10
The phone rang. It was Josef. ‘Are you there?’
‘Of course I’m here,’ said Frieda. ‘I answered the phone.’
‘You are going out this evening?’
‘What?’ said Frieda. ‘No, I don’t think –’
‘Good,’ said Josef. ‘We bring food.’
‘We?’ Frieda began, but the phone had already gone dead.
An hour later the bell rang. Frieda opened the door and Josef and Reuben were standing on the step. Both of them pushed past her. Frieda saw that they were carrying shopping bags. There was a smell of garlic, vinegar, a clink of bottles.
‘You’re going to have to stop doing this,’ said Frieda. ‘We’re grown-ups now. We make arrangements days ahead of time.’
Josef laid the bags on the table and turned towards her. Frieda saw that he was wearing a dark jacket and a tie. He stepped forward and hugged her.
‘Hey.’
Josef and Reuben looked around and saw Sandy coming down the stairs.
‘You are welcome back,’ Josef said. He stepped forward and hugged Sandy and Reuben hugged Sandy, then Frieda. She felt a sudden nostalgia for the days when men shook hands. Middle-aged men seemed to have turned into schoolgirls. Reuben produced a bottle of vodka from one of the bags and Josef disappeared into the kitchen, returning with four shot glasses.
Frieda gave a helpless shrug to Sandy. ‘He knows my kitchen better than I do,’ she said.
Josef filled the glasses and handed them round. Reuben looked at Josef. ‘Say something.’
‘No,’ said Josef. ‘You say.’
‘No, you.’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ said Frieda.
‘I speak,’ said Josef. He looked into his glass. ‘I was proud that you came to me. It was a trust. I do not want to just say words. Words which make me feel better but not you feel better. You go now and have bath in the bath I put into your house.’ He looked at Sandy. ‘And you if you want also with her. Or if she wants.’
‘Please, Josef …’ said Frieda.
‘We have food and drink and we prepare and in one hour we eat. But first …’ he raised his glass ‘… for a friend. Frieda.’
Josef and Reuben drained their glasses. Sandy and Frieda took wary sips.
‘I will have a bath,’ said Frieda. ‘Alone. And thank you for this, but can we say that, from now on, we’ll plan these events in advance? With fair warning.’
Josef turned to Sandy. ‘You relax. Drink. Go for walk. We prepare food.’
Frieda found it difficult to enjoy her bath because of the sounds below her of dishes and pans. Something broke and she heard male voices shouting. She had an impulse to run downstairs and deal with whatever crisis seemed to be unfolding but instead she sank briefly below the surface of the water. Perhaps whatever it was that had broken wasn’t something of hers. And if it was, what did it really matter? After the bath, Frieda pulled on trousers and a shirt.
When she came downstairs, her living room was transformed. It was mainly lit by the flickering candles that had been placed between the dishes that covered the table. There was a bowl of thick red soup with dumplings, there was something wrapped in cabbage, large sausages, pickled fish, beetroot salad, chopped potatoes, an unfamiliar kind of little mushroom, a huge wheel of bread, small pastries, a whole duck, rolled pancakes …
‘The wine isn’t Ukrainian,’ said Reuben. ‘I thought Australian was a bit safer.’
‘There is good Ukrainian wine,’ Josef protested. ‘But Reuben bought wine.’
He gestured Frieda, Sandy and Reuben to sit around the table and spooned large helpings on to Frieda’s plate.
‘Whenever you feel a strong emotion,’ said Frieda, ‘you cook the food of your home.’
‘That is funny, no?’ said Josef.
‘No,’ said Frieda. ‘It’s good to have food that is like a kind of memory.’
Sandy picked up a rough-textured rissole and nibbled at it. ‘This is good. What is it?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Josef. ‘The woman in shop give me lots of choices. Pork, I think. Or sheep.’
Everyone started to eat. Occasionally Josef named a dish or described or said what was in it but there didn’t seem the need to say much and Frieda liked that, or at least felt relieved. Reuben opened a second bottle of wine and started refilling the glasses. Frieda put her hand over her glass.
‘You know,’ said Reuben, ‘when someone does that, I’m always tempted to call their bluff and just pour the wine and keep on pouring until they move their hand out of the way.’
‘I’m so glad you didn’t try that,’ said Frieda, and then she noticed he was picking up his glass and looking reflective. ‘You’re not going to make a speech, are you?’
‘Well, I’m going to speak. If that’s allowed. First, I just want to say to you and Sandy that I’m sorry if we’ve ruined a romantic evening that you had planned.’
‘No,’ said Sandy. ‘This is nice.’
He put his hand on Frieda’s leg, beneath the table.
‘It’s not for me to say,’ Reuben continued, ‘but I suppose I’m someone who believes – in fact, whose life depends on the belief – that you deal with things by talking about them. But you, Sandy, when Frieda told you, you got on a plane and came over. And Josef brought food. It’s like an offering, like something in the Old Testament. You know, Frieda, when you first told me, my first reaction …’ He paused. ‘No, my second reaction, was a kind of self-pity. I’d been your therapist, your supervisor, and you’d kept that from me. I don’t know whether that says something about me as a therapist or you as an analys– …’ Another pause. ‘Analysand. I can’t even say it properly. Or something about therapy. Sorry, this is becoming all about me. Again. But probably the best thing is to sit with friends, eat strange food, not say too much. Have you told anyone else?’
‘I told Sasha. And Karlsson.’
‘Good,’ said Reuben. ‘And that’s the end of the speech.’
‘But what will you do?’ said Josef.
‘Yes,’ said Sandy. ‘What will you do?’
Frieda looked down at her plate. The food was lovely, the sort of comforting food that, if you were hungry and if you had the right sort of mother, your mother would cook for you to soothe you and make you feel better.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘What I planned to do is what I’ve done for twenty-three years, which is just to carry on, to stop him – whoever he was – having any power over me. Things feel different now. I know he’s still out there. But I wouldn’t know where to start.’
There was a silence and the men exchanged glances.
‘When you start talking like that,’ Sandy said, ‘I have a feeling that something’s going to happen.’
‘Well, something is going to happen. I’m just not sure what yet.’
Sandy pushed his plate away. ‘I’m busy tomorrow morning. Let’s go in the afternoon.’
‘Go?’
‘To Braxton. I’ll drive you.’
‘Oh.’ Frieda was startled. Sandy looked at her with bright eyes, waiting. ‘But I need to make arrangements.’
‘Why?’
‘I can’t just turn up.’
‘I don’t see why not.’
‘And my patients –’
‘It’s the weekend.’
Frieda stared at Sandy. For more than twenty years this had been waiting for her. She should have known that she couldn’t escape.