Waiting for Wednesday

with each retelling, but even Frieda
couldn’t detect signs of emotional distress.
    And there was Dean Reeve. He was like an
obscene kind of lover, someone who wanted to observe everything she did, feel everything
she felt, accompany her to places no one else would go. The memory, the smell of the
charred ruin, of Hal Bradshaw’s house haunted her. Had Dean Reeve done it to
punish Bradshaw or to punish her? Had he sensed, in a way nobody else could, her
hostility towards Bradshaw, then acted it out in a way she never would have? This is
you, he was telling her. This is who you really are and you and I are the only people
who truly recognize that. I am your twin, your other self.
    So much wreckage, so much damage she had
left trailing behind her.
    Frieda lifted her eyes. She had almost
forgotten where she was. Thelma was looking at her, full in the face.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ said Frieda.
‘I can’t put this into words.’
    Thelma gave a slow nod. ‘That sounds
like the place to begin.’



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    First published 2013
    Copyright © Joined-Up Writing, 2013
Map of
the River Wandle © Maps Illustrated, 2013
    The moral right of the author has been
asserted
    Jacket photograph © Bela Molnar
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    ISBN: 978-0-141-96403-4