‘If you’re here to charge me,’ said Frieda, ‘just get it over with.’
‘This isn’t my area,’ said Karlsson. ‘But I suppose that in normal circumstances you’d be facing a charge of actual bodily harm and criminal damage. I’m assuming – God knows why – that you’ve got a clean record. So you might get away with a month or so in Holloway.’
‘I’m happy to go to trial,’ said Frieda.
‘Well, sadly, I think you may be denied your day in court. I’ve just been talking to the arresting officer and apparently Dr Rundell is very insistent on not pressing charges. My colleague is not a happy man. He’s not happy at all.’
‘What about the restaurant?’
‘Indeed,’ said Karlsson. ‘I’ve even seen the photographs. You know, in the past when I’ve encountered crime scenes of this kind, when the victim has refused to press charges, it’s usually involved gang intimidation of some kind. Is there something you’re not telling us?’ His attempt to suppress a smile now failed. ‘Drug deal gone wrong?’
‘It’s a private matter.’
‘And even then,’ said Karlsson, ‘I’ve never heard of the victim insisting on paying for all the damage himself.’ He paused. ‘You’re not the kind of person I’d expect to be arrested for brawling in public. And now you don’t seem to be particularly happy that you’ve escaped the sort of thing that most people would be afraid of, you know, like being put on trial and convicted and sent to prison, that sort of thing.’
‘I’m not bothered,’ said Frieda.
‘You’re a hard one,’ he said. Then his expression changed. ‘Is there something I should know about this? Something criminal?’
Frieda shook her head.
‘What’s he been up to, then?’ said Karlsson. ‘Sleeping with his patients?’
Frieda’s expression didn’t change.
‘I can’t condone this,’ said Karlsson. ‘This isn’t Sicily.’
‘I don’t care whether you condone it or not.’
‘You were the one who rang me.’
Frieda’s expression softened. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. And thank you.’
‘I’ve come to say that you can go and, in fact, to give you a lift back – but look,’ he said, a little desperately. ‘What would the world be like if everyone settled things like this?’
Frieda stood up. ‘What is the world like?’ she said.
Chapter Twenty-two
On Tuesday afternoon, Frieda said to Alan, ‘Tell me about your mother.’
‘My mother?’ He shrugged. ‘She was …’ He stopped, frowned, look at the palms of his hands as if he could find the answer there. ‘… a nice woman,’ he finished lamely. ‘She’s dead now.’
‘I mean, your other mother.’
It was as if she had punched him very hard in the stomach. She even heard the whoosh of surprised pain that escaped him, and he bent forward slightly, his face screwed up. ‘What do you mean?’ he managed.
‘Your birth mother, Alan.’
He made a faint and querulous sound.
‘You were adopted, weren’t you?’
‘How did you know?’ he whispered.
‘Not by magic. I just saw the photograph of them in your house.’
‘And?’
‘They both have blue eyes. Yours are brown. It’s genetically impossible.’
‘Oh,’ he said.
‘When were you going to tell me?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Never?’
‘It’s not got anything to do with this.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘I was adopted. End of story.’
‘You are longing to have a child of your own, so acutely that you have vivid fantasies about it, and prolonged attacks of acute anxiety. And you think that the fact that you were adopted isn’t relevant?’
Alan shrugged. He lifted his eyes to hers, then dropped them again. Outside, the crane’s arm lifted higher in the hard blue sky. Great gobbets of mud dropped from its serrated jaw. ‘I don’t know,’ he muttered.
‘You want a son who looks exactly like you. You reject the idea of adopting a child. You want your own – with your genes, your red hair and freckles. As if you want to adopt yourself, rescue yourself and look after yourself.’
‘Not that.’ Alan looked as though he would like to jam his fingers into his ears.
‘Is it such a secret?’
‘Carrie knows, of course. And one friend. I told him once after a few drinks. But why should I talk about it to everyone? It’s private.’
‘Private from your therapist?’
‘I didn’t think it was important.’
‘I don’t believe you, Alan.’
‘I don’t care what you believe. I’m telling you.’
‘I think you know it’s important. It’s so important you can’t bring yourself to mention it or even think about it.’
He shook his head slowly from side to side, like a tired old bull being baited.
‘Some secrets give a form of freedom,’ said Frieda. ‘Your own private space. That’s good. Everyone has to have those kinds of secrets. But some secrets can be dark and oppressive, like a horrible dank cellar you don’t dare go into but you always know is there, full of ugly underground creatures, full of your nightmares. Those are the secrets you need to confront, shine a light on, see what they really are.’
As she spoke, she thought of all the secrets she had been told over the years, all those illicit thoughts, desires, fears that people gave to her for safe keeping. Reuben had felt poisoned by them in the end, but she had always carried them with a sense of privilege, that people allowed her to see their fears, allowed her to be their light.
‘I don’t know,’ said Alan. ‘Maybe there are things it’s best not to dwell on.’
‘Otherwise?’
‘Otherwise you’ll just get upset when there’s nothing to be done anyway.’
‘Do you think that perhaps you’re here, with me, because there are too many things you haven’t dwelled upon and they’ve built up inside you?’
‘I don’t know about that. We just never discussed it,’ said Alan. ‘Somehow I just knew we couldn’t go there. She wanted me to think of her as my mother.’
‘Did you?’
‘She was my mother. Mum and Dad, that was all I knew. That other woman, she has nothing to do with me.’
‘You didn’t know your birth mother?’
‘No.’
‘No memory at all?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Do you know who she was?’
‘No.’
‘You never wanted to know?’
‘Even if I did, it would be no use.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘No one knew.’
‘I don’t understand. You can always find out, you know, Alan. It’s really quite straightforward.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong. She made sure of that.’
‘How?’
‘She dumped me. In a little park near a housing estate in Hoxton. The newspaper boy found me. It was winter and very cold and I was wrapped up in a towel.’ He glared at Frieda. ‘Like in a fairy tale. Except that this is real. Why should I care about her?’
‘What a way to start your life,’ said Frieda.
‘I can’t remember it, so it doesn’t matter. It’s just a story.’
‘A story about you.’
‘I never knew her, she never knew me. She doesn’t have a name, a voice, a face. She doesn’t know my name either.’
‘It’s quite hard to go through pregnancy and give birth and then abandon your baby and never be discovered,’ said Frieda.
‘She managed it.’
‘So you were tiny when your parents adopted you. You never knew anything else?’
‘Right. Which is why it doesn’t have anything to do with what I’m feeling now.’
‘Like when you were talking about having your own child, and then about the possibility of adopting.’
‘I told you. I don’t want to adopt. I want my own child, not someone else’s.’
Frieda looked at him steadily. He met her gaze for a few seconds, then dropped his eyes, like a boy who has been caught out in a lie.