The beginning of the route was steeply uphill. The dark sky looked laden with moisture, if no more so than Ellen felt. A bridge over the ring road seemed to coat her with noise and grimy fumes before the route led between a factory and a wall overhung by trees. When she plodded into the shade of the foliage it seemed to leave her moister. Most of the few people she encountered were on the opposite side of the road, and all were by the time she came abreast of them. Were they glancing hastily away from her or from somebody behind her? Surely she was bad enough. If there appeared to be a scrawny shadow on the pavement when she turned her burden of a head, it must be an elongated stain. The clumps of outstretched spindly objects at the ends of two thin twisted branches of the main discolouration couldn't drag her back or down or chase her off.
Beyond the factory a side street led past a copse to Hugh's house. An unpainted gate slouched in the entrance to his garden, more like a scrap of wilderness. However shabby the building was, it looked like a haven to her. Whatever had befallen her, surely Hugh and Charlotte would understand. She was suddenly so desperate to see her family that she grew afraid of being prevented somehow as she and her thunderous luggage made for the house. She had almost reached the gate when she saw Hugh.
He was on the stairs, framed by the window and the doorway of the front room, and seemed paralysed with shock. There was no question that she was the cause of his distress. In a moment Charlotte peered across the room at her and cried out, unless she was too appalled to make a sound. Ellen couldn't run, but she and her case lumbered away as fast as they could. The front door must have opened, because this time she heard Charlotte, whose question only spurred her onwards. 'Oh, Ellen, what have you done to yourself?'
TWENTY-ONE
That couldn't be Ellen, Hugh tried to believe. It mustn't be. Perhaps his thoughts were visible, because she retreated, dragging her wheeled suitcase or using it as support. As soon as she disappeared from the double frame of the doorway and the window he had no idea which way she'd gone. The banister gave a pained creak before he realised how hard he was clutching it. As he managed to relax his grip in case the rail came loose from the uprights, Charlotte ran to open the front door. 'Oh, Ellen,' Hugh heard her cry, 'what have you done to yourself?'
They could have been his words, and he shouldn't let her speak for him. He was too prone to behave as if Rory and their cousins were more capable of just about anything than he was. If he couldn't help Ellen, he was no use whatsoever. He swung towards the sound of Charlotte's footsteps dulled by moss. The hall was straight ahead, and so was the path. He was able to keep Charlotte in sight all the way to joining her outside the gate.
Ellen was heading doggedly towards a clump of trees as if she planned to take cover among them. 'Ellen, don't,' Charlotte called and ran after her. 'Ellen.'
'Where are you going, Ellen? Come in the house.'
The ominous rumble of her luggage faltered to a halt, and then she did. She didn't turn, and even in the silence her voice was barely audible. 'Don't you want your neighbours to see me, Hugh?'
'I always would.' He only mouthed this, from embarrassment more than doubled by Charlotte's presence. Aloud he said 'We don't want them seeing us arguing, do we?'
'There's nothing to argue about. I saw you both.'
'What did you see?' Hugh felt so guilty that he imagined it might help to protest 'We weren't doing anything.'
'Oh, Hugh, don't start any of that now. I saw what you both think of me.'
'It was a shock, that's all,' Charlotte was determined to assure her. 'Come on, let's go inside so we can talk properly.'
'About what? It won't do any good.'
'I'm certain it will, aren't you, Hugh? And more to the point, Ellen will.'
She was facing Ellen by now, and he had to. As he moved to stand in front of Ellen he saw her lips shift as if they were trying to recall how they used to feel. 'Tell me how,' she said without inviting.
'By going to see Rory,' Charlotte said. 'We're all here for him, remember.'
'I don't think he'd like to find this at the end of his bed.'
'I'm sure he'll appreciate it when we've come all this way to see him. You aren't planning to waste the journey, Ellen. What sense would that make? Suppose we had to tell him?'
Ellen pressed her lips together, squeezing them paler still. Hugh was afraid that she meant to leave without further discussion, and dismay made him clumsier than ever. 'Maybe he won't know,' he no sooner thought than said.
Ellen forced her lips apart with her tongue before it appeared to flinch from them. 'You mean he'll be safe from having to look at me.'
'No, I mean maybe he's waiting for us all to bring him back to himself. Maybe we're the only ones that can.'
It was Hugh's latest if not last attempt to wield his imagination. Though he thought it sounded more desperate than persuasive, it delayed Ellen long enough for Charlotte to say 'Hugh could be right. We won't be able to live with ourselves if we don't find out, will we?'
'Don't go off without us. We need you.'
The towing handle of her case had sunk into its sockets, but Ellen pulled it up. Hugh thought his blundering had driven her away until she trundled the luggage around in a reluctant arc and to some extent followed it. 'Take me in if you want to,' she only just audibly said.
Since he was managing to look at her without betraying his distress, he could surely restrain it if he touched her. He took hold of whichever arm wasn't involved with the suitcase, and his guts shrank as if he'd been punched in the stomach. The arm felt frail as an old woman's, and he was unable to judge how much of the handful consisted of cloth, how much of skin emptied of flesh. The long-sleeved blouse was as baggy as the trousers it went some way towards covering up, and he didn't know whether he'd taken it for a nightdress only because the clothes looked as if she'd slept in them. He tried not to look at her starved loosened face beneath the clump of unkempt maddened hair. He thought he'd concealed his reaction, but as he took a pace towards the house Charlotte said 'You bring the bag, Hugh.'
Ellen produced a version of a laugh. 'He is.'
'Oh, Ellen, don't be silly. You're just playing with words now.'
'Or they're playing with me,' Ellen said, which fell short of being a joke.
Hugh relinquished her arm, only to wonder if she would think he'd recoiled. Might she have been so involved in her writing that she hadn't had time to eat or had forgotten to? Perhaps other writers looked as strange – perhaps it came with the job – but he was dismayed to watch Charlotte lead her away as Ellen must have escorted people she cared for. He didn't move until Charlotte glanced back, presumably to see why she couldn't hear the trundling luggage. He grabbed the handle and hurried after them in a panic that his sense of where they were might desert him once they vanished into the house.
Charlotte hesitated outside as the small case bumped and wobbled along the path. 'Go in, Ellen,' she urged and turned to murmur 'Have you got much to eat at home?'
'Nothing for me,' Ellen said at once.
'You can have a snack at least before we go to the hospital. When did you eat last? What did you have?'
'More than I should have.'
'I've used up nearly everything I bought at work,' Hugh was unhappy to have to admit. 'I've got some bread, I think. We could have toast or bread and milk.'
'Don't treat me like an invalid,' Ellen warned them and took refuge in the hall.
Charlotte had to make some kind of effort to follow. Hugh lifted the luggage over the doorstep, and as he wheeled it to join the case she'd left at the foot of the stairs he thought he knew why she'd been reluctant to enter. In the street he'd been unable to locate the source of all the scents – several front gardens, he'd assumed – but now it was apparent that Ellen was doused in perfume, and not just one. Perhaps he should have restrained his bewilderment, but it was too quick for him. 'What's happened to you?' he cried.
Both women swung around to stare at him, and he could have concluded that they'd both taken the question personally. He might have felt compelled to answer if Ellen hadn't said 'You aren't saying you can't see.'
