Chapter Six

London, August 1972

Three weeks after arriving unconscious in an ambulance, Eve confounded her doctors by being ready for discharge from hospital. She couldn’t walk and her right hand was still weak, but her speech had come on by leaps and bounds. As they wheeled her out to the hospital van that would transfer her to a convalescent home, she pleaded with the nurse to stop for a moment and let her feel the breeze on her skin.

“Thash wunnerful!” she slurred, closing her eyes and breathing in. It was an overcast day but the air still smelled of summer. To her it was heaven after the stuffy room she’d been stuck in, with a window that wouldn’t open and the persistent smells of disinfectant, rubber, and overcooked food. She felt a rush of happiness.

Brograve had booked her a garden room at the Pine Trees convalescent home, and the first thing she saw when she was wheeled in were French windows opening onto a delightful little terrace. She had her own en suite, a television, two armchairs, and a table, so she would be able to get out of bed and sit with her visitors. Every morning she would have speech therapy and an intensive physiotherapy session but, aside from that, friends could drop by anytime they liked.

“It’s p-p-erfect,” she told him.

Once the nurses left her to settle in, Brograve produced a bottle of medium-dry sherry from his briefcase, along with two crystal glasses brought from home, wrapped in an old tea towel.

“I bet you’ve been missing this,” he said. “Fancy a tipple?”

“How . . . did . . . you . . . know?” She sighed.

The sherry was delicious: fruity, full-bodied, and complex, by far the nicest taste she’d had in her mouth for ages.

“I’ll hide the bottle in your wardrobe,” he said. “We can have a sherry before your dinner every evening.”

“Don tell the nurshes,” she slurred. “I might get f-frone out.”

After she ate her dinner—a meal that was a huge leap up the gastronomic scale from hospital food—they watched a television program together: Dad’s Army, a comedy about some bumbling home guards during the war. Brograve pulled an armchair to her bedside and held her hand, the good hand, playing with her fingers idly.

And then, when the program finished, he said, “Time to go, I suppose. You need your beauty sleep.”

That was the moment that killed her every time. He kissed her goodbye and turned for the door, his shoulders drooping. Before he was out of sight he turned and tried to give a cheery wave but she could see in his face that he was upset, and knew he could see it in hers too.

* * *

Brograve felt as if he was smothered in a cloak of sadness, and it only lifted slightly during the hours he was with Eve. He knew from her previous strokes that most progress was made in the early weeks, and after that it tended to stall. Last time and the time before, she had been walking within a week or so, but this time she couldn’t seem to take her weight in her legs, even when supported by a walker. Her speech was still slurred as if she were drunk, and her memory gaps concerned him. She was adept at covering up when she didn’t remember something, but he knew her well enough to spot the momentary hesitation, the blank look that flashed across her eyes.

The hospital doctors had discharged her because there was nothing more they could do. As far as they were concerned, she was a seventy-one-year-old woman and if she never walked again, that was a shame but not the end of the world. They didn’t realize how desperately Brograve needed her home. He’d moved back to their London flat but it was dark and echoey. He couldn’t see the point in opening the curtains in the morning because he’d only have to close them again when he got home from visiting Eve. Despite the best efforts of Mrs. Jarrold, it smelled of neglect.

The morning after she was installed at Pine Trees, another letter arrived for Eve from Dr. Ana Mansour, the Egyptian archaeologist. In it, she said she had telephoned the new owners of the Framfield house and been given the London address.

“Perhaps you didn’t receive my last letter?” she wrote. “I am most anxious to speak to you about your memories of the opening of Tutankhamun’s tomb. Might we set a date for me to visit? I’m sure you will understand the importance of making the historical record as accurate as it can possibly be.”

Brograve wondered whether to mention it to Eve. Maybe setting a date to meet Dr. Mansour in, say, a month’s time would give her a goal to work toward. But he wasn’t sure if she even remembered the discovery of the tomb. Perhaps he should take some photographs and newspaper cuttings to nudge her before replying to the letter. Then again, he hated to upset her by asking something she didn’t know and he couldn’t imagine what Dr. Mansour wanted from her. That phrase about “anomalies” came back to him. What was she getting at?

He wavered for a moment, then put the letter on a pile by the kettle.

The telephone rang, and he recognized the cheery tones of Eve’s best friend, Maude.

“How is she enjoying Pine Trees?” she asked. “I’m simply dying to see her. When can I visit?”

“She’s . . .” He hesitated, trying to think of a tactful way of saying it. “She’s not fully herself yet. Don’t get your hopes up.”

“I’ll be fine,” she said firmly, and he knew that of all Eve’s friends, Maude was the steadiest, the least prone to overreaction. She was also discreet.

“Alright. Would you like to go this afternoon? Around two? I’ll leave you to chat together in peace and delay my visit till three.”

“Thanks, Bro. I want to see you too, of course. I miss you both terribly.”

When he hung up, Brograve felt pleased that Eve would have someone new to chat to. She’d enjoy that. But it gave him another hour to fill till he saw her, and the morning stretched ahead like a vast cavern.

* * *

One of the great joys of Pine Trees was that a nurse bathed Eve and dressed her in her own clothes every morning. It felt wonderful after weeks stuck in a nightdress. Brograve had brought some elasticized-waist skirts and button-up blouses that were easy to slip on, as well as her favorite pearl necklace, and it made her feel a lot more human.

She was sitting in an armchair by the window, trying to squeeze a physio ball in her right hand, when there was a knock on the door and a familiar face peeked in.

“Yoohoo!” a voice called. “Guess who?”

Eve looked up, startled. “My goodnesh, how . . . kine . . . you . . . come.”

The woman had short silver hair and she wore an eccentric combination of colors—olive green, magenta, and orange—that somehow worked. Eve knew this person, knew her well, but the name escaped her. Hopefully it would spring to mind soon.

The visitor hurried over to hug her. “You look wonderful, Eve darling. Good as new.”

“Can’t . . . walk,” Eve replied. “Soon . . . I . . . ope.”

The visitor sat down and took Eve’s left hand in hers. “You are an inspiration to us all. The way you fight back is incredible. I’m proud to be your friend.”

Tears came to Eve’s eyes. She kept getting emotional over the littlest of things. “How’s . . . you . . . famly?” she asked, to distract attention from herself.

The woman began chatting about her children, her husband, Cuthbert, and then a friend of theirs called Lois, who had recently come to visit from the country.

Suddenly a phrase came to Eve and she struggled to pronounce it: “Un-ho-lee . . . quad-rum-v . . . v . . . vir-ate.”

Maude laughed. “Goodness, I had completely forgotten we used to call ourselves that, way back in the nineteen twenties. The four of us had a blast, didn’t we? All those wild parties, and then—equally important—the forensic analysis of the parties the next day. Do you remember we used to give men marks out of five? You gave Brograve low marks. How wrong could you be?” She chuckled.

“You . . . like . . . his fren . . .” Eve had a clear memory of this woman falling for a friend of Brograve’s, someone who had been in the war with him. And then the name came to her in a flash. This was Maude. Maude Richardson. Of course. Her best friend in the world. The one who had coined the term unholy quadrumvirate in the first place.