Judgment Day by Penelope Lively

stared at him, expectant. She moved a thigh like a bolster and the broken spring in the sofa groaned. George cleared his throat, “What sort of phobia, Mrs. Tanner?”
    “That's just it, they can't exactly put a name to it. It's interesting, they say, but it's not quite the straightforward ones. Agoraphobia—that's when you can't go out of doors at all, see.”
    “And you don't mind going out?”
    “Of course I do,” said Mrs. Tanner reprovingly. “I said my daughter had to bring me here today, didn't I? I can't go out alone. Nor cross the street nor go in a cinema or a big shop—crowds, see. Nor car journeys.”
    “Buses and trains?”
    “Not trains. A bus at a pinch, if it's not crowded, so long as my husband's with me, or my daughter.”
    George let this sink in. After a moment he said, “Then you can't really take a holiday?”
    “Well, I wouldn't want to anyway, would I? Not with the way I am about the sea.”
    “The sea?”
    “I can't look at the sea even in pictures,” said Mrs. Tanner impressively. “Not a calendar or on the telly. If it comes on the telly my husband has to switch off for me.” She stared across at him, her feet planted squarely on the worn vicarage rug, her massive thighs denting the sofa,
    “It must cause a lot of difficulties.”
    “Difficulties!” Mrs. Tanner snorted.
    “Could you tell me,” said George delicately, “what it is you feel—I mean, why it is you don't like to go out alone, or be in a crowd, or go in a car, and so on.”
    “Going out alone is animals, in the first place. Dogs. But cats, too. See a dog and I'm a jelly. That's why my husband's always got to be there, in case there's a dog—get between me and it, see. Or my daughter. She comes for me every day and walks me to the shops. Oh, it's no good telling me they don't go for you in the normal way, dogs, I know that. But they can . It's been known. For someone with my condition that's all that matters.” She shot a look of triumph at George. “Then crowds is there might be a fire and you'd not get out. Crossing the street and cars is road accidents.”
    “I see,” said George. They sat in silence. Mrs. Tanner sniffed, succinctly. George went on, with caution: “I suppose one could say—well, all those things are the same for everyone. For all of us. I mean, the chances. It's—well, just the risk of being alive at all.” He gave a little laugh.
    Mrs. Tanner looked at him with contempt. “Oh yes. Oh yes, that's been said before. But it's only someone with my condition that feels it.”
    George said thoughtfully, “The sea?”
    “Heaving like that. What it'ud be like if you were in it.”
    George nodded. He couldn't really think of anything much to say. Mrs. Tanner gazed fixedly at him. “They've been seeing me at the clinic seven years now. The old doctor I used to see passed on last March, there's a woman now. Reams of notes they've taken, there's a file that thick.” She measured off an inch or so between finger andthumb; George registered respect. “They give me drugs and that. I'm on three different ones. They don't make any difference,” she ended complacently.
    George began to talk. He talked about stress and pressures and relaxing and seeing things in perspective. He said everyone has their quirks. He said, with another laugh, now with me it's heights, even a stepladder, an ordinary stepladder … Mrs. Tanner looked across at him, stonily. He rambled on in some desperation and eventually ran dry. Mrs. Tanner gathered up her shopping bag and fastened her coat. She said, “I thought, well, no harm in asking. I said that last night, to my husband, no harm in seeing if there's anything he can suggest.” She moved out into the hall. George opened the door for her; at the gate, a harrassed-looking woman with a baby in a pushchair was hanging about. “My daughter,” said Mrs. Tanner. “She's waiting to see me home. Thank you, Vicar.” She moved away down the path, with a curiously smooth