Waiting for Wednesday

lids
seemed transparent.
    ‘No. I can’t. Where are you
going, then?’
    ‘Does it matter?’
    ‘Yes. You’re eighteen now, I
think, and a boy, and you can look after yourself – theoretically at least. Judith is
fifteen and Dora thirteen. Look at her. Have you got a friend you can stay
with?’
    ‘Can’t we stay here?’ Dora
said suddenly. ‘Can’t we be in your house for a night? It feels safe
here.’
    ‘No,’ said Frieda. She could
feel Sasha’s eyes on her.
    She considered picking up a plate and
throwing it against the wall; she imagined taking a chair and smashing it against the
window so that clean air streamed into this hot kitchen, with its smell of curry and
sweat and grief. Or better still,just running out of her house,
shutting the door behind her – she’d be free, in the April night, with stars and a
moon and the wind soft in her face, and they could deal with their own chaotic sadness
without her.
    ‘Please,’ said Dora.
‘We’ll be very quiet and we won’t make a mess.’
    Ted and Judith were silent, just gazing at
her and waiting.
    ‘Frieda,’ said Sasha, warningly.
‘No. This isn’t fair on you.’
    ‘One night,’ said Frieda.
‘One night only. Do you hear? And you have to ring home and tell your aunt and
your father, if he’s in a state to understand.’
    ‘Yes!’
    ‘And when the cab arrives I’ll
send it away but tell them to come back first thing tomorrow to take you home. You are
all going to school. Yes?’
    ‘We promise.’
    ‘Where can we sleep?’ asked
Dora.
    Frieda thought of her lovely calm study at
the top of the house that was now strewn with Chloë’s mess. She thought of her
living room, with the books on the shelves, the sofa by the grate, the chess table by
the window. Everything just so. Her refuge against the world and all its troubles.
    ‘Through there,’ she said,
pointing up the hall.
    ‘Have you got sleeping
bags?’
    ‘No.’ She stood up. Her body
felt so heavy it took an enormous effort of will to move at all. Her head thudded.
‘I’ll get some duvets and sheets, and you can use the cushions from the sofa
and chair.’
    ‘I’ll sort all of that.’
Sasha sounded urgent. She looked at Frieda with an expression of concern, even
alarm.
    ‘Can I have a bath?’ asked
Ted.
    Frieda stared at him. The new plug was in
her bag. ‘No! You can’t. You mustn’t! Just the washbasin.’
    The bell rang again and Sasha went to cancel
the cab. Then, almost immediately, Chloë came in, in her usual high pitch of angry
excitement after seeing her father. She threw her arms around Ted, around Frieda, around
Sasha.
    ‘Out of here,’ said Frieda.
‘I’m going to clean the kitchen, then go to bed.’
    ‘We’ll tidy,’ Chloë
shouted gaily. ‘Leave it to us.’
    ‘No. Go into the other room and
I’ll do it. You’re all to go to sleep now – you’re getting up at seven
and leaving shortly after that. Don’t make a noise. And if anyone uses my
toothbrush I’ll throw them out whatever time of night it is.’
You seem to have gone off radar. Where
are you? Talk to me! Sandy xxxxx



THIRTY-SEVEN
    ‘It’s fun, isn’t it?’
said Riley.
    ‘In what way?’ asked Yvette.
    ‘We’re looking through
people’s things, opening their drawers, reading through their diaries. It’s
all the stuff you want to do, but you’re not meant to. I wish I could do this at
my girlfriend’s flat.’
    ‘No, it’s not fun,’ said
Yvette. ‘And don’t say that aloud, even to me.’
    Riley was going through the filing cabinet
in the Kerrigans’ living room. They’d searched the main bedroom and the
kitchen already. Paul Kerrigan had stayed in hospital only one night after he was beaten
up and now he was out, but his wife had let them in, tight-lipped and silent. She
hadn’t offered them coffee or tea, and as they searched among the couple’s
possessions, lifting up underwear, turning on computers, reading private letters,
noticing the tidemark in the bath and the moth holes in some of Paul Kerrigan’s
jumpers, they could hear her slamming doors, banging pans. When Yvette had last met her,
she had been dazed and wearily sad. Now she seemed angry.
    ‘Here,’ she said, coming into
the room. ‘You might not have found these. They were in his bike pannier in the
cupboard under the stairs.’
    She was holding a small square packet
between forefinger and thumb, with an air of distaste. ‘Condoms,’ she said,
and dropped them on to the table, as if