What to do about Katrina, Ep. I, Act I, sc. 30
An Initial Psych Assessment
Hi. You are very welcome if you have just joined us! Feel free to jump in here if you like. This would, as it happens, be an extremely intriguing place to enter Katrina’s world. Then, if you like, of course you can always return to the very beginning. If so, or if you would rather start there without any advance knowledge, then here is my intro, and here is the Prelude and Scene 1.
For the previously on Katrina, click there. In those two scenes, Tom from MI5 had lunch with his Irish colleague Sean and discovered a few choice snippets about Ursula, the Irish woman Katrina claims as her mother. They also discuss their suspicions about Peter and consider the option of spying on him, just in case he decides to have a clandestine meeting with some shady character. Then Katrina has a light lunch with her chaperones and Audrey, and decided she may just have a chance to be happy here, in this dystopia, before returning to the Embassy for what is about to happen in this scene, in which she and Malcolm, the psychologist, are about to meet and get to know each other for the first time. You’ll also get to find out some more about Katrina’s parallel world.
So, here we go with Malcolm’s first psych assessment.
And of course, these sorts of phenomena are always far more complex than they at first appear. Of course they are.
“Hello, Katrina. My name’s Malcolm.”
Katrina didn’t see Tom at the Embassy, although she knew he’d be there somewhere. She could sense it in Audrey’s eyes. That they didn’t have lunch together was suggestive. And judging from Tom’s antipathy he was still being ordered to investigate her case, she decided. Did she feel guilty about provoking him? Maybe. She was a little too emotionally subdued to really care right now.
But what does that mean, specifically, to be still on her case?
In the ten minutes or so she had to wait for the psychologist she figured they must’ve had enough time to think about CCTV by now. It’s been over twenty-four hours, after all, and they really can’t be that incompetent, can they?
Maybe that’s what Tom was up to, then. CCTV analysis. Probably has zero experience of it, too.
And that definitely made her chuckle inside.
Katrina slipped effortlessly into diplomacy mode. Malcolm’s warm smile made it easy.
“Hello, Malcolm.” She stood up to greet him. The same warm smile, with zero hint of disaffection. “Pleased to meet you.”
They both sat down and Katrina finished with her swift initial measure of him. She recognised the accent. Somewhere near Lancaster. Mid-to-late thirties, perhaps. Tall, a little wiry, somewhat unkempt dark brown hair, bright and eager brown eyes. Suggestive of an open-minded, quirky nature, she concluded. Bodes well for a psychologist.
She decided to like him.
“You’re the psychologist Tom mentioned, of course.”
He smiled again. Interesting that she would choose to say something she already knew. He nodded. “I’m attached to the Embassy. You’d be surprised how often I get requisitioned.”
She smiled. “Requisitioned. I like your choice of words.”
“I was actually in Brittany when I received the call.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. You didn’t need to disrupt your holiday on my account.”
He shook his head. “Don’t feel guilty at all. Brittany isn’t going anywhere, and from what Tom’s told me I’m going to find this fascinating. Besides, the weather’s not exactly clement.”
Katrina admired his forthrightness. She didn’t feel guilty at all, as it happens. But all the best psychologists are accomplished at choosing the right words. Perhaps there was more to him than that, she thought.
“Strange time to choose for a vacation. Dreary November, that is. No offence.”
“None taken. I’m an outdoors kind of person. Lake District born and bred.”
“Ah. I thought I recognised the accent. My grandmother was from the Lakes. It’s where I learned to swim. That and the Arthur Ransome stuff.”
He chuckled. “You and me both.”
“May I ask you an odd question?”
“Of course.”
“Do you have security clearance?”
He smiled a little embarrassingly. That was a clever question. He wondered if he’d just been unwittingly sucked into a furtive game of cat and mouse.
“What makes you ask?”
“I know how Embassies work. Tom is from MI5. Psychologists with an association with the intelligence services need clearance. Especially if you do vetting and counselling?”
He allowed her a capitulating smile. “Astute observation. So, how do you know how Embassies work?”
“I used to be the Russian Ambassador to Britannia. 2003 to 2008. I’m assuming you’ve been briefed about me being from a parallel world and thirty-one years’ older than I look?”
He just smiled again and nodded.
“You don’t mind my being direct?”
He shook his head. “I would prefer it.” Then he paused, took a breath. “And you don’t mind if the session is recorded?”
She looked a little quizzically at him. “I’d be very surprised if it wasn’t. I’m assuming there are listening devices and probably someone else listening in?”
Malcolm gave a short chuckle. “Quite possibly. But for my purposes,” he extracted a little digital recording device from his pocket, which he placed on the table, “I’ll just use this?”
Katrina smiled and nodded an affirmation. Malcolm clicked record. “Initial interview with Miss Katrina Meyer, with myself Dr Malcolm Gladwish. British Embassy Paris. 17 November 2021.” He checked his watch. “14:29 local time.”
Katrina looked on with her usual curiosity. “Don’t you want to check it’s working?”
“It’s fine. I know it works. If it’s ok with you,” he started, “I’ll ask you about your parallel world a little later. Please think of this as a kind of initial meeting to assess your state of mind.”
“Ah,” Katrina smiled slyly, “you want to know whether I’m a danger to myself or others, eh? Should I be confined? That kind of thing.”
He chuckled. “Something like that, yes. So, how do you feel?”
Katrina suddenly didn’t feel like making any deliberate quips. She spoke a little slowly and sadly. It was the right question to ask.
She wanted to talk.
She sighed. “I’m sad. I miss my family.”
“That’s understandable.”
“Sure. And I’ve been putting on a brave face, I suppose. Except it comes out sometimes, the stress. Maybe Tom’s mentioned it. I can understand why he’s taken against me. I’ve been unforgivably undiplomatic. A part of me thinks, or hopes, I guess, that I will go to sleep one of these nights and wake up back home again in the morning. But the rest of me knows I won’t. So I feel sad. I miss my home and my family.”
“Perhaps you could tell me about your home, then, and your family?”
“I live in Cambridge. Park Parade. Corner of Portugal Street. Number eleven. Although I was able to buy the few houses either side and knock through, so it’s a very sizeable townhouse now. I’m a very rich person, I don’t know if Tom mentioned that?”
“It might be best to assume Tom’s hardly told me anything.”
“Ok. Well, I spent several million doing it up. The inside is beautiful and elegant, with Victoriana and Art Deco. Especially in the lobby, which I opened up. It has supporting columns and a double staircase. My house overlooks Jesus Green, which is a lovely little park within a bend in the Cam. There are some tennis courts next to the river, and on the other side of the park there’s a lido. I go there a lot, especially in summer. The children love it because they know I’m a famous person and they often want to swim with me.”
“Tom did mention your swimming.”
“Sure. One thing I love about my world is that I don’t need to hide. I don’t need to worry about my security or the security of my family like I used to when I was in the Embassy. I can just walk around Cambridge like a normal person and everyone smiles at me and says hi and thank you for everything you’ve done for us and it makes me feel warm, and safe. And loved. I don’t think I’d be able to do that here.”
“He also said you described your world as a utopia?”
“It’s getting there, sure. We’ll have fusion power coming online next year. Estimates suggest it’ll take around twenty to thirty years to roll it out across the world and then, well, that will be that.”
“So, you’re ahead of us, then?”
“From what I can gather so far, yes. Maybe ten, fifteen, twenty years. Depending on what kind of technology you’re talking about. Socially, though, I’d say we’re totally different. But maybe we should leave that for another time.”
“Agreed. So, rather than ask you all about your parallel world, even though I am fascinated -”
“That’s understandable. Would be strange if you weren’t. Of course the real social difference will happen when we start using the fusion torch. The UN bank is already taking pre-emptive measures to fix lower commodities prices accordingly. It can break down any matter into its constituent elements, you see. So you can recycle anything and everything and so the cost of living becomes negligible. Same for the supply of resources and commodities. No enforced scarcity for the purposes of inflation and social control, no limits to growth. So there’s no excuse for not having a socialist system. As you can imagine, exploitative capitalism, colonialism and imperialism are simply incompatible with that.”
Malcolm gave her a slightly nervous half-laugh. “I can see how that would be world-changing, put it that way.”
“Exactly. I would imagine your bad guys are perfectly aware of all this. I would also imagine they must be getting somewhat nervous about it. Desperate and panicking, throwing caution to the wind and becoming more overtly totalitarian. The fact that your Internet is censored is proof of this. As soon as you have censorship of the Internet and prohibitions on access to knowledge and, well, overt propaganda then that’s when alarm bells should be ringing.”
Malcolm sighed. This was not going to be easy. “And that makes you feel insecure?”
“Unsafe, you mean. Absolutely. If my knowledge and understanding weren’t perceived as a threat to these people then it wouldn’t matter. I’d just do whatever everyone else does. Conform, not ask questions. Do whatever they tell me to do. But that’s not me. It would be dishonest. I can’t not care, or pass by on the other side.”
“So, you don’t feel that you could remain silent about all these issues?”
She shook her head. “All it takes for evil to flourish, is for good people to do nothing. For me, that would be a sin.”
“Perhaps you could be diplomatic.”
That made her laugh. She wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to it for a moment. But then she said, “You’re suggesting this for my own safety, then?”
“Yes. I get the impression you don’t feel safe because of your impression of this world as a dangerous dystopia. Correct?”
“Correct. It’s not safe. And in order to not feel stressed and, well, as you would put it, become a potential danger to myself or others, simply out of self-defence and self-preservation, then yes, I need to be made to feel safe.”
“Then if we treated you as a diplomat, that would suffice?”
She smiled again. “That would do it, yes. It does work both ways. That’s very insightful. Sorry for sounding patronising. I can understand why Tom got pissed off with me.”
Mal laughed. “I’m sure he’ll get over it. I think he’s having a few, erm, personal issues, shall we say.”
“The lovely Audrey. That doesn’t surprise me. She’s an intelligent girl.”
Mal enjoyed that insinuation. “Do you think you’re here as an emissary, then?”
“Oh. That hadn’t occurred to me, honestly. I guess you’d have to ask my Goddess. Mind you, if you don’t believe in her then you won’t hear her response. If you catch my drift?”
Malcolm decided he already liked Katrina. For all her apparent paranoia and conspiratorial thinking, she was clearly a bright, warm-hearted girl.
That was the point, he realised later, when he began to feel sorry for her. Not in a patronising way, but in a compassionate way. Something akin to fondness washed through him. The kind of feeling he could imagine himself having for a daughter, if he could’ve ever had one.
He decided that was his cue to change the subject. Return to the original, intended line of questioning. “So, tell me about your family, then.”
“My other half is called Anna. She’s like my soulmate, you know?”
“How long have you been together?”
“Erm, I suppose for about thirty years. It was a bit weird at the beginning, but that’s another story. Of course it was a bit awkward when I got married, but Anna always knew that’s what I wanted. That I wanted a family, I mean. It was just a question of finding the right man.”
“And you did?”
“I think so. Sasha already knew everything about Anna, and the kind of relationship me and her had, so he already knew what to expect and what kind of arrangement we’d end up having. Don’t think it was a sort of ménage à trois, though. I wouldn’t want you to think I’m sordid or anything.”
Malcolm laughed. “I’m certainly not going to criticise your choice of lifestyle, put it that way.”
“I’m very glad to hear it. You’re not married yourself?”
He shook his head. “Eternal bachelor.”
“Not gay, though? I can tell.”
He laughed and shook his head again. “Maybe I just never found the right person.”
“Ah. That I can understand. Anyway, our arrangement did work. Mainly because we each had our own separate stuff that we did. Like Sasha had his work and his colleagues. And a fair amount of boy stuff, I suppose. Anna travelled to do a lot of research for her writing, and I did my movies of course. Anna used to come with me when I was filming while Sasha stayed at home so there were periods where I’d get either one of them all to myself for a while.”
“Makes sense.”
“Sure. A while after Sasha died Anna and I decided to get a civil marriage thing. Introduced by the Lizzy government in 2003. Mainly to protect her interests, but also because it felt right and it was a sort of statement. Plus it became acceptable to the Catholic Church.”
“Are you very religious?”
“From a certain point of view. There’s a lot of dogma I don’t agree with, but not so much to cause a split. I’m religious from a more personal and spiritual perspective, I suppose. Although I do love the community of it. Maybe you can ask me about all that another time?”
“Sure. And you have children?”
She nodded. “I suppose Tom told you about that?”
“A little. Sasha is their father, although the younger two, I believe, were artificial insemination?”
“Or immaculate conception. Because he was killed three months after Niki was born. And I was scared something might happen. I don’t want to talk about it. Not yet.”
“That’s ok. I won’t press you until you’re ready.”
“Spoken like a true counsellor. Thank you. So, there’s Nikita. She’s the eldest. Tenth of February, 2003. It’s ironic. Given how old this body probably is then I’m now, what, ten months younger than my own daughter.”
Mal laughed. “How does that feel?”
“Ask me when I’ve got used to it.”
“Ok. Duly noted. So, Nikita is eighteen? Is she at school? A-levels?”
Katrina shook her head. “No, she left school at sixteen. She’s an actress, like me. Don’t think I pushed her into it, though. She loves it. And it’s not nepotism either, before you wonder. I might be able to help her get auditions but if she’s no good she wouldn’t get any parts.”
“She gets her talent from you, then?”
“Children learn through observation, as I’m sure you understand, being a psychologist and all that?”
He smiled again. “Perfectly. Go on.”
“She’s also inherited my condition, so she’s got a bit of an advantage when it comes to sports. She’s not as, I don’t know, obsessed by it as I always was, for which I’m glad, actually, but she does enjoy it, which is what I really wanted.”
“Does she compete professionally? Like you, I mean?”
“Yes. But she only does the modern pentathlon. Ironically, it’s partly so she looks cool in movies. And she saw me doing some fencing and shooting when she was a girl so she insisted. Horse riding too. And she also came to realise that even if the standard in individual swimming was so much better and she’d have a hard time competing with the likes of Katy Ledecky, she could still be best in the world at the pentathlon. Like me she’d have a massive advantage with the swimming and the running, so she’d be way ahead on points there. I don’t know if you know how the pentathlon works?”
“I do. I enjoy sports.”
“Hmm. Do you do fell running, by any chance?”
“Since I was a boy. Can’t get enough of it. Cycling too.”
“Ah. Good for you. When in France, eh?”
He liked that one. “I’m certainly in the best place for it, put it that way.”
“Quite. Anyhow, that’s Nikita.”
Mal took a breath before asking a follow-up. “And does Nikita remember her father?”
He wanted her to think emotionally. She recognised that, of course, but had no objections. “Yes. Well, not really. She has, impressions, of him. She remembers his smell. She cried a lot when he wasn’t there anymore. And I had to hide my own feelings. Which I couldn’t. Not really. I tried to comfort her, not to cry so much in front of her. I know how formative that time is. Children observe their mother. It’s how they learn. You know?”
Mal left it hanging. “Tom mentioned you have two other children?”
“Yuri, he’s the middle one. March 2006. He was the immaculate conception. Then there’s Alice, two years later. But her father is Anna’s brother, and it was a natural conception. I can tell you about that later I suppose, although it’s not that exciting a story?”
Mal smiled. “Maybe later, sure.”
Katrina continued. “Yuri looks more and more like his father all the time. He’s got his mischief too. And his boyish blue eyes. So does Niki. Yuri’s got his hair though. Whereas Niki, my hair his eyes. It’s weird how it goes, isn’t it?”
Mal just smiled warmly and let her ramble on. The more she was engaged, the more he could work it all out, he’d decided.
“And they’re at school?”
“Yes. Yuri is away at boarding school. Haileybury College. Have you heard of it?”
“Erm, Hertfordshire, I believe?”
“That’s the one. I’m sure it’s different in this world, but in my world it’s one of our Centres of Excellence. Which is what happened to all the private schools when the Lizzies got into government. So Haileybury is the best place in the country, if not the world, possibly, for stuff like diplomatic studies, cultural studies, languages, literature and creative writing, that sort of thing. Espionage too, ironically.”
“Espionage?” Mal was genuinely taken aback by that one.
“Yeah. Espionage studies, like the history and theory and practice of it, is one of the AO-levels. In our system, which is based on the ideas of Steiner and Jung in its teaching methods, children do their general exams, O-levels, at age fourteen. Year nine, that is. That’s a wide curriculum including stuff like psychology, philosophy, cultural studies, politics, law, economics, media studies, various performance-related and practical, vocational stuff, and so on. History of science. Music, art, sport. Then after that students get to choose the subjects they do up to AO-level. Which are two-year courses. They have to stay in school until sixteen and they have to choose a minimum of three AOs, up to a maximum of seven. Then they get the option of staying on for another two years before going on to A-levels, or vocational equivalent et cetera. The Centres of Excellence are the former private schools, as I said, and they get to retain their independence by choosing which subjects they want to teach. They also get to keep all their traditions. Except that entrance is based on student’s ability, not parents’ ability to pay. And we don’t have boarding prep schools either. You’re not allowed to board until fourteen. Psychological reasons, you know?”
“That I can understand.”
“From bitter personal experience?”
He suppressed a smile. “Possibly. Go on.”
“Well, Haileybury chose to specialise in the stuff I mentioned, and it’s become the leading place for it. Our intelligence services have a kind of worst-kept secret arrangement with the school, so they monitor all the students’ progress and vet them in the first year and get themselves a shortlist of potential candidates. Then they clandestinely approach them and give them secret tasks to do. Like sneaking out of their rooms at night, trying to work out who the other spykids are, setting up surveillance, that kind of thing.”
Mal found the image of that extremely appealing. Ridiculous, perhaps, but definitely fun.
“Obviously there’s more to it than that, and there’s a certain level of misinformation going on, but it’s certainly true that maybe a third to a half of all the students end up in the Foreign and Diplomatic Service.”
“Ah. So, given your previous diplomatic occupation that would explain Yuri’s interest?”
“Hmm. I dunno. Sort of. Although Yuri isn’t really doing all the diplomacy stuff. He’s more interested in cultural studies and languages and creative writing. A lot of the Centres of Excellence have developed packages of subjects. So they mix it all up and the students end up with more than two lots of seven AO-levels by the end of the four years. Yuri will probably end up with maybe sixteen or seventeen. He does have the language advantage as well, of course. All my children are multilingual. Encouraging at least bilingualism has also been a big part of the Lizzies’ education system. So we have a lot of foreign-born teachers. It’s just over half of children today who are bilingual, maybe. Gives them a significant advantage in later life. And stimulates brain development.”
“So, what you’re saying is your education system takes more account of psychology, then? You mentioned Jung?”
“Exactly. Yes, Jung as in individuation, which I don’t need to explain to you.”
“Nope. How about Alice?”
“Ah. Well, Alice takes after Anna quite a lot. They’re really close. Especially given the familial thing, obviously. It was really Anna who chose her name actually. Same as her own middle name. It goes back to her childhood, which was idyllic and her parents loved her and she was, well, sort of Wonderland thing. Except then she got estranged from them because they started supporting Thatcher and, sorry, that’s another long story. Anyhow, Alice is really creative. She loves music in particular. Which she sort of gets from me. And her grandmother. My mum plays piano really well, I don’t think I mentioned that.”
“I don’t believe so. She taught you?”
Katrina nodded. “Yes. She got to grade six. I’m five. Alice is already grade five. She also plays violin and guitar so she’s a bit talented. She’s definitely going to be in a band when she’s a bit older, she’s decided. She’s the sort of person you don’t argue with. Don’t question her decisions. Quite right too. I always told my children never to let anyone else make your decisions for you. Always make your own.”
“I think that’s very good advice. So long as they have the right tools to make the right decisions.”
“Quite. Which is where our education system comes in. But I sort of copied my own parents’ approach with my own children. They didn’t just let me be myself, my parents, they encouraged it. And always made me feel safe. When a child feels safe, and they’re sufficiently stimulated and no learning or knowledge is restricted to them, then they’re going to be fine. I was. And so will my own children. I’m very proud of them.”
“Sounds like you should be, from what you say.”
Katrina showed her gratitude for the compliment with a soft smile. “Alice has also done a bit of acting, like playing Titty in the Arthur Ransomes, and some voice work for some animated films, and she does love it but she’s not as, I don’t know, serious about it like Niki is. She’s just laid back about the whole thing. Which is fine. I mean, she’s only thirteen, after all.”
“But Niki is more grown up, though?”
“Much more. More serious. I mean she behaves like an adult. She’s always been emotionally mature and intelligent, sure, but she’s thinking more like an independent woman, I suppose you could put it like that. She’s not a girl anymore. And she has her whole life ahead of her.”
“And do they all still live with you and Anna in Cambridge? Aside from Yuri, I mean?”
“Yes. Well, obviously Yuri’s home for the holidays and all those exeat weekends. But yes, they all live with me. Niki’s talking about moving out, though. Maybe getting a place of her own. She’s getting loads of offers for movie roles.”
Katrina lowered her eyes, a little sadly. She probably wanted Malcolm to notice.
She raised her eyes at him again, but didn’t say anything else. Just watched, waited.
Malcolm left that hanging there for a moment, although he was beginning to understand something. “I have another question for you. Might sound a bit weird.”
She laughed. “More weird than me being from a parallel world and, what, ten years’ older than you?”
He chuckled. “Well, ok. Maybe not that weird. But I’m not going to question your parallel world story.”
“That’s a wise choice. If I am delusional and you destroy that delusion then I won’t feel safe and I’ll probably jump on you like a cornered wild animal or something. So watch out.”
That made him even more fond of her. He admired the fact that she could retain her humour in what must’ve been, well, yes, a traumatic situation.
“I’d like to ask what the last thing you remember was before you found yourself in this world. I mean, what were your thoughts and feelings, if anything significant happened, that kind of thing.”
“I’m glad you’re direct about it,” she observed. “Because you know that I understand psychology, right?”
“Right.”
“Well, the last thing I remember, I guess, was going to bed as normal with Anna in our home in Cambridge. Do you want the details of that, or should I just say I turned out the light and drifted off to dreamland?”
He chuckled. “That’s fine. So, you essentially just fell asleep and woke up here?”
“In the waiting area at Gare de l’Est. As you do.”
He laughed. “And how did you know it was a parallel world?”
“No Maglev terminal. And the air’s dirty. Our Paris doesn’t have pollution.”
“Ok. So, you don’t remember anything of how you got here? Your journey from your world to this one?”
“My transition, I call it. I think that’s a better word to use. No, I went to sleep, then woke up again.”
“No dreams?”
“Ah. You mean did I awake after a night of uneasy dreams to find myself transported into a dystopian parallel world, like Kafka?”
“Would you have preferred a gigantic insect?”
“That’s debatable. Perhaps we’ll leave that one to the existentialists. When in Paris, as it were.”
He chuckled. “Did anything happen that last day?”
“Nothing significant. Put it that way. Nothing I can think of that would have some, I don’t know, dramatic psychological effect, if you see what I mean. Maybe I could think about it for you and get back to you on that one.”
“Sure. But all those thoughts you had about, say, Niki possibly leaving home, were they there?”
She sighed. “Sure. Probably.” Then she sighed again. And suddenly stopped wanting to talk.
“So, how does Nikita feel about it?”
“About what?”
“Leaving the nest. Going out into the world. The future.”
“She’s excited about it. The world is a big adventure. Every young person feels that way. The world is safe. There’ll never be another war. No nuclear weapons. No conspiring murderous dystopians. Clean fresh drinking water and clean fresh air and no poison in the food supply or the land or the water or the air. She has a beautiful future to look forward to. Everyone does.”
“So, she’s not scared about it at all?”
“No, why would she be?”
Katrina’s tone turned suddenly abrupt. He couldn’t fail to notice that. She probably wanted him to.
“So how do you feel about it?”
“About what?”
“About her, Nikita, leaving the nest. Going out into the world on her own. Without your protection.”
Katrina didn’t answer immediately. She just sort of glared at him. He waited for her.
“I’m terrified.”
Ha caught a sudden breath. And then, tentatively, he paused a little before responding. In a softer tone. “Because of what happened to her father?”
And that’s the point when Katrina allowed herself to cry.
“You don’t feel safe, do you? About Nikita.”
Katrina swallowed. She shook her head meekly. “I miss him. With all of my heart. I did tell him how much he meant to me, but I don’t know if he ever knew it. Not really. Because of Anna, you know?”
Malcolm nodded gently.
She brushed a tear away. “It’s not that she’s all I have left of him. Yuri is just like him in so many ways. Alice too, strangely, sometimes. But they don’t have the same connection she does. And I know Niki thinks about him all the time. I can see it in her eyes. She gets serious. She remembers. And I just don’t know if she really will be safe. I want to believe it, and I tell myself the intelligence services have discovered and neutralised all the terrorist cells, the sleepers, that’s what they say, but I will never stop being scared. I still have nightmares about it. But not scared for me. Not for me anymore. But for her. For Niki.”
Malcolm lowered his eyes sadly, and suddenly felt like he understood her perfectly now.
He clicked off the recording device.
And that will be enough for the moment.
Next episode next week…
i will try and recreate my comment when i get the chance 🙂
i just spent ages on a very deep pondering critique of a comment typing on my phone then accudentslly pressed " back" and lost all of it.
oh bother said pooh.