2
‘I’m only here to get my mother off my back.’
‘Why don’t you at least come in out of the wet?’
It was raining steadily, the sky a heavy unbroken grey and the leaves on the cobblestones sodden in the downpour.
Becky stepped inside, pulling the door shut. Her long dark hair was wet and sticking to her skull; her eyes, almost black, were large in her pinched face.
‘She wouldn’t even let me come here alone. I’m nearly sixteen, but she insisted on getting the train with me and coming all the way to Goodge Street. She’ll be there now. Buying more shoes or something. She’s got a thing about shoes.’
‘Sit by the fire. Can I take your jacket?’
‘I’m all right like this.’ The girl pulled her thick woollen jacket more closely around her. Even though she was huddled inside it, Frieda could see how thin she was. Her wrists were tiny, her legs were as narrow at the thigh as at the knees, her cheekbones sharp. She looked malnourished, her skin stretched tight over her features.
‘Can I get you some some tea?’
‘No. Or do you have any herbal tea?’
‘Mint?’
‘Mint’s OK.’
‘Take a seat. Warm yourself. Biscuit?’
‘Just tea.’
Frieda left her leaning towards the flames, her delicate fingers held out to their warmth, and went into the kitchen. She made two mugs of tea – mint for Becky, Assam for her. Becky wrapped her hands around the mug for warmth and let the steam curl into her bitter little face.
‘It’s always hard to begin,’ said Frieda.
Becky drew her brows together in a frown and muttered something under her breath.
‘There’s no value in coming if you don’t choose to be here. I’m not going to force things out of you that you don’t want to tell, make you say things you’d prefer to keep secret. You’re here because your mother is worried about you and she asked me to talk to you. But I don’t want to talk to you or tell you what to do. I want to listen to you, if there are things you need to say to someone.’
Becky gave a violent shrug. ‘I’m OK.’
‘But you’re here.’
‘Only because she made me come.’
‘How did she make you?’
‘She said I only thought about myself. I was selfish. But that she was suffering too, and if I cared at all about anyone else, I could do this one small thing for her.’
‘You know I’m a therapist.’
‘So now she thinks I’m mad, as well as selfish.’
‘She thinks you may be in some kind of trouble.’
‘I know. Drugs. Or boys. That’s all she can think of. Is that what she told you?’
‘Are you in some kind of trouble?’
‘I’m fifteen, aren’t I? Isn’t that what being fifteen means? Everything feeling rubbish and shitty?’
‘Shitty. Is that how everything feels to you?’
‘Is that what you do?’ Becky lifted her fierce eyes and glared at Frieda. ‘You take a stupid random word and twist it around and say, “Oh, how interesting, she thinks everything’s shitty.” Shitty, crap, disgusting. I can do that too.’ She looked around her, her gaze resting on the chess table that Frieda had inherited from her father. ‘You play chess. You move pieces around on a board. Is that how you think of life? Like a great game you can win at?’
‘No. That’s not how I think of life.’
‘You’re famous, aren’t you? I Googled you, you know.’
‘And?’
‘It gave me the creeps. I’m not like those missing girls.’
‘But you’re not in a safe place right now, are you?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’re angry and anxious and unsettled. I know you’ve been missing school and falling behind with work.’
‘Oh, that’s what it’s about. I won’t get my precious A stars.’
‘And I can see you’re not eating,’ Frieda continued.
Becky glowered at her. ‘Everyone I know is too fat or too thin,’ she said.
‘You won’t confide in your mother.’
‘She’s the last person I’d talk to. I’d rather go to my friends’ mothers than her.’
‘Your school must have a counsellor.’
‘I’m just working stuff out.’
‘What stuff?’
‘Just stuff. Don’t look at me as if you can see through me. It makes me feel sick.’
‘Why?’
‘It makes my skin crawl.’
Frieda scrutinized Becky. Then she said, ‘I know this will make you feel even angrier, but I want you to think a bit about your language.’
‘What do you mean, my language?
‘Rubbish, shitty, crap, sick, skin crawling.’
‘So? They’re just words. Everyone uses words like that.’
‘It’s a language of disgust.’
‘So? Maybe I am disgusted.’
‘Why?’
‘Aren’t you going to ask me about my dad?’
‘Your father? Why?’
‘Mum said you’d want to know about him. She says that’s what it’s all about. She thinks I blame her for their divorce and let him off too lightly. She says that I can be furious with her because I know she won’t leave me like he did – because she’s stuck with me, for better or for worse, and that’s what motherhood is all about. Not being able to escape your nasty daughter. I didn’t ask to be born. She says I can’t face up to the fact that my dad went off with this other woman, but I know it anyway, and that –’
‘Hang on, Becky.’ Frieda held up her hand. ‘I don’t want to hear what your mother thinks.’
‘Why not? You’re only seeing me because you were best friends at school or something.’
Frieda opened her mouth to protest, then stopped herself. ‘That’s not the point at all,’ she said. ‘This is about you, Becky Capel, not about your mother and certainly not about the fact that she and I knew each other many years ago. You can tell me things and I won’t pass them on to her or anyone. You can feel safe here and you can say things that you feel unable to say to other people, because I’m a stranger.’
Becky turned her face away. There was a long silence.
‘I make myself sick,’ she muttered.
‘Do you mean that you literally make yourself sick?’
‘Both.’ She gave a choked laugh. ‘What do you call it? Metaphorically, that’s the word. My teacher would be proud of me. I literally and metaphorically make myself sick.’
‘Have you ever told anyone that before?’
‘No. It’s disgusting.’
‘Do you know why you do it?’
‘Food’s disgusting too. People taking gobbets of dead animal and bits of fish and mouldy cheese and dirty roots from the ground and putting them into their mouths and chewing them. And then swallowing so it all goes deep into their own bodies to rot away inside.’
Becky looked at Frieda as if to see the effect she was having. ‘Apples are all right,’ she continued. ‘And oranges.’
‘So you say you’re starving yourself because food disgusts you?’
‘I don’t like plums. I hate bananas. And figs.’
‘Becky …’
‘What? I hate this stupid conversation. Who cares what I eat? They’re starving all over the world and here one poor little rich girl is being sick because …’
‘Because?’
‘Because. Because nothing. It’s just a phase.’
‘And truanting from school.’
‘It’s boring.’
‘School’s boring?’
‘Yeah.’
‘So if school’s boring, what do you find interesting?’
‘I used to like swimming, especially in the sea when the waves are big. Swimming in the rain.’
Despite herself, Frieda felt the tug of an old memory, the grey North Sea and breakers surging towards her, shingle shifting under her bare feet. ‘But not any longer?’
‘I haven’t been for a bit. And now it’s nearly winter. I hate being cold. I get cold to my bones.’
Frieda was beginning to reply, when there was a rap at her front door. Maddie was on the doorstep, standing under an open umbrella, her cheeks pink and damp, a shopping bag in one hand.
‘Am I too early?’
‘Early for what?’
‘I thought the session would be over by now.’
‘It’s not a session, it’s a conversation.’
Maddie closed her umbrella and leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘What do you think?’ she half whispered.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘What do you make of Becky?’
‘I think she’s a very intelligent young woman who’s sitting a few feet away from us, probably able to hear everything we say.’
‘But has she said anything?’
‘I’ll call or email you this evening. We can talk about it then.’
‘She’s going to be all right, isn’t she? You are going to help?’
A few hours later, Frieda sat in her study at the top of the house, listening to the rain on the roof and the wind against the windows. She sat for several minutes in deep thought and then she picked up the phone. When Maddie answered, Frieda could hear the eagerness in her voice.
‘I was hoping it would be you. Becky wouldn’t tell me anything about her visit to you. I hope she wasn’t surly.’
‘No. She wasn’t surly.’
‘Did you discover anything?’
‘I’m not sure what you mean by that. But I think your daughter needs help.’
‘That’s why I made her see you.’
‘I saw her today in my house for a chat – because you asked me to see her. I think she needs professional help.’
‘You make it sound so serious!’ Maddie gave an anxious, grating laugh. ‘I just need a bit of advice, someone to point me in the right direction. You can do that, can’t you? Get to the bottom of her moods and put her back on track.’
‘It’s important to keep clear boundaries. She needs to see a therapist, not someone who – in her eyes – is connected to her mother.’
‘You’re a therapist, aren’t you? As for being connected …’ Her tone changed, grew chillier. ‘We never really hung about with the same crowd, did we? So we needn’t worry about that.’
‘I’ll see Becky for a proper consultation,’ said Frieda. ‘I’ll make an assessment, and I’ll tell you what I think she needs, and I can recommend someone for her to see, although she would need to be involved in that decision.’
Maddie’s tone became warm again. ‘That’s lovely. But what do you mean by a proper consultation? It sounds a bit intimidating.’
‘It will be in my room in Bloomsbury. I’ll give you the address. It will last exactly fifty minutes. I’ll charge you seventy-five pounds.’
‘You’ll charge me?’
‘Yes.’
‘That seems a bit cold-blooded, I must say.’
‘I saw Becky today because I know you,’ said Frieda. ‘Next time I’ll see her as a patient. That means you must pay me, as if I were an electrician or a plumber.’
‘You’re being very stern. Is that how much you charge everyone?’
‘It’s an average fee. If you’re not in the position to pay that much, I’ll make a concession.’
‘I’ve got plenty of money, thank you, Frieda. That’s one thing Stephen did leave me with. It just seems rather odd, paying for a little favour.’
‘It’s not a favour any more. This is what Becky needs and this is what I do.’