Waiting for Wednesday

he
looked round, smiled and descended the steps with care.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘I’ve forgotten the name.’
    Frieda told him and he nodded in
recognition. ‘I’m terrible with names. I do apologize. I remember you very
clearly. This is my friend, Gerry. He helps me with my garden, I help him with his and
then we have a drink to celebrate. And this woman is a psychiatrist, so be careful what
you say.’
    Gerry was a similar age to Dawes, but looked
entirely different. He was dressed in checked shorts that reached his knees and a
short-sleeved shirt that was also checked, but of a different kind, so that he almost
shimmered. His legs and arms were thin, wiry and deeply tanned. He had a small grey
moustache that was very slightly uneven.
    ‘You’re neighbours?’ said
Frieda.
    ‘Almost,’ said Gerry. ‘We
share the same river.’
    ‘Gerry’s a few houses upstream
from me,’ said Dawes. ‘He can pollute my stream but I can’t pollute
his.’
    ‘Cheeky sod,’ said Gerry.
    ‘We’ve been giving my roses some
attention,’ said Dawes. ‘They’ve really started growing and
we’re trying to train them. You know, roses round the door. Do you like
roses?’
    ‘Yes, I suppose so,’ said
Frieda.
    ‘We were about to have some
tea,’ said Dawes.
    ‘Were we?’ said Gerry.
    ‘We’re always about to have tea.
We’ve either just had it or we’re about to have it, or both. Would you like
to join us?’
    ‘Just for a few minutes,’ said
Frieda. ‘I don’t want to keep you from your work.’
    Dawes stowed his stepladder away –
‘Kids’ll nick anything that moves,’ he said – and they went through
the house to the back lawn. Frieda sat on the bench and the two men came out, carrying
mugs, a teapot, a jug of milk and a plate of chocolate biscuits. They laid them out on a
small wooden table. Dawes poured the tea and handed a mug to Frieda.
    ‘I know what you’re
thinking,’ he said.
    ‘What?’ said Frieda.
    ‘You’re a
psychiatrist.’
    ‘Well, a psychotherapist.’
    ‘Every time you come, I’m doing
up the house. I’m digging the garden, I’m making the roses look nice. What
you’re thinking is that I have this feeling that if I make my house nice enough my
daughter will want to come back to it.’ He sipped his tea. ‘I suppose
that’s one of the problems doing your job.’
    ‘What’s that?’
    ‘You can never just sit in a garden
and have a nice cup of tea and a normal conversation. People think, Well, if I say this,
she’ll think that, and if I say that, she’ll think this. It must be
difficult for you to stop working.’
    ‘I wasn’t thinking anything like
that. I really was just drinking the tea and wasn’t thinking about you at
all.’
    ‘Oh, that’s nice,’ said
Dawes. ‘So what were you thinking about?’
    ‘I was thinking about the little river
at the bottom of your garden. I was wondering if I could hear it, but I
can’t.’
    ‘When there’s been more rain,
then you can hear it, even inside the house. Have a biscuit.’
    He pushed the plate across to Frieda, who
shook her head. ‘I’m fine.’
    ‘You don’t look fine,’
said Dawes. ‘You look like you need feeding up. What do you think,
Gerry?’
    ‘Don’t let him tease you,’
said Gerry. ‘He’s like my old mother. Always wanting everyone to clear their
plate.’
    They sat in silence for a few minutes.
Frieda thought she could just hear the soft murmur of the stream.
    ‘So what brings you here?’ asked
Dawes, eventually. ‘Have you got another day off?’
    ‘I’m not exactly working at the
moment. I’m taking some time off.’
    Dawes poured some more tea and milk into her
mug. ‘You know what I think?’ he said. ‘I think you’ve taken
time off work because you’re supposed to be resting. And instead you’re
chasing around.’
    ‘I’m a bit worried about your
daughter,’ said Frieda. ‘Does that make sense to you?’
    The smile faded from Dawes’s face.
‘I’ve been worried about her since she was born. I can remember the first
time I saw her: she was lying in a cot next to my wife’s bed in the ward. I looked
down at her and she had a little dimple in her chin, like me. Look.’ He touched
the end of his chin. ‘And I said to her, or to myself, that I was going to protect
her for ever. I was going to make sure that no harm ever came to her. And I failed. I
suppose you never can protect a child like that, not once they get older. But I failed
as badly as it’s