Dark Room

'No,' he said quietly, 'what offends me is her shabbiness towards her best friend. Between us, you and I created a monster, Caroline.'

*9*

SATURDAY, 25TH JUNE, THE NIGHTINGALE CLINIC, SALISBURY-6:00 P.M.

Jinx had resumed her vantage point under the beech tree, dark glasses firmly in place, anonymity restored. To observers, she was an object of curiosity, this thin, gaunt woman who sat alone and used the protective fronds of the hanging branches to hide behind. Almost, thought Alan Protheroe, watching her from the French window in his office, like a bird in a cage, for it was her loneliness that impressed him most. He wondered if it was advisable or possible to unlock the iron control that she exercised upon her emotions, for he was doubtful that happiness was a condition to which Jinx aspired. She couldn't bear to be so vulnerable.

'I'm relieved,' she said when he asked her if she was happy that her bandages had been removed. 'Only children know how to be happy.'

'And were you happy as a child, Jinx?'

'I must have been. The smell of baking bread always puts me in a good mood.' She smiled slightly at his frown of puzzlement. 'My father wasn't always a rich man. I remember being a small child and living in a two-up, two- down in London somewhere. My mother did all her own cooking and baked all her own bread, and I can't smell warm bread now without wanting to turn somersaults.'

'Which mother was that? Your real mother or your stepmother?'

She looked confused suddenly. 'I suppose it was my stepmother. I was too young to remember anything my mother did.'

'Not necessarily. We begin to store emotions at a very young age, so there's no reason why you shouldn't remember happiness from when you were a toddler, particularly if it was followed by a period of unhappiness.'

She looked away. 'Why should it have been?'

'Your mother died, Jinx. That must have been an unhappy time for you and your father.'

She shrugged. 'If it was, I don't remember it. Which is sad in itself. Death should make an impact, don't you think? It's awful how quickly we forget and move on to something new.'

'But very important that we do,' he replied. 'Otherwise we become like Miss Havisham in Great Expectations and sit forever at an empty table.'

She smiled. 'If I remember my Dickens, poor old Miss Havisham was jilted by her fiance on her wedding day and spent the rest of her life in her bridal gown with the remains of the banquet all around her. Hardly the most tactful parallel you could have drawn. In the circumstances, wedding plans are not a subject I particularly want to dwell on.'

'Then let's talk about something you would like to dwell on. What makes you feel alive?'

She shook her head. 'Nothing. I prefer the peacefulness of feeling nothing. For every up there's a down and I hate the sadness of disappointment.'

'Relationships don't have to be disappointing, Jinx. Far more often than not, they represent the sort of fulfillment most of us long for. Do you not think that's a goal worth pursuing?'

'Are we talking marriage and children, Dr. Protheroe?' she asked suspiciously. 'Did Josh Hennessey tell you he fancied me?'

He chuckled. 'Not in so many words, but he seems fond of you.'

'He's far fonder of Meg than he is of me,' she said dismissively. 'Too fond, really. She treats him like a brother because business and pleasure don't mix, when all he wants to do is fuck her. Also, he was fond of his wife when he married her,' she added tartly, 'but he walked out on her four years later because he claimed she was boring. Is that the kind of fulfilling relationship you want me to have?'

'I doubt he'd find you boring, Jinx, but in any case, that's a side issue. What I think we're talking about is contentment.'

She gave a low laugh. 'Well, I'm a good photographer, and that makes me content. If I'm remembered for just one photograph, then that will be immortality enough. I don't need any other. It's a birth of sorts, you know. Your creation emerges from the darkness of the developing room with just the same sense of achievement as a baby emerging from the womb.'

'Does it?'

She shrugged again. 'I think so. Admittedly, the only birth I can compare it with was a rather messy business in the lavatory, but I imagine that going to term and producing a living child is somewhat more rewarding. Yes, I'd say the sense of achievement in those circumstances is not dissimilar.' Her face was devoid of expression. 'By the same token, I imagine there's the same sense of disappointment when the result of your hard work is less than you hoped for. Works of art, be they children or photographs, can never be perfect.' She hesitated a moment. 'I suppose if you're lucky, they might be interesting.'

After that she had excused herself politely and walked outside, leaving Protheroe to wonder if she was talking about her own hopes of the child she had lost or her father's hopes of her. Although perhaps she was talking about neither. He reflected on the two unmarried brothers who still lived at home and who, if Jinx's closed expression when their names were mentioned was any guide, had little love for their intellectually gifted sister.

He was about to turn away from the French window and his contemplation of her seated, solitary figure when he noticed a man approaching across the lawn. Now where the hell had he come from? For no obvious reason, other than that he was responsible for Jinx's safety and she was clearly unaware that anyone was behind her, he felt a sense of imminent danger and, with a flick of his long fingers, turned the key in the lock and thrust the door wide. With farther to travel than the other, he raised his voice in a bluff bellow. 'There you are, Jinx!' he called. 'I've been looking for you.'