because Martha was so often ill when she was small. When Martha took to her bed, or could not eat, it must have been an emotional illness, not a physical one. Anna does remember spending a lot of time with Hattie. Fear and sadness affect children. When she was little something about Martha frightened her. Easy to be frightened when you do not understand.
Only one thing sticks in her mind. She was furious with her mother and threw herself at her, clutching at her legs in a rage that consumed her. That is all she can remember: not wanting to let go of those legs. She cannot remember a face or arms or a voice. Just those legs trying to get away from her.
Anna pushes the image away, stretches and takes a deep breath. She can hear Rudi moving about upstairs and she goes back to her desk. For heaven’s sake, she is supposed to be studying her brief. Berlin was a success, but exhausting. Now she is about to reconvene a complicated criminal injury case and she is tired. Her workload is frightening this year.
She goes into the kitchen and grinds coffee and puts the pot on the stove. Places her files and papers back into her briefcase. She will have coffee with Rudi, then grab a sandwich later.
Rudi comes in smelling of soap, and kisses her. ‘You seem to get up earlier and earlier. Two complicated cases at the same time. Are you worrying, darling?’
Anna smiles at him. ‘No, not really. I’ve got a good team. But so have they. I do need to be on the ball …’ She reaches out and touches his arm. ‘Sorry if I bored you last night. I just wanted to run it past you.’
‘You never bore me. And I do know a bit about insurance companies.’
‘Well, I am still sure they, or the airline, are stalling, playing for time, and I am not sure why. My client will certainly never walk again. They cannot avoid liability. I expected the usual initial derisory offer of compensation, which would be unacceptable. Instead of which they asked for four days’ grace to make inquiries about a matter “vital to the outcome of the case”.’
‘Which means?’
‘Which means, either they have discovered something which makes the airline culpable and they will pull out, or something that I have not been told that makes my client responsible, or partly responsible, for his injuries.’ Anna puts down her half-finished coffee. ‘Anyway, this morning I will find out. I must go.’ She gets up and kisses him. ‘Why are you smiling?’
‘At the glint in your eye. God help the opposition.’
Anna laughs. ‘I shouldn’t be too late home tonight.’
‘In that case,’ Rudi says, ‘I shall cook you something delicious and healthy.’
Anna holds his face to her for a moment. ‘Wonderful.’
By the time she leaves the house the pink sky has disappeared and grey clouds cover the whole of the sky. As Anna walks to the tube station she remembers a task she was set at school: What is your very first memory? On the blackboard the teacher wrote, ‘My very first memory is …’
Anna sat and sat in front of a blank sheet of paper. She was quite unable to pick up her pen. Eventually her teacher said, ‘Anna, come on, this is not like you. What’s the matter?’
Anna had gone white and begun to shake. She was not going to write. She was not going to. She could not think … beyond … before … behind … For the first time in her life she fainted. Fred came to collect her, took her straight home. For some reason he was cross with her teacher. ‘For heaven’s sake, Anna is only nine years old. I know she is bright, but I don’t want my daughter pressurised.’
‘It was not Mrs Poole’s fault,’ Anna said to him in the car. ‘Dad, I can’t remember anything before my nightmares. I didn’t want to write about my nightmares.’
Fred turned to look at her and for a terrible moment Anna thought he was going to cry. He tucked her up on the sofa and lit a fire in the afternoon. Martha, pregnant with Barnaby, sat with Anna by the fire, playing snakes and ladders, and then they baked scones together. That day I did not spoil … I must have been ill, Anna thinks wryly.
What was it I was afraid of remembering?
She flashes her season ticket, goes through the barrier and stands on the platform waiting for the tube. This is the worst bit. She has finally trained herself, with Rudi’s help, to use the underground. But she hates the gathering moment before the train whooshes in and people prepare to rush and push. She can cope this early in the day, but she would not dream of travelling during the rush hour.
I suppose, she thinks, my childhood must have been happy. It must have been later, as I grew up and recognised the smallness, the limitations of their lives, that I grew bored and contemptuous. Maybe I was afraid I would grow up like them.
The train comes hurtling into the station and Anna gets in. She sits down and opens her briefcase. It is going to be a long day in court. She smiles suddenly at her reflection in the train window. She is far happier having an enormous caseload than maudlin and totally useless memories of her childhood.
Berlin
He drives into the city early. It is a beautiful spring morning and the city unfolds in front of him, glittering and clean.
Inga’s travel bag lies on the passenger seat beside him with the last of her possessions. She has not wanted to return to the flat to collect them and has asked him to meet her before she starts work.
He drives along the Unter den Linden towards the Bauhaus Museum where she works. He had hoped to take her for coffee in Kreuzberg but she said she was too busy to leave the building.
He is not looking forward to this meeting. He hopes they can at least get back to the point of civilised friendship. They have mutual friends and he would like to establish an understanding to avoid embarrassment for everyone. Remembering her cold voice on the phone he thinks friendship, at this point, is unlikely.
He parks the car and carries her bag to the entrance. He has always liked the clear modern lines of the museum. It had risen from the ruins of post-war Berlin like a building newly washed.
Inga is standing watching him walking towards her. She is not smiling. He greets her with two kisses. Her back is stiff, her face cold.
‘How are you?’ he asks.
‘I’m just fine,’ she says evenly.
‘Are you sure that you don’t have time to have a coffee with me? The museum does not open for two hours.’
‘My hours are nothing to do with whether the museum is open or shut, but with the artefacts. As you know.’
‘Of course,’ he says, smiling, ‘I know. I would like to have coffee and talk for a few minutes, if you have the time.’
She hesitates. Sadness and the feeling he can still engender in her pass briefly across her face. It would be kinder if he just handed her bag to her and left, but something obstinate in him wants to leave this relationship tidy and finished. Without rancour.
She holds the door open for him, reluctantly. ‘Come in. I’ll make you a quick coffee.’
She fiddles with the filter machine in her office and he watches her. She is very pretty, he is very fond of her, yet he feels no regret. ‘Inga, I really do want you to be happy. You must have known, as I did, that if you got involved with a man much older than yourself this parting was inevitable?’
She pours his coffee and carries it over to him, places sugar and milk in front of him, but does not sit with him.
‘It was only inevitable when you decided that it was. I suddenly bored you with a need for something more from you. I stayed the course longer than most, so perhaps I should be flattered.’
He