‘Your curry’s all cold,’ said Sasha, coming over to her and putting a comforting hand on her arm.
‘Yes, well. We’ll go to a restaurant next time. I’ve just got to go out for a few minutes.’
‘Where?’
‘Just to the chemist’s to get a few things.’
‘She thinks she’s pregnant, doesn’t she?’ Sasha asked, in a low voice.
‘How on earth do you know that?’
‘Are you going to get a Predictor?’
‘Yes. If it’s open.’
Sasha said, turning away and speaking in a casual voice: ‘I’ve got one in my bag she can use.’
‘Oh, Sasha!’ Images flashed through Frieda’s mind – Sasha not lifting her glass, Sasha talking to Dora in a new voice of maternal tenderness, Sasha’s hesitation earlier that evening, as if she was about to tell her something. ‘That’s what you wanted to tell me!’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you?’
‘Let’s talk later.’
Judith wasn’t pregnant. Her sickness and her lateness were, Frieda told her, probably to do with shock and grief. But she needed to think about this properly, she said, not simply continue as she had been doing. She was fifteen and in a relationship with a man who was more than thirteen years older than her. ‘You need to talk to someone,’ she said.
‘I’m talking to you, aren’t I?’
Frieda sighed. Tiredness was making her head pound. ‘Someone who’s not me,’ she replied.
She made Judith a mug of tea, and Dora, who was limp from crying, some hot chocolate. ‘I’ll order you a cab,’ she said. ‘Your father and aunt will be worried.’
Judith snorted.
Then the doorbell rang again.
‘That’ll be Chloë,’ said Frieda.
‘I’ll go.’ Sasha rose and put a hand on Frieda’s shoulder, then went to the door.
It wasn’t Chloë, it was Ted. He was clearly stoned.
‘Isn’t Chloë back yet?’ he asked.
‘No. I’m just ordering a cab,’ Frieda told him, putting her hand over the receiver. ‘You can all go home together.’ She gave the taxi company her address and put the phone down.
‘No way. No way in the world. Dad’s drunk out of his head and Aunt Louise is very, very angry in a stomping kind of way. I’m not staying there tonight.’
‘Well, then, I’m not either,’ said Judith. Her blue eyes blazed with a kind of scared excitement. ‘Nor will Dora. Will you, Dora?’
Dora stared at her. She looked stricken.
‘The cab will be here in about five minutes. You’re all going home.’
‘No,’ said Ted. ‘I can’t go there.’
‘You can’t make us,’ added Judith. Dora put her head on the kitchen table again and closed her eyes. Her lids seemed transparent.
‘No. I can’t. Where are you going, then?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Yes. You’re eighteen now, I think, and a boy, and you can look after yourself – theoretically at least. Judith is fifteen and Dora thirteen. Look at her. Have you got a friend you can stay with?’
‘Can’t we stay here?’ Dora said suddenly. ‘Can’t we be in your house for a night? It feels safe here.’
‘No,’ said Frieda. She could feel Sasha’s eyes on her.
She considered picking up a plate and throwing it against the wall; she imagined taking a chair and smashing it against the window so that clean air streamed into this hot kitchen, with its smell of curry and sweat and grief. Or better still, just running out of her house, shutting the door behind her – she’d be free, in the April night, with stars and a moon and the wind soft in her face, and they could deal with their own chaotic sadness without her.
‘Please,’ said Dora. ‘We’ll be very quiet and we won’t make a mess.’
Ted and Judith were silent, just gazing at her and waiting.
‘Frieda,’ said Sasha, warningly. ‘No. This isn’t fair on you.’
‘One night,’ said Frieda. ‘One night only. Do you hear? And you have to ring home and tell your aunt and your father, if he’s in a state to understand.’
‘Yes!’
‘And when the cab arrives I’ll send it away but tell them to come back first thing tomorrow to take you home. You are all going to school. Yes?’
‘We promise.’
‘Where can we sleep?’ asked Dora.
Frieda thought of her lovely calm study at the top of the house that was now strewn with Chloë’s mess. She thought of her living room, with the books on the shelves, the sofa by the grate, the chess table by the window. Everything just so. Her refuge against the world and all its troubles.
‘Through there,’ she said, pointing up the hall.
‘Have you got sleeping bags?’
‘No.’ She stood up. Her body felt so heavy it took an enormous effort of will to move at all. Her head thudded. ‘I’ll get some duvets and sheets, and you can use the cushions from the sofa and chair.’
‘I’ll sort all of that.’ Sasha sounded urgent. She looked at Frieda with an expression of concern, even alarm.
‘Can I have a bath?’ asked Ted.
Frieda stared at him. The new plug was in her bag. ‘No! You can’t. You mustn’t! Just the washbasin.’
The bell rang again and Sasha went to cancel the cab. Then, almost immediately, Chloë came in, in her usual high pitch of angry excitement after seeing her father. She threw her arms around Ted, around Frieda, around Sasha.
‘Out of here,’ said Frieda. ‘I’m going to clean the kitchen, then go to bed.’
‘We’ll tidy,’ Chloë shouted gaily. ‘Leave it to us.’
‘No. Go into the other room and I’ll do it. You’re all to go to sleep now – you’re getting up at seven and leaving shortly after that. Don’t make a noise. And if anyone uses my toothbrush I’ll throw them out whatever time of night it is.’
You seem to have gone off radar. Where are you? Talk to me! Sandy xxxxx
THIRTY-SEVEN
‘It’s fun, isn’t it?’ said Riley.
‘In what way?’ asked Yvette.
‘We’re looking through people’s things, opening their drawers, reading through their diaries. It’s all the stuff you want to do, but you’re not meant to. I wish I could do this at my girlfriend’s flat.’
‘No, it’s not fun,’ said Yvette. ‘And don’t say that aloud, even to me.’
Riley was going through the filing cabinet in the Kerrigans’ living room. They’d searched the main bedroom and the kitchen already. Paul Kerrigan had stayed in hospital only one night after he was beaten up and now he was out, but his wife had let them in, tight-lipped and silent. She hadn’t offered them coffee or tea, and as they searched among the couple’s possessions, lifting up underwear, turning on computers, reading private letters, noticing the tidemark in the bath and the moth holes in some of Paul Kerrigan’s jumpers, they could hear her slamming doors, banging pans. When Yvette had last met her, she had been dazed and wearily sad. Now she seemed angry.
‘Here,’ she said, coming into the room. ‘You might not have found these. They were in his bike pannier in the cupboard under the stairs.’
She was holding a small square packet between forefinger and thumb, with an air of distaste. ‘Condoms,’ she said, and dropped them on to the table, as if they’d been used. ‘For his Wednesday dates, I assume.’
Yvette tried to keep her expression neutral. She hoped Riley wouldn’t say anything, wouldn’t react. ‘Thank you.’ She picked up the packet to put in the evidence bag.
‘He didn’t use them with you?’ said Riley, in a bright voice.
‘I had cancer several years ago and the chemotherapy meant that I’m now infertile,’ said Elaine Kerrigan. Briefly, her stiff expression changed to one of distress. ‘So, no, he didn’t.’