of a mouthful, init?”
“Okay.But for the record, I want you to know that I don’t think of you as mental.”
“Thanks, mate.” He was still playing with the same fry. “It’s weird, though. Like, you know, disorienting. ’Cos it’s like a lot of stuff that you thought was just how it was . . . isn’t how it is or doesn’t have to be. And that does my head in.”
“I think . . . the . . . doing your head in is part of the process.”
“Maybe. But right now I’ve gone from Does everyone think I’m a dick; I hope everyone doesn’t think I’m a dick to Does everyone think I’m a dick or do I only think everyone thinks I’m a dick ’cos I’m a mental or am I a dick. And I’m not sure that’s helping.”
Rosaline rescued the disintegrating fry and tossed it into their designated rubbish bag. “It’ll get easier as you get used to it. And the pills might take the edge off, and therapy can give you new strategies for dealing with this kind of thing.”
“Yeah, and I do feel better, actually. I mean”—he shrugged—“I thought I was going to get laughed out of the doctor’s office, but she was really good about it. Said it was a common thing. Lots of options. Nothing to worry about. Which was a bit of a weird thing to say to someone what you’ve diagnosed with anxiety.”
Despite being in a motorway service station after a disastrously failed threesome, Rosaline smiled. “I’m honestly glad you’re getting help with this. I know how hard it is. After all, I’m the last person who should be lecturing other people on confronting their mental health issues.”
“’Cos of your parents?”
“Basically.” Now it was her turn to pick at her food, folding a stray piece of lettuce into a weird mayonnaisey parcel. “It feels so unbearably middle-class. You know, Woe is me, my life is fine, but I’m sad because Daddy didn’t buy me a pony.”
“I mean, I don’t think you’re sad. And it’s not that your dad didn’t buy you a pony, it’s that him and your mum was pricks your whole life.”
“But even that’s just them being unsupportive. It’s not like they ever locked me in a cupboard or anything like that.”
“It’s not a competition, though, is it, mate? And if it was, we’d all be losing, ’cos there’s people what’ve got cancer or got their houses blown up in a war and that.”
“I’m not sure that’s entirely consoling?”
“I just meant, yeah, there’s always someone worse off than you, but you’re not helping ’em by ignoring your own problems.” He started tidying up the remains of his Whopper meal. “’Cos the thing is, I’m feeling like a bit of a cock for not having got this sorted out years ago. And I guess I couldn’t because I didn’t have the, like, words to think about it until you sat me down and was like, ‘There’s something wrong with you, mate’—”
“I did not say that.”
“In a nice way. Point is, if I had known, I could have done something, spent less time worrying and more, you know, being there for people. Being a better mate and a better brother and a better son and things. It’s not selfish to work on your problems. It’s selfish not to. Even if hearing you’ve got a problem makes you yell at a nice girl what’s trying to help you.”
Rosaline squirmed, feeling that she didn’t deserve quite as much credit as he was giving her. “I . . . I didn’t . . . I’m not the one who fixes people’s electricity and drives halfway across the country to pick them up from a sex party they hadn’t consented to be at.”
“Leave it out, mate. It’s just different types of things, init. And from where I’m standing, I reckon we’re even.”
Maybe he was right. Or maybe even wasn’t the point at all and you didn’t have to keep a constant record of who owed what to whom. Because most people, at least most people you wanted in your life, wouldn’t be out to use it against you anyway.
It was a strange thought, but a comforting one.
It was close to three by the time they got back to Rosaline’s house—which stood at the end of its terrace, with the lights off, and a strange air of emptiness about it.
“You going to be all right, mate?” asked Harry as she hesitated on the doorstep.
“Um. Probably? This is really silly, but I’m not used to sleeping in the house on my own.”
“Are Lauren and Amelie not there?”
“No, Lauren’s wife was in town, so Amelie’s staying with them.” She dug her keys out of her bag. “It’s probably for the best. I wouldn’t particularly want to explain this to, well, anybody.”
“I’m sure they’d understand. Well, Lauren would. Amelie’s a kid.”
“Oh, Lauren would understand, but she’d have opinions about it. And Lauren’s one of those people who are sometimes on your side in a very unhelpful way.”
He nodded. “Yeah, Terry’s like that. Like, I was going out with this girl last year and she had to go to Jersey to be with her sister and so I rang Terry up and I was like, ‘Emma’s dumped me ’cos she’s gotta go to Jersey to be with her sister.’ And he’s all, ‘Aw, mate, how dare she, I never liked her, you’re too good for her.’ And I’m like, ‘Her sister’s got cancer, mate.’ And he’s like, ‘She still shouldn’t have led you on like that.’ And I’m like, ‘She didn’t know her sister was gonna get cancer.’ And so for the next half hour I’m defending Emma from my best mate when all I wanted was for us to go out and have a pint.”
“Yeah, and when I tell Lauren about this, because I will inevitably tell Lauren about this, she’ll go immediately to, Roz darling, that’s exactly what you get for messing around with straight men. And then I’ll have to defend them as a class to my best friend after one of them has just been a complete wanker to me.”
“You know,” he went on thoughtfully, “I can’t tell if your Lauren and my Terry would get on real well or fucking murder each other.”
Rosaline pushed open the door and stared into her shadowy hall. “So . . . um . . . you want to come in?”
There was a pause. And then Harry put a hand to the back of his neck. “You’ve just had one really bad experience with a bloke off the show. I’m probably not the person you want hanging around.”