Fanny’s table. “One sniff of Horlicks and I’m five years old, staying the night with my gran, just as if it were yesterday.”
“We drank cocoa when I was a child, but after I got sick I couldn’t tolerate the caffeine,” Fanny said, pushing herself up on the chaise so that she could reach the cup. “The Horlicks was Elaine’s idea. She made it for me every night, even when she was late getting in.”
Winnie tried to reconcile this small nurturing act with what she’d seen of Elaine, without much success. “Fanny,” she asked slowly, pulling up a chair, “what do you and Elaine find to talk about? It doesn’t seem as if you have much in common.”
“Oh, well… we talk about her work, and the hospital – it makes me feel I’m still a bit involved – and about the daily household things, you know, what we need from the shops, what to have for supper. Sometimes we watch telly together.” Fanny’s face took on a faraway look. “Sometimes we’d plan holidays we were going to take when I was well enough, somewhere in the sun. Italy, or Majorca. I always liked to imagine Elaine on the beach, going brown as a nut, and I thought that if she could get away for a bit, she wouldn’t
“Mind things?”
“Oh, you know. She’d get her feelings hurt easily… if someone said something at work or if she felt she’d been passed over. And sometimes she’d take against people for no real reason, like-” Fanny stopped, a little color rising in her pale cheeks.
“Like me, you mean?” asked Winnie gently. “It’s all right, I don’t mind.”
“I don’t think it was you personally. More the church in general.”
Winnie had suspected Elaine of being jealous of her. Now she wondered if Elaine had been afraid of having her own relationship with Fanny too closely inspected.
“I thought she was beginning to soften up a bit recently, though,” Fanny went on. “At least she stayed when you brought the Eucharist on Sundays. She’d always made a point to be out of the house when Roberta came.”
“I’m flattered,” Winnie said with a smile. “Although I can’t imagine anyone not liking Roberta.” She took Fanny’s empty cup. “Will you be all right on your own tonight? I can stay if you like.”
“You’ve done too much as it is.” Fanny reached out and gave Winnie’s hand a squeeze. “I do have some tablets, though, that I take sometimes when I have a bad night. Maybe I should take one of those.”
“Good idea. I’ll fetch it for you.”
Having been directed to the drawer in the kitchen, Winnie found the bottle and shook a small oval white tablet into her hand. She recognized the name of a mild sedative hypnotic, but frowned as she glanced at the prescription date. The prescription was only a week old, but the bottle seemed at least half empty. She poured the remaining tablets out in her palm and counted them – there were ten left out of thirty.
She suspected this type of medication was addictive. Was Fanny taking more than the prescribed dose? And how could she go about asking her?
The room had grown dark. Harriet lay on a narrow bed, still half dreaming, disjointed images flitting through her mind.
Beneath her, a musty, sour smell rose from the mattress when she moved. It made her think of the time her friend Samantha had come for a sleepover and had wet the bed, and of old Mrs. Bletchley.
A spark flared in her mind. Mrs. Bletchley’s, that’s where she was. She’d overslept for school. But no – the images came crowding back, fuzzy and jittering like an old newsreel she’d seen in history class.
Her dad – she remembered seeing her dad, and ducking down to slide into the backseat of his car. Her backpack had caught on the door frame, and the lady in the front seat had looked back at her and smiled.
She drifted again, riding a current of flickering movement – her dad saying something – she could see his lips moving, but she couldn’t hear the words.
More darkness. A lamp globe made of swirly orange glass swam into view. Coffee, she’d smelled coffee. It made her think of their flat in the morning, of her mother getting ready for work… but no, that wasn’t right…
She struggled to pull herself out of the dream. Not home. Starbucks. The lady had taken her to Starbucks. But where was her dad?
Movement again, the world tilting. Another car ride – no, a taxi. She remembered the shiny black door. A man’s face asking a question, his blue eyes kind. She felt the warmth of a body against hers, heard a woman’s voice saying, “She’s not feeling well… bit of a bug…”
Walls rose, taller than she could see, blocking out the light. Gray brick, topped with broken glass and strands of wire that curled.
Then a gate – or had it been before? Her mind fixed on it, trying to hold the image. A silvery arch, like a keyhole, filled with black flowers. And through the keyhole, a flash of green.
The bright color receded and winked out, as if a door had closed at the end of a tunnel, and the darkness descended like a weight.
7
“Now, what I want is, Facts…
Facts alone are wanted in life.”
CHARLES DICKENS
“ARE YOU SURE you don’t want me to run you to the tube station?” Gemma asked as Kincaid gulped at a cup of scalding tea, and folded toast and bacon into a makeshift sandwich. “Then you’d have time to eat your breakfast sitting down.”
“Thanks, love, but I think I’d rather walk. Make hay while the sun shines – isn’t that what they say?” The morning had dawned bright and windy, but with a promise of more rain later in the day.
“Have you been listening to
“I confess. It’s my secret vice.” He set down his mug and gave her a one-armed hug. “No, seriously, I don’t mind the walk, and you’ve got to get the boys up if you’re going to make it to Portobello before the market’s jammed.” What he didn’t say was that he needed that brief time on his own to fold away the morning’s images, the bright kitchen filled with comforting smells, Gemma disheveled before the warmth of the Aga, the boys still safe in their beds upstairs. These were not things he wanted to carry too close to the surface when he walked into the morgue at St. Thomas’s.
“I’m sorry about this morning, about not going with you,” he added as she disengaged herself to turn a second batch of bacon cooking in the frying pan.
“You know it can’t be helped,” she answered, not glancing up from her task.
He hesitated, knowing this was not the time to discuss it, but he couldn’t be sure when he’d have another chance. Tess and Geordie were underfoot, tails wagging as they watched him expectantly, so he divided the last bite of his sandwich between them. “It worries me that Kit won’t talk about Monday.”
This time she did look at him. “He’ll be fine.” She gave him a reassuring smile. “We’ll be fine. We’ll have our treasure hunt at the market, maybe lunch at Otto’s, then after my piano lesson I’m taking them to tea at Erika’s.” Putting down her tongs, she came to him and grasped the lapels of his jacket. “Ring me when you know something. I’ll keep my phone with me.”
Her hair was sleep-tousled, her skin still free of the light makeup she wore during the day. With his thumb, he traced the faint pattern of freckles on her cheekbone. She turned her face into his hand. The tenderness of the gesture moved him to say what he’d been keeping back for weeks. “Gemma, are you sure about giving up the nursery? I think we should talk-”
