Thursday's Children Read Free

want to hear what your mother thinks.’
    ‘Why not? You’re only seeing me because you were best friends at school or something.’
    Frieda opened her mouth to protest, then stopped herself. ‘That’s not the point at all,’ she said. ‘This is about you, Becky Capel, not about your mother and certainly not about the fact that she and I knew each other many years ago. You can tell me things and I won’t pass them on to her or anyone. You can feel safe here and you can say things that you feel unable to say to other people, because I’m a stranger.’
    Becky turned her face away. There was a long silence.
    ‘I make myself sick,’ she muttered.
    ‘Do you mean that you literally make yourself sick?’
    ‘Both.’ She gave a choked laugh. ‘What do you call it? Metaphorically, that’s the word. My teacher would be proud of me. I literally and metaphorically make myself sick.’
    ‘Have you ever told anyone that before?’
    ‘No. It’s disgusting.’
    ‘Do you know why you do it?’
    ‘Food’s disgusting too. People taking gobbets of dead animal and bits of fish and mouldy cheese and dirty roots from the ground and putting them into their mouths and chewing them. And then swallowing so it all goes deep into their own bodies to rot away inside.’
    Becky looked at Frieda as if to see the effect she was having. ‘Apples are all right,’ she continued. ‘And oranges.’
    ‘So you say you’re starving yourself because food disgusts you?’
    ‘I don’t like plums. I hate bananas. And figs.’
    ‘Becky …’
    ‘What? I hate this stupid conversation. Who cares what I eat? They’re starving all over the world and here one poor little rich girl is being sick because …’
    ‘Because?’
    ‘Because. Because nothing. It’s just a phase.’
    ‘And truanting from school.’
    ‘It’s boring.’
    ‘School’s boring?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘So if school’s boring, what do you find interesting?’
    ‘I used to like swimming, especially in the sea when the waves are big. Swimming in the rain.’
    Despite herself, Frieda felt the tug of an old memory, the grey North Sea and breakers surging towards her, shingle shifting under her bare feet. ‘But not any longer?’
    ‘I haven’t been for a bit. And now it’s nearly winter. I hate being cold. I get cold to my bones.’
    Frieda was beginning to reply, when there was a rap at her front door. Maddie was on the doorstep, standing under an open umbrella, her cheeks pink and damp, a shopping bag in one hand.
    ‘Am I too early?’
    ‘Early for what?’
    ‘I thought the session would be over by now.’
    ‘It’s not a session, it’s a conversation.’
    Maddie closed her umbrella and leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘What do you think?’ she half whispered.
    ‘I’m sorry?’
    ‘What do you make of Becky?’
    ‘I think she’s a very intelligent young woman who’s sitting a few feet away from us, probably able to hear everything we say.’
    ‘But has she said anything?’
    ‘I’ll call or email you this evening. We can talk about it then.’
    ‘She’s going to be all right, isn’t she? You are going to help?’
    A few hours later, Frieda sat in her study at the top of the house, listening to the rain on the roof and the wind against the windows. She sat for several minutes in deep thought and then she picked up the phone. When Maddie answered, Frieda could hear the eagerness in her voice.
    ‘I was hoping it would be you. Becky wouldn’t tell me anything about her visit to you. I hope she wasn’t surly.’
    ‘No. She wasn’t surly.’
    ‘Did you discover anything?’
    ‘I’m not sure what you mean by that. But I think your daughter needs help.’
    ‘That’s why I made her see you.’
    ‘I saw her today in my house for a chat – because you asked me to see her. I think she needs professional help.’
    ‘You make it sound so serious!’ Maddie gave an anxious, grating laugh. ‘I just need a bit of advice, someone to point me in the right