Waiting for Wednesday

your
bags, Chloë?’
    ‘Frieda,’ a voice roared
cheerfully.
    ‘Reuben? What’s Reuben doing
here?’
    Frieda strode past Josef and Chloë into the
kitchen. Lit candles had been placed on the windowsills and surfaces, and smoke hung in
blue clouds. There was an open vodka bottle and an ashtray with several butts stubbed
out in it. The cat clattered through the cat-flap and wound itself around Frieda’s
legs, mewing piteously for attention. Reuben, his shirt half unbuttoned and his feet up
on the chair, raised his glass to her.
    ‘I came to see my good friend
Josef,’ he said. ‘And my good friend Frieda, of course.’
    Frieda yanked open the back door to let the
smoke out. ‘Will someone tell me what’s going on? First of all, why
don’t the lights work? What have you done?’
    Josef looked at her with a wounded
expression and put both palms upwards. ‘The wires have been cut by a
mistake.’
    ‘You mean, “I cut the
wires.”’
    ‘Complicated.’
    ‘Why are your bags in the hall, Chloë?
Are you going somewhere?’
    Chloë gave a scared giggle, then a hiccup.
‘It’s more like I’ve arrived,’ she said.
    ‘What?’
    ‘I’ve come to stay with
you.’
    ‘No, you have not.’
    ‘Mum’s on a rampage. She’s
booted poor Kieran out, too, and she hit me with a hairbrush. I can’t live with
her, Frieda. You can’t make me.’
    ‘You can’t live here.’
    ‘Why? I’ve nowhere else to
go.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘I can sleep in your study.’
    ‘I’ll ring Olivia.’
    ‘I’m not going back there.
I’d prefer to be on the streets.’
    ‘You can stay with us,’ said
Reuben, magnanimously. ‘It’d be fun.’
    ‘Or with me,’ put in Jack.
‘I’ve got a double bed.’
    Frieda looked from Reuben to Josef to Jack,
then back at Chloë. ‘One night,’ she said.
    ‘I won’t get in your way.
I’ll cook for us.’
    ‘One night, so you won’t need to
cook. And there’s no bath and no light anyway.’
    The doorbell rang.
    ‘That’ll be Sasha,’ said
Frieda. ‘Pour three large vodkas.’
    Frank was quite short, solid, with his hair
cut close to his scalp and dark melancholy eyes, with a slight cast in one so that he
seemed to be both looking at Frieda and past her. His handshake was firm, his manner
almost shy. He was wearing a beautifully cut suit and carrying a briefcase because
he’d come straight from work.
    ‘Come in,’ said Frieda.
‘But be warned – it’s mayhem.’
    Perhaps it was better that way, though.
There was no room for self-consciousness. He took off his jacket, drank a shot of vodka
and then was somehow persuaded by Reuben to cook omelettes for everyone, which he did
very slowly andseriously. Chloë stood beside him in her absurd excuse
for a dress, whisking eggs with a fork and gazing at him with an over-serious expression
on her smeared face. She was tipsy and giggly and a bit weepy, and swayed as she
whisked, slopping egg on to the floor. Reuben, Jack and Josef took Chloë’s bags up
to the study, making a lot of noise about it; they could be heard laughing and dropping
things. Sasha and Frieda sat together at the table assembling a green salad, talking
quietly. Sasha could feel that Frieda approved – or, at least, didn’t disapprove –
and happiness filled her.



THIRTY
    ‘I think I should be present,’
said Elaine Kerrigan.
    ‘He’s eighteen years old,’
said Yvette, firmly. ‘He counts as an adult.’
    ‘That’s ridiculous. You should
see his bedroom.’ There was a pause. ‘You wait here. I’ll get
him.’
    Yvette and Munster sat in the living room
and waited. ‘Do you ever think,’ she asked, ‘that we just go around
and make things worse? In the great scheme of things. That in the end, when we’re
done, the general level of happiness is a bit less than it was before?’
    ‘No, I don’t,’ said
Munster.
    ‘Well, I do.’
    The door opened and Ben Kerrigan came in.
Yvette first saw his stockinged feet, with odd socks, one red, one with green and amber
stripes, a big toe poking through the end. Then she saw faded grey corduroy trousers, a
flowery blue shirt, long floppy dark-brown hair. He sank on to the sofa, one leg pulled
up beside him. He pushed his hair back off his face.
    ‘You’ve heard about your father
and this woman,’ said Yvette, after they’d introduced themselves.
    ‘A bit.’
    ‘How did it make you feel?’
    ‘What do you think?’
    ‘You tell me.’
    ‘I wasn’t exactly happy about
it. Does that surprise