Waiting for Wednesday

hair straggling, hems fraying, all rips and loose ends. His cheeks were
unshaven and there was a rash on his neck; he looked unwashed and malnourished. He
refused to sit, and stood by the window instead. Spring had come to the garden. There
were daffodils in the borders and blossom on the fruit tree.
    ‘Remember me?’ said Frieda.
    ‘I didn’t know you were with
them,’ he said.
    ‘Thanks for agreeing to see us like
this,’ said Karlsson. ‘Before we begin, this is Amanda Thorne. She’s
what is known as an appropriate adult. It means –’
    ‘I know what it means. And I’m
not a child. I don’t need her here.’
    ‘No, dear,’ said Amanda, rising
to her feet and crossing the room to him. ‘You’re not a child. You’re
a young man who’s been through a terrible, terrible event.’
    Ted gazed at her with contempt. She
didn’t seem to notice.
    ‘I’m here to support you,’
she continued. ‘If there’s anything you don’t understand, you must
tell me and I can explain. If you feel upset or confused, you can tell me.’
    Ted looked down at her tilted, smiling face.
‘Shut up.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Shall we start?’ Karlsson
interrupted.
    Ted folded his arms, stared jeeringly out of
the window and wouldn’t meet their eyes. ‘Go on, then. Are you going to ask
me if I know about my mum and her other life?’
    ‘Do you?’
    ‘I do now. My dad told me. Well, he
started to tell me and then he was crying and then he told me the rest.’
    ‘So you know your mother was seeing
someone else?’
    ‘No. I just know that’s what you
think.’
    ‘You don’t believe
it?’
    Ted unfolded his arms and turned towards
them. ‘You know what I think? I think you’ll get your hands on every bit of
her life and make it ugly, dirty.’
    ‘Ted, I’m very sorry but this is
about a murder,’ said Karlsson. ‘You must see that we have to conduct a full
investigation.’
    ‘Ten years!’ The words were a
shout, his face contorted with fury. ‘Since I was eight, and Dora was three. Did I
know? No. How does it make me feel that it’s all been a lie, a charade? How do you
think?’ He turned wildly to Amanda Thorne. ‘Come on, Appropriate Adult. Tell
me what I must be feeling. Or you.’ He waved a dirty-nailed hand at Frieda.
‘You’re a therapist. Tell me about it.’
    ‘Ted,’ said Frieda. ‘You
need to answer the questions.’
    ‘You know what? Some of my friends
used to say that they wished she was
their
mother. They won’t say that
now.’
    ‘Are you saying you had absolutely no
idea?’
    ‘Do you want to take a break?’
Amanda Thorne asked.
    ‘No, he doesn’t,’ Karlsson
said sharply.
    ‘Of course I had no idea. She was the
good mother, the good wife, the good neighbour. Mrs fucking Perfect.’
    ‘But does it make sense to you
now?’
    Ted turned to Frieda. He seemed bony and
brittle, as if hemight crumble into a pile of sharp fragments if
anyone touched him, tried to hold him. ‘What d’you mean?’
    ‘You’re suddenly and painfully
having to see your mother in a new way – not the person everyone seems to describe as
safe and calm and unselfish. Someone with another, radically different, side to her,
with needs and desires of her own and a whole life she was leading in secret, separate
from all of you – and I’m asking if in retrospect that makes any sense to
you.’
    ‘No. I don’t know. I don’t
want to think about it. She was my mum. She was …’ he closed his eyes for a
moment ‘… comfy.’
    ‘Exactly. Not a sexual
being.’
    ‘I don’t want to think about
it,’ he repeated. ‘I don’t want the pictures in my head.
Everything’s poisoned.’
    He wrenched his body sharply away from them
once more. Frieda sensed he was on the verge of tears.
    ‘So,’ Karlsson’s voice
broke into the silence, ‘you’re saying you never suspected
anything.’
    ‘She was a terrible actor, useless at
things like charades. And she couldn’t lie to save her life. She’d go red
and we’d all laugh at her. It was a family joke. But it turns out she was a pretty
fantastic actor and liar after all, doesn’t it?’
    ‘Can you tell us about the day she was
killed, Wednesday, the sixth of April?’
    ‘Tell you what?’
    ‘When you left home, what you did
during the day, what time you returned. That kind of thing.’
    Ted gave Frieda a wild stare, then said:
‘OK. My alibi, you mean. I left home at the usual kind of time. Half eight,
something like that. I had to be early at