‘Someone told you about the sleepwalking thing, didn’t they?’
‘Mum—’
Dennie banged her glass down hard on the table. ‘Why can’t people just mind their own bloody business?’
The gentleness in Lizzie’s voice was more maddening than her anger would have been. ‘You are my business, Mum. And when you turn up outside someone’s home at four in the morning in your nightdress, it becomes their business too.’
Dennie could feel her face burning red with mortification. ‘She said she wouldn’t say anything, that two-faced bitch. With her walnut cake and her bloody sketches from the bloody… thing, you know. Place.’
‘What place?’ Lizzie was looking at her in concern, and that only made it worse because Dennie knew that she was right to be concerned.
‘You know! The place with the pictures! Paris! The Mona Lisa!’
‘Do you mean the Louvre? Mum, why are you talking about the Louvre?’
‘It doesn’t matter! The point is that she and that boyfriend of hers are squatting. They’ve got no right to be there.’
‘She’s as concerned about you as all of us.’ Lizzie took a deep breath. ‘Mum, I’ve made an appointment for you to see Dr Fielding.’
‘Have you, now?’
‘Yes. It’s for next Tuesday, which is why I’m staying for longer.’
‘To make sure I actually go, is that it?’
Lizzie put down her half-eaten pizza crust and fixed her with a look that had the granite stubbornness she’d inherited from her father. ‘As a matter of fact, yes. I’ll physically drag you if necessary. I’ll leash Viggo like a husky and have him pull you there on a sled if that’s what it takes.’
‘You think I’m losing my mind, don’t you?’ There had been no more visits from Sarah, and the echoes had been silent enough for her to have been able to sleep comfortably in her own bed since the sleepwalking.
‘No, actually, I don’t. I’ll admit that I was worried, so I did a bit of reading up on it, but you’re not confused or getting lost in your own home, you’re not exhibiting obsessive and repetitive behaviour—’
‘Other than hoarding butter…’
‘—and you definitely don’t have trouble communicating. Disturbed sleep patterns, sleepwalking, things like that, they could all just be the symptoms of stress or anxiety.’
‘Well, I’m more bloody stressed now than I was before you turned up, I’ll give you that. Darling, I’m not suffering from anxiety. What have I got to be anxious about? I’m retired, my husband’s in the ground and my kids have left home. The only thing I’ve got to be anxious about is this great idiot and his farting.’ She scratched Viggo between the ears; he was looking between the two women, concerned by the tension that had settled over the table.
‘I don’t know, but there’s something. Going to that cemetery doesn’t seem to have helped. I want you to see Dr Fielding. She might be able to suggest someone that you can talk to, or give you something to help you sleep, if nothing else. Remember when I had those beta blockers to get me through exams?’
Knowing when she was beaten, Dennie relented. ‘Darling, if it will set your mind at rest, and stop you interfering with my fridge, of course I will.’
Lizzie heaved a huge sigh of relief. ‘Thanks, Mum.’
Her meeting with Dr Fielding was predictably inconclusive, the only concrete benefit being that it had put Lizzie’s mind enough at rest that she was happy to go home. Fielding was a thin, harassed-looking woman who had made brusque and efficient use of the ten-minute appointment slot. She asked Dennie about her diet (vegetarian, avoiding sugar where possible but not averse to the occasional Bounty bar), alcohol intake (Malbec ideally, Shiraz if she had to really slum it, no smile there), smoker? (non) and exercise (walking to and from the allotment most days was a Good Thing). She took Dennie’s blood pressure, which was a bit high but nothing to worry about too much, and said that she could prescribe a mild sedative if Dennie thought that would help. No thanks. In that case here was a leaflet listing various local support groups and national helplines for people coping with stress and anxiety. If the disturbed sleep persisted or she had any further sleepwalking episodes she should make a follow-up appointment immediately. Thank you and good afternoon.
* * *
Dennie still didn’t know what the new couple’s game was, but she had to give them credit: the top half of the Neary plot that they were cultivating was coming along well. One might even say it was burgeoning. She eyed their rows of perfect and apparently pest-free crops enviously, wondering whether they used any special kind of fertiliser. One or other of them worked it most days, though there’d been no sign of their huge friend for over a month. Maybe he’d run off.
On the days when it was left unattended she risked a closer examination, and on a bright Tuesday morning in the middle of May she was passing by on her way to the Pavilion when she caught a glimpse of glossy red peeping out from the nettles and brambles. It seemed that even the overgrown tangle of the other half was showing signs of regenerating. There shouldn’t be strawberries growing wild in that trash, she told herself. It was too early in the year for them to fruit without being forced under cover, and they would never grow naturally in soil so abused as this. She mentally ran through the various cultivars that she knew of, and drew a blank, unless this was some kind of hybrid variety, but even so, what was it doing here?
Every inch of her skin crawled at the thought of setting foot on that plot again, but those berries were only a few feet beyond her reach – it would take just one step for her to be able to pluck the nearest one, and then she could find out what kind it was. Colin had been buried right up at
