Waiting for Wednesday

pallor
and there was a cold sore at the corner of her mouth. Her hair wasn’t in its usual
plaits but hung limply around her face. She was wearing an old-fashioned white blouse
and looked, thought Frieda, like a figure in a Victorian melodrama: pitiable, abandoned,
acutely distressed.
    ‘Have you come to take us away?’
Dora asked her.
    ‘No. I’ve come to see
Ted.’
    ‘Please can we go to yours?’
    ‘I’m sorry. It’s not
possible.’ Frieda hesitated, taking in Dora’s scrawny frame and her pinched,
dejected face.
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Your aunt is your guardian.
She’ll take care of you now.’
    ‘Please. Please don’t let us
stay here.’
    ‘Sit down,’ said Frieda. She
took Dora’s hand, a parcel of bones, between both hers and gazed into the
girl’s eyes. ‘I’m so very sorry, Dora,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry about your mother, and I’m sorry about your father.
I’m sorry you’re here, not with people you love – though I’m sure your
aunt loves you in her way.’
    ‘No,’ whispered Dora. ‘No.
She doesn’t. She tells me offabout mess and she makes me feel
like I’m in her way all the time. I can’t even cry in front of her. She just
tuts at me.’
    ‘One day,’ said Frieda, slowly,
feeling her way, ‘one day I hope you’ll be able to make sense of all of
this. Now it must just feel like a terrible nightmare. But I want to tell you that these
bad days will pass. I’m not telling you that it will cease to be painful, but the
pain will become bearable.’
    ‘When will Dad come back?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘Her funeral’s next Monday. Will
you come to it?’
    ‘Yes. I’ll be there.’
    ‘Will you sit with me?’
    ‘Your aunt –’
    ‘When Aunt Louise talks about her, she
makes this horrible face. As if there’s a bad taste in her mouth. And Ted and
Judith are so angry about her. But –’ She stopped.
    ‘Go on,’ said Frieda.
    ‘I know she had an affair. I know she
did wrong and cheated on Dad. I know she lied to us all. But that’s not how I
think of her.’
    ‘Tell me how you think of
her.’
    ‘When I was ill, she used to sit on my
bed and read to me for hours. And in the mornings, when she woke me up, she’d
always bring me a cup of tea in my favourite mug and put her hand on my shoulder and
wait till I was properly awake. Then she’d kiss me on my forehead. She always had
a shower in the morning and she smelt clean and lemony.’
    ‘That’s a good memory,’
said Frieda. ‘What else do you remember?’
    ‘When I was being bullied, she was the
only person in the world I could talk to about it. She made me feel less ashamed. Once,
when it was really bad, she let me stay home from school and she took the day off
herself and we spent hoursin the garden, dead-heading the roses
together. I don’t know why it made me feel better, but it did. She told me about
how she was bullied at school. She said I had to go on being who I was, being kind and
nice.’
    Dora stopped. Tears stood in her eyes.
    ‘I think she sounds like a lovely
mother,’ said Frieda. ‘I wish I’d met her.’
    ‘I miss her so much I want to die. I
want to
die
.’
    ‘I know,’ said Frieda. ‘I
know, Dora.’
    ‘So why did she –’
    ‘Listen to me now. People are very
complicated. They can be lots of different people at the same time. They can cause pain
and yet still be kind, sympathetic, good. Don’t lose your memories of your mother.
That’s who she was to you and that’s real. She loved you. She may have been
having an affair but that doesn’t alter the way she felt about her children.
Don’t let anyone take her away from you.’
    ‘Aunt Louise says –’
    ‘Fuck Aunt Louise!’
    Ted was standing in the doorway. His hair
was greasy and lank and his face looked mushroomy in its unhealthy pallor; there were
violet smudges under his eyes and a prickling rash on his neck. Small sprouts of a young
man’s beard were beginning to appear on his chin. He was wearing the same clothes
as yesterday. Frieda wondered if he’d even been to bed, let alone slept. As he
approached, she could smell sweat and tobacco, a yeasty unwashed aroma.
    ‘What are you doing here?
Couldn’t keep away?’
    ‘Hello, Ted.’
    Ted jerked his head at Dora. ‘Louise
wants you.’
    Dora got to her feet, still holding
Frieda’s hand. ‘Will you come and see us?’ she asked urgently.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Promise.’
    ‘I promise.’
    The girl left the room and Frieda was left
with Ted. She held up his