Later, she had a shower while he made her coffee, strong and hot, and she drank it in bed with the thin sheet pulled over her.
‘Why did you suddenly decide to come?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘When are you here until?’
‘Tomorrow afternoon.’
‘Tomorrow!’
‘Yes.’
‘Then we have to make the most of the time we have.’
Frieda slept, but shallowly, so that she heard Sandy make calls in the other room cancelling arrangements, while the sounds of the street entered her dreams. They walked through the neighbourhood and bought cooking utensils for Sandy’s flat and ate a late lunch in a deli. Sandy talked about work, people he’d met, Brooklyn, their summer plans. He mimicked colleagues, acted out scenarios, and she remembered the first time they’d met. She had thought him another of those doctors – maybe a surgeon, he had a surgeon’s hands – self-possessed, amiable, charming when he wanted to be with maybe a touch of the ladies’ man about him. Not of interest to her. But then she’d heard his buoyant gust of laughter and seen how his smile could be wolfish, sardonic. He could be detached sometimes, anger made him mild and aloof, but at others he was almost womanly. He cooked meals for her with a delicate attention to detail; had a relish for gossip; tucked the sheet under the mattress with a hospital corner, the way his mother must have taught him while he was still little and, by his own account, fiercely shy.
Only when Frieda was more relaxed did he ask her any questions. Frieda told him about the Lennox family, gave him news of her friends. They were both conscious that something lay ahead of them, some subject to be broached, and now they circled it cautiously, waiting.
‘And that news story?’ he asked.
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘But I do. You’re here for twenty-four hours. We have to talk about things like that.’
‘Have to?’
‘You can’t intimidate me with that voice, Dr Frieda Klein.’
‘I didn’t like it. Is that what you want to hear?’
‘Did you feel humiliated?’
‘I felt exposed.’
‘When you want always to be invisible. Were you angry?’
‘Not like Reuben.’ She smiled at the memory. ‘Now he was angry. Still is.’
‘And did you feel that you acted improperly at all?’
Frieda scowled at him and he waited patiently.
‘I don’t think so,’ she said eventually. ‘But maybe I have to feel justified, or it would be too painful. But I really don’t believe so. The man who came to me was a charlatan. He wasn’t a psychopath, just acting out the part. Why should I have taken him seriously?’
‘Did you know that at the time?’
‘In a way. But that isn’t really the point.’
‘What is the point?’
‘The point is that what happened has set me off on something.’
‘What does that mean, set you off?’
‘The man who came to me told me a story.’
‘I know that.’
‘No,’ Frieda said impatiently. ‘There was a story within the story and I felt …’ She stopped, considered. ‘I felt summoned.’
‘That’s an odd word.’
‘I know.’
‘You have to explain.’
‘I can’t.’
‘What was the story?’
‘About cutting someone’s hair. A feeling of power and tenderness. Something sinister and sexual. Everything else was sham, phoney, but this felt authentic.’
‘And it summoned you?’ Sandy was staring at her with a worried expression on his face that Frieda found infuriating. She looked away.
‘That’s right.’
‘But to what?’
‘You wouldn’t understand.’
‘Try me.’
‘Not now, Sandy.’
They ate in a small fish restaurant a short walk from the flat. The rain had stopped and the wind had died down. The air smelt fresher. Frieda wore a shirt of Sandy’s over her linen trousers. There was a candle between them, a bottle of dry white wine, hunks of bread and olive oil. Sandy told Frieda about his first marriage – how it had become an aridly competent affair by the end. How they had wanted different things.
‘Which were?’
‘We imagined the future differently,’ said Sandy. He looked to one side.
Frieda examined him. ‘You wanted children?’
‘Yes.’
A small, weighty silence wedged itself between them.
‘And now?’ she asked.
‘Now I want you. Now I imagine a future with you.’
At three in the morning, when it was as dark and as quiet as a great city ever gets, Frieda put a hand on Sandy’s shoulder.
‘What?’ he murmured, turning towards her.
‘There’s something I should say.’
‘Shall I turn the light on?’
‘No. It’s better in the dark. I’ve asked myself if we should end this.’
There was a moment of silence. Then he said, almost angrily: ‘So at the moment of most love and trust between us, you think of leaving?’
She didn’t say anything.
‘I never had you down for a coward,’ he said.
Still Frieda lay against him in silence. Words seemed futile.
‘And what have you answered yourself?’ he asked, after a while.
‘I haven’t.’
‘Why, Frieda?’
‘Because I’m no good for anyone.’
‘Let me decide that.’
‘I am chock full of unease.’
‘Yes.’ His voice was soft again in the darkness, his hand warm on her hip. She could feel his breath in her hair.
‘Dean’s still out there. He’s been to my father’s grave –’
‘What? How do you know?’
‘Never mind that now. I know. He wants me to know.’
‘You’re sure that –’ She made an impatient movement and he stopped.
‘Yes, I’m certain.’
‘That’s horrible and incredibly disturbing. But Dean can’t get between the two of us. Why should you want to end things with us because of a psychopath?’
‘When I said I felt summoned –’
‘Yes.’
‘It feels a bit like going into the underworld.’
‘Whose underworld? Yours?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Then, Frieda, don’t go there. It was just a stupid story. It’s your mood talking, the trauma you’ve been through. It’s not rational. You’re mistaking depression for reality.’
‘That’s too easy to say.’
‘Can I ask you something without you closing down on me?’
‘Go on.’
‘When your father killed himself and you found him …’ he felt her stiffen ‘… you were fifteen. Did you ever talk to anyone about it?’
‘No.’
‘And since then?’
‘Not as such.’
‘Not as such. Don’t you think that all this,’ he made an invisible gesture, ‘all this about Dean, about your work with the police, this new idea you’ve got about some story summoning you – all of this is just about you as a teenage girl finding your father hanging from a beam? Not saving him? And that’s what you should be thinking of, rather than charging off on another rescue mission?’
‘Thank you, Doctor. But Dean is real. Ruth Lennox was real. And this other thing …’ She turned her body so that now she was lying on her back, gazing up at the ceiling. ‘I don’t know what it is,’ she admitted.
‘Stop all that you’re doing. Stay here. Stay with me.’
‘You should be with someone who’s happy.’ She added: ‘And who you can have children with.’
‘I’ve made my choice.’