Portobello

lost to her for ever. And, in a strange way, she wondered if she ever wanted to see those particular books again. They would only remind her of that otherwise happy evening when Eugene had come home and found her about to discover his secret hoard of those wretched sweets. Now she asked herself why she had ever confronted him. She was a doctor – couldn't she recognise the signs of a habit such as his? Had she no understanding how deep such obsessions went with a person as secretive and sensitive as he? Apparently not and now she was paying the price for it.

Almost for the first time since she became a GP she was wishing she had no need to go to work today. If only she could stay here in bed, turn over and perhaps go back to sleep. It was just first thing in the morning that she really felt able to sleep soundly and she recognised this as a sign of incipient depression. The female characters in those books she had left behind at Eugene's, how different they were from her and from most women today. They could stay in bed all day if they wanted to, daydreaming of their happiness or quietly nursing their sorrows. What else had they to do? Women now had to go back to work and carry on resolutely, soldier on, as if nothing had happened.

She got up, showered, dressed, picked up the newspaper off the doormat. Not so much in it about the Notting Hill murder as there had been in the Standard last night. The deaths of young men by violence had become almost commonplace. Talbot Road, Notting Hill. She had patients there but not this Feisal Smith. For once there was no eulogy from a relative, no bereaved parent saying he was the best son a mother or father ever had, the kindest, his future the brightest. Briefly, she wondered about Feisal Smith, knifed on a stone staircase, then she forgot him.

Mrs Khan was her first patient, a highly articulate little girl with her this time. Her rapid translation of her mother's detailed symptoms made Ella think she had a future before her as an interpreter, especially when the child remarked as they were leaving that she spoke Bengali as well and was learning Chinese at school.

'Then make sure you don't miss too many days,' Ella couldn't resist saying.

The next to come in was the most glamorous on her list. She always looked as if about to step on to a catwalk. This morning Gemma Wilson wore a black satin trouser suit and she announced that she was in mourning for her partner. 'I expect you've seen about him in the paper,' she said. 'The guy what got stabbed on the stairs. It was me as found him, me and Abelard, only he was asleep and he never saw a thing.'

'Gemma, I'm so sorry. What a dreadful thing to happen. How is Abelard?'

'He's fine. He's with Mum. Like I say, he never saw a thing. The thing is, Ella -' it had never occurred to Gemma to call her Dr Cotswold '- the thing is I can't sleep and it's wearing me out. I close my eyes and all I see is pictures of my partner laying there in a pool of blood. Can you give me like sleeping pills?'

'Yes, of course I will, Gemma. I'll give you enough for two weeks. It's very easy to get into a habit of taking them and we don't want that.'

She began writing the prescription. Gemma smoothed the sides of her new piled-up coiffure with long white fingers tipped with gleaming black nails, another feature of her mourning. 'The fact is,' she said, 'I've been through a lot lately. I mean, there's Fize getting himself knifed and then there's my lover – I mean, my real lover, Lance Platt – banged up for a crime he never done. It's all taken its toll.'

'I'm sure it has,' Ella said absently, unsurprised by Gemma's recherche love life. That name Lance Platt rang a bell. Wasn't that the man who had tried to get Eugene's hundred and fifteen poundfind for himself? The man who had been charged with arson and murder?

'That's him,' said Gemma, 'only he never done it. One in the morning it happened and he wasn't even there.' It occurred to her just in time that she had better not say just why he couldn't have been there. 'He couldn't sleep – like me – so he went for a walk. He was like out for his walk up your way, Ella, when they was burning down that house. It's not fair, is it, if he gets sent down for years and years for something he never done?'

'Well, no, of course it isn't. It would be very wrong.'

Ella said goodbye to Gemma and to come back if she was still having trouble sleeping after a fortnight. That had been her birthday, her fortieth, the night the house in Blagrove Road burnt down. She hadn't minded about being forty then because she had Eugene, she was going to marry Eugene, and he had been so lovely to her, coming back to bed and wishing her that delightfully old-fashioned many happy returns of the day. They had made love and she had been so happy and… Her next patient came into the room and Ella, with a silent sigh, asked him what the trouble was.

The crowd that streamed up the Portobello Road from Notting Hill Gate station and off the number seven bus were mourners, not shoppers. They were on their way to the funeral of their Shepherd. 'Oh, come all ye faithful', the sign on the little purple church welcomed them. It was left to Gilbert Gibson to conduct the service, as the Senior Elder now Reuben Perkins was gone.Tall and emaciated, he presented a finer figure in the pulpit and while speaking the eulogy, than poor Reuben would ever have done, for, as all models know, the thinner you are the better you look when robed in a flowing gown. Uncle Gib spoke about the years when he and Reuben had 'worked together' and laid particular emphasis on the kindness he personally had received when Reuben and his wife had taken him in after his own house had burnt down.

The service was well attended, for Reuben had been popular and a good turnout was gratifying to Maybelle who invited thirty people back to her house for drinks and canapes. Uncle Gib played host, handing round the food and replenishing wine glasses while telling those guests who didn't already know it the tale of the wedding at Cana. When they had all gone and Maybelle was doing the washing up, he sat down at his computer to reply to the latest spate of letters from readers of The Zebulun. For almost the first time an email had come to which he could give an approving and encouraging reply. I see no objection, he wrote, to you being joined in Holy Matrimony with the lady of your choice. Second marriage is permitted to a widower and widow. Nor need age be a bar. Remember that eighty is the new fifty so eighty-four is only middle age these days. Why not propose to her today?

The next one he replied to was from the usual immoral applicant. Uncle Gib made short work of her, telling her that deceiving her husband into believing he was the father of her new baby would bring hellfire down on her and the innocent child. But his mind wasn't on it. He wasn't able to summon up his usual invective; his thoughts were still involved with his previous correspondent. Why shouldn't the advice he had given apply equally to himself?

Carli came in most days and when she couldn't she sent her sister Vicki. There was little for them to do beyond changing his sheets and replenishing his water jug, for Eugene had no appetite. His temperature went up every evening in spite of the aspirins he swallowed to maintain it at 98.4. After about a week, when he staggered into the bathroom to have a bath – he was too weak to stand up in the shower cabinet – he weighed himself and found he had lost five pounds. Once this would have pleased him hugely but now he was unable to summon up enthusiasm for anything.

But in the morning he managed to eat two small squares of marmite toast, which Vicki brought him, and that evening found it possible to swallow a scrambled egg. Next day he had a needful telephone conversation with Dorinda and later on Dr Irving arrived, saying breezily that he was obviously on the mend and becoming positively jovial when Carli appeared with two glasses of sherry on a tray. The taste of the Amontillado no longer made Eugene feel sick when he sipped it and after the doctor had gone he ate a slice of chicken breast and a small roast potato.

He came downstairs in his dressing gown. Both girls had gone and wouldn't return till next morning. Sitting in front of the mock but realistic-looking coal fire, he thought how miserable it was to be alone and how desperately he missed Ella who should be sitting opposite him, telling him about her day and talking about their coming wedding and their future together. He could still only walk slowly but he had managed to come downstairs, so he could make it over to the bookshelves. It was one of her books that he picked up and read on the flyleaf, To Ella, on your sixteenth birthday, with love from Daddy. With bowed head he closed it. He had never in his life felt quite so low and sad.

Two weeks after he had first succumbed to this flu or virus or whatever it was, he went back to work, taking a taxi rather than attempting to walk. The gallery had gone on perfectly well without him and Dorinda had sold two watercolours. He sat at his desk and Jackie brought him cups of tea. The great effort he made not to fall asleep failed but still he made it until five. It was a start and next day was much better. On the Friday evening he took Dorinda out to dinner, ate very little and wished all the time it was Ella sitting opposite him. In the taxi taking him home he thought back to that day when he put off asking her to marry him, when he had actually asked himself if he wanted to get married at all. Had he been out of his mind?