Waiting for Wednesday

afternoon.’
    ‘Tomorrow!’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Then we have to make the most of the
time we have.’
    Frieda slept, but shallowly, so that she
heard Sandy make calls in the other room cancelling arrangements, while the sounds of
the street entered her dreams. They walked through the neighbourhood and bought cooking
utensils for Sandy’s flat and ate a late lunch in a deli. Sandy talked about work,
people he’d met, Brooklyn, their summer plans. He mimicked colleagues, acted out
scenarios, and she remembered the first time they’d met. She had thought him
another of those doctors – maybe a surgeon, he had a surgeon’s hands –
self-possessed, amiable, charming when he wanted to be with maybe a touch of the
ladies’ man about him. Not of interest to her. But then she’d heard his
buoyant gust of laughter and seen how his smile could be wolfish, sardonic. He could be
detached sometimes, anger made him mild and aloof, but at others he was almost womanly.
He cooked meals for her with a delicate attention to detail; had a relish for gossip;
tucked the sheet under the mattress with a hospital corner, the way his mother must have
taught him while he was still little and, by his own account, fiercely shy.
    Only when Frieda was more relaxed did he ask
her any questions. Frieda told him about the Lennox family, gave him news of her
friends. They were both conscious thatsomething lay ahead of them,
some subject to be broached, and now they circled it cautiously, waiting.
    ‘And that news story?’ he
asked.
    ‘I don’t want to talk about
it.’
    ‘But I do. You’re here for
twenty-four hours. We have to talk about things like that.’
    ‘Have to?’
    ‘You can’t intimidate me with
that voice, Dr Frieda Klein.’
    ‘I didn’t like it. Is that what
you want to hear?’
    ‘Did you feel humiliated?’
    ‘I felt exposed.’
    ‘When you want always to be invisible.
Were you angry?’
    ‘Not like Reuben.’ She smiled at
the memory. ‘Now he was angry. Still is.’
    ‘And did you feel that you acted
improperly at all?’
    Frieda scowled at him and he waited
patiently.
    ‘I don’t think so,’ she
said eventually. ‘But maybe I have to feel justified, or it would be too painful.
But I really don’t believe so. The man who came to me was a charlatan. He
wasn’t a psychopath, just acting out the part. Why should I have taken him
seriously?’
    ‘Did you know that at the
time?’
    ‘In a way. But that isn’t really
the point.’
    ‘What is the point?’
    ‘The point is that what happened has
set me off on something.’
    ‘What does that mean, set you
off?’
    ‘The man who came to me told me a
story.’
    ‘I know that.’
    ‘No,’ Frieda said impatiently.
‘There was a story within the story and I felt …’ She stopped,
considered. ‘I felt summoned.’
    ‘That’s an odd word.’
    ‘I know.’
    ‘You have to explain.’
    ‘I can’t.’
    ‘What was the story?’
    ‘About cutting someone’s hair. A
feeling of power and tenderness. Something sinister and sexual. Everything else was
sham, phoney, but this felt authentic.’
    ‘And it summoned you?’ Sandy was
staring at her with a worried expression on his face that Frieda found infuriating. She
looked away.
    ‘That’s right.’
    ‘But to
what
?’
    ‘You wouldn’t
understand.’
    ‘Try me.’
    ‘Not now, Sandy.’
    They ate in a small fish restaurant a short
walk from the flat. The rain had stopped and the wind had died down. The air smelt
fresher. Frieda wore a shirt of Sandy’s over her linen trousers. There was a
candle between them, a bottle of dry white wine, hunks of bread and olive oil. Sandy
told Frieda about his first marriage – how it had become an aridly competent affair by
the end. How they had wanted different things.
    ‘Which were?’
    ‘We imagined the future
differently,’ said Sandy. He looked to one side.
    Frieda examined him. ‘You wanted
children?’
    ‘Yes.’
    A small, weighty silence wedged itself
between them.
    ‘And now?’ she asked.
    ‘Now I want you. Now I imagine a
future with you.’
    At three in the morning, when it was as dark
and as quiet as a great city ever gets, Frieda put a hand on Sandy’s shoulder.
    ‘What?’ he murmured, turning
towards her.
    ‘There’s something I should
say.’
    ‘Shall I turn the light on?’
    ‘No. It’s better in the dark.
I’ve asked myself if we should end this.’
    There was a moment of silence. Then he said,
almost angrily: ‘So at the moment of