There was a sudden sound from the front of the boat, through the little closed door, and she froze, though fear coursed and thundered through her body. Someone was humming. Someone was there. A few feet away. Probably sitting on the toilet or something. They’d come out, find her with her mouth full of chicken. Call the police. Everything would be over. Finished. Wrecked.
She grabbed the chicken and the milk, pushed the tub of butter into her pocket, held the plastic bag with the rolls in her teeth and tried to clamber one-handed through the hatch. Her shoelace got caught in the corner and she yanked her foot hard. The humming stopped. She hauled herself into the air and stumbled across the wooden roof, then leaped on to the path, dropping the chicken into the mud. She picked it up and ran, her breath in sobs, the plastic bag still clenched between her teeth. Please please please please. She pushed her way through a thick, overgrown hedge beside the path, feeling the nettles brush her hands and, when she crouched down, her neck and face. A shape was standing on the deck of the boat, staring out. It lifted a torch and swung the beam around. She could see it bob across the water, the shattered buildings on the other side, the path, the hedge. She felt it in her eyes so she shut them and didn’t breathe.
The light went off. The shape disappeared. She waited. Her ankle throbbed. She took the bag of bread out of her mouth and laid it in front of her. She could smell the chicken, which made her feel both sick and excited. She didn’t know how long she waited, but at last she crept back on to the path and hobbled towards her boat, clutching her booty.
She’d done it. Now she had food and she could make herself strong again, enough to see her through. After that, it didn’t matter. She would have kept her promise to him. She chewed another piece of muddy chicken, grit in her mouth. His trusty soldier, his servant, his beloved.
Forty-three
Frieda caught the fast train from King’s Cross. It took less than fifty minutes, speeding her out of London and into Cambridge before she had time to change her mind. She stared out of the window, watching London as it blurred into meadows and waterways and the back gardens of houses facing a road she couldn’t see. There were newborn lambs in some of the fields, and banks of daffodils. She tried to concentrate on the landscape rushing past and not think about what lay ahead. Her mouth was dry and her heart beat faster than usual, and when she arrived in Cambridge, she went first to the Ladies to check how she looked. The face that stared back at her from the tarnished mirror above the chipped basin was quite composed. She was wearing a dark grey suit and had tied her hair back severely; she appeared professional, competent, unyielding.
She had wanted to meet somewhere public, preferably his office among the computers and strangers, but he’d told her he would be working from home that day: if she wanted to see him, that was where she had to come. His territory and his terms. She had never been there and he had had to give her the address. She had no idea what to expect – whether his house would be in town or out of it, large or small, old or new. It was out, about ten minutes by cab, into leafy semi-countryside, or tastefully rural suburbia; large, though not as large as some of the houses in the village; and moderately old, with a red-tiled roof, gabled windows, a porch over the front door, a willow tree in the drive whose branches fell almost to the gravel. It was nice, Frieda admitted to herself. Of course it was. He’d always had good taste or, at least, he’d always had the same kind of taste as her. However far you run from your family and try to expunge them from your life, they follow you.
The man who opened the door when Frieda rang was noticeably her brother. He was slim, dark-haired, although his hair was turning silver at the temples, dark-eyed, with high cheekbones and a way of holding his shoulders back that was her way, too. But, of course, he was older than he had been at their last meeting, and his face had tightened into an expression that was both angry and ironically amused. She hoped she didn’t look like that. He had dressed in a grey shirt and dark trousers, and she had the horrible feeling that he, too, had carefully chosen his clothes for this visit, and had chosen almost identically to her. They were almost like twins, she thought, and shuddered, remembering Alan and Dean.
‘David,’ she said. She didn’t smile, or step forward to hug him or even shake his hand. She simply watched him.
‘Well, well.’ He didn’t move either. They stared at each other. She saw a tiny pulse jumping in his cheek. So he was nervous. ‘I’m honoured, Dr Klein.’ He emphasized the ‘Dr’ as if mocking it.
‘May I come in?’
He stood back and she entered a spacious hallway, with a rug over the wooden floor, a chest to one side with a bowl of spring flowers on it, a portrait hanging on the wall. She wouldn’t look at that, she mustn’t – and she steadfastly averted her eyes from it as she followed David into the living room.
‘I’ve just made a pot of coffee,’ he said. ‘You told me you’d be here at half past three and I knew I could reliably set my watch by you. Ever prompt. Some things never change.’
Frieda squashed her impulse to refuse coffee, and took a seat while he went into the kitchen, returning moments later with two mugs.
‘Black, as usual?’
‘Yes.’
She was pleased to see how steady her hands were as she took a small sip. There was bitterness in her mouth, and the coffee tasted hard and full of minerals.
‘Still treating the diseases of the rich?’
‘I’m still working as an analyst, if that’s what you mean.’
‘I’ve been reading about you in the paper.’ David slid his eyes across her face to gauge her reaction. Frieda felt as if someone had jabbed her with something sharp. ‘Very interesting.’
‘I’m here to talk about Chloë.’
David’s smile thinned into a straight line. ‘Is this about Olivia’s maintenance money?’
‘No.’
‘I’ve had enough of her complaints, and of her solicitor’s letters. Who is this Tessa Welles, anyway? She suddenly appeared out of the blue. I suppose that was your doing.’
‘Olivia needs help. But that’s not –’
‘What Olivia clearly needs is to pull herself together. I’m not going to continue supporting her in her life of leisure. That’s final.’
Frieda said nothing, just looked at him.
‘I know what you’re thinking.’ He leaned forward. She could see the fine lines round his eyes, the flecks in his irises, the slightly cruel curve of his lips, the continuing pulse in his cheek. She could smell him, too – shaving lotion and coffee and something else, some smell he had had since he was a small boy who used to slap the back of her leg with a plastic ruler.
‘You live in a lovely house just outside Cambridge,’ she said. ‘This is a new carpet. You’re wearing a watch that would pay for Chloë’s first year at university. There’s a gardener out there, weeding your flowerbed. Nobody’s asking you to be generous. Just fair.’
‘Olivia was a mistake. She’s a rude, messy, selfish woman. Actually, I think she’s unhinged. I’m well shot of her.’
‘You have a daughter with her.’
‘She’s her mother’s daughter,’ said David. ‘She talks as if she has contempt for me.’
‘Perhaps she does.’
‘Did you come all this way to insult me?’ he asked, then added, softly, ‘Freddy?’
The old nickname might once have been used affectionately, but not now, not for a very long time.
‘She’s a teenager,’ she said, keeping her voice steady and her face neutral. ‘Life is hard for a teenager at the best of times. Think: you left her mother for a younger woman, and you left her as well. You’re holding back money and she’s watching her mother go to pieces. You rarely see her and sometimes you make arrangements that you then default on. You go on grand holidays with your new wife and don’t take her. You forget her birthday. You don’t go to her parents’ evenings. Why shouldn’t she have contempt for you?’ She held up her hand to stop him interrupting. ‘For someone like Chloë, feeling anger and contempt is far easier to deal with than feeling wretchedness and fear, which is what she’s really feeling. Your daughter needs a father.’