Blue Monday

Chapter Twenty

The shabby little train was almost empty. It creaked and rattled its way through the hidden parts of London – the backs of terraced houses with their soggy winter gardens, the dark-stained walls of abandoned factories, nettles and rosebay willowherb sprouting from cracks in the brickwork, glimpses of a canal. Frieda saw the hunched figure of a man in a thick coat, holding a fishing rod out over the brown, oily water. Lighted windows flashed past and occasionally Frieda glimpsed a person framed there: a young man watching television, an old woman reading a book. From a bridge, she looked down at a high street, Christmas lights looped round lamp-posts, people moving along the road carrying bags or tugging children, cars spraying water from their wheels. London unwound like a film.

She got out at Leytonstone. It was dusk and everything looked grey and slightly blurred. The orange street-lights shimmered on the wet pavements. Buses swayed past. The road where Alan lived was long and straight, a corridor of late-Victorian terraces lined with stout plane trees that must have been planted at the same time as the houses were built. Alan lived at number 108, at the far end. As she walked, slowing slightly to put off the moment she had to face him, she glanced into the bay windows of other houses, seeing the large downstairs rooms, the views through to the back gardens, lying dormant in winter.

Frieda had steeled herself for this. Even so, there was a tightness in her chest as she pushed open the gate and rang at the dark green door. In the distance, she could hear a jaunty double chime. She was cold and she was tired. She allowed herself to think of her own house, the fire she would light later on, once this was over with. Then she heard footsteps and the door swung open.

‘Yes?’

The woman in front of her was short, stockily built. She stood with her legs slightly apart and her feet planted firmly on the ground, as if she was prepared to do battle. Her hair was brown and cut short. She had large and rather beautiful grey eyes, pale smooth skin with a mole just above her mouth, a firm jaw. She wore jeans, a grey flannel shirt rolled up to the elbows, and no makeup. She was looking at Frieda through narrowed eyes. The line of her mouth was grim.

‘I’m Frieda. I think Alan’s expecting me.’

‘He is. Come in.’

‘You must be Carrie.’

She stepped into the hall; something pressed against her calf and she looked down. A large cat was winding itself around her leg, a purr rumbling in its throat. She bent down and ran a finger along its thrumming spine.

‘Hansel,’ said Carrie. ‘Gretel’s around somewhere.’

It was warm and dark inside, and the air smelt pleasantly woody. Frieda felt as though she had entered a different world from the one suggested by its façade. She had expected the house to be like the others she had walked by, with walls knocked down, french windows built, everything a continuous open space. Instead, she was in a warren of passageways, tiny rooms, tall cupboards and wide shelves crammed with objects. Carrie led her past the front room, but Frieda had time to see a snug enclosure with a wood-burner fitted into the wall, and a glass-windowed cabinet full of birds’ eggs, feathers, nests made of moss and twigs and even, standing at one pane of glass, a stuffed kingfisher that looked a bit balding. The room backing on to it – the one that most people would have knocked through – was even smaller, and was dominated by a large desk on which stood several balsawood model planes, the kind Frieda’s own brother used to make when he was young. Just the sight of them brought back the smell of glue and varnish, the feel of small adhesive blisters on the fingertips, the memory of those tiny tubs of grey and black paint.

On the wall outside the kitchen there was a group of family photographs in frames – some of Carrie as a small child, squashed with two sisters on a garden bench, standing posing with her parents; others were of Alan. In one, he stood with his parents, a small, blocky figure between two tall and spindly ones, and she tried to look at it more closely as she passed.

‘Have a seat,’ said Carrie. ‘I’ll call him.’

Frieda took off her coat and sat down at the small table. The catflap in the back door rattled and another cat slid through, this one black and white and orange, like a pleasing jigsaw. She jumped up on Frieda’s lap and settled there, licking one paw delicately.

The kitchen was a room of two halves. To Frieda it felt like a physical demonstration of two different spheres of interest, a precise delineation of Alan’s place in the house and Carrie’s: the woman who cooks and the man who makes and mends. On one side there were all the things you usually find in a kitchen: oven, microwave, kettle, scales, a food processor, a magnetic strip for the sharp knives, a spice rack, a tower of pots and pans, a bowl of green apples, a small shelf for the recipe books, some of which were old and worn while others looked untouched, an apron hanging on a hook. On the other side, the wall was lined with narrow boxed shelves. Each separate compartment was labelled, in large neat capital letters: ‘Nails’, ‘Tacks’, ‘Screws 4.2 × 65mm’, ‘Screws 3.9 × 30mm’, ‘Chisels’, ‘Washers’, ‘Fuses’, ‘Radiator keys’, ‘Methylated spirits’, ‘Sandpaper – rough’, ‘Sandpaper – fine’, ‘Drill bits’, ‘Batteries – AA’. There must have been dozens, hundreds of these compartments; the effect reminded Frieda of a beehive. She imagined all the work that must have gone into it – Alan with his blunt fingers delicately putting these small objects in place, on his round baby-face a look of contentment. The image was so strong that she had to blink it away.

In another situation, she might have said something sardonic, but she was aware of Carrie’s eyes fixed on her, of the peculiar dynamic between them. Carrie spoke for her, drily: ‘He’s building a shed in the garden.’

‘I thought I was organized,’ said Frieda. ‘This is on a different scale.’

‘The gardening things are all in there.’ Carrie nodded towards a narrow door next to the window, presumably meant for a pantry. ‘But he hasn’t done much gardening recently. I’ll look for him. He might be asleep. He’s tired all the time.’ She hesitated, then said abruptly, ‘I don’t want him upset.’

Frieda didn’t answer. There were too many things she could have said, but nothing that would have prevented Carrie from seeing her as a threat.

Frieda listened to Carrie as she went up the stairs. Her voice, curt when she spoke to Frieda, was tender, like a mother’s, when she called her husband. A few moments later, she heard them come down the stairs, Carrie’s footsteps light and firm, Alan’s slower and heavier, as though he was putting his whole sagging weight onto each step. When he came into the room, rubbing his fists into his eyes, she saw how tired and defeated he looked.

She stood up, dislodging the cat. ‘I’m sorry to have disturbed you.’

‘I don’t know if I was asleep,’ he said. He seemed bewildered. Frieda noticed how Carrie put her hand against his back to guide him into the room and took her place behind his chair like a guard. He bent down and picked Gretel up, held her against his broad chest and put his face into her fur.

‘I needed to see you,’ Frieda said.

‘Shall I go?’ asked Carrie.

‘This isn’t a therapy session.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Alan. ‘You can stay if you want to.’

Carrie bustled around the kitchen, filling the kettle, opening and closing cupboards.

‘You know why I’m here,’ said Frieda at last.

As he stroked the cat on his lap, Frieda was reminded of the way he rubbed his hands up and down his trousers when he was in her room, as if he could never keep entirely still. She took a deep breath.

‘During our sessions I was struck by resemblances to the case of a boy who has disappeared. He’s called Matthew Faraday. So I talked to the police about it.’

Behind her, Carrie clattered angrily with cutlery, then banged her mug down in front of her. Tea slopped over the brim.

‘I was wrong. I’m very sorry to have caused you extra distress.’

‘Well,’ said Alan, slowly, drawing out the word. He didn’t seem to have anything to add to it.

‘I know that I said to you that in my room you were safe and could say anything,’ continued Frieda. Carrie’s presence made her self-conscious. Instead of talking to Alan she was reciting the words she had rehearsed in advance, and they sounded stilted and insincere. ‘There were these coincidences between your fantasies and what was going on in the outside world and so I felt I had no choice.’

‘So you’re not really sorry,’ said Carrie.

Frieda turned towards her. ‘Why do you say that?’

‘You think you acted right in the circumstances. You feel justified. In my book, that’s not being sorry. You know when people say to you, I’m sorry if, because they can’t bring themselves to say I’m sorry that … That’s what you’re doing. You’re apologizing without really apologizing.’

‘I don’t want to do that,’ said Frieda, carefully. She was impressed by Carrie’s pugnacity and touched by her fierce protectiveness towards Alan. ‘I was wrong. I made a mistake. I brought the police into your life in a way that must have been shocking and very painful to you both.’

‘Alan needs help, not being accused of things. Taking that poor little boy! Look at him! Can you imagine him doing such a thing?’

Frieda had no trouble in imagining anybody doing anything.

‘I don’t blame you,’ he said. ‘I keep thinking maybe they’re right.’

‘Who’s right?’ said Carrie.

‘Dr Klein. That detective. Maybe I did grab him.’

‘Don’t talk like that.’

‘Maybe I’m going mad. I feel a bit mad.’

‘Tell him he’s not,’ urged Carrie. There was a wobble in her voice.

‘It’s like being in a nightmare, all out of control,’ said Alan. ‘I’m handed from one crappy doctor to another. Finally I meet someone I trust. She makes me say things I didn’t even know I was thinking, and then reports me to the police for saying them. Who turn up and want to know what I was doing on the day that little boy went missing. I just wanted to sleep at night. I just wanted peace.’

‘Alan,’ said Frieda. ‘Listen to me now. Many people feel they’re going mad.’

‘That doesn’t mean I’m not.’

‘No, it doesn’t.’

He smiled suddenly, his face breaking into a grin that made him look suddenly younger. ‘Why does it make me feel better not worse when you say that?’

‘I wanted to come and tell you what I did and to say sorry. But also I’ll quite understand if you don’t want to come back to see me. I can refer you to someone else.’

‘Not someone else.’

‘Do you mean you want to carry on?’

‘Will you be able to help me?’

‘I don’t know.’

Alan sat in silence for a moment. ‘I can’t think of anything else that wouldn’t be worse,’ he said.

‘Alan!’ said Carrie, as if he had betrayed her. Suddenly Frieda felt for the other woman. Patients very often talked to Frieda about their partners and about their family but she wasn’t used to meeting them, to getting involved.

She stood up, taking her trench coat from the back of the chair and putting it on. ‘You need to talk about it,’ she said.

‘We don’t need to talk about it,’ said Alan. ‘I’ll see you on Tuesday.’

‘If you’re sure.’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. I’ll let myself out.’

Frieda closed the kitchen door on them and stood on the other side, feeling like a spy. She could hear the rise and fall of their voices. She couldn’t make out whether they were arguing. She peered more closely at the photographs of Alan and his parents. He was chubby and solemn and had the same anxious smile, the same look of dismay. One portrait of the parents looked as if it had been taken by a high-street photographer. Probably for an anniversary. They were wearing their best clothes. The colours were almost garish. Frieda smiled and then her smile froze. She looked more closely at the picture. She muttered something to herself, a sort of reminder.

Hansel accompanied her to the door and watched her leave with his golden, unblinking eyes.

‘Why the fucking fuck did you leave him?’

‘I didn’t say I’d left him. I said it was over.’

‘Oh, come on, Frieda.’ Olivia was striding around her living room, stumbling in her heels, trampling over clothes and objects, a very full glass of red wine in one hand and a cigarette in the other. The wine kept slopping over the rim of the glass and spreading small drops in her wake and the cigarette’s ash grew longer until it, too, scattered to the floor, to be ground into the grubby carpet by Olivia’s emphatic heel. She was wearing a gold, glittery cardigan, too tight for her and stretched open across her breasts, a pair of blue jogging pants with a stripe down the legs, and summer sandals with stiletto heels. Frieda wondered if she was having a slow, garrulous nervous breakdown. Sometimes it seemed that half the people around her were in states of collapse. ‘He wouldn’t have left you in a million years,’ Olivia was saying. ‘So why?’

Frieda didn’t really want to talk about Sandy. She certainly didn’t want to talk about him to Olivia. It turned out she wouldn’t be given a chance to anyway.

‘Number one, he’s a hunk. God, if you saw some of the men I’ve been dating recently – I don’t know how they have the nerve to pass themselves off as “attractive male”. I see them walking through the door and my heart sinks. They want some gorgeous blonde woman but they don’t seem to think they need to make an effort themselves. How desperate do they think we are? I’d jump at someone like Sandy.’

‘You never actually met him …’

‘And why not? Where was I? Yes. Number two, he’s rich. Well, he must be quite rich – he’s a consultant something-or-other, isn’t he? Think of his pension. Don’t look at me like that. It matters. I can tell you it bloody fucking matters. It’s hard being a woman alone, let me tell you, and you’ve got no safety net, have you, with your bloody family writing you out of their wills? God, I hope you knew that – I haven’t just let the cat out of the bag, have I?’

‘It’s not a great surprise,’ said Frieda, wryly. ‘But I don’t want their money – and anyway I don’t think they’ve got any to leave, have they?’

‘Well, that’s OK, then. Where was I?’

‘Number two,’ said Frieda. ‘You probably don’t want to go any higher than two, do you?’

‘Yeah, rich. I’d marry him just for that. Anything to get out of this dump.’ She kicked viciously at a wine bottle that was on its side by the sofa and it rolled away, dribbling red from its mouth. ‘Number three, I bet he loves you, so that should be three and four and five, because it’s a rare thing to be loved.’ She stopped abruptly and flung herself into the sofa. Some of the wine left in her glass flew out in a violent daub of crimson onto her lap. ‘Number four – or should that be six? – he’s nice. Isn’t he? Maybe he isn’t, because I seem to remember that you have a thing for scary men. OK, OK, I didn’t mean that, strike it. Number seven –’

‘Stop it. This is demeaning.’

‘Demeaning? I’ll show you demeaning.’ She gestured round the room. Ash swirled in a powdery arc round her. ‘Number five or ten or whatever, you’re not getting any younger.’

‘Olivia. Shut up, do you hear me? You’ve gone too far and if you go on I’m going to leave. I came round here to teach Chloë some chemistry.’

‘Which Chloë hasn’t turned up for so you’re stuck with me until she arrives, which may be never. You’ll soon be too old to have children, you know, though from where I’m sitting maybe that’s a lucky escape. Have you thought about that? All right, all right – you can give me that look of yours to freeze the blood, but I’ve had two, no, three glasses of wine now’ – and she took a last dramatic gulp from her glass – ‘and you can’t intimidate me. I’m insulated. I can say what I please in my own house, and I think you’re a bloody fool, Dr Frieda Klein-with-lots-of-letters-after-your-name. There, now I’ve had three glasses. Maybe it was four. I think it must have been. You should drink more, you know. You might be clever, but you’re tremendously stupid as well. Maybe it runs in the Klein blood. What did Freud say? I’ll tell you what he said. He said, “What do women want?” And do you know how he answered that?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll tell you how. He said, “They want love and work.” ’

‘No. He more or less concluded that they want to be men. He said girls have to come to terms with being failed boys.’

‘Wanker. Anyway – where was I?’

‘What’s that noise?’

Olivia went out of the room, shrieked, and returned glassy-eyed. ‘That noise,’ she said, ‘is Chloë throwing up on the mat in the hall.’