Frieda walked for several hours that afternoon, missing her familiar comfortable shoes. She walked down to the canal, past all the houseboats, some of which were large and freshly painted and others that looked like floating slums, then all the way to Islington, coming up at the tunnel and descending again until she came to the Caledonian Road. She walked past Sandy’s old flat, though she knew she shouldn’t, and let herself imagine walking to her own house. She went instead to the little nature reserve by King’s Cross, where she sat for a while looking at the barge that had been turned into a herb garden and hearing the shouts of the schoolchildren who were being taken round by a volunteer.
Then, when it was early evening and the sun was dipping lower in the sky, she walked back to Stoke Newington and stood once more at the top of Sasha’s road. She knew that Sasha would come back from work from the opposite direction and sure enough, just past six, she saw her friend making her slow way towards her house. Even from a distance, she appeared thin and her shoulders had a familiar droop. When she got to the door, she dropped her key and knelt down to retrieve it from the dirt. When she stood up again, she didn’t immediately open the door. It was as if she was fortifying herself for an ordeal. At last she went inside.
Four minutes later, Christine marched out, crisp and neat and vigorous. Lights went on upstairs. Frieda waited for a few moments, then went to Sasha’s door. She had bought some envelopes earlier and put the wooden animals into one, writing Ethan’s name in large block capitals. She pushed it through the mailbox and, before she weakened, she walked swiftly away.
13
Frieda went back to Primark. She needed clothes she could wear to a funeral. She looked through the racks, trying to find something that was dark and didn’t have a slogan blazoned across the front. She found some dark grey slacks and a brown pullover. They would do, though Chloë would have wrinkled her nose at the grey/brown combination. She went into a chemist’s and bought a cheap pair of sunglasses.
June Reeve’s funeral was due to begin at eleven fifteen the following day. The East London Crematorium was further out, towards Ilford, and Frieda set off early, taking the tube and then a bus, and she arrived just before ten. She walked through the large iron gates that led up to a building that might have been a Victorian library or a private school, with its façade of pillars and classical doorways. There was a large crowd for the funeral before June Reeve’s, a hundred people or more, in dark suits and dresses. They stood in groups, hovering, waiting to be allowed inside. Like all large funerals it was partly a sombre occasion and partly a family reunion. Frieda saw women greeting each other, hugging and smiling, then realizing where they were and looking sombre. The doors were opened and the mourners started to make their way inside. Frieda attached herself to a group on the edge who didn’t seem like family or close friends.
They walked into a large entrance hall. The Victorian building had been boldly modernized, with plate glass and steel between the pillars. An official steered the group to the right into the East Chapel. It was like a church interior in stripped pine, from which religious symbols had been tactfully removed. Frieda sat in a pew right at the back and to one side. She was so lost in her thoughts that it came as a surprise when she had to stand up as she heard a creak behind her and a coffin was carried down the aisle. Frieda picked up the leaflet in front of her. Margaret Farrell. She looked at her dates and did the arithmetic. She’d lived to be ninety, or maybe eighty-nine.
The coffin was deposited at the front and a woman in a dark suit stood up and walked to the lectern. She didn’t look like a priest and she wasn’t. The woman described Margaret Farrell as a teacher, feminist, humanist, wife and mother, not necessarily in that order, and there was some laughter and snuffling around her. As people followed each other, delivering tributes, singing, playing a violin, it sounded like a good life. Certainly a far better life than June Reeve had led. Frieda felt a little ashamed at being there under false pretences. She suspected the police might be there, too, looking at people arriving at June Reeve’s funeral, but they wouldn’t think of checking the departures from the funeral before. At least, she hoped not.
Frieda heard snatches of poems and music that Margaret Farrell had loved but mainly she was thinking her own thoughts. She knew that Dean had visited his mother in the nursing home once or twice. Might he come to the funeral? It would be the last chance. The two names, Dean Reeve and Miles Thornton, were joined together in a tune she hated but couldn’t get out of her head.
The mourners stood up again and started to file out to a scratchy old jazz recording. As Frieda waited for the family members to move past, an old woman turned to her: ‘How did you know Maggie?’
‘Through reputation, mainly,’ said Frieda.
As they left the chapel, the official was there again, steering them away from the main entrance towards side doors that stood open, leading to the Garden of Remembrance. It reminded Frieda of the elaborate ways that therapists design their consulting rooms so that the arriving patient doesn’t bump into the departing one. The proprietors of the crematorium didn’t want one group of mourners to collide and remind each other that the chapel was just being rented, like a hotel room or a public tennis court.
The wreaths had been laid out on a patch of lawn that was as smooth as a carpet. People gathered around them and read the labels. Frieda was able to move to a group that was to one side, from where she could see the front of the building. The hearse was just pulling away and immediately another hearse drew up in the special bay in front of the portico. Slowly Frieda edged sideways, so that she could get a full view. The scene was completely different from an hour earlier. As the undertakers slid the coffin from the hearse and hoisted it to their shoulders, there was nobody there at all. Frieda moved a few feet forward and bent down to look at a very small bunch of wild flowers that looked as if it had been picked by hand. Attached to it was a piece of paper with a child’s drawing of a girl with a princess’s crown under a smiling sun and the words: from sally.
Frieda glanced round. Not nobody. A large woman was standing on the steps. Probably a nurse. And two young men, both in jeans and dark jackets. Plain-clothes policemen. That was all. The woman walked in. The two men stayed outside. Frieda felt a nudge and gave a start. Had she been careless? She stood up and was faced by a woman of about her own age.
‘We’re driving over to the house,’ said the woman. ‘We’ve got space in the car. Can we give you a lift?’
‘That would be great,’ said Frieda.
As they walked down the drive, the woman talked about how Margaret Farrell had been her headmistress, thirty years before, and what she’d been like. Frieda rather wished she’d known her. When they reached the high road, Frieda said that she’d suddenly remembered that someone else had promised her a lift and the woman said it didn’t matter and Frieda felt rather bad about the whole thing.
An hour and a half later, Frieda stood in the entrance hall of the Jeffrey Psychiatric Hospital. She examined the large map of the building. It showed the toilets and the various food outlets, coffee shops and gift shops. But Frieda was looking at the staircases and the fire exits. It was like a party game. Find your way in and find your way out. She had visited the hospital from time to time, and she’d even been based there for a few weeks when she was a student, but she had never paid it that sort of attention. Now she stared and stared at the map, getting a sense of the building as if it were a body, seeing how it fitted together. She had already found out where Miles was and that the visiting time was later in the day.