by Nicci French
The old nickname might once have been used affectionately, but not now, not for a very long time.
‘She’s a teenager,’ she said, keeping her voice steady and her face neutral. ‘Life is hard for a teenager at the best of times. Think: you left her mother for a younger woman, and you left her as well. You’re holding back money and she’s watching her mother go to pieces. You rarely see her and sometimes you make arrangements that you then default on. You go on grand holidays with your new wife and don’t take her. You forget her birthday. You don’t go to her parents’ evenings. Why shouldn’t she have contempt for you?’ She held up her hand to stop him interrupting. ‘For someone like Chloë, feeling anger and contempt is far easier to deal with than feeling wretchedness and fear, which is what she’s really feeling. Your daughter needs a father.’
‘Finished?’
‘No. But I want to hear what you have to say.’
David stood up and went to the window. Even his back looked angry – yet Frieda had a sudden clear flashback of sitting on those shoulders, holding on to his head with one hand, and with the other reaching down some fruit from the tree at the bottom of their garden. She could almost feel the cool heaviness of the plum in her hand, its bloom against her fingers. She blinked away the memory and waited. David turned round.
‘I don’t know how you can sit here, in this room, and talk to me about what teenagers are like and what parents feel.’
He wanted to hurt her.
‘You weren’t a parent last time I looked. How old are you? It won’t be so very long before you’re forty, will it?’
‘This is about Chloë.’
‘It’s about you thinking, after everything, you have the right to come here and tell me what to do with my life.’
‘Just with your daughter. And if I don’t tell you, who will, until it’s too late?’
‘What do you think she’s going to do? Slit her wrists?’
She gave him a look so fierce that she could see he was shaken. ‘I don’t know what she could do. I don’t want to find out. I want you to help her.’ She took a deep breath and added, ‘Please.’
‘This is what I will do,’ he said. ‘Because I had already decided to, not because you’ve asked me to. I will see her every other weekend, from Saturday afternoon, until Sunday afternoon. Twenty-four hours. All right?’ He picked up his electronic organizer and started pressing buttons, very business-like. ‘Not next weekend, or the one after, though. We can start at the beginning of April. You’ll see to it that she knows?’
‘No. You have to ask her if that’s what she wants. She’s seventeen. Talk to her. And then listen.’
He slammed the organizer on the table, so hard that his mug jumped.
‘And please don’t tell her I came to see you. She’d feel humiliated. She needs you to want to see her.’
A door slammed and someone called his name. Then a pretty young woman entered. She had blonde hair and long legs. She must have been in her late twenties, though her style was of someone younger – someone of Chloë’s generation, thought Frieda.
‘Oh,’ she said, in obvious surprise, laying one hand against her stomach. ‘Sorry.’ She looked enquiringly at David.
‘This is Frieda,’ he said.
‘You mean – Frieda Frieda?’
‘Yes. This is my wife, Trudy.’
‘I’m just going,’ said Frieda.
‘Don’t mind me.’ She picked up the two coffee mugs, making an odd little grimace of distaste as she did so, and went out of the room.
‘Does Chloë know?’ asked Frieda.
‘What?’
‘That she’s going to have a sibling.’
‘How the fuck?’
‘You have to tell her.’
‘I don’t have to do anything.’
‘You do.’
She walked back to the station. She had plenty of time before Sasha’s birthday party, and although the day was grey and foggy, threatening rain, she needed to be outside in the cleansing wind. She felt polluted, defiled. At first, as she made her way rapidly up the lane lined with bare trees and muddy fields, she thought she would actually be sick, but gradually her feelings began to settle, like something sinking back into darkness.
Sasha opened her front door to find a couple she didn’t know outside. She felt a brief moment of panic. Were these some old friends she’d forgotten about? The two of them had easy, cheerful expressions, as if they were both in on a joke. The man put his hand out.
‘I’m Harry Welles, a friend of Frieda’s.’
A relieved smile broke over Sasha’s face.
‘Frieda said you were coming. She’s told me all about you.’
‘I’m a bit worried about what Frieda might mean by all about me,’ said Harry. ‘I’ve brought my sister, Tessa, as well. Is that OK?’
‘Great.’ Sasha stepped back. ‘Come in out of the cold. Dump your coats and then join us.’
They went up the stairs together to a small bedroom, where the bed was already piled with coats and jackets. Harry picked up a photograph that was on the little table: Sasha and another young woman standing arm in arm in front of a tent, wearing shorts and hiking boots. ‘Do you think she’s gay?’ he asked.
Tessa snatched the picture out of his hands and put it back on the table. ‘Do you fancy her as well?’ she said.
‘I was thinking of you,’ he said, and she responded with a playful slap. They headed back down to the music and hubbub of the party. Tessa watched Harry as he entered the main room. He looked at ease, handsome and full of an amiable curiosity. Of course Frieda liked him.
And there was Frieda, in a corner of the room holding a glass of what looked like mineral water, wearing a dress the colour of moss that shimmered slightly when she moved. Tessa noticed how shapely her legs were, how slim her figure and how upright she stood. She was talking to an older man with grey hair and a thin, unshaven face. He was wearing a tatty pair of jeans, a gorgeous patterned shirt, and had a bright cotton scarf wrapped round his neck. A pretentious abstract artist or another psychotherapist, she thought, as she and Harry approached. It looked as if they were having a serious conversation, almost an argument.
‘Am I interrupting something?’ Harry said.
‘Frieda has problems with her friends helping her,’ said the man.
‘What Frieda has problems with,’ said Frieda, ‘is that her friends might get arrested while trying to help her.’
‘Arrested?’ said Harry.
‘Don’t ask,’ said Frieda.
Harry kissed her, first on one cheek, then, lingeringly, on the other. She didn’t draw back, but put a hand on his arm, holding him by her side. She smiled at Tessa, apparently unsurprised to see her, then introduced them.
‘Reuben McGill, this is Harry and Tessa Welles.’
‘Brother and sister,’ said Harry.
‘Well, any fool can see that,’ said Reuben.
‘Really?’
‘Cheekbones,’ said Reuben. ‘And the ears as well. Dead giveaway.’
‘Reuben’s a colleague of mine,’ said Frieda. She lifted a hand in greeting and an olive-skinned woman, with dark hair tied in a dramatic bandanna and wearing turquoise eye shadow, came towards them, swaying slightly. ‘And here’s another colleague. Paz, Harry and Tessa.’
‘I am already drunk,’ said Paz, solemnly, forming her words with care. ‘I should have paced myself. But I am a very bad pacer. My mother used to make me drink a glass of milk before going out to line my stomach. I hate milk. Sasha says I have to dance.’ She tucked her hand through Reuben’s arm. ‘Will you dance with me, Reuben? Two people with broken hearts?’
‘Do I have a broken heart?’
‘Of course.’
‘You’re probably right. Just a bit broken in many places. Multiple hairline fractures. Is your heart broken as well?’
‘Mine?’ said Tessa, startled.
‘You don’t look like someone with a broken heart. I can usually tell.’
‘How?’
‘Something in the eyes.’
‘Ignore him,’ said Frieda. ‘It’s his chat-up line.’
‘You look beautiful, Frieda,’ said Harry, softly, as though there was no one else in the room but them. Reuben’s eyebrows went up and Paz giggled. Frieda ignored them. ‘Can I get you a drink?’
‘I have a drink.’ She raised her glass of water.
‘A proper drink.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘I’ll get myself one, then. Tessa?’
‘A glass of wine, please.’
‘I’ll be right back.’
They both watched him as he edged his way through the crowd. Sasha came up behind them and put her arms round Frieda, kissing her on the crown of her head. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
‘What for?’
‘I don’t know. It’s my birthday and I wanted to say thank you.’
Tessa saw the two women exchange an elusive smile and felt a shiver of – what was it? Was it envy of their intimacy? Sasha drifted away, pulled into another group of people. Frieda turned as a young man in an orange shirt that clashed with his hair claimed her attention. He seemed a bit stoned and his hair stood up in peaks. He waved his hands around and leaned towards her with burning eyes, but she stood quite still as she listened. There was a quality of deep reserve about her, thought Tessa. She was in the room and yet somehow standing back from it. She gave you her full attention and yet at the same time you felt she had a core of isolation, of separateness. It made her a kind of magnet.
The party continued. A small, scruffy band arrived and set up in a corner. The rain stopped and a half-moon sailed between the clouds that were breaking up. In the little garden at the back of the house, smokers gathered in small clusters. At one point, Tessa saw Harry standing there with Frieda, talking to her. He was much taller than she was, and was gazing down at her with an expression that Tessa – who knew her brother very well – found hard to read.
‘You watch your brother?’
She turned to face a large man with big brown eyes and a scar on his cheek. He smelt of tobacco and something else that she found hard to place, wood or resin. ‘Not exactly.’
‘Some vodka.’ He held up the bottle in his hand. His lips and eyes gleamed. ‘And then we will dance.’
‘I’m not a great one for dancing.’
‘That’s why the vodka first.’
‘You are Frieda’s friend.’
‘Of course.’ He reached for a small tumbler, poured a couple of fat fingers of vodka and gave it to her. She sipped it warily while he gazed at her.
And he pulled her into the centre of the room. The band was playing some plaintive kind of music, not suitable for dancing at all, but he didn’t seem to mind. He danced entirely without self-consciousness. Even with her chest stinging from the vodka, Tessa felt awkward. The music speeded up and so did the man. He was like an acrobat, agile on a tiny spot of carpet. Music seemed to ripple through him and people were cheering him on. Soon Tessa stopped and watched him too.
‘Who is he?’ Harry was beside her.
‘A friend of Frieda’s.’
‘For a recluse, she seems to know a lot of people.’
A young girl had joined the man now, her bright yellow plaits swinging wildly.
‘Where’s she got to?’
‘She was talking to Sasha and a man wearing high-heeled boots and a tiara so I came to see how you were doing. She’ll be back.’
‘Everything all right?’
‘Very all right.’
‘Harry,’ she said, with a note of warning.
‘I’m just having some fun.’
Frieda tried to escape from the party without anyone noticing her, as she always did. She hated the ritual of farewells, hovering at the door. After she had collected her coat, Josef accosted her clumsily on the stairs.
‘Frieda,’ he began, then stopped. ‘I forget … no, yes, I finish with Mary Orton and she give me something …’
‘I’m going to have a talk with you,’ said Frieda, ‘when you’re sober. What if you’d been arrested for punching that photographer?’
‘But I think it might be important.’
‘What if he’d had a journalist with him? Then Karlsson wouldn’t have been able to pull strings and you’d have been back in Ukraine.’
Josef looked crestfallen. ‘Frieda …’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to rush.’
It was only half past nine. She took the Underground from Clapham North all the way to Archway. She walked up Highgate Hill, past the stone cat, safe behind its grille. She was glad she had only drunk water. She wanted a clear head. As she reached Waterlow Park she stood and looked through the locked gates. The clouds had gone and the moon was bright on the grass, which glistened slightly, still wet from the earlier rain. Suddenly she looked round. Had she heard something? A step? A cough? Or did she feel someone looking at her? There was a group of teenagers on the other side of the road. A couple, arm in arm, walked past her.
It took her barely a minute to reach the wedding party. In the main room, the dinner was over, the guests clustered. The air hummed with their talk, and music was playing. Some people were on the wooden dance floor – including a gaggle of children, who were holding hands and giggling, kicking up their legs and knocking into each other. There was a table at the far end on which stood tall vases of flowers and the remains of the feast. Frieda saw a tall, dark-haired woman in a long ivory dress with red flowers in her hair, moving slowly in the arms of a man with ginger hair. That would be her, she thought.
She stood, unnoticed, and watched. It was like an old film, grainy and slightly blurred. A man came past holding a tray of champagne glasses and, seeing her, he offered her one but she shook her head. She could still go away, and for a moment it was as if her life hung suspended in front of her. One move and everything would change.
Now she saw him. He was standing at the far end of the room, his head bent towards an older woman who was talking animatedly. He wore a dark suit and a white shirt that was open at the neck. He looked thinner, she thought, and perhaps older as well, but she couldn’t tell because he was too far away from her and the room lay like a year between them.
Frieda took off her coat and her red scarf and put them on a nearby chair. She did what she always did when she was scared: pulled back her shoulders, lifted her chin and took a deep, steadying breath. She started across the space, and it seemed to her that everything around her slowed: the dancers, the music, her own footfall. Someone brushed against her and apologized. The woman in the ivory dress, Sandy’s younger sister, spun gently by, with his cheekbones and his eyes and the seriousness of his happiness.
Then she was there and she waited until something made him turn his head and there he was, looking at her. He didn’t move, just looked into her eyes and she felt that a hole was opening up inside her, undoing her. He didn’t touch her or smile.
‘You came.’
Frieda made a small gesture with her hands, palms upwards. ‘I found that I had to.’
‘What do we do now?’
‘Can we go outside?’
‘Shall we go into the park?’
‘It closes at dusk,’ Frieda said.
He smiled. ‘That’s the sort of thing you know, isn’t it? Which parks close at night and which don’t.’
‘But there’s a terrace at the back.’
They made their way out. His sister saw them and started to say something, then stopped. Frieda didn’t pick up her coat, and the cold air hit her but she welcomed it. She felt alive again, and it didn’t matter if it was pain or gladness that coursed through her.
Even from there they could look down on the City and behind them they could still hear the music and see the lights of the house.
‘Not a day has gone by,’ said Sandy, ‘when I haven’t thought of you.’
Frieda put out a hand and ran a finger over his lips. He shut his eyes and let out a s
mall sigh. ‘Is it really you?’ he whispered. ‘After all this time.’
‘It’s really me.’
When at last they kissed, she felt the warmth of his hand on her back through the thin fabric of her dress. He tasted of champagne. Her cheeks were wet and at first she thought she was crying but then realized that the tears were his, and she wiped them. ‘Where are you staying?’ she said.
‘At my flat. I was going to sell it. But it fell through.’
‘Can we go there?’
‘Yes.’
In the taxi they didn’t speak all the way to the Barbican. They didn’t speak in the lift. When he opened the door of his flat, it was both familiar and a little sad. A bit musty, a bit abandoned.
‘Turn round for me,’ he said.
She turned and he undid the zipper of her shimmering dress, and it fell to the floor. She stood among its green folds like a mermaid. It had been fourteen months, she thought. Fourteen months since he had left. The moon shone through the curtains and in its light she looked at his intent face and his strong body. Then she closed her eyes and lost herself, let herself go.
Forty-four
When Frieda woke, it was four in the morning. His body was warm and smooth against her. She slipped out from under the covers. In the dark she was able to find clothes and pull them on. She picked up her coat and scarf and held her shoes in her hand, so they wouldn’t clatter on the wooden floor. She heard a murmur from the bed. She leaned down and softly kissed the back of his head, the nape of his neck.
As she began to walk, she felt as if she were still asleep. It was dark and still and cool. She walked up Golden Lane, which turned into Clerkenwell Road and she realized she was making her way along what had been London’s city walls. Once, this would have been a walk through gardens and orchards and across streams. That would be what the tourist guides would tell you. But Frieda thought of what must have come after that: the sheds, the rubbish heaps, the jerry-built houses, the squatters, the chancers, as the countryside slowly gave up and died.
She turned to make a circle back towards home. Now it was offices and council estates and small galleries, and the traffic that never stopped and a few stragglers, ending the day or beginning it, on the pavements. Someone approached her and asked if she wanted a cab. She pretended not to hear.
