‘Have you got everything?’ Liam Maginnis asked.
‘I think so,’ Meg said, giving a last look round. She saw nothing that was hers. The little room was anonymous again.
Her mother lifted a soft suitcase containing her belongings, of which there were more than when she had arrived seven months ago: tapes and a player, make-up and washing things, books which had accumulated, including a couple of exercise guides which the physiotherapist had given her. And basic clothes.
A couple of the nurses had helped with that over the last couple of months, popping into Marks and Spencer in their spare time to find things that were her new size and were the sort she might choose for herself if she had the chance.
Gloria herself had volunteered to go shopping for her but Meg had declined the suggestion, relieved to be able to say that the nurses had already offered. She wouldn’t trust her mother’s taste but she didn’t want to offend her either. She had been caring in other ways, looking after all her washing, bringing freshly laundered things a couple of times a week, and now she was taking her home.
‘Let me help you with that,’ Maginnis volunteered, and took the suitcase.
‘Kind of you,’ Gloria said.
Meg watched him and wondered if she was wrong, wondered if the reflection in the mirror had been all in the mind. As time passed she found it difficult to see him as anything other than what he appeared to be. She took a deep breath. ‘Right. Better get this over with.’
She went out of the room and stood at the entrance to the main ward. A nurse was checking someone’s chart. There were five patients currently, two of them dozing while the others stared at the TV without much real interest.
Meg glanced towards the screen. It was that Granada programme, the one which had written to her. She had replied to them and said yes, she would do it, and they had written back with a couple of suggested dates. The final decision would be hers.
Seeing it now up there on the screen, all superficial smiles and flower arrangements, she had a sudden feeling of doubt.
‘Och, are you away?’
The nurse had spotted her.
‘Yes,’ she smiled, ‘you’re getting rid of me at last.’ She waved down the ward. The patients were all alert now, looking in her direction. ‘Cheerio, everybody,’ she called. ‘I hope everything will be all right for you.’
They called back to her.
‘They’re letting you out?’
‘Watch you don’t hurt yourself going over the wall.’
She laughed and waved again, then turned away and walked the few steps to the nurses’ room. Freda Doran was the senior nurse, the ward manager. She sat at her desk where a huge box of chocolates lay open. Meg had asked her mother to bring it and she saw that the staff had been dipping into it already.
‘I’m off now,’ she said.
‘So you’re going?’ Freda got up and hurried over to her. Two other nurses and a couple of the auxiliary staff appeared in the corridor where Maginnis and Gloria were standing with the case. Word was spreading.
Freda was a small woman who did everything at speed. She grasped Meg’s hand to shake it, then changed her mind, reached up and hugged her. When she stepped back, she said: ‘Now you look after yourself, do you hear me?’ She glanced towards Meg’s mother. ‘You make sure you keep an eye on her, won’t you, Mrs Winter?’
‘Don’t worry about that,’ Gloria said.
Meg had not wanted this; she had been dreading giving in to an emotional scene. There were people all around her now, shaking her hand, hugging her as she made her way into the corridor again. She felt tears in her eyes but two of the younger nurses were way ahead of her, sobbing into handkerchiefs. Even Freda Doran was trying hard to stay composed.
‘I wish I could take you all home with me,’ Meg said. She took her glasses off and rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand.
Maginnis stepped in. ‘Right, I think we’d better get you out of here while we can.’ He raised his voice with mock authority. ‘I can’t see much work being done around here if we don’t. What do you think, Ms Doran?’
She caught his pitch. ‘Quite so, Mr Maginnis. Right, everybody, get on with whatever you were doing. And don’t worry, she’ll come back to see us, won’t you, dear?’
Meg nodded and blew her nose in a tissue her mother gave her. ‘Of course I will,’ she said. ‘Just you try to stop me.’
They went on down the corridor, past the day room to which the most mobile patients had access, where they sat and read or watched television. Two from an adjacent ward were there, in front of a brand new wide screen digital set that had been installed two days ago. It was Sam Winter’s way of saying thanks.
She had recovered well enough by the time her mother swung the Golf into the driveway of her bungalow on a hill at Carry-duff.
A Yorkshire terrier trembled eagerly at the living-room window when it recognised the car. The house was in a development which was a manifestation of the way Greater Belfast was steadily annexing the countryside around it, open fields and farming land giving way to new estates with names like Pines and Meadows. Some of the houses were red brick, others were white and pebble-dashed. They fought for individuality and superiority through the exaggerated splendour of their front gardens and the quality of their owners’ cars, posed outside garages that were used as storerooms and DIY dens.
Meg had seen the house for the first time a couple of months ago, on one of her days out. It was not the house where she had grown up; Gloria had sold that two years ago. It had been a bungalow, too, built by Seasons Construction in a prosperous corner of North Down, and Sam had let her have it as part of the separation arrangements. But when she sold it and pocketed enough to allow her to buy this house and have a lot left over he had not exactly been ecstatic. He had moaned about it to Meg.
In fairness, the change of address had not been motivated by financial gain. The real reason for the move could be seen if you walked to the top end of the avenue and looked back down the tiered rows of low roofs and across the main road.
Up a long drive, surrounded by green lawns, stood a white building that seemed to shine like a mirage. Above its door, in black gothic letters, were the words Pentecostal Baptist Church.
‘Nearer my God to thee,’ her father had said cynically. ‘This church your mother belongs to, they’ve got this big new place so she decided she’d like to live close to it. The pastor is supposed to be a kind of charismatic figure, draws the crowds. Your mother’s become devoted, whether it’s to him or the church I don’t know. I don’t suppose she knows herself.’
Meg stepped into her mother’s hallway and sniffed. Something was cooking.
‘Mmm, smells good,’ she said.
The little dog had mastered the vertical lift-off, springing up and down in an ecstatic greeting. Meg patted him and told him he was a good boy. ‘Bet you’d like some of whatever it is, wouldn’t you?’
‘Chicken casserole,’ Gloria told her. ‘It’s in the oven. I thought it would be nice for lunch. Something a bit special.’
‘Lovely,’ Meg said, walking on into the house. ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’
Her mother was already in the kitchen. ‘No,’ she shouted back, ‘I’ll take care of everything. You just relax and make yourself at home.’
It would not be easy.
Apart from the cooking smells and the dog’s happy greeting, there was little she found welcoming. It had disappointed her, the first time she was here, to discover that her mother had managed to transfer to this house the same lack of warmth which had always characterised the old one.
Familiar ornaments were placed here and there, things she had known all her life. In a glass cabinet and on delicate tables that smelled of lavender polish, there were Hummel figures and porcelain animals, small dogs mostly. Although they were evidence of a sugary streak, not the frosty exterior most people saw, she had always disliked them. In her early childhood, the regular addition of new pieces, their loving handling and careful positioning, coupled with dire warnings that she should not go near, had always made her feel that they were more precious to her mother than she was.
On days when she was unhappy or lonely, and there had been too many of those, she had felt as if she were being mocked by their poses of constant bliss. Once, frustrated and angry for some reason impossible to recall, she had swept a willowy shepherdess from the mantelpiece, breaking the thing’s arm off in the fall to the hearth. There had been war over that, followed by long days of silence.
As with the other house, this one was kept in a permanent state of perfection. Every surface shone. On the armchairs and settees, there were cushions puffed up as if no one ever sat and disturbed them.
On a coffee table in the living room, reminding Meg of a doctor’s waiting room, there was a handful of Christian magazines, their covers showing happy, healthy faces glowing with an inner spirituality.
Yet her mother demonstrated none of this open-hearted joy.
Seeking comfort in religion, changing her way of life when her marriage broke up, had not been a totally unexpected step. Gloria had been brought up in the Presbyterian church, and she had always been a regular attender. Her mother, Meg’s grandmother, had been good living, to use the time-honoured Ulster expression. Even the name, Gloria, had a hymnbook ring. When things went bad she had simply sought comfort where she hoped it would be found and her search had led to the open doors of the Pentecostal Baptist Church.
Meg looked around. Whatever fulfilment the church gave her, this was the home of a lonely person, someone without much in her life.
Not to mention a daughter who did not really want to be here.
She took her bag down the hall to the bedroom that would be hers for a while.
‘Can you manage all right?’ Gloria asked, coming out of the kitchen.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I’ll just leave this and unpack it later.’
There was a wardrobe and chest of drawers, a dressing table with a mirror. A pink duvet, smooth and straight, without even a hint of a crease, covered a single bed. On a table beside it stood a small vase containing a couple of pink roses. A shelf above that held a solitary book: a Bible with a soft black cover and gold-edged pages.
It felt like a hotel room.
She opened the wardrobe and was startled to find it full of her own clothes, all in plastic dry-cleaning covers. She stopped and stared for a moment, not quite knowing what to do, then she took some of them – skirts, jackets – out, and held them against herself. They felt as if they belonged to someone who no longer existed.
‘Most of these clothes of mine are too big – absolutely no use to me,’ she called. ‘Does your church take things for charity?’
The Yorkie heard her voice and ran into the room. It jumped on the bed and began bouncing on it like a trampoline.
‘God, you’re wrecking the place,’ Meg chuckled. ‘You’ll not be popular.’
Her mother came in to answer her question and saw the dog. ‘Oh, look at that stupid thing. Look what he’s done.’
‘It’s all right, Mum. He’s just a bit excited.’
‘He usually has a walk about now.’
Meg lifted the animal off the bed and held it under her arm. ‘Well, then, why don’t I take him while you’re doing things in the kitchen?’
‘There’s no need to do that,’ her mother said hurriedly. ‘You’ve just arrived. You don’t want to get yourself too tired.’
Meg gave her an exasperated look. ‘Mum, I’m fine. I’m not suggesting an overland expedition. I won’t take him far and I won’t get lost. I’ll be back in half an hour at the most. Now, does he have a lead or anything?’
As if it had somewhere to go and was late, the dog kept her hurrying along. It pulled against its harness, like a husky dragging a heavy sled, pausing only to irrigate selected garden walls and lamp posts.
Two doors down, a woman came out of her front door. There were flowering cherry trees along her driveway, a three-series BMW estate at the door.
‘Good morning,’ she said, then stood and watched Meg pass.’
Meg nodded. ‘Hi.’
Outside another house, a tall, elderly man in a body-warmer and a cap was washing a Volvo. He paused and straightened as she approached, watching her with crinkled eyes.
‘Good morning,’ he said, touching the brim of the cap.
‘Morning,’ Meg said.
It was not an Ulster characteristic to greet strangers in the street but these people did and she knew why. In their faces she saw the same look of curiosity the painter in Truesdale Street had given her. They knew who she was. As she and the dog moved on she wondered who else was watching them, peeping from behind their curtains.
Her mother had been uneasy about her going out and now Meg understood the reason. Gloria Winter was the mother of the Coma Woman. The whole neighbourhood would know that and now they would know she was home. Here she was, large as life and walking down the street, just what her mother did not want them to see.
She felt their eyes on her back.
The dog seemed to have a route. It led her along places called ‘Park’ and ‘Close’ and ‘Rise’ and eventually she found herself down at the main road. There was a petrol station and a fast food place and a taxi firm beside that.
On the other side of the road was the Pentecostal Baptist Church.
Viewed closer, it was a peculiar building, with turrets and peephole windows. Rough-cast, painted brilliant white, it was like a desert fort made out of icing sugar. The gateway was a huge arch that reminded her of the entrance to the Southfork ranch in Dallas, all those years ago.
On a big hoarding a poster proclaimed: Special Free Offer This Week – God’s Love.
With this was a picture of a man with an exaggerated grin and hair like folds of whipped ice cream.
She turned, letting the dog lead her home. The little animal’s energy had made this a much more brisk walk than she had expected and when she got back she felt a bit breathless.
She opened the kitchen door. ‘Boy, he knows how to take you for a walk, doesn’t he?’
Her mother was draining saucepans in a cloud of steam. ‘You need to keep the lead short. That’ll hold him back.’
Meg bent to liberate the beast. ‘We met some of your neighbours,’ she said.
‘Met?’ Gloria stiffened slightly but did not turn from the sink.
‘Well, said hello.’
‘Who were they?’
‘I wouldn’t know. A woman a couple of houses down. A man at the house next to that. Looked like he might have been a policeman.’
‘Oh, him. He was a chief superintendent. Retired now. Did they wonder who you were?’
‘I don’t think so, Mum. I think they know perfectly well, don’t you?’
Gloria said nothing for a moment, then she announced in a subdued voice: ‘Lunch will be just a couple of minutes.’
‘I’ll go and wash my hands.’
When she went into the bathroom she found her washbag on a shelf and her toothbrush in a rack. She turned quickly and went into the bedroom. Her case sagged empty in a corner and her books were stacked beside the Bible.
She opened drawers. Her underclothes had all been put away, so had her tapes and the little player. In the wardrobe she found her new things hanging beside the old.
She sat on the bed and sighed. Damn it, this would have to stop. Right here. She felt invaded, as if everyone was spying on her, even her mother.
Take it calmly. Explain quietly but firmly why this is not acceptable, how intrusive it is.
But she could already hear the response – ‘I’m only trying to help.’
As she stood up to close the wardrobe door she saw something at the bottom, in among her old shoes. It was a shoulder-bag and she remembered it. It was small, with a long strap. Nothing too bulky.
Just the sort of bag she would have taken to the Clarendon Dock.
She paused for a second before lifting it out. There were faded brownish stains across the front where something had been spilled and her heart tied itself in a knot because she knew at once that it was her own blood.
It was a couple of minutes before she could bring herself to open it, fingers trembling as she twisted the little golden clasp.
From inside came the waning scent of a perfume she could not quite name. There were two unused tissues still neatly folded inside a little Kleenex wrapper. There was a comb, two mints twisted into the tail end of a packet, an emery board and a lipstick. She opened it. The shade was a deep red. Like blood.
There was nothing else.
Her purse had been there, and in it the things they had found to identify her, but she had that herself now. Her mother had given it back to her.
You were the girl who always had the condoms in the handbag in case you got lucky. Remember?
Had there been any? Had her mother found them?
‘This is on the table,’ Gloria called. ‘Are you ready?’
The voice startled her and she put the bag away quickly.
‘Coming,’ she said and went back to the bathroom. She washed her hands vigorously, as if trying to get rid of something.
Her mother had set the table in the dining room. There was a perfect white embroidered linen tablecloth, linen napkins in silver rings and laminated place mats showing Victorian rural scenes. Apart from the casserole she had cooked new potatoes and broccoli.
She was pouring elderflower cordial into crystal glasses. Meg sat down opposite. Her mat was a group of men in collarless shirts and heavy moustaches working at a dangerous-looking machine in a field of flax.
But all she saw was the bag.
Finding it had knocked her sideways. And now, in the stuffy formality of this room, she felt awkward and uncomfortable, like a new lodger, afraid to lift the wrong knife or fork or leave a speck on the spotless cloth.
She forced a smile. ‘This looks terrific,’ she said and opened the napkin carefully across her knees.
Gloria closed her eyes and clasped her hands in front of her.
‘We thank you, Lord, for your generous bounty.’ Her voice was unsettlingly loud in the small, square room. ‘We thank you for the gift of your grace, we thank you for the gift of health which you have provided so that we may be sound in mind and body as we proclaim your glorious works. They will celebrate your abundant goodness and joyfully sing of your righteousness. We thank you for Margaret’s recovery, for her safe return from the emptiness of the wilderness into which she was cast and we pray that the peace of Christ will rule in her heart.’ She paused. ‘Amen.’
Meg held her breath and stared at the men in the flax field. They seemed to be waiting. She looked up and saw her mother’s eyes fixed on her.
‘Amen,’ she whispered in response.
‘Now, then,’ Gloria said and passed her a plate. ‘Help yourself.’
The stress of the morning, as well as the walk with the dog and a much heavier lunch than she was used to – apple crumble and custard had followed and been eaten with her mother’s insistence; ‘you need building up’ – all of it had exhausted her and so she said she was going to lie down for a little while.
She slipped under the duvet in bra and pants but in spite of her tiredness, she did not drop off to sleep straight away. She was too tense.
She got up and opened the window slightly. It was stifling in this house. She needed space of her own and freedom to be able to think clearly but she would have it soon, she consoled herself; this was just for a few weeks.
Could she stand it that long?
She got back into bed and told herself that she would let it all wash over her and not feel intimidated by it. The prayers, the good china – it was just her mother’s way.
She turned on her side, facing the wardrobe. The bag was in there, back in the place where she had found it, behind that closed door. She closed her eyes but she could still see it in her mind, a bloody souvenir. She tried to blot it from her thoughts.
No. That was wrong.
She was planning to go on TV and she couldn’t even handle this?
She leaped out of bed, opened the wardrobe door and grabbed the thing. She put it on the bedside table where she could see it and then she got into bed again.
The long thin shoulder strap hung down towards the floor.
Facing things. That was the only way.
At first, when she woke again, she did not know where she was.
Then she saw the bag.
There were voices somewhere. That must have been what disturbed her. She could hear her mother and there was the deeper rumble of a man’s voice. She looked at her watch. Half past five. She had slept for several hours.
She got up, slipped into her clothes and brushed her hair, wondering idly for a second what it would look like short.
She walked down the hall and into the living room. Her mother was sitting on the settee. A man was in an armchair by the fireplace with his back to the door.
‘Margaret,’ Gloria said, getting to her feet. ‘Did you have a good sleep? I didn’t want to wake you.’ She smiled broadly. It felt like an act.
The man stood and turned. He was somewhere just past fifty, tall in a dark suit and a white shirt that showed off a tan. The even, gleaming teeth, the waves of hair, were brighter than in the poster outside the church.
He stepped forward and lifted Meg’s right hand, enveloping it in both of his. ‘The Lord bless you,’ he said.
‘This is Pastor Alan Drew,’ Gloria explained.
‘So wonderful,’ Drew said, still holding Meg’s hand. The heat of his grasp was like a current. His bright eyes examined her face, the smile unyielding. ‘So wonderful to see what can come from the great healing power of the Lord and the strength of a mother’s prayers.’
His voice was a baritone blend of Belfast and Bible belt.
‘Let us give thanks.’
He stepped back slightly, raised his right hand high and placed his left on Meg’s shoulder. The grip was hard and firm and it took her by surprise, leaving her unable to move.
She looked towards her mother. Gloria was standing with head bowed.
Drew closed his eyes and raised his face towards heaven, which was somewhere above and beyond the light fitting with the frilly shade that hung over the centre of the room. The walls seemed to vibrate with his voice.
‘We thank thee, O Lord, for the safe return of this beloved child.’
‘Amen,’ Gloria agreed.
‘We know that she has been restored for a purpose and we pray that she may take you to her heart as her own personal saviour. Like you, Lord, she is risen.’
Meg felt his hand grip her tighter.
‘See – the risen Jesus has entered the tomb!’
His voice became more urgent, excited, as if behind his flickering eyelids he was watching something happening.
‘He takes hold of you and the life enters your body. You feel it growing, spreading within you. It is not the old life, not the life of the flesh and sinful desires, but it is the new life – His life.’
‘Praise the Lord,’ Gloria said, a quiver in her voice.
‘He lifts you to your feet and you follow where he leads. He brings you out of the tomb, out into brilliant sunlight. It is the same world that you left, sin and all manner of evil still abounds within it, but you will be different now, a new person, your soul and spirit restored by his grace. By the power of his blood.’
Blood.
The word was like a click of the fingers.
Meg saw the bag on the bedside table. She saw Paul Everett’s face.
She blinked, then looked at Drew. His voice, his hands, his presence, that was the only word for it, were almost irresistible. Almost.
She dropped her shoulder and moved back out of his grasp. Drew’s eyes flicked open and in that second she saw in them something that was less than an unbounded generosity of spirit.
And he knew that she had seen.
Got you, she thought.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘This is very difficult. I . . . I don’t want to appear ungrateful but I’m not quite ready for any of this yet. I’m not sure it’s what I want just now. It’s all a bit overwhelming.’
Her mother looked shocked. ‘What are you—’
Drew interrupted. ‘Then let us pray in our hearts that the barriers may be removed.’ He smiled, understanding and compassion miraculously restored. ‘Fear, suspicion, doubt – these are barriers. But to walk in the light means that there are no barriers separating you from others. To walk in the light is to live in love.’ He nodded, as if agreeing with himself. ‘I know you will come to live in that gracious state. I know that is the will of the Lord Jesus Christ.’
‘Amen,’ Gloria said automatically. Her face was flushed with embarrassment. Then she said: ‘Pastor Drew, I’m sorry you’ve—’
He shook his head in a way that said he had come up against this sort of problem before and nothing was insurmountable.
‘Don’t reproach yourself,’ he told her. He took a card from his pocket and handed it to Meg. ‘Jesus stands and knocks at the door and waits for a response, a response of faith, an invitation to take up residence. When he gets that response, the door is opened and he enters the hallway and it is full of light. But there may still be many rooms in that mansion where the light has not yet penetrated.’ He smiled. ‘Jesus understands.’
He shook Meg’s hand. ‘Your heart is troubled and uncertain but you have no need to feel alone. There is love here. Should you feel the need for a voice to talk to at any time, then all you have to do is call me. And now, my dear Gloria, I must go.’
Her mother showed him to the door, still murmuring apologies which he kept on dismissing.
Meg felt able to breathe again. The man seemed to have soaked up all the oxygen in the room. She heard a car engine start and she turned to the window in time to see him depart in a sky blue seven-series BMW.
The Lord moves in mysterious ways.
Her mother came back, her face spelling trouble.
‘You humiliated me,’ she said.
‘Then I’m sure I’ll be forgiven.’ She had had enough. ‘That’s the Christian way, isn’t it?’
Just as quickly she softened. ‘Mum, I’m sorry, but look at everything that’s happened today. Look at the way you reacted when I went out. You didn’t want the neighbours to see me, did you? No, too much of an embarrassment. Then, going through my things as soon as my back was turned, putting them all away. How do you think that made me feel? And then this . . . this pastor, bringing him here without discussing it with me. Mum, I had to call a halt.’
‘Call a halt? Call a halt? God himself called a halt to your . . . your . . . the way you lived your life, the sin and shame of it.’ Her voice seethed with emotion. ‘I prayed. Night after night, day after day, I prayed. I blamed myself. I confessed my own inadequacy to the Lord for not having done more to guide you on to the true path. But God knew. The drugs, the drinking, people murdered – he punished me, punished me and shamed me in the eyes of the world for what I failed to do. And then he brought you back, restored you. There can be only one reason for that – can’t you see? It’s so that we can both be united in Christ.’
It was all there, all feeding away in her mind.
‘Take this opportunity,’ Gloria said, holding out her arms. ‘Seize it. Repent of your sins. Think of the things you did. All the lust. The, the . . . sex.’ She forced herself to say the word.
Meg thought of the bag.
‘Find the true path,’ Gloria said.
‘I think I will,’ Meg said. ‘The path out of here.’ She walked past her mother out of the room. ‘I think that would be best.’
Gloria followed her. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean I’m leaving.’
She went into the bedroom and lifted her case. She turned to her mother, realising she was behaving a bit petulantly, thinking she should try to explain, to be reasonable. ‘Look, this isn’t going to work, is it? It’s best if I pack up now and go. There’s a taxi company beside the filling station at the bottom of the hill. I saw it earlier when I was out with the dog. I’ll get a cab there.’
‘And go where?’
‘Home. My own place. Truesdale Street. Dad gave me the keys.’ She paused. ‘He was right.’
‘Right about what?’
‘You. Your church. He warned me. I didn’t expect anything quite so – so oppressive. Or quite so soon.’ She gave her mother a look. ‘That’s some car your friend the pastor has. How much do you contribute to his church funds?’
‘That isn’t any of your business.’
‘No, I don’t suppose it is.’ She began to open drawers and put things back into the case.
‘Why?’ Gloria said, pain in her voice. ‘Why is God punishing me like this?’
She looked suddenly helpless and Meg began to wonder if she was doing the right thing. But then she told herself she was. She put her hands on her mother’s shoulders. Gloria flinched as if stung then moved away.
‘It isn’t like that, Mum. No one’s punishing you for anything. It’s you and me, that’s all. We see things a different way. It’s – it’s torture for you having me here. So it’s best if we cut our losses.’
‘I kept you alive,’ Gloria said. Tears were close at hand.
‘You prayed for me,’ Meg said. ‘I appreciate that.’
Gloria gave her a look, then smiled a secret smile. ‘No, I kept you alive. Your father would have let you die when you were at Knockvale. I kept you alive.’
‘What do you mean? What are you talking about?’
‘Ask him.’ She turned and left the room.
She had enough cash to pay for the cab.
There were two locks on the front door and the phone had been ringing for a while by the time she got inside and managed to find it. It was a cordless thing set into a charging mechanism in the kitchen, or rather, the kitchen section.
It was her father. She knew it would be him.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked her.
‘Hello, Dad.’
‘I rang your mother’s to talk to you and she said you’d gone. She sounded upset. Are you all right?’
‘She says you would have let me die.’
‘What?’
‘She says that when I was in that nursing home you would have let me die. Is it true?’
‘Look, this isn’t the time—’
‘Is it true?’
‘Meg, it wasn’t like that. Watching you lying there, day after day, all I did was wonder—’
She hung up.
The phone rang again almost immediately but she didn’t answer it. Eventually it stopped.
In the descending dusk of the summer night, she sat alone in the strangeness of the big open room, watching lights coming on in windows opposite and curtains being drawn.