Nicci French - Blue Monday

Frieda didn’t think Chloë cut herself any more, but she never asked. Now, she turned her gaze away from the pulled-down sleeves, the sullen set of her face, and concentrated on the chemistry.

‘When metals react with non-metals, what happens, Chloë?’

Chloë yawned loudly, her mouth opening wide.

‘Chloë?’

‘Dunno. Why do we have to do this on a Friday? I wanted to go into town with my friends.’

‘We’ve had this discussion before. They share electrons. We’ll start with single covalent bonding. Take hydrogen. Chloë?’

Chloë muttered something.

‘Have you heard a word I said?’

‘You said hydrogen .’

‘Right. Do you want to get out a notebook?’

‘Why?’

‘It helps to write things down.’

‘D’you know what Mum’s gone and done?’

‘No, I don’t. Paper, Chloë.’

‘Only joined a dating agency.’

Frieda closed the textbook and pushed it away from her. ‘You object?’

‘What do you think? Of course I object.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s pathetic, like she’s desperate for sex.’

‘Or she’s lonely.’

‘Huh. It’s not as if she lives all by herself.’

‘You mean, she’s got you?’

Chloë shrugged. ‘I don’t want to talk about it. You’re not my therapist, you know.’

‘OK,’ said Frieda, mildly. ‘Back to hydrogen. How many electrons does hydrogen have?’

‘You don’t care, do you? You don’t care one bit. My dad was right about you!’ Her voice wavered at the expression on Frieda’s face. She had learned by now that any mention of Frieda’s relationship to her family was forbidden, and for all her defiance she was in awe of her aunt and dreaded her disapproval. ‘ One ,’ she said sulkily. ‘It has one bloody electron.’

When she had been in the neurology rotation of her medical training, Frieda had treated a man who had been in a car crash that had destroyed the part of his brain that dealt with facial recognition. Suddenly he was unable to tell people apart: they had become collections of features, patterns without emotional meaning. He no longer recognized his wife or his children. It had made her think about how unique each human face is and how extraordinary our capacity to read it. At home, she had dozens of books of portraits, some of them by famous photographers, but others that she had picked up in second-hand bookshops by anonymous recorders of unknown and long-dead subjects. Sometimes, when she was unable to sleep and even walking couldn’t tire her into oblivion, she would take down a book and thumb through it, peering into the faces of men and women and children, trying to see their interior lives in the expression in their eyes.

She recognized Alan Dekker at once as the man she had seen outside Reuben’s office. His face – round and creased, with faint, blotchy freckles – was not exactly handsome, but it was appealing. His eyes were a sad brown, and there was something in them that reminded her of a dog expecting to be beaten but asking for affection none the less. His voice shook and he punched one fist into his open palm as he spoke. She noticed his nails were bitten down to the quick.

‘You think – you think – you think…’ he said. He was used to being interrupted. He spoke to fill in the gaps until he could get the right words out. ‘You think it was easy for me to go to that man?’

‘It’s never easy,’ said Frieda. ‘It must have taken courage.’

Alan stopped for a moment, looking confused. ‘I went because of Carrie, my wife. She drove me there. I think I wouldn’t have done it otherwise. He made a fool out of me.’

‘He let you down.’

‘He wasn’t paying attention. He didn’t even remember my name.’

He looked at Frieda but she just nodded and waited, leaning forward slightly in her chair.

‘What’s more he’s being paid, out of taxpayers’ money. I’m going to deal with him.’

‘That’s up to you,’ said Frieda. ‘I just want to say clearly that there was no excuse for the way he treated you.’ She paused, thought for a moment and silently cursed. There really didn’t seem to be any other way. ‘Whatever you plan to do, I was hoping that you and I could talk things over.’

‘Are you trying to talk me out of it?’

‘I wanted to talk about your feelings, about your suffering. Because you are suffering, aren’t you?’

‘That’s not the point,’ said Alan. His eyes had filled with tears and he blinked them away. ‘That’s not why I’m here.’

‘How would you describe it?’

Alan looked up at her. Frieda saw something yield in his expression as if he was surrendering himself.

‘I’m not good with words,’ he said. ‘Everything feels wrong. I’ve taken sick leave. My heart feels too big for my chest. There’s a taste in my mouth, like metal. Or blood. And I have thoughts, pictures going through my mind. I wake at night with them. I can’t – It’s like I’m not in my own life. I just don’t feel myself and I’m scared. I can’t…’ He paused and gulped. ‘I can’t make love to my wife. I love her but I can’t manage it.’

‘It happens,’ said Frieda. ‘You probably don’t realize how common it is.’

‘I feel terrible about it,’ said Alan. ‘About everything.’

The two of them looked at each other.

‘When you went to see Dr McGill you were taking the first step. It went wrong. I’m sorry about that. Do you think you can try again? With me?’

‘That’s not why I came here. I…’ He stopped and gave up as if the effort was too great. ‘Do you think you can help me?’

Frieda looked at him – his bitten nails, his anxious face splashed with pale freckles and badly shaved, his supplicating eyes. She gave him a nod. ‘I’d like to see you three times a week,’ she said. ‘I want you to treat it as a priority. Each session will last fifty minutes, and if you arrive late, I will still end at the same time. Do you think you can manage that?’

‘I think so. Yes.’

She took her diary out of the drawer.

They stood together on Waterloo Bridge. Frieda wasn’t looking at the Houses of Parliament or the London Eye or St Paul’s, the glittering mass of the city reflected in the brown water. She was staring down at the currents of the river, where they swirled around the foot of the bridge. She almost forgot Sandy was with her until he spoke.

‘Don’t you prefer Sydney?’

‘Sydney?’

‘Or Berlin?’

‘No. I think I have to get to work now, Sandy.’

‘Maybe Manhattan.’

‘You can only really love one city. This one’s mine.’

‘Is that Essex?’ said Alan, looking at the picture on the wall.

‘No,’ said Frieda.

‘Where is it?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Why did you get it, then?’

‘I wanted a picture that wasn’t too interesting. That wouldn’t distract people.’

‘I like pictures that have things in them, like old-fashioned sailing ships where you can see all the details, the ropes and the sails. That’s not my kind of picture. It’s too fuzzy, too moody.’

Frieda was about to say that that was a good thing because they weren’t here to talk about pictures when she stopped herself. ‘Is moody necessarily a bad thing?’

Alan nodded. ‘I get it,’ he said. ‘You think everything means something. What you do is read things into what I say.’

‘So what would you like to talk about?’

Alan sat back and folded his arms, as if he was fending Frieda off. On Monday, he had been anxious and needy. Today he was assertive, defensive. At least he had turned up. ‘You’re the doctor. Or, at least, a sort of doctor. You tell me. Don’t you get me to go on about my dreams? Or should I talk about when I was a child?’