‘My father’s made her into a saint, you know. Or an angel.’
‘Hard for you.’
‘And my mother doesn’t mention her.’
‘Then it’s time for you to find someone else to talk to about her.’
‘Could I come and talk to you?’
Frieda hesitated. ‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea. I’ve been involved with your case from the point of view of the police. It would blur the boundaries. But I can recommend someone who I know is good.’
‘Thank you.’
‘So it’s a deal?’
‘All right.’
Chapter Twenty-five
In eight days’ time, it would be the shortest day of the year. The clinic would close until the beginning of the next year. Patients had to put their troubles on hold. And when they returned, Reuben would probably be there to meet them, if she told Paz he was fit to resume his duties. So here she was on a Sunday afternoon, walking towards his house, ostensibly to return some of the folders he’d left in his room, but he wouldn’t be fooled by that for very long. This was Reuben, after all, with his cool, appraising eye and his mocking smile.
Before she could lift her hand to knock, the door flew open and Josef charged through it, in his arms a pile of jagged planks. He swept past her on his way to the overflowing skip that, she now saw, stood on the road. He hurled his burden into it and returned, rubbing his dusty palms together.
‘What are you doing here? It’s Sunday.’
‘Sunday, Monday, who knows the day?’
‘I do. So does Reuben. I hope.’
‘Come in. He is on the kitchen floor.’
Frieda stepped in through the front door, not knowing what to expect after her last visit. She couldn’t restrain a gasp. It was obvious that Josef had been working here for some time. It wasn’t just that the stench of a life abandoned had gone, and in its place was an astringent smell of turpentine and paint, or that bottles, cans and crusted plates had been cleared away and curtains opened. The hall was painted. The kitchen was in the process of being dismantled – cupboards had been ripped out and a new frame to a door into the garden was in place. Outside, on the narrow strip of lawn, the remains of a bonfire smoked. And sure enough, there was Reuben, lying on the floor, halfway under a new porcelain sink.
Frieda was so surprised that for a moment she simply stood and stared at him, with his lovely linen shirt riding up over his stomach and his head quite out of sight.
‘Is that really you in there?’ she said at last.
The feet in their purple socks twitched and the body wriggled forward. Reuben’s face slid out of the sink unit and into view. ‘It’s not as bad as it looks,’ he said.
‘You’ve been caught in the act. DIY? And on a Sunday afternoon. You’ll be washing your car next.’
He sat up, pulled down his shirt. ‘Not really DIY. Not as such. You know me: left to my own devices, I can’t even be bothered to replace a light bulb. I’m just helping Josef out.’
‘I should think so. Getting him to work on a weekend. Are you paying him double?’
‘I’m not paying him at all.’
‘Reuben?’
‘Reuben is my landlord,’ said Josef. ‘He gives me a roof and in return …’
‘He fixes it,’ supplied Reuben, getting to his feet, staggering slightly. Both men laughed, glancing at Frieda to see her reaction. It was a joke they’d obviously rehearsed.
‘You’ve moved in?’
Josef pointed towards the fridge, and Frieda saw a dog-eared photograph attached to it with a magnet: a dark-haired woman seated on a chair, with two small boys formally posed on either side of her. ‘My wife, my sons.’
Frieda looked back at Josef. He put a hand over his heart and waited.
‘You are a lucky man,’ she said.
He took a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket and handed one to Reuben, taking one himself. Reuben produced his lighter and lit them both. Frieda felt irritated. There was something about the two of them, some furtive triumph and naughtiness, as if they were two small boys and she was the bossy grown-up.
‘Tea, Frieda?’ asked Reuben.
‘Yes, please. Though you could at least offer me some of that vodka you’ve hidden under the sink.’
The two men looked at each other.
‘You’re here to spy on me,’ Reuben said. ‘See if I’m fit for duty.’
‘Are you?’
‘It’s the death of the father,’ said Reuben. ‘What you’ve always wanted.’
‘What I want is for the father to come back to work when he’s ready, and not before.’
‘It’s Sunday. I can drink on a Sunday and still go to work on a Monday. I can drink on a Monday and still go to work on a Monday for that matter. You’re not my handler.’
‘I make tea,’ said Josef, uneasily.
‘I don’t want tea,’ said Reuben. ‘English people always think tea makes everything better.’
‘I am not English,’ said Josef.
‘I didn’t particularly want to come here,’ said Frieda.
‘Then why come? Because you were told to? You were sent? What? By the eager young Paz? That doesn’t sound much like the Frieda Klein I know. The Frieda Klein who does what she pleases.’ He dropped his cigarette on to the floor and ground it out with his heel. Josef stooped and picked it up, carrying it carefully in his palm to the rubbish bin where he deposited it.
‘How you run your own life is up to you, Reuben. You can drink vodka all day long and trash your house, that’s fine. But you’re a doctor. Your job is to cure. Some of the people who come to the clinic are very vulnerable, very frail, and they put their trust in us. You’re not coming back to work until you can be trusted not to abuse your power. And I don’t care how angry you feel with me.’
‘I feel angry all right.’
‘You feel self-pity. Ingrid’s left you and you think you’ve been treated badly by your colleagues. But Ingrid left because you’ve been serially unfaithful for years, and your colleagues have responded in the only possible way to your behaviour at the clinic. That’s why you’re angry. Because you know you’re in the wrong.’
Reuben opened his mouth to reply, then suddenly stopped. He groaned, lit another cigarette and sat down at the kitchen table. ‘You don’t leave a man a place to hide, do you, Frieda?’
‘Do you want a place to hide?’
‘Of course I do. Doesn’t everyone?’ He pushed his hands through his hair, which had grown past his shoulders during his enforced leave, so that he looked even more like a poet after a rough night. ‘No one likes to feel shamed.’
Frieda sat down opposite him. ‘Talking of which,’ she said, ‘I’ve done some things that I want to tell you about.’
He smiled at her ruefully. ‘Is this your quid pro quo to make me feel better? Swapping shame?’
‘I want to talk something through,’ said Frieda. ‘If that’s all right.’
‘It’s all right,’ said Reuben. ‘It’s just completely unexpected.’
On the following Tuesday, Alan told Frieda a story. He didn’t speak in his normal way, correcting himself and going backwards and forwards in time, remembering things that he’d left out. He talked fluently, with few pauses, and there was a shape and coherence to his narrative. Frieda thought he must have practised it several times, going over and over it in his head before coming to her, removing all the uncertainties and contradictions.
‘Yesterday morning,’ he said, once he’d crossed and re-crossed his legs, rubbed his hands up his trouser legs, coughed several times in preparation. ‘Yesterday morning I had to go and check on a planning application. Although I’m on leave, I still drop in occasionally to sort things out in the department. There are certain things only I know about. It was over in Hackney, a converted office block near the Eastway. You know the area?’
‘It’s not really my part of London,’ said Frieda.
‘Things are a bit chaotic there with all the Olympic construction. It’s like a new city being jerry-built on top of the wreckage of an old one. And they can’t push the completion date back, so they’re just throwing more and more people at it. Anyway, after I’d finished there, I went for a walk. It was cold, but I felt like some fresh air, just to get my head clear. To be honest, going in to work at the moment makes me feel a bit rattled.