‘Do you need a table?’ asked a young woman, dressed in shredded black, with a lightning streak tattooed down her cheek. Her accent was upper-class Estuary. Her boots were like the Terminator’s.
Frieda heard her name and squinted up the room. She made out Chloë at the far end, waving her arms in the air to attract her attention.
‘This had better be important.’
‘Beer?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Or tea. They do herbal teas here.’
‘What’s this about?’
‘I had to get you here. It’s Ted.’
‘Ted? You mean the young man?’
‘He needs help.’
‘I’m sure he does.’
‘But the thing is, he won’t do anything about it. He just gets angry when people tell him, so I thought I’d have to do it for him.’
‘I can give you names, Chloë, but he’s got to want to –’
‘I don’t need names, Frieda. I’ve got you.’
‘Oh no you don’t.’
‘You have to help.’
‘I don’t. This is not the way to do it.’
‘Please. You don’t understand. I really like him and he’s so messed up.’ She grabbed Frieda’s hand. ‘Oh, fuck, he’s here already. He’s just come in.’
‘You haven’t done what I think you’ve done?’
‘I had to,’ hissed Chloë, leaning forward. ‘You wouldn’t have come if I’d told you and neither would Ted.’
‘Exactly.’
‘You can make him better.’
‘His mother’s been killed, Chloë. How can I make him better?’
Frieda stood up, and as she did, Ted stumbled past the bar and saw them both. He stopped and stared. He was in the same dishevelled, undone state as before – clothes flapping, trousers slipping down, laces trailing, hair falling over his pale face, the hectic blotches on his cheeks. He stared from Chloë to Frieda, then back again.
‘You?’ he said. ‘What’s going on?’
Chloë scrambled to her feet and went over to him. ‘Ted,’ she said. ‘Listen.’
‘What’s she doing here? You tricked me.’
‘I wanted to help you,’ said Chloë, desperately. For a moment Frieda felt very sorry for her niece. ‘I thought if you two could just talk a bit …’
‘I don’t need help. You should see my sisters. They’re the ones who need help. I’m not a little kid any more.’ He looked at Chloë. ‘I thought you were my friend.’
‘That’s not fair,’ said Frieda, sharply. He turned his wretched, sneering face towards her. ‘I agree Chloë acted wrongly. But she did it because she is your friend and she cares. Don’t lash out at her. You need your friends.’
‘I’m not going to lie on your fucking couch.’
‘Of course you’re not.’
‘And I’m not going to cry and say my life is over now I don’t have a mother.’ But his voice rose dangerously high as he stared at her defiantly.
‘No. And it isn’t. Maybe we can just get out of here, the three of us, and have some tea or a mug of hot chocolate or something in the little place across the road, which is quiet and doesn’t have dreadful paintings on the wall, and then we can all go back to our separate homes, and no real harm done.’
Chloë sniffed and gazed pleadingly at him.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘I haven’t had hot chocolate for years. Not since I was a kid.’ As if he was a middle-aged man.
‘Sorry.’ Chloë’s voice was small.
‘It’s all right, I guess.’
‘Good,’ said Frieda. ‘Now can we get out of here?’
Chloë and Ted had a mug of hot chocolate each and Frieda had a glass of water.
‘I don’t think it makes things better,’ said Ted, ‘just because you talk about them.’
‘It depends,’ said Frieda.
‘I think it makes things worse, like jabbing a wound to keep it bleeding. Wanting it to bleed.’
‘I’m not here to make you see someone you don’t want to see. I just think you should drink your hot chocolate.’
‘Don’t you get sick of spending your days with rich, narcissistic wankers going on about childhood traumas, endlessly fascinated by all their noble, manufactured suffering?’
‘Your suffering isn’t manufactured, though, is it?’
Ted glared at her. His face had a peeled look, as if even the air would sting him. ‘It’ll pass,’ he said. ‘That’s what my mum would have said. One fucking day at a time.’
‘That’s one of the sad things about people dying,’ said Frieda. ‘We talk about them in the past tense. We say what they would have done. But if that’s what she would have said, it’s not stupid. Time does pass. Things change.’ She stood up. ‘And now I think we’re done,’ she said.
Chloë drained her mug. ‘We’re finished as well,’ she said.
When they were outside, Frieda was ready to say goodbye but Chloë seemed reluctant to let her go. ‘Which way are you going?’
‘I’ll walk back through the park.’
‘You’re going in the same direction as us. Past Ted’s house. Except he’s not staying there. They’re staying with neighbours.’
‘I can speak for myself,’ said Ted.
‘All right,’ said Frieda, and they started walking, an uneasy trio, with Chloë in the middle.
‘I’m sorry,’ Chloë said. ‘This is all my fault. I shouldn’t have done this. I’ve embarrassed you both.’
‘You can’t force help on people,’ said Frieda. ‘But that’s all right.’
‘Frieda walks everywhere. She’s like a taxi driver. You could name any two places in London and she could walk between them.’ Chloë was talking as if she was frightened by the idea of a moment’s silence. ‘And she’s really critical of it as well. She thinks it all went wrong after the Elizabethan age or the Great Fire of London. This is Ted’s road. This is where it all happened. I’m sorry, I don’t want to start it up all over again. I’ve done enough damage. This is actually his house, I mean his parents’ house, but I’m going along the road with him to say goodbye and sorry and then …’ She turned to Frieda, who had suddenly stopped. ‘Frieda, are you all right?’
Frieda had been about to make way for a group of people – two men and a woman – getting out of a car, but she had recognized them at the very moment they recognized her.
‘Frieda …’ Karlsson seemed too surprised to say anything else.
The other man appeared more contemptuously amused than surprised. ‘You can’t stay away, can you?’ said Hal Bradshaw. ‘Is that some sort of syndrome?’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Frieda.
‘I was going to ask how you are,’ Bradshaw continued. ‘But I think I already know.’
‘Yes. Your journalist rang me up.’
Bradshaw smiled. He had very white teeth. ‘Perhaps I should have warned you. But it would have spoiled things.’
‘What’s this?’ asked Karlsson. He seemed both uncomfortable and distressed.
‘You don’t need to know.’ Frieda didn’t want anyone to know, and particularly not Karlsson, but she supposed that soon enough they all would, and the gossip, the glee, the happy, whispering pity would begin all over again.
The woman was Yvette Long.
‘Frieda. What are you doing here?’
‘I’ve been having cocoa with my niece, Chloë. And this is Ted.’
‘Yes,’ said Bradshaw, still smiling. ‘We do know Ted Lennox. Are you coming inside? I assume that’s what you want.’