Thursday's Children by Nicci French Read Free Book Online Page B

had been raped.’
    ‘How?’ said Reuben, and then he corrected himself. ‘I mean, in what circumstances?’
    ‘A stranger broke into her bedroom at night. She didn’t see his face. It was dark and he was wearing something over it. So she didn’t recognize him.’
    ‘Has she gone to the police?’
    ‘She doesn’t want to, her mother doesn’t want to.’
    Reuben lay back on the large sofa and ran his fingers through his long, greying hair. He was wearing a shirt with an intricate pattern in black and white. It almost shimmered. ‘It sounds terrible,’ he said. ‘But why are you telling me this?’
    ‘She told me that after it had all happened, the man had leaned close to her and told her that nobody would believe her.’
    ‘Do people believe her?’
    ‘I do. Her mother isn’t sure. Or is scared to be sure.’
    There was a long silence. When Reuben spoke he sounded tentative, as if he knew he was entering dangerous territory. ‘That’s a terrible thing to happen,’ he said. He sat up and put the last of his lunch into his mouth, chewed vigorously. ‘But, again, why are you telling me?’
    ‘Because twenty-three years ago I went through exactly the same thing.’
    Reuben’s features froze. ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘The same thing, the same words.’
    ‘You mean you were raped?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘When you were a girl?’
    ‘I was just sixteen.’
    Reuben felt as if he had received a blow. It took an effort for him to speak calmly. ‘I’m going to say two things. The first is that I am so, so sorry about this. And the second, I was your therapist for three years. Why didn’t you tell me?’
    Frieda thought for a moment. ‘One of those things explains the other. I survived it. I got out. I didn’t want your sympathy or anybody’s sympathy. If I had told you, that would have given him power over me. It would have shown he was still in my head.’
    ‘If that’s what you feel, then I must have failed you deeply as a therapist.’
    ‘I probably wasn’t a good patient.’
    ‘I don’t know what a good patient is,’ said Reuben, with arueful expression. ‘I probably learned more from you than you learned from me. But I wasn’t able to help you. Or you weren’t able to turn to me for help.’
    ‘You did help me in so many ways, but I didn’t need that sort of help,’ said Frieda. ‘If by that you mean coming to terms with it. That’s the old cliché for it, isn’t it? I don’t believe in coming to terms with things.’
    ‘You felt a need to come here, walking through the rain. You didn’t have a proper coat or an umbrella. I could say that you were punishing yourself, or scouring yourself.’
    ‘I could say that it wasn’t raining when I set off,’ said Frieda. ‘But that would be evasive. This girl was like a visitor from my past. Calling me back. I felt I had to tell someone.’
    ‘I’m glad it was me.’ Reuben turned his palm upwards in a summoning gesture that was familiar to Frieda, taking her back to the time when he had been her therapist. ‘Can you tell me now?’
    ‘I can try,’ said Frieda.
    Two hours later, Frieda was walking alone down Primrose Hill, with what felt like the whole of London laid out in front of her. She had told the story to Reuben, such as it was; she had said it out loud for the first time in twenty-three years. He had listened in a way that had taken her back to the old Reuben, shrewd, perceptive, entirely focused on the words she was finally uttering. Yet as she thought over it now, it wasn’t something that could meaningfully be told as a story, narrated in words. It existed for her as a series of images, flashes lit by a strobe light.
    The feel of her bed in the pitch darkness, the weight of her body, the smell of bath soap.
    A movement. A creak of a floorboard. The heaving of the bed.
    Light in her eyes. A shape behind the light. A blade against her neck. Something whispered. A mask. Woollen.
    Duvet thrown back. The feeling of air on bare skin.