Fragile Minds Page 0,18
in this building, my God,’ she whistled low and long. She sounded so much more Australian then. ‘We are privileged beyond belief, aren’t we?’
‘I guess so.’ I had never really looked at it like that.
‘You English. You don’t know you’re born half the time. I mean, look at this place, just look, Claudie, and give thanks.’
I just gazed at her. She looked back, frowning slightly now.
‘Sorry. Are you OK?’ She swiped up her cup now and sat in the chair beside me.
‘Yes.’ I nodded my head. The tears fell. I despised myself. ‘No. I don’t know.’
‘Oh, Christ.’ She pulled her chair nearer. ‘Me and my big mouth. There’s me all revved up and you’re crying in the corner. Wanna share?’
‘If you don’t mind,’ I wiped away the tears, ‘not really right now.’ I looked at her face, so worried now, and I tried to smile. ‘But thank you.’
But there was something about Tessa that did make me want to share, and eventually I did. An openness we uptight British lacked, perhaps, a warmth, or just a basic human instinct for being there, and it drew me to her until we forged a proper friendship. We ate lunch in small brasseries down the side streets; we talked of ballet and books and, sometimes, old boyfriends. We both liked Jean-Luc Godard and Tati; we cooked from Elizabeth David. We went to the ballet – our favourite busman’s holiday, or to watch French films; inevitably I forgot my glasses. We didn’t talk family often; it was unspoken and safely off-limits most of the time, but after a while, I discovered that she too had lost a child; two in fact, when her only pregnancy ended in early tragedy, and it led to a strong bond. We both had huge holes in our lives that needed filling, but we let them lie quietly beside us. Tessa, with her limp and her stick; her passion bubbling below a benign surface; with a love of ballet more intense than any I’d ever known before.
It was Tessa who I’d come to depend on in the darkest, bleakest hours. It was Tessa who had encouraged me to listen to my heart when my husband Will left, to not follow him to a place I didn’t belong. It was Tessa who had found me Francis when I couldn’t sleep. It was Tessa who knew what loss was like; it was Tessa who answered the phone in the middle of the night when I felt I couldn’t wake my oldest friends any more, though I saw her a little less once Rafe was around.
It was Tessa who had gone now. Dead.
It was I who, once again, was left behind. Who couldn’t help fearing that in some way, I had helped her to her death. I clutched the necklace she’d bought me; I racked my brain. If only I could remember why. And if only I knew why I couldn’t remember …
TUESDAY 18TH JULY KENTON
Silver had insisted she take the weekend off, but by Monday night, Kenton had been champing at the bit to get back to work. The horrific images had begun to fade a little, and she had listened to Alison’s calming tape at least five times until frankly, she thought the images were probably increasing manifold in her supposedly relaxed mind. Severed limbs and the like strewn across the ‘safe place’ of her childhood, a long beach in Dorset with good fossils and an ice-cream van selling cider lollies on the cliff. It had been difficult keeping busy with not much to do.
On Saturday she had driven down to see her father in Kent, who had worried her rather by referring to her at least twice during the visit as ‘Lilian’, which had been her late mother’s name. She had taken him to Waitrose, which was a real treat in her eyes. She had picked up some lovely ginger cordial and a fantastic Beef Wellington – but Dad had just grumbled that it wasn’t what he was used to, and then grew apoplectic about the prices, so in the end she had given up and taken him down to Aldi.
On Sunday the rain had been Biblical, as her mother would have said, and Alison came over for lunch: Beef Wellington, green beans and lumpy mash. Cooking really wasn’t Kenton’s forte, but Alison had been nice about it all, even about the sticky toffee pudding, which had more stick than toffee and had been impossible to get off the