‘Hansel,’ said Carrie. ‘Gretel’s around somewhere.’
It was warm and dark inside, and the air smelt pleasantly woody. Frieda felt as though she had entered a different world from the one suggested by its facade. She had expected the house to be like the others she had walked by, with walls knocked down, french windows built, everything a continuous open space. Instead, she was in a warren of passageways, tiny rooms, tall cupboards and wide shelves crammed with objects. Carrie led her past the front room, but Frieda had time to see a snug enclosure with a wood-burner fitted into the wall, and a glass-windowed cabinet full of birds’ eggs, feathers, nests made of moss and twigs and even, standing at one pane of glass, a stuffed kingfisher that looked a bit balding. The room backing on to it – the one that most people would have knocked through – was even smaller, and was dominated by a large desk on which stood several balsawood model planes, the kind Frieda’s own brother used to make when he was young. Just the sight of them brought back the smell of glue and varnish, the feel of small adhesive blisters on the fingertips, the memory of those tiny tubs of grey and black paint.
On the wall outside the kitchen there was a group of family photographs in frames – some of Carrie as a small child, squashed with two sisters on a garden bench, standing posing with her parents; others were of Alan. In one, he stood with his parents, a small, blocky figure between two tall and spindly ones, and she tried to look at it more closely as she passed.
‘Have a seat,’ said Carrie. ‘I’ll call him.’
Frieda took off her coat and sat down at the small table. The catflap in the back door rattled and another cat slid through, this one black and white and orange, like a pleasing jigsaw. She jumped up on Frieda’s lap and settled there, licking one paw delicately.
The kitchen was a room of two halves. To Frieda it felt like a physical demonstration of two different spheres of interest, a precise delineation of Alan’s place in the house and Carrie’s: the woman who cooks and the man who makes and mends. On one side there were all the things you usually find in a kitchen: oven, microwave, kettle, scales, a food processor, a magnetic strip for the sharp knives, a spice rack, a tower of pots and pans, a bowl of green apples, a small shelf for the recipe books, some of which were old and worn while others looked untouched, an apron hanging on a hook. On the other side, the wall was lined with narrow boxed shelves. Each separate compartment was labelled, in large neat capital letters: ‘Nails’, ‘Tacks’, ‘Screws 4.2 ? 65mm’, ‘Screws 3.9 ? 30mm’, ‘Chisels’, ‘Washers’, ‘Fuses’, ‘Radiator keys’, ‘Methylated spirits’, ‘Sandpaper – rough’, ‘Sandpaper – fine’, ‘Drill bits’, ‘Batteries – AA’. There must have been dozens, hundreds of these compartments; the effect reminded Frieda of a beehive. She imagined all the work that must have gone into it – Alan with his blunt fingers delicately putting these small objects in place, on his round baby-face a look of contentment. The image was so strong that she had to blink it away.
In another situation, she might have said something sardonic, but she was aware of Carrie’s eyes fixed on her, of the peculiar dynamic between them. Carrie spoke for her, drily: ‘He’s building a shed in the garden.’
‘I thought
‘The gardening things are all in there.’ Carrie nodded towards a narrow door next to the window, presumably meant for a pantry. ‘But he hasn’t done much gardening recently. I’ll look for him. He might be asleep. He’s tired all the time.’ She hesitated, then said abruptly, ‘I don’t want him upset.’
Frieda didn’t answer. There were too many things she could have said, but nothing that would have prevented Carrie from seeing her as a threat.
Frieda listened to Carrie as she went up the stairs. Her voice, curt when she spoke to Frieda, was tender, like a mother’s, when she called her husband. A few moments later, she heard them come down the stairs, Carrie’s footsteps light and firm, Alan’s slower and heavier, as though he was putting his whole sagging weight onto each step. When he came into the room, rubbing his fists into his eyes, she saw how tired and defeated he looked.
She stood up, dislodging the cat. ‘I’m sorry to have disturbed you.’
‘I don’t know if I was asleep,’ he said. He seemed bewildered. Frieda noticed how Carrie put her hand against his back to guide him into the room and took her place behind his chair like a guard. He bent down and picked Gretel up, held her against his broad chest and put his face into her fur.
‘I needed to see you,’ Frieda said.
‘Shall I go?’ asked Carrie.
‘This isn’t a therapy session.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Alan. ‘You can stay if you want to.’
Carrie bustled around the kitchen, filling the kettle, opening and closing cupboards.
‘You know why I’m here,’ said Frieda at last.
As he stroked the cat on his lap, Frieda was reminded of the way he rubbed his hands up and down his trousers when he was in her room, as if he could never keep entirely still. She took a deep breath.
‘During our sessions I was struck by resemblances to the case of a boy who has disappeared. He’s called Matthew Faraday. So I talked to the police about it.’
Behind her, Carrie clattered angrily with cutlery, then banged her mug down in front of her. Tea slopped over the brim.
‘I was wrong. I’m very sorry to have caused you extra distress.’
‘Well,’ said Alan, slowly, drawing out the word. He didn’t seem to have anything to add to it.
‘I know that I said to you that in my room you were safe and could say anything,’ continued Frieda. Carrie’s presence made her self-conscious. Instead of talking to Alan she was reciting the words she had rehearsed in advance, and they sounded stilted and insincere. ‘There were these coincidences between your fantasies and what was going on in the outside world and so I felt I had no choice.’
‘So you’re not really sorry,’ said Carrie.
Frieda turned towards her. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘You think you acted right in the circumstances. You feel justified. In my book, that’s not being sorry. You know when people say to you,
‘I don’t want to do that,’ said Frieda, carefully. She was impressed by Carrie’s pugnacity and touched by her fierce protectiveness towards Alan. ‘I was wrong. I made a mistake. I brought the police into your life in a way that must have been shocking and very painful to you both.’
‘Alan needs help, not being accused of things. Taking that poor little boy! Look at him! Can you imagine him doing such a thing?’
Frieda had no trouble in imagining anybody doing anything.
‘I don’t blame you,’ he said. ‘I keep thinking maybe they’re right.’
‘Who’s right?’ said Carrie.
‘Dr Klein. That detective. Maybe I did grab him.’
‘Don’t talk like that.’
‘Maybe I’m going mad. I feel a bit mad.’
‘Tell him he’s not,’ urged Carrie. There was a wobble in her voice.
‘It’s like being in a nightmare, all out of control,’ said Alan. ‘I’m handed from one crappy doctor to another. Finally I meet someone I trust. She makes me say things I didn’t even know I was thinking, and then reports me to the police for saying them. Who turn up and want to know what I was doing on the day that little boy went missing. I just wanted to sleep at night. I just wanted peace.’
‘Alan,’ said Frieda. ‘Listen to me now. Many people feel they’re going mad.’
‘That doesn’t mean I’m not.’
‘No, it doesn’t.’
He smiled suddenly, his face breaking into a grin that made him look suddenly younger. ‘Why does it make me feel better not worse when you say that?’
‘I wanted to come and tell you what I did and to say sorry. But also I’ll quite understand if you don’t want to come back to see me. I can refer you to someone else.’
‘Not someone else.’
‘Do you mean you want to carry on?’
‘Will you be able to help me?’
‘I don’t know.’
