‘I mainly watch sport,’ said
Karlsson. ‘And not much of that.’
‘What you’re seeing,’ said
Jasmine, ‘is the house of a fifty-one-year-old female TV presenter in an industry
that doesn’t want fifty-one-year-old female TV presenters. You can see the
photograph of one ex-husband, because we’re still good friends. You can’t
see the photograph of the other because we aren’t. You might have expected this to
be the house of someone who’s trying to hold on to the past, someone who is bitter
about her fate. Tell me, Dr Klein –’
‘Please, call me Frieda.’
‘Frieda, is this the room of a bitter
woman?’
Suddenly Frieda thought of
her grandfather. A friend of his had told her about what he’d do at a party if
someone discovered he was a doctor and then, as people so often did, asked him about
some ache or pain they had. In a concerned voice, he would ask them to close their eyes
and stick out their tongue. Then he would walk away and start talking to someone else.
She thought for a moment. ‘If this was a consultation,’ she said finally,
‘I’d be asking you what it is that you want me to tell you. It feels like
you’re trying to force me to say something about you. But we’re not in a
session. Sometimes a room is just a room. I think this is nice. I like the colour from
Pompeii.’
‘Do you know what I did at
university?’ said Jasmine. ‘I went to Oxford. I got a first in English. In
fact, I got a
double
first. That’s not the kind of thing you expect from
a woman who did a TV commercial for incontinence pads. Which, incidentally, paid for
about half of this house. But do you know what it means? The double first, not the TV
commercial.’
‘It sounds impressive.’
‘It means I would be a difficult
person for someone like you to analyse. What people like you do is turn people’s
lives into stories, stories with a moral and a meaning. But I learned that when I was at
Oxford. I know how to analyse stories and I know how to turn things into stories. When I
did
House Doctor
, and even when I did cut-price documentaries about people
behaving badly on holiday, every one of them was a little story. That’s why you
can’t just come into my house and fit me into the psychological story you might
have about a faded TV presenter.’
There was another pause. Karlsson looked
stunned. He glanced at Frieda: it seemed to be up to her.
‘So,’ she said. ‘What was
your story with Robert Poole?’
‘He was a
friend,’ Jasmine replied. ‘We worked together. In a way.’
‘Can you expand on that?’ said
Frieda. ‘How did you meet?’
Jasmine looked wistful. ‘It was a bit
like something in a film. I go to the gym a couple of times a week but sometimes I also
go for a run. One day, a few months ago, I was in Ruskin Park, behind the hospital. I
was doing my stretches and he just struck up a conversation.’
‘What about?’
‘Just about the exercises I was doing.
He said what a good thing it was to warm down like that, but then he said that one of
the moves I was doing could be straining my back and he suggested other things. We got
talking and went for a coffee, and I asked if he could help me with exercise.’
‘Like a personal trainer?’ said
Karlsson.
‘That’s right.’
‘Why?’ said Karlsson.
‘What do you mean
“why”?’ she said. ‘Why not?’
‘Someone you just met in a
park.’
‘How else do you choose people?’
she said. ‘I’ve got an instinct for people. He knew what he was talking
about. I got on with him. I felt like it would be a good motivation for me.’
‘How much did you pay him?’
She thought for a moment. ‘Sixty
pounds a session. Does that seem unreasonable?’ She looked at Frieda. ‘What
do
you
charge?’
‘It varies,’ said Frieda.
‘Did he talk about his other clients?’
‘No,’ said Jasmine. ‘That
was part of what I liked about him. When I was with him, he was completely focused on
me, on the job in hand.’
‘Were you
emotionally involved?’ asked Karlsson.
Briefly she was flustered. ‘He was
just a trainer,’ she said. ‘Well, not
just
a trainer. The good
thing about Robbie was that he was someone I could talk to.’
‘What did you talk about?’
Frieda asked.
‘When you’re on TV, people think
you’re different. He didn’t. He was a good listener. That doesn’t
sound like much but there aren’t many people like that.’
‘When did you last see him?’
said Karlsson.
‘About a month ago.’
‘How was he?’
‘Same as ever – warm, interested,
attentive. Then we had an appointment for the end of January and he didn’t turn
up. I called him but he didn’t answer. And then all this … I wish I
could say something that made sense of it all. I’ve been thinking and thinking
about it ever since I heard. I really didn’t know anything about it.’
‘Did he ever talk about friends or
family?’ said Frieda. ‘Or anything about his past or any other part of his
life?’
‘No.’ Jasmine shook her head
with a curious smile. ‘It was all about me. Maybe that’s why I liked
him.’
‘And all you paid him was that sixty
pounds a session?’ said Karlsson.
‘That’s right.’
There was a pause. Karlsson gave a slight
nod to Frieda, and she thought of the secret signals couples send each other when
it’s time to leave a party. They both stood up. Jasmine held out her hand to
Frieda, who took it and said, ‘You told me I wouldn’t be able to understand
you by looking at your house and that I wouldn’t be able to be your therapist
because you’d studied English. What did Robert Poole understand about
you?’
Jasmine pulled her hand out of
Frieda’s grasp. ‘Now
you’re just trying to be
clever. The thing about Robbie was that he didn’t see me the way everybody else
sees me. He just saw me for who I am. As simple as that.’
As they came out of Jasmine Shreeve’s
house into the quiet little Camberwell street, Karlsson seemed discontented. ‘Who
the hell is this guy?’
Water seemed to be getting into the boat.
She couldn’t tell where from, but it was wet on the floor and all her clothes were
damp. One morning it was so cold her trousers were stiff as well, like cardboard, and
she had to grit her teeth when she pulled them on. Her hands throbbed and they were a
bit swollen. She held them up to the window and examined them. She needed to look good
for when he came. Not glamorous and simpering, he hated all of that – he liked strong
women who could accompany him through a world full of dangers – but clean, fit, ready
for whatever he wanted her to do.
She had lost weight. She couldn’t see
it, but she could feel it from her clothes, which hung off her, and from the new
definition of her pelvic bone. Also, she hadn’t had a period for – how long? She
couldn’t remember. She would have to look at the calendar where she’d marked
it. It didn’t matter. But she was worried that she seemed to be having trouble
seeing clearly – little motes floated in front of her eyes, and things seemed out of
focus at the edges. She wouldn’t tell him that and she’d make sure it
didn’t interfere with the task in hand.
Task in hand. What was it? Her hair, yes:
she wetted it and combed it straight, and then, standing in front of the little mirror
in what had once been the boat’s shower room, she tried to cut it, snipping at the
ragged ends with the scissors. When she used to go to the hairdresser in town and sit
in front of the large mirror, she would close her eyes and let
André massage her scalp with lemony oil before she had it washed and conditioned
and then, very slowly, cut and caressed and dried into shape. This was different – it
was functional, a way of preparing herself, but it was hard to get the hair even in this
dim light, and her face seemed to shrink, then loom out at her so she had the horrible
feeling she was looking at a stranger, whose skin was the colour of mushrooms and whose
eyes were too big and cheekbones too sharp. But she liked the feeling of the blades
slicing through her wet locks.
Afterwards, she washed what was left of her
hair over the cracked sink, pouring cupfuls of water on to it and rubbing in the last of
her shampoo. Her face felt rubbery with cold but she was hot as well. Hot inside. Her
hands gripped the sink. It felt greasy and hard to hold on to and the boat seemed to be
tipping to one side.
She knew she needed to eat but she felt sick
and couldn’t face the last of the potatoes with reeking tuna fish stirred into
them. Tinned peaches: that would do. She couldn’t find the tin opener; she must
have dropped it somewhere but the boat was dim and the batteries on the torch had died,
and where were the matches? Everything seemed to be slipping from her grasp and she
mustn’t let that happen. She was a soldier. Chin up. She found the kitchen knife
and, squatting on the floor, started hitting the top of the tin with it, making a little
dent that gradually grew bigger until the tin split and a tear-drop of peach juice oozed
on to the surface. She licked it greedily with the tip of her tongue. Sweet,
life-giving. Her eyes filled with tears. She inserted the knife into the hole and
levered it back and forth, gradually making the opening bigger, but then she
couldn’t wait any longer and lifted the gashed tin to her mouth and sucked at
the fruit and it was only afterwards when she could still taste metal
that she realized her lip was cut open and pulpy, her mouth full of blood. She tried to
stand up but the floor shrank and the ceiling tilted towards her. She put her head on
the wet boards and stared at the hatch, where he would come.
On Sunday morning Frieda woke with a
sickening lurch. There were beads of sweat on her forehead and her heart was pounding.
For a few moments, her dream lingered: a man with a round face, blotched with ancient
freckles, a soft, mirthless smile. Watching her, always watching her. Dean Reeve. She
sat up in bed and made herself breathe calmly, then looked at her watch. It was almost
ten to nine and she couldn’t remember the last time she had slept so heavily and
so late. The doorbell was ringing: that must have been what had woken her. She pulled
her dressing-gown around her, walked down the stairs and opened the door.
Standing on the step, filling the whole
space, blocking out the light almost, were Reuben, Josef and Jack. Their expressions
were slightly uneasy. Her stomach lurched. Something terrible had happened. Someone had
died. She was about to hear bad news. She prepared herself for the blow.
‘What is it?’ she said.
‘Just say it.’
‘We wanted to tell you.’
Jack’s face flushed with emotion.
‘Before you hear from anyone
else,’ said Reuben.
‘What?’ said Frieda.
Reuben held up a tabloid newspaper.
‘It’s Terry Reeve, or whatever her real name is,’ he said.
‘It’s all rubbish and it’s fish-and-chip paper anyway. But
they’ve got her story and – there’s no getting around it – she does mention
you and it’s not especially flattering. And they’ve got a photo of you from
somewhere. In which you look rather good, actually.’
Frieda took a deep breath. ‘Is that
all?’ she said.
Josef held up a paper bag.
‘And we have pastries and buns. We will come in and make you strong
coffee.’
Frieda went back upstairs, showered and, to
the sound of clattering plates and pans from downstairs, pulled on a pair of jeans and a
black sweater, then pushed her bare feet into trainers. As she came down, she saw them
arranging a random selection of mugs and plates on the table. Josef had built a fire.
Reuben was pouring the coffee. Jack came in from the kitchen with a couple of jars and a
packet of butter. An unopened one, when Frieda knew there was an opened one in the door
of the fridge. What did it matter? Josef handed her a mug, and just as she raised it to
her lips, the bell rang again. She opened the door to find Sasha standing there.
‘I don’t know if you’ve
heard,’ said Sasha. ‘I just wanted to come right round and …’ Her
voice faded as Frieda pushed the door open and she saw the scene inside.
‘We’ve got breakfast,’
said Frieda.
Sasha held up a bag of her own. ‘I got
some croissants from Number 9,’ she said. ‘They’re still
warm.’
Sasha came in and coffee was poured and
there was an immediate chorus of voices saying all over again that it really
wasn’t so bad and that nobody who knew her or, in fact, anyone else would take it
seriously and that she could probably sue if she wanted. Frieda held up a hand.
‘Stop,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to look at any of this. Someone
just tell me in two sentences what it says.’
There was a silence.
‘Basically that she’s a
victim,’ said Reuben.
‘And it’s everybody else’s
fault,’ said Jack.
‘Including yours,’ said Sasha.
‘But the photo’s actually rather glamorous. The caption’s not very
nice.’
‘It is pile of rubbish, all of
it,’ said Josef.
They were all friends. They had come to see
her out of the
best of motives, but Frieda felt oppressed by the four
pairs of eyes on her, as if they were waiting to see how she would react.
‘OK, OK,’ she said. ‘What
does she say about me?’
They looked at each other nervously.
‘Out with it,’ said Frieda.
‘She says you exploited her,’
said Sasha, in an anxious rush. ‘Which is ridiculous because you didn’t take
any of the credit. And, anyway, you were the one who saved her.’
‘It doesn’t feel like that to
her,’ said Frieda. ‘She’d found a kind of safety. I was the one who
pushed her out into the big bad world.’
‘She says you wanted to be
famous,’ said Reuben.
‘Anything else?’ said Frieda.
More uneasy looks. ‘Just tell me. If you don’t tell me, I’ll hear it
from people who aren’t my friends.’
When Jack spoke, his mouth sounded dry.
‘They mention the victim, Kathy Ripon. They give the impression, you
know …’ He couldn’t say any more.