by Nicci French
‘There is a bit of an age difference.’
‘All right, so we’re six years apart. Is that such a big deal?’
‘Well, nine years, if we’re being pedantic.’
‘Which we clearly are,’ said Chloë. ‘I’m sorry. I thought you’d be happy for us.’
Frieda forced herself. ‘I am glad for you. It’s just that you’re two people I care a lot about and I don’t want you to rush into something where someone will get hurt. I know even as I’m saying this that I’m sounding middle-aged and disapproving.’ Frieda took a deep breath. ‘I don’t mean to. And it was good of you to tell me about it and not feel you have to keep it secret.’
‘Good.’ Chloë looked across at Jack with a triumphant expression. ‘I told you it would be no problem.’ She looked back at Frieda. ‘Don’t you want to hear about how it all started?’
‘In the course of time,’ said Frieda, who didn’t.
‘My own suspicion,’ Chloë went on cheerily, ‘is that Jack fancied me from when he first met me. It was one of those schoolgirl fantasies.’
‘Which is completely not true,’ said Jack.
‘You came to a party at my house when I was sixteen.’
Frieda remembered that party – it was when she had first met young Ted Lennox, whose mother had just been killed and with whom Chloë had been besotted.
‘That was different,’ said Jack. ‘We were just friends.’
‘That’s your version.’
‘In actual fact, this has only just happened,’ Jack hissed urgently to Frieda. ‘I wanted to tell you right away. I was worried what you might think.’
‘Don’t be silly, Jack,’ said Chloë. ‘What are you talking about?’
Frieda suddenly had the horrified sense that she was going to be present for their first argument. ‘Does Olivia know?’ she asked.
‘Mum wouldn’t understand.’
‘You ought to tell her.’
‘I know how she’d behave: she’d get drunk and tell me I ought to be concentrating on my retakes.’
‘Which, incidentally …’
‘And then she’d say I don’t know what I’m doing. And then she’d want to know all the details and then she’d tell me about her early sex life. Yuck.’
‘You ought to tell her anyway,’ Frieda said. ‘I don’t like knowing things about you that your mother doesn’t know.’
‘Some time,’ said Chloë.
Frieda got up. ‘I’ve really got to go.’
Chloë stood as well. ‘You’re not angry, are you? Just say you’re not angry.’
‘I’m not angry and I have to go.’
‘I’m going to come and see you,’ said Chloë. ‘I want to talk to you about my exams. Don’t tell Mum, but I’m not sure that side of my life is going very well. And I’ve got so much else I want to talk to you about.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Frieda, backing away, and she left the pub feeling she was escaping.
4
‘Please sit down.’ Frieda gestured to a chair and waited until Becky was sitting before taking up her own position in her red armchair. The girl stared around her. The room was orderly and plain. On the wall facing her was a painting of a dusty-looking landscape; between the two chairs was a low table, with a box of tissues on it; the lamp in the corner cast a soft light over the room, whose walls were grey-green. Becky noticed that there was a plant on the windowsill. Through the window, she saw a vast cratered building site, with cranes emerging from behind the high wooden barriers.
‘This is a bit scary,’ she said, turning back to Frieda, who sat upright in her chair, waiting.
‘Beginning is always scary.’
‘I mean, when I saw you before it was just at your house and you gave me tea and there was a fire burning and it felt quite homely.’ She gestured at the room. She was wearing an oversized cable-knit jumper over baggy jeans – hiding her tiny body inside layers of clothing. ‘This feels serious.’
‘It’s just a space where you can say anything.’
‘I don’t know. I never meant to go this far. I only agreed to come here to get Mum off my case. And suddenly I’m sitting here and it seems horribly quiet, as if you’re waiting to hear what I’m going to say.’ She put a hand over her mouth, then took it away again. ‘But I don’t have anything to say. My mind’s gone all blank and scratchy. It makes me want to run away.’
‘That would be a pity, after just one minute.’ Frieda smiled.
‘Do some people sit here for the whole time and not say anything?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘So if I wanted, I could do that?’
‘You’d probably find it uncomfortable. Staying silent can be harder than talking. But, in fact, what I want to do today is different, a kind of assessment. I’ll ask you some questions and you answer them and then we’ll see where we go from there.’
‘And if I don’t want to?’
‘Then don’t. You’re in control here. It might not feel like it. You can talk or be silent, you can leave whenever you want. You can tell me things, and I’m not going to judge you or be shocked. I’m here to help you to say things that you haven’t been able to talk about. Sometimes when you say things, acknowledge them, they become less frightening.’
‘Why? They’re just stupid words. They can’t change anything.’
‘It can be like shining a light into a dark corner. Or perhaps it’s more like staring long enough at the darkness so that you become accustomed to it and can make out the shapes it hides. Fears that we don’t have a name for have power over us. Think of this time here as an opportunity to gain some kind of control.’
‘What’s this about fears? Just because I’ve gone off food a bit.’
‘This won’t go away just by sitting it out. It’s not getting better, is it? It’s probably getting worse.’
‘I don’t even know what you’re talking about. What do you mean, “it”?’
‘Whatever it is that’s stopping you eating, stopping you going to school, making you feel disgusted and bored, making you angry and withdrawn with your mother. And it’s brought you here. You wouldn’t have agreed to see me, however much pressure your mother put on you, if you hadn’t in some way felt it might help you.’
‘That’s all you know.’
‘Let’s start by me asking you some very simple questions. You’re fifteen, is that right?’
‘I’ll be sixteen in January.’
‘And you live with your mother?’
‘That’s right. Just the two of us.’
‘How old were you when your father left?’
‘Six. He kept coming back for a bit and then he left for good.’
‘Can you remember how you felt about that at the time?’
‘How do you think?’
‘I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.’
‘Upset.’
‘Do you remember them telling you?’
‘My dad told me. Mainly I remember arguments and shouting.’
‘What do you remember about your father telling you?’
‘He pulled me on to his lap and he started crying. That’s what I remember, feeling his tears on the top of my head. I had to hug him to make him feel better.’
‘Did you feel angry with him?’
‘Not really. I just wanted him to come home. But then when he came home it was horrible, so I wanted him to go away again. Or her.’
‘Your mother?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You felt angry with her?’
‘I know it’s unfair. She’s the one who kept by me. But she irritates me. And she doesn’t get me. She never has.’
‘Does your father get you?’
‘I used to think he did. Now he seems fed up when I’m not cheerful with him. He wants me to be his sweet little girl.’
‘So you can’t talk to them about what’s going on in your life?’
‘I wouldn’t want to.’
‘Tell me about your friends. D
o you have friends you’re close to?’
‘I don’t know about close.’
‘Do you have a friendship group?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘At your school?’
‘Mostly.’
‘And do you have best friends?’
‘That makes me sound like a baby. There’s Charlotte, I suppose, or there used to be, and a girl called Kerry. I’ve known her since primary school. I used to talk to them about everything.’
‘You used to – but not now?’
She pushed her hands into the opposite sleeves of her jersey and leaned forward so her soft dark hair fell over her face. ‘I can’t be bothered. Max is OK. I like him, but not in that way.’
‘So you’re less close to your friends than you used to be?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Have you been bullied at school?’
‘No.’
‘Never?’
‘It depends what you mean by bullied. Girls can be bitchy and there’ve been times when I’ve been left out and it’s horrible – but it happens to everyone, and I’ve done that to other girls as well, if I’m honest. It’s like how everyone is. You’re in and then you’re out and that’s how it works.’
‘Are you in or out now?’
‘It’s not like that. I don’t belong with them any more. They’ve given up on me, or maybe I’ve given up on them.’
‘This is just in the past few weeks.’
‘Mainly.’
‘The past few weeks when you’ve been truanting and starving yourself?’
‘I’m just not hungry. I was thin anyway.’
‘And food disgusts you.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Putting things into your body.’
Becky shrugged.
‘So maybe recently you did something or had something done to you that has disturbed and frightened you.’
She shrugged again and looked out at the cranes swinging their gleaming arms across the skyline.
‘Becky?’
‘I have bad dreams.’
‘Tell me.’
‘I don’t know. I can’t remember.’ She pulled one hand out of the sleeve and chewed her knuckles. ‘I don’t like going to sleep.’
‘Because of the dreams?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Some people don’t like to sleep because it’s a bit like death.’
‘I don’t care about that.’
‘Do you sleep in the dark?’
‘I keep my light on. I hate the dark.’
‘Always?’
‘No.’
‘You’ve recently started hating the dark.’
Becky shuddered.
‘Something happened to you in the dark.’
‘I want to go home now.’
‘Becky. You don’t need to look at me. You can look outside, or you can close your eyes if you want. And you can tell me what happened to you in the dark.’
Becky closed her eyes. The lids were purplish, almost transparent.
‘You’re safe here. Tell me. Were you alone?’
‘Yes.’ A tiny whisper.
‘Go on.’
‘I was in my bedroom asleep, or nearly asleep. I don’t know.’
‘Yes.’ She mustn’t put words in the girl’s mouth, thoughts in her mind; she just had to wait.
‘And then I was awake, or half awake, and I knew that someone was in my room.’ Her eyelids fluttered open, then closed again. ‘It was very, very quiet.’
‘Tell me.’
‘Can’t you guess?’
‘I don’t want to guess. I want you to say it to me.’
Silence filled all the spaces of the room.
‘I was raped. Someone raped me.’
Later, she cried, and Frieda – who never made physical contact with her patients – held her in her arms and stroked her hair away from her pale, streaming face. Then she brought her a tumbler of water and made her drink it while she called her next patient to say that she was running late and that he should arrive half an hour after his appointed time.
‘We’re going to talk about this properly soon,’ she said, when she returned. ‘But, first, there are practical questions. Did he use a condom and, if not, have you done a pregnancy test?’
Becky looked appalled. ‘No, he didn’t, and no. I didn’t think, I mean.’ She stopped.
‘Have you had a period since?’
‘I stopped having periods before all of this.’
‘You need a pregnancy test and you need to get checked by a doctor.’
‘I can’t. I don’t want to.’
‘Just to make sure.’
‘Oh, God. I might have Aids. You think I might be infected.’
‘Just to make sure.’
‘I don’t want to!’
‘You can go to either your GP or a clinic. I can give you numbers.’
‘Can you come with me? I can’t do it by myself.’
‘You should tell your mother, Becky. She should go with you.’
‘You can’t make me.’
‘I’m not going to make you, but you should tell her.’
‘She’ll hate me.’
‘Something very terrible was done to you, Becky. Why do you think you’ll be hated for that?’
‘I can’t tell her. Do you really think I have to tell her? I don’t know how.’
‘It’s very hard. But you’ve said it to me, and now it will be a bit easier to say it to your mother.’
‘When?’
‘As soon as you can.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘And she can go to the doctor with you. That would be best.’
‘I don’t know how to.’
‘And, Becky?’
‘Yes?’
‘Did you never think of going to the police?’
‘I’d rather die. If you tell them, I’ll kill myself. I promise. I won’t go to the police. I don’t know anything. I don’t know who it was, I never saw their face, and you can’t make me tell them anything. You can’t.’
‘You’re right. I can’t.’
‘Is it time for me to go?’
‘You’ve been here well over an hour so your mother will be waiting. But you can stay as long as you want.’
‘What shall I say to her?’
‘Tell her what happened. Talk to her. Ask her to take you to the doctor. We’ll meet again very soon.’
‘You’ll help me?’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t feel very well. I feel a bit sick.’
Frieda held out her hand and pulled Becky into a standing position. The girl’s face was peaky and wan. She looked like a small child. She put her hands on Becky’s shoulders. ‘You’ve been brave,’ she said. ‘You’ve done well.’
5
Becky must have told Maddie that day, because the following morning Maddie arrived at Frieda’s consulting room, pressing the intercom several times and asking with a breathless voice to be let up.
‘What do I owe you?’ she said, her cheeks flaming. ‘Seventy-five pounds?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘That’s what you said, wasn’t it? Seventy-five pounds a session.’
Frieda paused for a moment. This wasn’t quite what she had expected. ‘Yes,’ she said.
Maddie was holding a cheque book in her hand, almost brandishing it. She looked around Frieda’s consulting room but there was no table to write on except the low one between the two armchairs. She went to the window, rested it on the sill and wrote quickly. She handed the cheque to Frieda. Frieda looked at it.
‘You’ve left off the date.’
Maddie gave a snort and snatched it back. ‘Is it the sixth?’ she said.
‘The seventh.’
‘All right.’ She added the date and handed the cheque back.
‘I’m slightly surprised,’ said Frieda.
‘Why?’
‘When you rang and said you had to see me urgently, I didn’t think it was
because you were going to give me a cheque.’
‘Really? What did you think?’
‘Are you serious?’
‘I am serious.’ Maddie was breathing heavily, almost panting. Frieda couldn’t tell whether she was going to shout or to start crying. ‘When I phoned you and said I had to see you, what did you think I wanted to say?’
Frieda gestured Maddie towards the patients’ chair, where her daughter had been. She sat opposite her in her own chair. ‘If we’re going to talk,’ Frieda said, ‘you need to tell me what your daughter told you.’
Maddie’s mouth opened but she didn’t speak at first. She looked even thinner and more drawn than before, as if she hadn’t slept or eaten. ‘I thought you were going to help her,’ she said. ‘Not join with her …’ she seemed to be reaching for a word ‘… difficulty.’
‘What did Becky tell you?’
Maddie shook her head almost fiercely. ‘You said you were going to help her. If I had believed that you were actually going to make things worse for her …’
‘Is that what you think I’ve done?’
‘You should see her. I didn’t want to leave her even for a single second but she insisted on going to school. I didn’t know what to do but I had to come here and tell you what you’ve done.’
Frieda held up her hand. ‘Wait. I need to know what your daughter has told you.’
‘Why? Why do you need to know that?’
‘I can’t speak to anyone else, even you, about what Becky said to me.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Maddie said angrily. ‘The whole point of bringing Becky here was to find out what was wrong with her so that I can do something about it.’
‘If you felt that, then I didn’t explain it properly to you. What I do when I talk to a patient is for the patient, and the patient needs to know that they can say anything – or almost anything – to me in the confidence that it will stay secret. So, if we’re going to talk about this, you need to tell me what you know about your daughter.’
‘I’ll tell you what I know about my daughter. She’s an attention-seeker, she keeps secrets, she’s been mixing with all sorts of people I don’t know and she won’t tell me about, she lies, she hides things. She seems to be angry with the world and especially angry with me.’