Thursday's Children (3 page)

‘Please sit down.’ Frieda gestured to a chair and waited until Becky was sitting before taking up her own position in her red armchair. The girl stared around her. The room was orderly and plain. On the wall facing her was a painting of a dusty-looking landscape; between the two chairs was a low table, with a box of tissues on it; the lamp in the corner cast a soft light over the room, whose walls were grey-green. Becky noticed that there was a plant on the windowsill. Through the window, she saw a vast cratered building site, with cranes emerging from behind the high wooden barriers.

‘This is a bit scary,’ she said, turning back to Frieda, who sat upright in her chair, waiting.

‘Beginning is always scary.’

‘I mean, when I saw you before it was just at your house and you gave me tea and there was a fire burning and it felt quite homely.’ She gestured at the room. She was wearing an oversized cable-knit jumper over baggy jeans – hiding her tiny body inside layers of clothing. ‘This feels serious.’

‘It’s just a space where you can say anything.’

‘I don’t know. I never meant to go this far. I only agreed to come here to get Mum off my case. And suddenly I’m sitting here and it seems horribly quiet, as if you’re waiting to hear what I’m going to say.’ She put a hand over her
mouth, then took it away again. ‘But I don’t have anything to say. My mind’s gone all blank and scratchy. It makes me want to run away.’

‘That would be a pity, after just one minute.’ Frieda smiled.

‘Do some people sit here for the whole time and not say anything?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘So if I wanted, I could do that?’

‘You’d probably find it uncomfortable. Staying silent can be harder than talking. But, in fact, what I want to do today is different, a kind of assessment. I’ll ask you some questions and you answer them and then we’ll see where we go from there.’

‘And if I don’t want to?’

‘Then don’t. You’re in control here. It might not feel like it. You can talk or be silent, you can leave whenever you want. You can tell me things, and I’m not going to judge you or be shocked. I’m here to help you to say things that you haven’t been able to talk about. Sometimes when you say things, acknowledge them, they become less frightening.’

‘Why? They’re just stupid words. They can’t change anything.’

‘It can be like shining a light into a dark corner. Or perhaps it’s more like staring long enough at the darkness so that you become accustomed to it and can make out the shapes it hides. Fears that we don’t have a name for have power over us. Think of this time here as an opportunity to gain some kind of control.’

‘What’s this about fears? Just because I’ve gone off food a bit.’

‘This won’t go away just by sitting it out. It’s not getting better, is it? It’s probably getting worse.’

‘I don’t even know what you’re talking about. What do you mean, “it”?’

‘Whatever it is that’s stopping you eating, stopping you going to school, making you feel disgusted and bored, making you angry and withdrawn with your mother. And it’s brought you here. You wouldn’t have agreed to see me, however much pressure your mother put on you, if you hadn’t in some way felt it might help you.’

‘That’s all you know.’

‘Let’s start by me asking you some very simple questions. You’re fifteen, is that right?’

‘I’ll be sixteen in January.’

‘And you live with your mother?’

‘That’s right. Just the two of us.’

‘How old were you when your father left?’

‘Six. He kept coming back for a bit and then he left for good.’

‘Can you remember how you felt about that at the time?’

‘How do you think?’

‘I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.’

‘Upset.’

‘Do you remember them telling you?’

‘My dad told me. Mainly I remember arguments and shouting.’

‘What do you remember about your father telling you?’

‘He pulled me on to his lap and he started crying. That’s what I remember, feeling his tears on the top of my head. I had to hug him to make him feel better.’

‘Did you feel angry with him?’

‘Not really. I just wanted him to come home. But then when he came home it was horrible, so I wanted him to go away again. Or her.’

‘Your mother?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You felt angry with her?’

‘I know it’s unfair. She’s the one who kept by me. But she irritates me. And she doesn’t get me. She never has.’

‘Does your father get you?’

‘I used to think he did. Now he seems fed up when I’m not cheerful with him. He wants me to be his sweet little girl.’

‘So you can’t talk to them about what’s going on in your life?’

‘I wouldn’t want to.’

‘Tell me about your friends. Do you have friends you’re close to?’

‘I don’t know about close.’

‘Do you have a friendship group?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘At your school?’

‘Mostly.’

‘And do you have best friends?’

‘That makes me sound like a baby. There’s Charlotte, I suppose, or there used to be, and a girl called Kerry. I’ve known her since primary school. I used to talk to them about everything.’

‘You used to – but not now?’

She pushed her hands into the opposite sleeves of her jersey and leaned forward so her soft dark hair fell over her face. ‘I can’t be bothered. Max is OK. I like him, but not in that way.’

‘So you’re less close to your friends than you used to be?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Have you been bullied at school?’

‘No.’

‘Never?’

‘It depends what you mean by bullied. Girls can be bitchy and there’ve been times when I’ve been left out and it’s horrible – but it happens to everyone, and I’ve done that to other girls as well, if I’m honest. It’s like how everyone is. You’re in and then you’re out and that’s how it works.’

‘Are you in or out now?’

‘It’s not like that. I don’t belong with them any more. They’ve given up on me, or maybe I’ve given up on them.’

‘This is just in the past few weeks.’

‘Mainly.’

‘The past few weeks when you’ve been truanting and starving yourself?’

‘I’m just not hungry. I was thin anyway.’

‘And food disgusts you.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Putting things into your body.’

Becky shrugged.

‘So maybe recently you did something or had something done to you that has disturbed and frightened you.’

She shrugged again and looked out at the cranes swinging their gleaming arms across the skyline.

‘Becky?’

‘I have bad dreams.’

‘Tell me.’

‘I don’t know. I can’t remember.’ She pulled one hand out
of the sleeve and chewed her knuckles. ‘I don’t like going to sleep.’

‘Because of the dreams?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Some people don’t like to sleep because it’s a bit like death.’

‘I don’t care about that.’

‘Do you sleep in the dark?’

‘I keep my light on. I
hate
the dark.’

‘Always?’

‘No.’

‘You’ve recently started hating the dark.’

Becky shuddered.

‘Something happened to you in the dark.’

‘I want to go home now.’

‘Becky. You don’t need to look at me. You can look outside, or you can close your eyes if you want. And you can tell me what happened to you in the dark.’

Becky closed her eyes. The lids were purplish, almost transparent.

‘You’re safe here. Tell me. Were you alone?’

‘Yes.’ A tiny whisper.

‘Go on.’

‘I was in my bedroom asleep, or nearly asleep. I don’t know.’

‘Yes.’ She mustn’t put words in the girl’s mouth, thoughts in her mind; she just had to wait.

‘And then I was awake, or half awake, and I knew that someone was in my room.’ Her eyelids fluttered open, then closed again. ‘It was very, very quiet.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Can’t you guess?’

‘I don’t want to guess. I want you to say it to me.’

Silence filled all the spaces of the room.

‘I was raped. Someone raped me.’

Later, she cried, and Frieda – who never made physical contact with her patients – held her in her arms and stroked her hair away from her pale, streaming face. Then she brought her a tumbler of water and made her drink it while she called her next patient to say that she was running late and that he should arrive half an hour after his appointed time.

‘We’re going to talk about this properly soon,’ she said, when she returned. ‘But, first, there are practical questions. Did he use a condom and, if not, have you done a pregnancy test?’

Becky looked appalled. ‘No, he didn’t, and no. I didn’t think, I mean.’ She stopped.

‘Have you had a period since?’

‘I stopped having periods before all of this.’

‘You need a pregnancy test and you need to get checked by a doctor.’

‘I can’t. I don’t want to.’

‘Just to make sure.’

‘Oh, God. I might have Aids. You think I might be infected.’

‘Just to make sure.’

‘I don’t want to!’

‘You can go to either your GP or a clinic. I can give you numbers.’

‘Can you come with me? I can’t do it by myself.’

‘You should tell your mother, Becky. She should go with you.’

‘You can’t make me.’

‘I’m not going to make you, but you should tell her.’

‘She’ll hate me.’

‘Something very terrible was done to you, Becky. Why do you think you’ll be hated for that?’

‘I can’t tell her. Do you really think I have to tell her? I don’t know how.’

‘It’s very hard. But you’ve said it to me, and now it will be a bit easier to say it to your mother.’

‘When?’

‘As soon as you can.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘And she can go to the doctor with you. That would be best.’

‘I don’t know how to.’

‘And, Becky?’

‘Yes?’

‘Did you never think of going to the police?’

‘I’d rather die. If you tell them, I’ll kill myself. I promise. I won’t go to the police. I don’t know anything. I don’t know who it was, I never saw their face, and you can’t make me tell them anything. You can’t.’

‘You’re right. I can’t.’

‘Is it time for me to go?’

‘You’ve been here well over an hour so your mother will be waiting. But you can stay as long as you want.’

‘What shall I say to her?’

‘Tell her what happened. Talk to her. Ask her to take you to the doctor. We’ll meet again very soon.’

‘You’ll help me?’

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t feel very well. I feel a bit sick.’

Frieda held out her hand and pulled Becky into a standing position. The girl’s face was peaky and wan. She looked like a small child. She put her hands on Becky’s shoulders. ‘You’ve been brave,’ she said. ‘You’ve done well.’

Becky must have told Maddie that day, because the following morning Maddie arrived at Frieda’s consulting room, pressing the intercom several times and asking with a breathless voice to be let up.

‘What do I owe you?’ she said, her cheeks flaming. ‘Seventy-five pounds?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘That’s what you said, wasn’t it? Seventy-five pounds a session.’

Frieda paused for a moment. This wasn’t quite what she had expected. ‘Yes,’ she said.

Maddie was holding a cheque book in her hand, almost brandishing it. She looked around Frieda’s consulting room but there was no table to write on except the low one between the two armchairs. She went to the window, rested it on the sill and wrote quickly. She handed the cheque to Frieda. Frieda looked at it.

‘You’ve left off the date.’

Maddie gave a snort and snatched it back. ‘Is it the sixth?’ she said.

‘The seventh.’

‘All right.’ She added the date and handed the cheque back.

‘I’m slightly surprised,’ said Frieda.

‘Why?’

‘When you rang and said you had to see me urgently, I didn’t think it was because you were going to give me a cheque.’

‘Really? What did you think?’

‘Are you serious?’

‘I am serious.’ Maddie was breathing heavily, almost panting. Frieda couldn’t tell whether she was going to shout or to start crying. ‘When I phoned you and said I had to see you, what did you think I wanted to say?’

Frieda gestured Maddie towards the patients’ chair, where her daughter had been. She sat opposite her in her own chair. ‘If we’re going to talk,’ Frieda said, ‘you need to tell me what your daughter told you.’

Maddie’s mouth opened but she didn’t speak at first. She looked even thinner and more drawn than before, as if she hadn’t slept or eaten. ‘I thought you were going to help her,’ she said. ‘Not join with her …’ she seemed to be reaching for a word ‘… difficulty.’

‘What did Becky tell you?’

Maddie shook her head almost fiercely. ‘You said you were going to help her. If I had believed that you were actually going to make things worse for her …’

‘Is that what you think I’ve done?’

‘You should see her. I didn’t want to leave her even for a single second but she insisted on going to school. I didn’t know what to do but I had to come here and tell you what you’ve done.’

Frieda held up her hand. ‘Wait. I need to know what your daughter has told you.’

‘Why? Why do you need to know that?’

‘I can’t speak to anyone else, even you, about what Becky said to me.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Maddie said angrily. ‘The whole point of bringing Becky here was to find out what was wrong with her so that I can do something about it.’

‘If you felt that, then I didn’t explain it properly to you. What I do when I talk to a patient is for the patient, and the patient needs to know that they can say anything – or almost anything – to me in the confidence that it will stay secret. So, if we’re going to talk about this, you need to tell me what you know about your daughter.’

‘I’ll tell you what I know about my daughter. She’s an attention-seeker, she keeps secrets, she’s been mixing with all sorts of people I don’t know and she won’t tell me about, she lies, she hides things. She seems to be angry with the world and especially angry with me.’

‘But what did she tell you that made you come all the way here to talk to me about?’

Maddie gave Frieda a sullen, angry look. ‘She told me what she told you. About the attack.’

‘What kind of attack?’ Frieda asked steadily. ‘You need to say the words out loud.’

Maddie rubbed her fist around her mouth, as if she was trying to wipe something away. ‘She says she was raped. There I’ve said it. Does that make you feel better?’

‘The question is, what does it make
you
feel?’

‘I know what you’re thinking.’ Maddie became confrontational. ‘You feel I don’t care about my daughter. I’m not being sympathetic enough to her. If you don’t mind my saying so, you don’t have children and you can’t possibly imagine what it’s like.’

‘I can’t imagine what
what
’s like?’

‘Sometimes in the last year it’s been like living with my
worst enemy. Someone who wants to hurt me, who knows all my weak points. But I’d do anything for her. I love her.’

‘But do you believe her?’

Now Maddie thought for a long time. ‘You met her yesterday,’ she said finally. ‘She looks like a young woman – except she’s starved herself, of course – and she’s got a sort of grown-up tone. What’s the word for it? Streetwise?’

‘She didn’t seem very streetwise to me.’

‘That’s my point. When Becky goes and stays out all night and doesn’t tell me where she is or what she’s taking or who she’s …’ Maddie stopped for a moment and ran her fingers through her hair ‘… who she’s with, she’s playing with things she doesn’t understand, things she can’t control.’

‘This isn’t about being out all night and rebelling and being confused. That is something to be talked about. I could talk about it with Becky, or you could. But this is different. She said she was raped. That is very serious. It’s also a crime. You haven’t answered my question: do you believe her?’

‘Haven’t you been listening? Becky has been living in this chaotic way, with God knows what drugs and awful people and sex and bad behaviour. She’s still only fifteen. Isn’t any sex wrong at that age?’

‘That’s not what she was talking about. Do you believe her?’

‘I don’t know what to believe. If you asked me is Becky capable of making up something like that or exaggerating it just as a way of frightening me or hurting me, then I would have to say that she is.’

‘But she didn’t tell you,’ said Frieda. ‘She tried to keep it from you. She showed symptoms of great distress, which
alarmed you. And then, when you brought her to me, she was extremely reluctant even to mention it.’

‘Perhaps because it isn’t true. And even if it is true, at that age, couldn’t she just be talking about something that went too far, something she did and then regretted?’

‘That’s not what she said. Your daughter told me and then told you that she had been raped. That was a big step for her and it took trust and it took courage. You need to think about how to respond to her. You also need to think about her going to the police.’

‘No, no, absolutely not.’

‘It’s a serious crime.’

‘That’s easy for you to say. You wouldn’t have to go through it all.’

‘Do you mean Becky would have to go through it? Or that you would?’

Maddie looked up sharply. Frieda recognized a flash of the haughtiness she’d displayed when she’d first arrived at Frieda’s house.

‘I’ve thought about what Becky would have to go through,’ she said. ‘And I’ve thought about it as a mother, not as some kind of spectator. Imagine if she went to the police. She didn’t report it when it was supposed to have happened. Nobody else saw anything. It’s just the word of a fifteen-year-old girl.’

‘Just the word of your daughter.’

‘Yes, my daughter. And imagine what would happen if the police decided to proceed, and if Becky could be persuaded to reveal the name of the person who may have done such a thing. Becky herself would be on trial, her lifestyle, her sex life, her psychological state. Even the fact that
she’d been seeing a psychiatrist, psychologist, whatever you are. That could be used against her. You’ve talked to Becky. Would you put her through all that? Do you think it would do her good to be in the newspapers?’

‘She’s underage,’ said Frieda. ‘Her name would be withheld in any proceedings.’

Maddie pulled a face and made Frieda think briefly of when they were fifteen years old themselves.

‘I don’t know much about modern technology but these things always get out. Everybody would know.’

‘I think you’ve misunderstood me,’ said Frieda. ‘I don’t tell people what to do. Well, not most of the time. I just wanted to lay out the options. The decision about what to do is yours and Becky’s. My real concern is about Becky’s state of mind. That’s what you came to me about.’

‘Exactly. And look what happened. You haven’t exactly cured her.’

‘Is that your reaction to what your daughter has told us? That I haven’t cured her after two brief meetings?’

Maddie got up, walked to the window and looked out at the huge building site. ‘I hate London,’ she said. ‘I could never live in a city. I can’t even bear Ipswich or Colchester. When I’m here, I feel like I’m holding my breath until I can get out into the fresh air.’

‘I’ve got pretty mixed feelings about it myself,’ said Frieda.

Maddie turned round. ‘We weren’t really friends when we were at school, were we?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Frieda. ‘We were in the same class.’

‘You were part of this group and I had a fantasy of being part of it. I used to see you together at parties. You probably didn’t even know I was there, but I still remember
them. There was Chas Latimer. There was Jeremy. Your boyfriend.’

‘Briefly.’

‘And Eva Hubbard. You were best friends. I was always the one wanting to join the gang.’

‘I think everyone feels like that.’

‘You didn’t.’ Maddie gave a strange smile. ‘When I left school, I thought I’d be leaving all that behind, but it stays with you, even twenty-five years later. Don’t you find that?’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘Maybe I’m the one who should be coming to see you, instead of Becky.’

Frieda shook her head. ‘I’m not sure I should be seeing Becky either. I told you I would assess her and decide whether she needed to see someone. She does need that, and I can find someone for her, someone good. But I’d like to see her again first.’

Maddie looked suspicious. ‘What for? Are you going to persuade her to go to the police?’

‘No. Not that. I had the feeling that Becky started to say something, but she didn’t quite finish. Once she has said it, she should move on to someone else.’

Maddie turned away from Frieda and looked out of the window again. It was already starting to get dark. ‘I thought it was going to be simple,’ she said, almost to herself.