39
Supper was ready but Ewan hadn’t arrived. Vanessa called him. No reply. Louder. Still no reply. She ran upstairs and looked in the bedroom. She knocked on the door of his study. Nothing. Then she heard his voice. It seemed to be coming from outside. She returned downstairs and stepped out through the French windows. He was talking on the phone. She started to say something, but he waved her away. She hovered and he gestured again, almost angrily, as if he was pushing her off.
She stood inside and waited. The girls were at the table. They had already started eating. After a few minutes, Ewan came inside. When he saw Vanessa he frowned.
‘The food’s on the table,’ she said.
‘I’m going out,’ he said.
‘What? Now?’
‘I won’t be long.’
‘Ewan, we’re eating supper.’
‘I won’t be long.’
‘Who was on the phone?’
‘I don’t know. A man. He said he wanted to tell me something about Frieda Klein. Something I’d find interesting.’
‘What?’
Ewan looked at her with a flash of irritation. ‘If I knew that, I wouldn’t need to be told, would I?’
‘Why can’t he come here?’
Ewan put a finger over his lips, as if he were telling a small child to be quiet. And he had an expression on his face that suggested bad things would happen to the small child if it didn’t obey. ‘I haven’t finished with Frieda Klein,’ he said.
Frieda put a potato in the oven to bake, then set about clearing the house. She took the sheets off her bed and the towels off the rack in the bathroom and put them into the washing-machine, picked up various baby items (a wooden rattle, a tiny sock, an empty bottle that had rolled under the bed) and put them into a bag to give to Sasha. Then she went upstairs to her study where Chlo? and Jack had been. That took much longer. There were mugs and plates, apple cores and empty crisps packets, a bottle of wine by the side of the bed. They had been there less than two days but it felt like the mess of weeks. Frieda put everything back the way she liked it, wiped the surfaces, vacuumed the floor, then sat down for a few moments at her desk. Her sketchpad was open and her last drawing had a circular brown mark on it from where a mug had been set. She ripped the page out and threw it into the bin. Her mug of soft-leaded pencils had been tipped over and she had to retrieve them. When this was over, she promised herself, she would give herself time in this garret room to draw, to think, to be herself once more. And, after all, she wouldn’t have Sandy making claims on her time any more. She would be alone again, entirely her own woman.
The potato was overcooked. She put butter on to it and poured herself a glass of red wine. Her head hummed with thoughts, with pictures. Ewan was free. She knew he would not stop. Perhaps she’d given him pause or perhaps she’d given him encouragement. He had been both complacent and victorious this afternoon.
She ate the potato and drank the red wine, then stood up and wandered round the house but couldn’t settle to anything. She was too pent up. She went out to her patio and stood for a while in the cold drizzle. Ewan Shaw, the clown, the sweet guy, the good guy, clumsy and helpful, everyone’s friend. Ewan, her rapist. Becky’s rapist and her killer. Sarah May’s. Who had tried to kill Max simply because Max was a bit of a nuisance and a useful decoy. As if people were just things, as if lives were toys to be played with, broken and thrown in the garbage bin. Ewan, who would do it again. Who wouldn’t feel guilt. Whose wife would let him get away with it over and over again because he was her husband and wives had to support their husbands, and because she didn’t want to see, didn’t want to know, would spend the rest of her life being motherly and concerned, looking in the opposite direction and pretending even to herself that something monstrous wasn’t going on under her nose, with her complicity and tacit consent. She had always known. She must have known about Frieda, or why would she have given Ewan his alibi? She must have known about Sarah, about Becky. She must have handed over the package Becky had left in her care to Ewan, knowing, and told him about Max coming to retrieve it.
How Vanessa must have loathed her, thought Frieda. How hatred and fear must have risen in her like bile when she opened the door and saw that she had returned.
And not just Vanessa. Chas must have known as well. He had repeated the words that Frieda had said to Ewan that night long ago, when she had told him in her desperation that she was still a virgin, as if pity would restrain someone who had no empathy in his veins. Ewan must have told Chas. What was it to them? A dare, a laddish prank, a bit of a joke, something they could laugh chummily about, man to man: Frieda Klein, but she was asking for it anyway, thinking she was better than the rest of us; I took her down a peg or two. Was that it? But then the others: Becky and Sarah and nearly Max. Maybe others she did not know of. They were just children. She had to do something and she didn’t know what, not yet.
She roamed through the house, turned the radio on, then off again, made herself coffee that she didn’t drink, and then, when she couldn’t bear it any longer, put on her coat, missing the comfort of her red scarf, and left the house. At first she walked without knowing where she was going, through dark side streets, the cold, cleansing wind in her face and lungs. Then she headed east, past Fleet Street and St Paul’s and towards Whitechapel, on small deserted streets that ran between tall buildings and shuttered shops. Soon she was in an area of London she barely knew. There were lots of boarded-up houses, weeds filling the small front gardens. A mangy fox ran across her path. She turned south towards the river and Shadwell Basin. The Thames could take her home again.
By the time she reached her front door, it was two thirty in the morning and she had been walking for hours. She felt better; perhaps she was even tired enough to sleep at last. She hung her coat on the hook by the door and unlaced her boots, easing her sore feet out of them, then started to mount the stairs, thinking of her bed, clean sheets and a soft pillow, only the cat to disturb her.
‘Hello, Frieda.’
She swung round. Sandy was standing at the bottom of the staircase. He was wearing jeans and a jumper that she had bought him, and was holding a tumbler of whisky.
‘I hope I didn’t startle you.’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘You look tired. Have you been on one of your night walks?’
‘I’ve been walking and I’m tired and I want you to leave my house at once.’
‘Are you back for good? Is it over in Braxton?’
She looked at him, so at home. There was no love left inside her. ‘It was Ewan Shaw.’ He deserved to know that at least.
‘Your old friend?’
‘Not my friend.’
‘Has he been arrested?’
‘No.’
‘But …’
‘I don’t want to talk about Ewan. Or anything. I asked you what you were doing here, in the middle of the night.’
‘I came to see you. We need to talk.’
‘You let yourself into my house.’
‘I’ve a key.’ He held up the whisky. ‘I hope you don’t mind. You were rather a long time.’
Frieda came down the stairs and took the glass out of his hand. ‘I do mind,’ she said.
‘I had to see you.’
‘You don’t have to see me. I’m not good for you, Sandy.’
‘You know that I’m not just going to disappear out of your life.’
‘Out, I said, get out. Give me my key and get out of my house.’
‘Frieda. Please listen.’
‘I don’t want to listen to anything you have to say. How dare you let yourself into my house in the early hours?’
‘I’m sorry if I’ve upset you. I thought –’
‘Just go. Now. And don’t come back.’
‘You don’t mean it.’
‘If you aren’t gone in the next minute, I’ll call the police.’
‘Oh, you mean your special policeman, Malcolm Karlsson.’
‘Forty seconds.’ She pulled her mobile out of her pocket.‘If this is the way you want it to be. And give me that key.’
He shrugged and handed it over. ‘After everything we’ve been through,’ he said.
Frieda didn’t reply, just watched him as he opened the door and stepped out into the street. Then she pulled it shut on him and drew the chain across it. She could feel her heart hammering and the beads of sweat on her forehead. She went into the kitchen, poured Sandy’s whisky into the sink and rinsed the tumbler. Soon it would be morning, and what was she going to do then?
But she never had the opportunity to decide. At a quarter past five her phone rang, waking her from a heavy mess of dreams.
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘It’s David. Your brother,’ he added, as if she wouldn’t know.
‘She’s dying.’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll come at once. Where is she?’
‘In the main hospital. Hendry Ward.’
‘OK.’ She was out of bed, turning on the light, opening the cupboard for clothes. ‘I’ll get the first train out.’
She pulled on trousers and a shirt, slid her mobile into her pocket, took her toothbrush and toothpaste from the bathroom. Then she went downstairs, put on her coat and boots, then picked up her bag. She remembered to check there was enough food in the cat’s bowl and then she let herself out into the November dark. It was very cold and wet; she thought perhaps the rain was turning to sleet. She walked swiftly to the Underground and got there just as it was opening. There were already a few people waiting outside, early risers or those who had been up all night and were at last going home to bed. She arrived at Liverpool Street in time to get the six o’clock train out. It was almost empty: most people were travelling in the opposite direction; soon they would be pouring into London from all directions.
Frieda sat back and looked out of the window into the darkness. She didn’t think about her mother; she thought about her father, to whom she hadn’t said goodbye, who hadn’t said goodbye to anyone. Why was that so important? She had once had a patient who found it almost impossible to bring even a phone conversation to an end. She didn’t know how to say goodbye or how to leave. There always had to be one more thing to say; endings were intolerable.
At the station, Frieda climbed into a cab. It was only a few minutes to the hospital, where she had last been with her mother for the brain scan. By the time she got there it was light – or as light as it would ever get on this day of low grey clouds and sleety rain. She went into the Ladies and cleaned her teeth before taking the stairs up to the second floor.
Her mother was in a curtained-off cubicle in a ward of six beds, all of which were occupied. David sat on a plastic chair beside her. Juliet Klein was asleep or unconscious. He was reading a newspaper, which he folded in half as Frieda drew back the curtains and stepped inside. He didn’t get up, just nodded as she pulled the second chair to the other side of the bed, next to the locker.
‘Have you contacted Ivan?’ she asked.
‘Twice now. The first time was when she was diagnosed, and he said that he would fly over when the time came – by which I take it he meant when she was on her deathbed. Now that she is on her deathbed, he says he wouldn’t get here in time.’
‘He probably wouldn’t,’ said Frieda.
‘No. What a family we are.’
Frieda didn’t answer. She looked at her mother, whose mouth was half open, as if her jaw had come unhinged, and whose skin was slack. Her breath rumbled in her throat and she smelt sour. There was an oxygen mask at the ready round her neck and an IV in her arm, which was thin and bruised. She would have hated to be seen like this, she who had always been so meticulously prepared for the world.
‘Have you talked to her?’
‘An hour or so ago she opened her eyes and told me I’d put on weight. That’s all.’
‘What do the doctors say?’
‘That it won’t be long. She might not wake up again and then we’d miss our grand deathbed reconciliation.’
Juliet Klein’s eyes opened. ‘What are you saying about me?’
Frieda thought about taking her mother’s hand, then changed her mind.
‘Why are you here?’ Juliet’s face pulled tight. ‘Am I …?’ She couldn’t finish the sentence, but swallowed painfully.
David leaned over and spoke very slowly, as if to a child who was having trouble sleeping. ‘Yes. You’re dying, Ma.’
Juliet Klein blinked several times. Her arms, lying above the covers as if she was dead already, moved convulsively.
‘Are you in pain?’ asked Frieda. ‘Is there anything you need?’
Her mother didn’t answer. She turned her head to one side and then the other on her pillow and made a sound that wasn’t a cry but wasn’t a word either.
‘Ivan sent his love,’ said David, loudly, separating out each word.
‘Ivan?’
‘Your other son.’
‘Tell me if you want anything.’ Now Frieda did take Juliet’s hand, for she saw that her mother was terrified.
‘Must leave here.’ She made a frantic flurried movement as if she would get up from the bed and try to escape, but remained where she was, her eyes glassy.
‘She’s not really of sound mind,’ said David.
‘Don’t talk about her as if she wasn’t here.’
‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Frieda, your daughter.’
‘Daughter.’
‘Yes.’
‘Overrated.’
‘What’s overrated?’
‘Never wanted to be a mother.’
‘I know,’ said Frieda. ‘It’s all right.’
‘Wanted …’ And again her words became unintelligible.
‘What’s she saying?’ David leaned forward. ‘What are you saying, Ma?’
‘I think she’s saying she wanted a different life.’
‘Too late,’ said Juliet Klein. Her face was very small and pinched on the pillow. Her eyes glittered at them. Her breath rasped as if her chest was rusty and broken.
A nurse came into the cubicle and bent over the bed. She put the oxygen mask over Juliet Klein’s mouth but the dying woman pulled it away, the elastic snapping on her cheeks. She tore her fingers from Frieda’s grasp.
‘No,’ she said. ‘No. I won’t. I won’t. No.’
She closed her eyes and after a moment was still. Her breath snagged in her throat. Frieda watched her intently. Her angry, unhappy, ironic, stubborn mother was leaving them.
‘Is she dead?’ asked David, after a pause.
‘No,’ said Frieda.
She wasn’t dead but she didn’t open her eyes again or speak, and then, at last, her breathing stopped.
‘Now is she dead?’
‘Yes.’
‘So with her dying breath she told us she wished she’d never been a mother.’
‘You probably already knew that.’
‘No. No, I didn’t.’
‘Are you all right?’
‘Actually, I feel good. I always thought it was just me she didn’t like. It’s rather a relief to know it was all of us.’
There was a pause. Frieda was about to stand up and fetch the nurse when David spoke again, in a quiet voice. ‘That – that thing you say happened to you …’
‘The rape,’ said Frieda. ‘It has a name.’
‘Yes. Well. Are you – I mean, what’s going on with that?’
Frieda looked at her mother, who had never believed her story and who now never would. ‘I don’t want to talk about it, David.’
‘That’s probably for the best.’ He sounded relieved. ‘I mean, it’s all in the past and sometimes you just have to let sleeping dogs lie.’
Wake up those dogs, thought Frieda. Set them loose on the world.