Tuesday's Gone

Twenty-five

On Sunday morning Frieda woke with a sickening lurch. There were beads of sweat on her forehead and her heart was pounding. For a few moments, her dream lingered: a man with a round face, blotched with ancient freckles, a soft, mirthless smile. Watching her, always watching her. Dean Reeve. She sat up in bed and made herself breathe calmly, then looked at her watch. It was almost ten to nine and she couldn’t remember the last time she had slept so heavily and so late. The doorbell was ringing: that must have been what had woken her. She pulled her dressing-gown around her, walked down the stairs and opened the door.

Standing on the step, filling the whole space, blocking out the light almost, were Reuben, Josef and Jack. Their expressions were slightly uneasy. Her stomach lurched. Something terrible had happened. Someone had died. She was about to hear bad news. She prepared herself for the blow.

‘What is it?’ she said. ‘Just say it.’

‘We wanted to tell you.’ Jack’s face flushed with emotion.

‘Before you hear from anyone else,’ said Reuben.

‘What?’ said Frieda.

Reuben held up a tabloid newspaper. ‘It’s Terry Reeve, or whatever her real name is,’ he said. ‘It’s all rubbish and it’s fish-and-chip paper anyway. But they’ve got her story and – there’s no getting around it – she does mention you and it’s not especially flattering. And they’ve got a photo of you from somewhere. In which you look rather good, actually.’

Frieda took a deep breath. ‘Is that all?’ she said.

Josef held up a paper bag. ‘And we have pastries and buns. We will come in and make you strong coffee.’

Frieda went back upstairs, showered and, to the sound of clattering plates and pans from downstairs, pulled on a pair of jeans and a black sweater, then pushed her bare feet into trainers. As she came down, she saw them arranging a random selection of mugs and plates on the table. Josef had built a fire. Reuben was pouring the coffee. Jack came in from the kitchen with a couple of jars and a packet of butter. An unopened one, when Frieda knew there was an opened one in the door of the fridge. What did it matter? Josef handed her a mug, and just as she raised it to her lips, the bell rang again. She opened the door to find Sasha standing there.

‘I don’t know if you’ve heard,’ said Sasha. ‘I just wanted to come right round and …’ Her voice faded as Frieda pushed the door open and she saw the scene inside.

‘We’ve got breakfast,’ said Frieda.

Sasha held up a bag of her own. ‘I got some croissants from Number 9,’ she said. ‘They’re still warm.’

Sasha came in and coffee was poured and there was an immediate chorus of voices saying all over again that it really wasn’t so bad and that nobody who knew her or, in fact, anyone else would take it seriously and that she could probably sue if she wanted. Frieda held up a hand. ‘Stop,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to look at any of this. Someone just tell me in two sentences what it says.’

There was a silence.

‘Basically that she’s a victim,’ said Reuben.

‘And it’s everybody else’s fault,’ said Jack.

‘Including yours,’ said Sasha. ‘But the photo’s actually rather glamorous. The caption’s not very nice.’

‘It is pile of rubbish, all of it,’ said Josef.

They were all friends. They had come to see her out of the best of motives, but Frieda felt oppressed by the four pairs of eyes on her, as if they were waiting to see how she would react.

‘OK, OK,’ she said. ‘What does she say about me?’

They looked at each other nervously.

‘Out with it,’ said Frieda.

‘She says you exploited her,’ said Sasha, in an anxious rush. ‘Which is ridiculous because you didn’t take any of the credit. And, anyway, you were the one who saved her.’

‘It doesn’t feel like that to her,’ said Frieda. ‘She’d found a kind of safety. I was the one who pushed her out into the big bad world.’

‘She says you wanted to be famous,’ said Reuben.

‘Anything else?’ said Frieda. More uneasy looks. ‘Just tell me. If you don’t tell me, I’ll hear it from people who aren’t my friends.’

When Jack spoke, his mouth sounded dry. ‘They mention the victim, Kathy Ripon. They give the impression, you know …’ He couldn’t say any more.

‘It’s completely unfair,’ said Reuben. ‘Everyone knows that. I mean everyone involved. Everyone who matters.’

Frieda thought of Kathy Ripon’s family, of everyone at the funeral. She swallowed hard. ‘I haven’t been murdered,’ she said. ‘It’s just my reputation.’ She pointed a finger at Reuben. ‘Don’t go quoting Shakespeare,’ she said sharply.

He looked startled. ‘I wasn’t going to.’

‘I’ll have a croissant,’ she said, although she didn’t think she could swallow a mouthful of it.

Josef ripped the photograph of Frieda out of the paper and showed it to her. It was an old picture that had been taken for an appearance at a conference a couple of years earlier. They must have got it online somewhere. She saw one word of the caption: ‘reckless’. She spread jam on the croissant and cut it up but she didn’t eat any. She heard a buzz of voices around her and heard herself responding from time to time and trying to manage a smile. She looked at the little group and thought of them contacting each other early on a Sunday morning and agreeing to come over, and she was touched by that. But when they started to leave, she felt relieved. Then she thought of something. She touched Jack’s sleeve. ‘Could you hang on?’ she said. ‘There’s something I want to talk to you about.’

‘What? Is something wrong?’

He looked apprehensive and ran a hand through his hair, making it stick up in a peak. Frieda tried not to smile – he was in his twenties, qualified as a doctor and training as a therapist, yet here he was, in his horrible orange quilted jacket and his muddy trainers, looking just like a small boy who’d been caught out in a misdemeanour.

‘No. I’ve a proposal for you.’ Jack’s expression changed from anxious to eager. He bobbed from foot to foot until she pointed to a chair. ‘Do you want more coffee?’

‘I’m OK. What is it?’

‘I’d like you to see Carrie Dekker.’

‘Carrie Dekker? Alan’s wife? Why? What’s happened now?’

‘As her therapist.’

‘Her therapist?’

‘You keep repeating what I’ve just said.’

‘Me?’

‘Jack, you’re a therapist. You have patients. That is your job. I’m asking if you would consider seeing Carrie. She needs help and I think you could be good for her.’

‘You’re not just saying this to be nice?’

Frieda frowned at him. ‘Do you really think I’d recommend you to a woman in distress just to cheer you up? Anyway, she might decide you’re not right for her.’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘And you might decide, after the initial consultation, that it wouldn’t work.’

‘Right.’

‘She’s in a state of shock. When she thought Alan had left her, that was catastrophic enough, but now after what Dean did to her …’

‘That’s too much for me,’ said Jack. ‘I don’t know how to deal with it.’

‘Yes, you do. And you can always talk to me about it. I’ll see what she has to say.’

Jack stood up, zipping his jacket, pulling a yellow and purple beanie over his disordered hair. ‘By the way,’ he said suddenly. ‘Saul Klein.’

Frieda stood quite still. She felt as though someone had hit her hard in the stomach. ‘What?’ Her voice sounded calm enough.

‘Dr Saul Klein. The Saul Klein. The one the hospital wing is named after. He’s your grandfather.’

‘And?’

‘But that’s just fantastic. He’s a legend, a pioneer. Why didn’t you say?’

‘Why would I?’

‘Did you know him?’

‘No.’

‘It must be special, though.’

‘Must it?’ Frieda felt very cold, as if she was standing in an icy shadow.

‘So it runs in your family?’

Jack was clearly uneasy now. This wasn’t going the way he had expected.

‘What does?’ she asked sharply, and he looked disconcerted.

‘Being a doctor.’

‘My father wasn’t a doctor.’

‘What was he?’

‘You’ll be late, Jack.’

‘What for? I’m not expected anywhere.’

‘Then I’ll be late.’

‘Oh. Right. I’ll be on my way, then.’ He hovered at the open door, his scarf flapping and his face turning blotchy in the raw air.

‘Goodbye.’

After he had gone, Frieda returned to her chair by the fire and sat for several minutes, staring blindly into its leaping flames. Then she picked up the newspaper and word by word, page by page, read the story. Then she crumpled it into small balls and fed it into the fire.

‘How often do you see your sister?’ Frieda asked.

She had met Rose Teale first a year and a bit ago, when Rose still didn’t know if she even had a sister any more. Then, she had been an anxious and guilty young woman, still haunted by the little girl she had lost sight of on the way home from school and never seen again. She had felt responsible, not just for the tiny Joanna, disappearing into thin air, but also for her parents and their agony. Her mother had remarried and had two more children, but her father had started drinking, sitting in his poky, grimy flat, surrounded by pictures of his lost daughter, addled with whisky and sorrow.

She had seen her a few times since her sister had been returned, and if anything Rose Teale was more tormented now than she had been before. Joanna, who had been a tiny, knock-kneed, vulnerable, gap-toothed child when she was taken, had come back unrecognizable. Their reunion had been a failure, and Joanna had a robust, jeering contempt for Rose, for her parents, for the world they represented.

‘Not very often,’ said Rose. ‘She’s not keen to see me. I can understand that,’ she added hastily, ‘given everything she’s been through.’

‘Do you want to see her?’

Rose looked at her, biting her lower lip. ‘Honestly? Not really. I dread it. But I feel I should.’

‘Because she’s your sister?’

‘Because she’s my sister. Because of everything she’s gone through. Because …’ She stopped.

‘You still think it was your fault?’

‘Yes, although I know everything you’re going to say.’

‘Then I won’t say it. Have you read her book?’

Rose shook her head. ‘I will, some time,’ she said. ‘I feel I should know what she has to say.’

‘Do you have a copy?’

‘They sent me an early copy. There was a note with it saying she wanted me to see it.’

‘Can I have a look?’

Rose appeared nervous. ‘I know from the paper that she’s not very nice about you. I’m sorry.’

‘It’s OK,’ said Frieda. ‘That’s not why I want to see it.’

The cover of An Innocent in Hell showed a silhouette of a tiny girl with her arms raised in appeal. In the background, there was a lurid red pattern, suspiciously like flames. Frieda opened it. Under the dedication (‘To all of you who have suffered, without hope of rescue’) was a scrawled message: ‘To my sister Rose: with forgiveness and understanding, from your little sister Jo-Jo.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Frieda.

‘It’s all right,’ said Rose. ‘She means well.’

‘You think so?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Can I borrow it?’

‘Really? You’re going to read it?’

‘Yes. I’ll bring it back as soon as I have.’

‘I’m in no hurry.’

‘Good. She’s lucky to have you.’

Frieda didn’t want to read the book in her house. She needed to be somewhere neutral. She thought of taking it to Number 9, but even that felt too close to home. In the end she did what she had done a few times before: she walked to Great Portland Street and got on the Circle Line, heading east. She knew that to do the entire loop would take about fifty minutes, maybe an hour. It was early on Sunday evening and the train was almost empty. There was a young woman dressed in a pink tutu and a tartan jersey, who got off at King’s Cross, and an elderly man who read the Bible, marking passages with a pencil, and stayed on until Liverpool Street. After that, she was alone in her carriage until she reached Monument, when a family got on for a couple of stops. Frieda made notes as she read An Innocent in Hell, looking up occasionally as they reached a station to make sure she didn’t miss her stop. The train nosed its way under the City – deserted at the weekend, the streets empty and the tall buildings lit up but abandoned – then Westminster and St James’s Park, the rich enclaves of Kensington, and finally she was heading back towards her stop. She closed the book and emerged into the windy night, deep in thought.