Chapter Fifty-Three

London, July 1973

Over the next few days, Eve often spoke of the curse of Tutankhamun and told Brograve that’s what had caused her memory loss. She didn’t seem upset, just repeated it as fact. Brograve corrected her every time but it had stuck in her head for some reason.

“You were in an accident,” he said. “A long time ago. That’s why you have funny turns.”

He didn’t like to tell her the medical details: about the head injury that caused severe trauma to her brain, and the strokes she had been prone to since then, which the doctors thought were linked to that injury. He didn’t want to remind her of the accident at all, for fear of distressing her, but it didn’t seem right to let her keep thinking the curse of Tutankhamun had caused her to lose her memory. It was strange that in her confusion she had locked onto that ridiculous piece of mythology that used to obsess the press. She hadn’t believed it before. They’d both scoffed at the news reports that blamed the curse for the deaths of anyone who ever visited the tomb. But then everything changed on that awful summer’s day in 1935.

Brograve was in his office at the House of Commons when a policeman rang, very deferential, apologizing that he had bad news. He said Eve had been in a serious road accident and she’d been taken to Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge. He didn’t know how bad it was but said she hadn’t regained consciousness.

Panic took hold, a rushing, gripping feeling of terror, before he shook himself and leaped into action. First he telephoned their housekeeper to check that she could collect Patricia from school, then he borrowed a car from a chap in the office next door to his and set off for the hospital.

Eve was one of the best drivers he knew—much better than he was. Someone must have crashed into her, and he guessed it must have been at speed for her to be injured so badly as to be unconscious. Earlier that year a speed limit of thirty miles per hour had been introduced in built-up areas but it wasn’t popular. Around the country, speed-limit signs had been torn down and tossed into rivers or village ponds. The Englishman liked the freedom to press the accelerator to the floor in his own car. If this turned out to be a case of dangerous driving, Brograve would press for the full weight of the law to be brought to bear. His knuckles were bony ridges as he gripped the steering wheel.

All the way to Cambridge he tried to focus on practicalities. It was nearly the summer recess so he was sure he could take compassionate leave from the House. The health secretary was a friend and he would ask his advice if they needed a second opinion on Eve’s injuries. They might have to cancel their holiday in the South of France; they’d rented a villa for the month of August and invited different sets of friends to join them for a week each. Maybe Eve wouldn’t be well enough now. All these matters occupied his brain, but he refused to let himself think she might not make it. She had to; that’s all there was to it.

When he reached the hospital, a doctor told him that Eve had sustained a head injury and was in a coma. Brograve’s brain froze at the word coma, terrified of the connotations. His ears were ringing so hard he couldn’t hear anything else, then had to ask a nurse to repeat it all later.

When he got to Eve’s bedside, he gripped the rail, watching her tiny face swathed in bandages, the tubes brutally puncturing her skin, the purple bruising already visible on exposed flesh, and he felt totally lost. Could she hear anything? There was no response when he whispered her name.

“Do you want me to telephone someone for you?” a nurse asked. “Any relatives?”

Brograve couldn’t bear to have Porchy there or, even worse, Almina, so he said, “No, thank you.” There was only one person he wanted to talk to and she was lying in front of him, deeply unconscious.

“What happened, Eve?” he whispered, but there was no reply. It was only when two policemen came to the ward to check on her that he learned about the chain of events that had led to the collision.

One of them was Scottish, a tall man with sandy hair; the other was lean and dark with shaggy eyebrows. They spoke to him respectfully, choosing their words with care, helmets on their laps, a little nervous perhaps. They knew he was a government minister.

Brograve looked from one to the other. Though they were trying their best, he knew they didn’t begin to understand. This wasn’t just another traffic accident, just another victim. This was Eve! His Eve! He wanted to shake them to get the urgency across. But instead he sat, and nodded, and listened quietly, wondering if they could feel his desperation, wondering if they cared.