What Goes Around: A chilling psychological thriller by Julie Corbin Page A

adulthood but it didn’t need to define me. Except that sometimes it did.
    What would Maurice make of my behaviour this afternoon? First the cat and then Alex. And all because David wants to revisit our childhood. Trouble is, I know what I’d be telling David if I was his therapist. I would be encouraging him to talk, to rant, to rail against the misery and the injustice. And I’d encourage him to be truthful with the people who were there when he was a child. ‘Your sister doesn’t want you to speak the truth?’ I would say. ‘Well, she needs to understand that this isn’t about her – this is about you.’
    That’s what I’d be telling him.

4. Ellen
    I hand her my coat and walk into the therapy room, looking around me as if this is the first time I’ve been in here, and in a way it is, because Tom’s study has been completely remodelled. The doors and windows are where they’ve always been but otherwise the space is unrecognisable. The walls are a muted lilac and the furniture is comfortable and expensive. The new furniture, carpets and blinds are plush and modern and straight out of a high-end showroom.
    ‘Do take a seat, Mary,’ Leila says. She’s wearing a red and cream patterned shirt-dress and cream wedge sandals, no tights, her legs smooth and subtly tanned.
    I sit down on a yellow armchair and she sits down opposite me. There is a glass of water and an open box of tissues on the table next to me. The room is cleaner and neater than it ever was before, but gone is all sense of the personal. This room used to be stuffed to the gunnels with all of sorts of souvenirs and memorabilia, some would say clutter. Tom had shelves and shelves of textbooks and journals, and an assortment of possessions he’d gathered over the years: old photographs, a brass cigarette case that belonged to his granddad, a large wooden Labrador that sat by the door for everyone’s hand to blindly reach out and stroke, awards he’d won, a rugby ball from a winning match and so on. I wonder what’s happened to all his stuff and then I remember Chloe telling me he’s using her old bedroom as his home office.
    ‘I need to take a few details from you,’ Leila says. ‘And also to let you know of my charges.’ She hands me a piece of thick, expensive paper – £55 for a fifty-minute session. Cancellation charges apply. ‘Do you have private health insurance?’ she asks.
    ‘I don’t.’ I make a growling sound that I try to disguise by clearing my throat. ‘And my problem isn’t serious enough for me to get help on the NHS.’ I focus my gaze on the paper on my lap. I can’t look at her because I don’t know what will happen if I do.
    ‘You’re feeling anxious at the moment?’ she says.
    I swallow down the urge to reach across and slap her smug face.
    ‘There’s no rush,’ she says. ‘I want you to feel that this is a safe space.’
    A safe space? This room has been more than just a safe space. This room has been somewhere I have spent hours of my married life. The first fifteen years we lived here, when Tom was building his career, I would put the children to bed and then join him in here. We would share cocoa or a brandy, depending on whether he was in court the next day. He would tell me about his latest case, practise his opening address in front of me, run his logic past me. I was often a pretend juror, an everywoman, his link with the general public. But that wasn’t all. We frequently made love in here. We conceived Ben on the sofa, both of us giggling as the springs squeaked along with our rhythm.
    ‘Whenever you’re ready,’ Leila says.
    ‘I’d rather …’ I fold the paper and slide it into the back pocket of my jeans. ‘Please continue.’
    ‘You’ve been to your GP?’
    ‘He gave me some antidepressants.’ I stare at the floor and cough into my fist. ‘I stopped taking them because they didn’t make any difference.’
    ‘And how long were you on them?’
    ‘Six months.’
    She asks for