Friday on My Mind (16 page)

‘Frieda.’ Ethan tugged at her hand.

‘She’s Carla,’ said Tam. ‘Mummy said so.’

‘No.’ Ethan was firm but his face was troubled. ‘Frieda.’

‘Carla.’ Tam’s voice was a chant, jeering. ‘Carla, Carla, Carla.’

‘Let’s go,’ said Frieda, piling the remains of the picnic into the bag and picking up Rudi, laying a consoling hand on Ethan’s hot head. ‘We can buy ice creams on the way home.’

Rudi was asleep by the time they reached Bridget and Al’s house and she lifted him into his cot. Then she put Tam and Ethan in front of a DVD that Tam chose. It was four o’clock and Al wouldn’t be back until half past five.

She started in the living room, acting on the assumption that even if Tam and Ethan looked up from the cartoon they wouldn’t think it odd that she was pulling open drawers and cupboards, rifling through papers. She didn’t know what she was in search of, just that she was looking for something that would explain Bridget’s angry distress over Sandy. She found bills, she found bank statements, she found an architect’s drawings and brochures about houses to rent in Greece and Croatia. There were playing cards, board games, a ball of rubber bands, sketch pads with no sketches in them, simple sheet music for the violin, with pencil notations on it, stacks of publications about neuroscience going back several years, a whole drawer of postcards and birthday cards to both Al and Bridget, none of which were from Sandy. The two children didn’t look up; both had their mouths open in an identical expression of befuddled attention.

In the hall, she looked at the photos on the walls, but none of them was of Sandy – there were several of Tam and Rudi and a couple of Al and Bridget when they were
younger. Al was even thinner than he was now, narrow-shouldered, narrow-hipped, freckled, pale-skinned. Bridget was lustrous, like a dark fruit. Dangerous, thought Frieda, walking into the kitchen where she found only kitchen things. At least one of them was obviously a serious cook. Like Sandy had been: she imagined him in there, among the sharp-bladed knives and copper pans, the complicated array of spices, rolling up his sleeves. She glanced at the recipe books, half expecting to see one of his among them.

She went up to the mezzanine floor and found a small study that looked out over the garden. She knew at once it was Bridget’s, although she couldn’t have said why. It was lined with books and there was a violin with a broken string propped on the windowsill. The desk was scattered with papers. There was a laptop but when Frieda opened its lid, it asked for a password. She pulled open the first drawer, which was full of pens, pencils, scissors, staples and paperclips. The next drawer contained a sheaf of photographs that she flicked through. Faces she didn’t know, obviously from many years ago; probably Bridget’s family and, yes, there was Bridget herself as a girl, immediately identifiable, even to the slightly defiant expression on her face as she looked at the camera. At the back of the drawer was a metal box that was fastened with a flimsy lock. Frieda picked it up and shook it, hearing the soft rustle of papers. She twisted at the lock but it didn’t give. On the wall to the side of the desk was a painting of a woman under an umbrella. She looked at Frieda with a disappointed expression.

‘I don’t have time to explain,’ Frieda said to her and, taking the scissors from the drawer she had first opened,
she inserted the point into the lock and twisted it sharply. The lock gave at once and she opened the lid and looked inside. There were dozens of letters. Why would someone keep letters locked away at the back of a drawer? Frieda lifted the first one out; it was written in blue ink in a bold, slapdash hand that wasn’t Sandy’s. What was more, the ink was faded and the date at the top of the letter was twelve years previously – for, of course, few people wrote letters nowadays. Frieda looked at it and saw it was a love letter, written to Bridget before she was a mother, before she knew Al probably. It seemed like a letter written late at night, in an intoxication of sexual passion, and a feeling of shame gripped her. She lifted her head and met the eyes of the woman under her umbrella.

The rest were also love letters, all written by the same person whose name was Miguel. She didn’t read them, but she did look at the few small photos at the bottom of the box, which were of Bridget young and naked. This box that she had broken into, while the children watched a cartoon downstairs and Rudi slept, was simply the treasure trove of a lost affair that was nobody’s business but Bridget’s. It was her secret younger self, the self she had once been.

Then she heard the front door open and shut and a voice call out: ‘Hello!’ She heard Al say: ‘Where’s our saviour Carla, then?’ and Tam mumble an inattentive reply.

The footsteps were coming lightly up the stairs. She had no time to leave the room and the study door was open so that he couldn’t fail to see her, standing in his wife’s study. There were letters all over the surface of the desk and the drawers were open. She gathered up the letters and put them into the box, pushing it back into the
drawer, but as Al entered the room she realized she hadn’t put away the photographs so she laid one hand over the top of them. She picked up the small pair of scissors in the other hand.

‘Carla,’ he said. It was neither a greeting nor an accusation, he simply said her name. His pale eyes moved over her, then around the room.

‘Hello, Al,’ said Frieda. She heard her voice, calm and friendly, and felt the photographs under her spread hand. ‘How was your day? I didn’t expect you home yet.’

‘I got away earlier than usual.’ His voice was perfectly amiable. ‘But my day was fine, thank you. Meetings. Timetables. Budgets. All the stuff of an academic life. How was yours?’

‘Good. We had a picnic in the cemetery.’

‘Bridget told me you were going there. I was intrigued.’ He smiled at her. ‘What are you doing in here?’

‘I needed these.’ She lifted the scissors. ‘I tore my nail to the quick. The ones in the kitchen were too big.’

‘I see. Can I help?’

‘No, it’s fine. I’ve done it.’

‘Good. Shall we have a cup of tea? The children seem happy enough. Is Rudi asleep?’

‘Yes. But I’ll be on my way, if that’s OK with you. I should get Ethan home.’

Her hand was still laid across the photographs of Bridget, naked. With a smooth movement, she slid them over the desk and held them by her side, still covered by her hand, then followed him out of the room. She went into the bathroom and slid them into her pocket – she could return them tomorrow – then checked on Rudi, who was stirring now, his face creased by the pillow, his
eyes cloudy with sleep. She changed his nappy and took him downstairs. Ethan was half asleep on the sofa and she sat down beside him and took his hand. She saw a small, faint bite mark on the wrist.

‘We’ll go home soon,’ she said softly.

He nodded. So she gathered together his wooden animals, lifted him into the buggy and said goodbye to Al, who told her how grateful he was and who didn’t know that she had pictures of his naked wife tucked into her back pocket.

‘I’m sorry about Sandy,’ she said, as she was leaving. ‘I know you were close to him.’

‘Thank you. Yes, he spent a lot of time with us. I think we were like the family he didn’t have. The kids liked him. He and Bridget used to cook huge Sunday lunches together most weeks. They were quite competitive about their cooking.’ He looked at Frieda, but it was as though he were looking through her. ‘He used to say that in some ways Bridget reminded him of someone he once knew.’

‘Who was that?’

‘He never said. Just someone. I gathered there was a woman he had been with. She sounded like a bitch.’ The word seemed odd coming from polite, freckle-faced Al. ‘But Sandy was incredibly private, as you probably know. I could spend all night drinking and talking with him – and did, quite a few times, especially when we were away at conferences together – but he was like a clam about some things. His love life, for instance.’ He sighed then added, ‘You should be on your way. Your little fellow’s falling asleep.’

It was true. Ethan’s head was lolling and his eyelids drooping.

‘I’ll be back tomorrow,’ said Frieda.

Al looked distracted. He smiled at her. ‘Splendid.’

At the end of the day, Frieda stopped off at the mini-supermarket a few streets away from the flats. Lunchtime salads were being sold off at half price. She bought a rice salad and a roasted vegetable salad and took them back to the flat. She was very tired, but she sat at the table to eat, then made herself tea before climbing into bed. She went straight to sleep, as if a trap door had been opened under her. She was woken suddenly out of a vivid, violent dream by a sound she couldn’t identify. Had it been part of the dream? No, it was continuing. Someone was knocking at her door. She stayed in bed. It must be a mistake; they would realize it and go away. But the knocking continued. She got out of the bed and pulled on her trousers and a sweater. She went to the door.

‘Who is it?’ she said.

‘Is me.’

She opened the door, and Josef and Lev stepped into the room, pushing the door shut behind them. Josef was holding two large grey canvas bags; he looked stern, but he gave her a small bow in greeting and, for a moment, his brown eyes softened.

‘Your things,’ he said. ‘Clothes, books, everything in bag now.’

‘What’s going on?’

‘Three minutes,’ said Lev.

‘Why are we doing this?’

‘Later,’ said Josef, and the two men walked around the flat, picking up clothes, pulling the sheets from the bed,
tipping kitchen implements into the bag. Josef poured the milk down the sink.

‘Has something happened?’ Frieda asked, but neither of the men paid her any attention.

‘All done,’ said Josef. ‘Last look.’

Frieda picked up a pair of socks, a hairbrush, her notebook and some pencils. All were tossed into the bag.

‘Key?’ said Lev.

Frieda took the key from her pocket and handed it to him.

‘We go now.’ He steered Frieda out of the front door and in the direction away from Hana’s flat. They went down some narrow stairs that Frieda hadn’t previously noticed, through an alleyway between two of the buildings, past industrial-sized bins and through a gateway that brought them onto the street. A car gave a little beep and the lights flashed. Lev helped her – it was almost like a push – into the back seat and the two men sat in the front. Lev started the car and drove away, turning this way and that, until Frieda felt entirely lost.

‘Here,’ said Josef, and Lev pulled to the side of the street by a junction with a larger road. Josef took a bundle from his jacket pocket and handed it to Frieda. She saw that it was money.

‘Is this from Reuben?’ she said. ‘That’s far too much.’

‘Reuben is away. This is your money. Some of it. Three thousand. A bit more. That was all we get.’

‘Josef, what have you done?’

‘We get your money back.’

‘What about Hana?’

The men exchanged glances.

‘He not a problem for her,’ said Lev. ‘For a while.’

Frieda leaned forward, took Josef’s right hand in hers and turned it over. The only light came from a streetlamp, but she could see it was bruised. ‘What have you done?’

Josef’s expression hardened and there was a light in his eyes that she had never seen before. It made her uncomfortable.

‘Frieda. Two things. You don’t go back there. Not near there, not ever. OK?’

‘No, not OK.’

‘And the other thing. This not game, Frieda. Not showing your money. This man push you a little. Next man have a knife or two friends.’

‘Josef, what did you do?’

Josef opened the car door and moved one foot onto the pavement. ‘I get money back. End. What you want?’

‘Not that.’

‘I go now. Remember, I still don’t know where you live.’

He slammed the door, put his large hand flat against the window near her face in a gesture of farewell, and was quickly gone.

‘I don’t know where I live either,’ Frieda said.

Lev’s expression was curious. ‘I take you,’ he said.

Lev drove quickly, turning left and right, like he was trying to avoid being followed. Frieda just looked out of the window.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Different part,’ he said. ‘Elephant and Castle. You know Elephant and Castle?’

‘A bit.’

‘Near Elephant and Castle.’

After a mile or so, Frieda saw that they were on the
New Kent Road. Then Lev turned off onto a smaller road, drove under a railway bridge and into a street lined on both sides by apartment buildings much like the one she had left, but less abandoned-looking. Under the streetlights she could see areas of grass behind railings, lines of parked cars. Lev turned again and parked. They got out and Frieda looked around. On one side was the building. She saw the name on a sign, Thaxted House. The railway ran along the other side of the street and, beyond that, Frieda could see two tall tower blocks, speckled with lights.

Lev took the bags from the car and gestured her towards a door on the ground floor. He unlocked it and led her inside into a dark hallway. He pushed the light switch on with his elbow and led her through into the kitchen. Frieda saw the torn lino on the floor, the mismatching chairs, a battered and stained old gas cooker. But the kitchen was clean and there were bowls and several oven dishes washed up by the sink.

‘Someone lives here,’ said Frieda.

‘I show you your room,’ said Lev.

‘But will they mind?’

‘Not their business.’

‘Who are they?’

Lev only shrugged and led her back into the hall, past two rooms with closed doors. He put a finger to his lips. He pushed open a door.

‘OK?’ he said.

Frieda looked in. There was a bed, a bedside table, a rug, nothing else. Again, it was clean and tidy. She walked to the window and pulled the net curtain aside. It was barred but through the glass she could see pools of light
in the darkness. There was a square expanse of grass, bounded on all sides by the flats.

‘You’ve done too much,’ she said.

He gave a small nod in acknowledgement. He handed her his key. ‘Take more of the care,’ he said. ‘And I will now say goodbye.’