What was worse, she could see him quite clearly, and as he listened to her he was irritatedly trying to pick bits of fluff and small shards of china out of his skin.
This was one of the things she and Myra Rogers had been able to laugh at as they celebrated Christmas together. Under the fertilizing influence of a bottle of white wine the seeds of friendship sown at their first meeting in the churchyard had burgeoned rapidly, and a bottle of red had brought it into full bloom.
'You must think I'm really weird,' Rye had said, laughing. 'Drunks banging on my door, me glooming round the churchyard like I was spaced out on dope
'Well, I've got to admit, that first time I saw you there, I thought, Hello, what kind of company am I getting into here! I never did work out what you were up to…'
'It was nothing really… just a sort of feeling down, you know. ..' said Rye, a small nugget of caution resisting the solvent properties of the alcohol.
'Hey, listen, none of my business, some troubles are best shared, some are better kept to yourself, don't I know it! What happened to decent reticence? When my husband died, suddenly everyone was a counsellor, wanting me to sit down and let it all hang out, when all I wanted to do was go somewhere quiet and sort things out for myself.'
'Yes, I know. How did he die? Oh God, I'm sorry… there I go. ..'
'Don't be silly. Funny, now I'm ready to talk, no one ever asks. It was a car accident. Multiple pile-up on the motorway. Just one fatality. Carl. I felt targeted! Like it would have helped if there'd been dozens dead instead of having to read in the papers what a miracle it was things hadn't been a lot worse!'
And that had been enough, plus another glass or two of wine, to bring it all out, the crash, Sergius's death, the broken vase…
'It had been there too long. I don't know which was worse, being aware it was there or forgetting all about it. I'd been thinking about it, now that Hat, that's my boyfriend, and me are… an item, you know, it didn't seem right somehow
'Oh, I don't know. I had a boyfriend once who found it a real turn-on to screw in churchyards. I dumped him after I was having a shower at the squash club one morning and a friend asked me why I had RIP stencilled backwards on my left buttock.'
After they recovered from the outbreak of laughter this brought on, it had been easy to tell her everything – or rather that mangled version of everything which she would have given almost anything to be the truth and which she almost believed much repetition might make so. She had even been able to make a joke of the farcical possibilities of her hoovering if, as the Bible promised, our bodies were reconstituted on Judgment Day. It had been a long time since Rye had talked so frankly with another woman and it felt good. Next morning when she tried to recall cloudily what she had said, it didn't feel quite so good, but when she saw Myra again and found her bright and friendly but with nothing pushy or knowing in her manner, the good feeling returned.
Suddenly with the New Year approaching, the future had begun to seem – not possible – but not impossible either. As if through love and friendship and maybe confession (but, oh, how her heart cracked at the thought of confessing to Hat!), some kind of atonement might be within her grasp…
Now here she was on the first day of that bright new year, lying in a hospital bed, talking again to her dead brother.
'Listen,' she said urgently. 'I know you're not there. I know you never have been… all that stuff… I don't know… I don't know… it wasn't me… someone else…'
But it had been her. And Sergius was here, standing before her, silently accusing, but of what? Oh God, no, not accusing her of stopping when she was getting close – not urging her to start again and go on to the bitter end till enough blood had been spilt to give him his tongue – no, she couldn't start down that path again, she would run mad. Perhaps she was running mad…
'Sergius, Sergius,' she cried. 'Don't ask me. I can't… you're not really here
And to prove it she reached out her hand, and he reached out his to her and she took it and he squeezed her fingers hard. She closed her eyes and didn't know whether to sing out with joy or cry out in terror. And when she opened them again it wasn't Sergius after all but Hat who was sitting there, holding her hand as if he felt that only his strong grip kept her from plummeting into a fathomless pit. Maybe he was right.
'Oh, Hat,' she said.
'Hi.'
'Hat.'
'You said that. You're meant to say, 'Where am I?''
'Don't care where I am so long as you're here.'
To her distress she saw his eyes fill with tears.
'Don't cry,' she urged. There's nothing to cry about. Please. What time is it? Come to think of it, what day is it?'
'Still New Year's Day. Just. They said all the signs were you'd got past whatever it was and gone into a deep sleep, but you've been out of it a lot longer than they thought.'
He kept his tone light, but she could tell how deep his concern went.
'Well, I'm back now. So I've just been sleeping, have I?'
'And talking.'
Talking.' Now it was her turn to keep it light. 'Did I make sense?'
'About as much as you ever do,' he said, grinning.
'Seriously.'
'Not a lot,' he said. 'You kept on calling me Sergius.'
'Oh shit. I was… dreaming about… I'm sorry.'
'What for? In hospital again, the smells, the sounds, it must have taken you back subconsciously to that time after the accident.'
'You work that out yourself, Dr Freud?' she said, striving towards lightness, towards the light. 'Have you been here all the time?'
'Most. And when I wasn't, Myra was. She's been great. I like her a lot.'
'Not sure if I approve of my boyfriend liking a good-looking widow a lot,' she said. 'Do they have doctors in this place or are they all still drunk after last night?'
‘I think the ones who matter probably still are. There's this kid looks younger than me looking after you. Whenever I ask him what's wrong, he talks vaguely about tests and talking to Mr Chakravarty, the neuro- consultant. I'd better tell someone you're awake.'
'Why? So they can give me a sleeping pill?'
'So that if there's anything they can start doing to make sure this never happens again, they can start doing it.'
Gently he disengaged her hand and stood up.
She said, 'Hat, I'm sorry. Great way to start the year, yeah?'
He looked down at her, smiling.
'Can only get better. And it will. This is the greatest year of my life, remember. It's the year I'm going to marry you. I love you, Redwing.'
He went out of the door.
Rye turned her head and stared at the uncurtained window against which night was pressing like a dark beast eager to get in.
She said, 'Serge, you bastard, what have you done to me?'
And burst into tears.
She woke up the next morning feeling, rather to her surprise, much better. Not physically, though it was fair to say she felt as well as she'd felt at any time in the past month, but mentally. She had made no New Year resolutions either this year or any previous year of her life, but it felt as if a resolution had been made for her.
The hours drifted by. Nurses did their mysterious things and promised that Mr Chakravarty would see her soon; her adolescent doctor examined her and assured her Mr Chakravarty was imminent; she had visitors – Dalziel with a large jar of loganberries pickled in Drambuie which he ate with a teaspoon; members of the library staff in their lunch break with books and enough gossip to suggest she'd been away for weeks rather than half a
