She did not want to dwell on that particular aspect of her reaction. It was too dangerous.
She was just in time for the meeting and the last to arrive, or so she thought until Brian welcomed her and then added, ‘A new member will be joining us tonight. He’s been part of a similar group working in London and he has been given our group as a contact by them.
‘I suspect we’ll find he has a very worthwhile input to make, since his group specialise in dealing with the more aggressive element of youngsters taken into care.’
For once, she had the advantage of surprise, Debra reflected ten minutes later when Marsh arrived and Brian started to introduce him.
She saw the look he quickly masked as he saw her and was grimly surprised that now it was his turn to be caught off guard. She had suspected from the way Brian had described him that their new member might be Marsh, but he soon overcame his surprise, telling Brian, ‘Debra and I already know one another. In fact, we work together.’
Someone made room for Marsh to sit down next to Debra on the sofa, and Debra hoped that Marsh wasn’t aware of the way she surreptitiously edged herself away from him, something it was difficult to do when his weight meant that her body inclined naturally towards him.
Like her, he was dressed casually in jeans and a sweat-shirt, the unisex uniform that somehow was not in the least unisexing on him.
Perhaps it was the breadth of his shoulders beneath the soft sweat-shirt, or maybe it was the hard-muscled tautness of the thigh resting against her own.
Whatever it was, Debra wished that he were not sitting next to her. She was so acutely conscious of him that she could barely concentrate on what everyone was saying, and she almost didn’t hear Brian when he asked her, ‘How are you getting on with Karen, Debra?’
Before she could reply he turned to Marsh and explained, ‘Karen was a victim of sexual abuse by her stepfather. Her mother has rejected her, blaming her for what happened. Karen is extremely withdrawn and undergoing specialised counselling.
‘Debra has a very gentle touch, and we’ve been hoping that she might be able to form a bond with Karen.’
Debra felt the sofa depress as Marsh turned to look at her. He was studying her gravely, the grey eyes thoughtful and observant.
She was intensely aware of the warmth of his thigh against her own. She tried to shift her weight to escape it, wriggling tentatively away from him and then stopping, tensing as she saw the way his eyes suddenly darkened, his pupils dilating. Instantly she was transported back to the hallway of Elsie’s house, her body pressed up against his while Marsh kissed her and she clung to him, her mouth opening, her body pleading.
Heat washed over her. Her mouth had suddenly gone dry and her muscles ached with tension. Somehow she managed to drag her gaze away from him.
‘I... I just don’t seem to be making any progress at all,’ she told Brian huskily, trying to dismiss what she was feeling and to concentrate instead on her awareness that she just wasn’t managing to make any contact with Karen.
‘I feel she’s evading me. Evaluating me,’ she continued, groping for the right words to explain her sense of failure. ‘I want to help her, but.. .she looks at me sometimes as though I’m the child and she’s the adult, and when I think of what she’s been through I feel so helpless... I feel as though my being there at all is almost an insult to her... betrays a prurient curiosity about her, and I think that’s what she feels as well.’
‘I think it’s more likely that she’s just testing you.’
The sound of Marsh’s voice, controlled, evaluating, made Debra turn her head to focus on him.
He was looking directly at her, and to her shock she realised that there was no criticism, no anger in his eyes, just a very real awareness of her fear that she was not the best person to help Karen.
Her heart started to beat far too fast, and she had to suppress the urge to start breathing more quickly and shallowly.
‘I think you should persevere,’ Marsh continued, but now he was speaking not just to her but to everyone else as well as he added, ‘We’ve had similar experiences with our group, situations where we’ve felt that we just aren’t being of any benefit at all, and it’s only later that we’ve realised that their silence and apparent rejection was simply a way of testing us... of wanting to be assured that we really do care.’
There was a small silence while everyone assimilated what he had said, and then Brian said thoughtfully, ‘I think Marsh could be right, Debra.’
One of the others had started to talk about the problems he was having with one of the boys at the same home as Karen. Debra knew him by sight and frowned as she listened to Gary Evans explaining that he was concerned about the boy’s uncontrolled outbursts of violence.
‘He bullies the others. We know that, and he’s capable of extremely violent, even vicious behaviour, but in mitigation we have to take into account the fact that he’s been beaten brutally by his father almost all his life. Violence is the only thing he knows.
’
‘Have you thought about getting him on one of these outward-bound-style courses? We found we got very good results from them,’ Marsh suggested helpfully.
The meeting went on rather longer than usual, breaking up just after eleven o’clock, and, as luck would have it, probably because they were the last to arrive, once they were outside Debra discovered that her and Marsh’s cars were parked behind one another, slightly further down the road than the others.
It was impossible for her to avoid walking towards her car with him. Nervousness made her make some tritely foolish comment about the coincidence of running into him at the meeting.
He had stopped walking and she was obliged to stop as well. They were out of earshot of the others and no one could overhear them as he bent his head and said quietly, ‘I feel I owe you an apology for this afternoon.’
Instinctively Debra turned away from him. Her heartbeat had increased again and was far too rapid. Much more of this and she would probably start hyperventilating, she told herself irritably.