‘I already feel in safe hands,’ said Olivia, beaming up at him. Frieda wondered if she was on some new kind of medication.
‘Good,’ said Harry.
Frieda scrutinized him for any hint of mockery or contempt, but could find none. He seemed more like a doctor with a patient than a financial adviser with a client.
‘Right!’ said Olivia. She swept the bottle of wine from the table and grabbed a glass.
‘Just tea for me,’ said Harry. He glanced briefly at Frieda. ‘Will you still be here when we’re done?’
‘It depends on how long you take.’
‘I’d say about an hour.’
‘In that case, I’ll be here.’
‘Good. There’s something I’d like to say to you.’
Frieda helped Kieran mend pottery. Some of the pieces she recognized: the old Indian tree platter that had belonged to a set her grandmother used to own. It must have passed to David, and from him into the unsafe hands of Olivia. The white bone-china teapot whose handle Kieran now stuck expertly back into place, delicately sanding away the tiny ridge of glue that was left when it dried. She remembered – she thought she remembered – her mother pouring tea from it. It gave her a strange feeling to see these pieces lying in broken bits on Olivia’s cluttered table, yet there was something consoling in the way Kieran was putting them back together. He felt her gaze and glanced up. ‘It’s satisfying,’ he said. ‘And restful.’
It occurred to Frieda that, for a man who liked rest, he had chosen a very restless partner in Olivia, and he must have sensed something of this because he suddenly said, ‘Olivia has been good for me.’
‘I’m glad,’ said Frieda. She excused herself for a moment and went into the hall to make a call to Chloë. The phone rang and rang and then switched to voice mail. She ended the call and was about to turn her mobile off again, when it vibrated in her hand.
‘Frieda?’
‘Yes. Where are you, Chloë?’
‘What do you mean, where am I?’
‘I mean, where are you?’
‘I’m at home. Why?’
‘At home?’
‘Is something wrong?’
‘I thought you were out.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘This is ridiculous. Hang on.’
She ran up the stairs and knocked on Chloë’s door, which opened a crack on to Chloë’s bewildered face.
‘What? Frieda? I don’t get it.’
‘I was downstairs. I’ve been here since six. Olivia thought you were out.’
‘Yeah, well.’
‘You’ve been here all the time?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Why didn’t you let Olivia know you were in?’
‘She didn’t ask. I didn’t think she’d be interested.’
‘When did you get back from school?’ Frieda looked at her niece’s sullen expression. ‘Did you go to school?’
‘I had a headache.’
‘Does your mother know?’
A shrug. The door opened a bit wider. Frieda could see the litter of the room. ‘Did you go yesterday?’
‘What is this? Interrogation time?’
‘Did you?’
‘Maybe not.’
‘Why?’
‘I didn’t feel like it.’
‘When did you last go?’
‘Monday. For a bit.’
‘And Olivia doesn’t know about this?’
‘Not until you tell her.’
Frieda paused. She looked at Chloë’s face and the dim, jumbled interior of her room. ‘You’re going to school tomorrow,’ she said. ‘In the evening, I’ll collect you from here at seven o’clock and take you for a meal somewhere and we can talk. All right?’
Another shrug.
‘Chloë?’
‘‘K.’
‘And you’ll promise to go to school?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Have a shower now. Put on some clean clothes, do a bit of work and then come downstairs and have a meal with your mother. All right?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Chloë, I’m serious.’
‘OK. Is he here?’
‘Kieran?’
‘Yeah.’
‘He’s in the kitchen, mending Olivia’s broken china. Why? Don’t you like him being here?’
‘She forgets about me even more.’ She added grudgingly, ‘He’s all right, though. He pays attention.’
‘Right. Shower. Meal. Work. Up in the morning at a proper time – I’ll call you to make sure you are – and then off to school. Be waiting for me at seven.’
As she went downstairs, she heard Olivia’s thin, violent screech of laughter from the living room and Harry’s steadying voice in response. The door opened as she came into the hall.
‘All done for now,’ said Harry, cheerfully. ‘I think we’ve made some headway.’
‘Good.’ She turned to Olivia. ‘Chloë’s upstairs in her room.’
‘Is she? Mysterious child!’
‘She needs a proper supper.’
‘Kieran’s cooking.’
‘Cooking for three, then. And pay her proper regard.’
Olivia made a face at Harry. ‘See how scary she is!’
Harry put on his coat. ‘Are you leaving now?’ he asked Frieda.
‘Yes. We can go together. Bye, Olivia,’ she added, cutting Olivia off mid-exclamation.
They walked in silence down the street, and when they came to the main road, Frieda said, ‘There’s a bar just along the street that’s OK.’
Harry ordered a glass of red wine for himself, a ginger beer for Frieda, and they sat at a table in the corner. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.
‘Family stuff,’ she said.
‘I gathered.’
‘Are her finances in a dreadful state?’
‘I’ve seen worse. That’s not what I wanted to say.’
‘Go on.’
‘I’ve been thinking about you.’ He held up a hand before she could speak. ‘Not just about what I feel – that’s not what I want to talk to you about. I don’t want to be oppressive in any way. I’ve been thinking about what you’ve been going through recently. I get the impression you’re not good at confiding in people, but I know you’ve been having a rough time with everything that’s been going on, and I think you’re being extraordinarily strong and impressive about it, and I would very much like to help if I can. If only by being someone you can turn to, talk to.’ He sat back and ran his hand over his brow in self-mockery. ‘There. It’s not often I speak without irony for more than one sentence.’
‘Thank you,’ said Frieda, simply.
‘You’re welcome.’
‘What do you know about my rough time?’
‘The complaint against you, and that book, then all the awful stuff in the papers.’
‘It’s been worse for other people.’
He took a small sip of his red wine. ‘And you finding that poor woman’s body.’
‘How did you know that?’ Frieda asked.
‘Sorry. Olivia told Tessa and Tessa told me.’
‘How did Olivia know?’
‘I think her daughter told her. But before you ask, I’ve no idea how she knew.’
‘I see.’
‘I haven’t been spying on you. It was hard to avoid.’
‘I understand that.’ She looked at him and he didn’t drop his eyes.
‘How do you deal with it all?’
‘I’m not sure that I really do.’ She twisted her glass round. ‘It’s like winter. I just trudge through, head down, and hope that spring won’t be delayed.’
That was it, she thought, the Frieda Klein method of survival, but not one she would recommend to her patients or her friends.
‘You just endure.’
‘I just try to endure.’
‘And if you can’t?’
‘I don’t have a choice.’
Was that true? There had been times in her life that she had been so engulfed by darkness that she had had to grope her way through it, blindly, without hope and without expectation. ‘You just keep going because you keep going.’ Who had said that to her? Her father, and look at him, after all.