Jasmine pulled her hand out of Frieda’s grasp. ‘Now you’re just trying to be clever. The thing about Robbie was that he didn’t see me the way everybody else sees me. He just saw me for who I am. As simple as that.’
As they came out of Jasmine Shreeve’s house into the quiet little Camberwell street, Karlsson seemed discontented. ‘Who the hell is this guy?’
Water seemed to be getting into the boat. She couldn’t tell where from, but it was wet on the floor and all her clothes were damp. One morning it was so cold her trousers were stiff as well, like cardboard, and she had to grit her teeth when she pulled them on. Her hands throbbed and they were a bit swollen. She held them up to the window and examined them. She needed to look good for when he came. Not glamorous and simpering, he hated all of that – he liked strong women who could accompany him through a world full of dangers – but clean, fit, ready for whatever he wanted her to do.
She had lost weight. She couldn’t see it, but she could feel it from her clothes, which hung off her, and from the new definition of her pelvic bone. Also, she hadn’t had a period for – how long? She couldn’t remember. She would have to look at the calendar where she’d marked it. It didn’t matter. But she was worried that she seemed to be having trouble seeing clearly – little motes floated in front of her eyes, and things seemed out of focus at the edges. She wouldn’t tell him that and she’d make sure it didn’t interfere with the task in hand.
Task in hand. What was it? Her hair, yes: she wetted it and combed it straight, and then, standing in front of the little mirror in what had once been the boat’s shower room, she tried to cut it, snipping at the ragged ends with the scissors. When she used to go to the hairdresser in town and sit in front of the large mirror, she would close her eyes and let André massage her scalp with lemony oil before she had it washed and conditioned and then, very slowly, cut and caressed and dried into shape. This was different – it was functional, a way of preparing herself, but it was hard to get the hair even in this dim light, and her face seemed to shrink, then loom out at her so she had the horrible feeling she was looking at a stranger, whose skin was the colour of mushrooms and whose eyes were too big and cheekbones too sharp. But she liked the feeling of the blades slicing through her wet locks.
Afterwards, she washed what was left of her hair over the cracked sink, pouring cupfuls of water on to it and rubbing in the last of her shampoo. Her face felt rubbery with cold but she was hot as well. Hot inside. Her hands gripped the sink. It felt greasy and hard to hold on to and the boat seemed to be tipping to one side.
She knew she needed to eat but she felt sick and couldn’t face the last of the potatoes with reeking tuna fish stirred into them. Tinned peaches: that would do. She couldn’t find the tin opener; she must have dropped it somewhere but the boat was dim and the batteries on the torch had died, and where were the matches? Everything seemed to be slipping from her grasp and she mustn’t let that happen. She was a soldier. Chin up. She found the kitchen knife and, squatting on the floor, started hitting the top of the tin with it, making a little dent that gradually grew bigger until the tin split and a tear-drop of peach juice oozed on to the surface. She licked it greedily with the tip of her tongue. Sweet, life-giving. Her eyes filled with tears. She inserted the knife into the hole and levered it back and forth, gradually making the opening bigger, but then she couldn’t wait any longer and lifted the gashed tin to her mouth and sucked at the fruit and it was only afterwards when she could still taste metal that she realized her lip was cut open and pulpy, her mouth full of blood. She tried to stand up but the floor shrank and the ceiling tilted towards her. She put her head on the wet boards and stared at the hatch, where he would come.
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.’