Ruth is doing something she would never, ever normally do. Not if someone paid her. It’s Friday afternoon, all her patients have been scraped, drilled and polished, so there’s simply no good reason for her to be sitting in her gloomy little back room doing paperwork. This—checking invoices, writing checks—it’s a Monday job. Fridays are for going out with the girls. A Singapore Sling, a few shots of tequila, and then off to the local meat market for a grind on the dance floor and a snog on the sofas.
Ha.
She wishes.
In her younger days, that was most Friday nights. Most Thursdays and Saturdays too, if she’s honest. Nowadays it’s a civilized G&T with Susanna and Alina, then a slightly tipsy drive home. Sometimes she can get the others to stay for three, on rare occasions even for four, but then Susanna starts to worry about Ruth getting behind the wheel, which kind of puts a dampener on the fun. Although, to be fair, the thing Ruth most feels like doing anyway right now is heading straight home, running a bath and pouring a large glass of Chablis, and dissolving in water that is almost scalding while Alfie Boe serenades her from the stereo.
Rock and roll.
Christ, Ruth. When was it exactly that you turned into your mother? (About twenty years ago is the depressing—and distressingly accurate—answer, because the fact is Ruth is older now than her mother was when she died. Bloody hell, Ruth. Talk about putting a dampener on the fun. You’ve lost that Friday feeling . . .)
And anyway, she will have to go to the pub first because she has already said she would to Alina. Which she only did when she thought Susanna was coming as well.
Alina. God.
Alina’s . . . fine. She’s good at her job and she can be quite dry, which Ruth likes, but on the flip side she’s not exactly a barrel of laughs. And she’s got a pout on her that makes her look like a cat’s bum.
The problem is that Alina’s lonely. She’s got no family here and the friends she talks about don’t, to Ruth, sound like anything more than passing acquaintances. It’s almost as though Alina isn’t able to tell the difference. Ruth is her friend, though Alina treats her more, ironically, as her counselor. Susanna should be Alina’s friend but rather than looking to cultivate that friendship, Alina rubs against her like sandpaper, then complains to Ruth that Susanna “does not like her.” “Well, it’s hardly surprising,” Ruth has said to her. “Try, I don’t know, just being nice to her for a change. You’re allowed to be friends with someone even if you take objection to what they do, you know.”
Because that’s another problem. Alina, part of whose job it is to act as the receptionist and administrator for a BACP-registered counselor, doesn’t, it turns out, believe in counseling. “You listen,” Ruth remembers her repeating after Susanna had tried explaining to her once what being a counselor entailed. “These people. They talk. And you just. What? Are silent?” With Ruth Alina converses in full sentences. Susanna is lucky to get more than two syllables between silences that punctuate her disapproval.
“Well,” was Susanna’s answer. “Basically. Although of course there’s more to it than that.”
She’d lost Alina at “basically,” Ruth could tell. And ever since then, Alina has seemed determined to clash with Susanna on points of principle (“They are the ones to talk, and yet you are the one who gets paid!”), when a woman of her age (what is she? Twenty-eight? Twenty-nine? More than old enough to act the grown-up) should understand that isn’t what friends do. Hell, Ruth has plenty of friends who take objection to what she does. That’s what it feels like when she catches sight of the condition of their teeth. And though Ruth would love to lecture them about their dental hygiene, somehow she manages to hold herself back. And if she can do it, anyone can. She’s said to Alina, if she really feels a need to vent, she should sign up to Twitter.
Which was a joke, of course.
Which naturally Alina didn’t get.
So, no. The prospect of an evening with just her and Alina doesn’t exactly fill Ruth with joy. So why not get it over with? Set aside the paperwork, pop along for one, then head home and draw that bath. She could be naked and in the company of Alfie Boe by . . .
Ruth checks her watch.
Half past six. A quarter past if she’s lucky with the traffic. After the day she’s had, the week, it’s no less than she deserves.
Susanna, though. Susanna is the reason Ruth’s delaying, much as she would welcome that G&T.
She seemed fine. When Ruth listened at the door—just for a moment or two, just to make sure it wasn’t a bad time to interrupt—she didn’t hear anything she considered out of the ordinary, not that she could hear very much. And then, when Susanna opened the door and the two of them spoke, Susanna acted perfectly normal as well. A little on edge but wasn’t that to be expected? Ruth has never interrupted her before when she’s been in session, mainly because she knows it isn’t something she’s supposed to do. So naturally Susanna would be flustered. Ruth knows how she would react were someone to interrupt her when she was with a patient, and she can guarantee she wouldn’t be as measured as Susanna was. Objects would fly, put it that way. And some of the objects within a dentist’s reach tend to be sharp.
But she worries. That’s the thing. Partly, again, because that’s what friends do. Mainly because of Susanna’s past.
Ruth has always known there was something. It was obvious from the day they met, when Susanna first came to view the office. She was evasive, edgy, constantly checking into corners. Ruth’s instinct was to stay well clear, to sublet the room to someone else, but what it came down to in the end was that Ruth liked her. Susanna was clearly a decent woman: kind, funny, honest. To a fault, sometimes, it later turned out. And she was obviously desperate to make this counseling thing work. The space was perfect, she declared, and what she most appreciated was the prospect of not being stuck in an empty building all on her own. Which was another clue, one Ruth cottoned on to even at the time.
At first Ruth assumed Susanna was running from an abusive ex-husband. Husband, boyfriend, one or the other. Ruth has had her share of degenerate ex-partners herself. No one who hit her but abuse isn’t always physical. Ruth’s first husband, one of three before she finally realized she was better off on her own—just her and Betty and the twins, as she likes to refer to her parakeets, and which she thinks of as her dog’s younger siblings—used to restrict her access to the money she earned. Her money, for pity’s sake! He used to insist it was paid into a “shared” account, for which he held the only checkbook and debit card. He used to give her an allowance, like pocket money: a more effective method of controlling her than physically walking her around on a leash. The craziest thing is not that Ruth allowed herself to be manipulated like that, but that it was a mistake she later repeated. With John, husband number two, and Cliff, her third and final. She’s free now, which on the whole she considers a blessing, but the point is, if Susanna was going through something similar, Ruth would have done everything in her power to help her. What woman wouldn’t?
It was only by accident that Ruth found out the truth. This was . . . three years ago? God, no, more. Five. Obviously it was well established by then that Susanna didn’t talk about her background, so Ruth was aware she considered her secrets shameful. No news there, Ruth thought. What woman doesn’t blame herself when she’s been abused? But then one day in the waiting area, when Susanna was at the desk talking to Alina and Ruth had come out to call the name of her next patient, Susanna had reacted as though Ruth had called to her.
She laughed it off afterward, claimed she’d misheard, and though Ruth realized right away that Susanna was dissembling, she didn’t consider it a particularly big deal. So “Susanna” wasn’t her real name. So what? It made sense that she would change it if she was in hiding. Except soon after that, when Ruth had been scanning the Saturday supplements, she found herself reading an article about the way women are portrayed in the press, about how they’re so often demonized, basically—and there she was. Her Susanna. The photograph they ran looked nothing like her, not at first glance. But the details of the story, that first name, something anyway caused Ruth to lean a little closer . . .
And then it clicked.
She was shocked at first, of course she was. Hurt, a bit. Angry as well that her best friend—which is what Susanna by that point had become—had chosen to conceal from her such a fundamental aspect of who she was. It explained everything. Everything. Susanna’s bearing, her beliefs, her behavior in just about every incident in their shared history that Ruth could bring to mind. She’d always known Susanna had her secrets. She’d just never imagined that the door she’d hidden them behind would open to reveal such darkness. Such depth too. It wasn’t some cubbyhole Ruth found herself peering into. It was a dungeon.
She said nothing. She made her peace with the fact Susanna hadn’t confided in her (her life, her choice, Ruth reasoned. It wasn’t as though Ruth had confessed every shameful secret from her past) and resolved to carry on just as though she’d never found out. Although, oddly, knowing what she did somehow made Ruth love Susanna all the more. She didn’t know the ins and outs of what had happened; she wasn’t sure which version of events she should believe. All she could go on was her instinct and the relationship she and Susanna had already forged, and in that context Susanna appeared both stronger and braver than Ruth ever imagined. She felt sorry for her friend, yes, but she had also never felt so proud. Look at what she was doing. Look at who she’d become!
And Ruth thought she was doing well substituting a husband for a pair of parakeets.
One thing that did change was how responsible for her friend Ruth began to feel. She’d always looked out for Susanna, had always been careful not to leave her in the building alone, not without warning, and had always cast a discriminating eye over any thuggish-looking middle-aged men she passed while on her lunch break, say, or on the walk to and from her car. But having found out the truth—having realized what it was Susanna was running from—Ruth took her role of guardianship to another level. More than anything, Ruth has come to realize how afraid must Susanna feel. How afraid, and how alone. What she would most like to do is enfold Susanna in her arms and assure her that she loves her in spite of everything. And yet to do so, she feels, would be a betrayal, strange as that might seem. So doing this, looking out for her: it is to Ruth’s mind the next best thing.
Sitting here in her office now, she isn’t sure what has made her so uneasy. Partly it’s the prospect of leaving Susanna with a stranger. A young man too, someone so close to the age Susanna’s son was when he died. Susanna told Ruth she would be fine, but she would say that, wouldn’t she, especially when the client was there listening in. And what she said about . . . How had she put it? Doubling up. Ruth is sure that isn’t something Susanna would normally do. In fact she’s told Ruth before, something about timekeeping, about how important it is in counseling to stick to the schedule, unless Ruth is getting mixed up? She does listen when Susanna tells her things but she would imagine it’s the same for her as it is for Susanna when Ruth talks to her about teeth. Sometimes she can see Susanna tuning out. Ruth doesn’t hold it against her. Other people’s passions: frankly they’re not always that interesting.
Maybe she’s just tired. She’s had a long week and now she’s just . . . What’s that word Susanna uses? Projecting. She’s feeling blue, basically, and she’s allowing that to influence her perceptions of what’s happening around her. Maybe when Susanna said she was fine she really meant it. She’s had long enough to judge whether she’s in any danger, and if she was feeling in any way threatened she would have signaled for Ruth’s help when she had the chance. And the fact is, she didn’t. If anything she seemed impatient to be left alone. So maybe Ruth should mind her own business; stop treating Susanna as though she were a child, when in reality she is a tough, middle-aged woman who’s been through more in her life than most people could begin to—
“Ruth?”
She looks up. She checks the time again and curses. She’s been sitting here for the better part of twenty minutes whereas she told Alina she would be ready to go in five.
“Coming!” she calls back. “I’m just this minute putting on my coat!”
Alina grumbles something from the hallway about meeting her downstairs, which is Alina-speak for Get a bloody move on. Which is fair enough, actually. Alina was wrapped and ready to go when Ruth had turned from Susanna’s door, and is no doubt gasping for that G&T as much as Ruth is. Was. All of a sudden she doesn’t much fancy it, nor even the bath with Alfie Boe. Not the one on the stereo, anyway.
She hauls on her coat even so. She shoves aside the paperwork she’s been pretending to tackle and switches off the overhead light. A minute later she is through her surgery and casting one last glance at Susanna’s office door. She hesitates, just for a moment, and then she is downstairs, hoisting a smile for Alina and pulling the door into the building closed behind her.