45

Timothy sat against the wall in Morgana’s room with a feeling of calm washing over him. He couldn’t quantify it, but his heavy black overload had disappeared and there was a comforting slackness to his bones. He got up, stretched his neck from side to side, and wandered around the room. It was a large, light room. A perfect nursery shaded to the south by the fully mature walnut tree some thirty feet away. Juglans regia. Bare-branched and currently covered in long tasselly catkins. As a child in bed on April mornings, he would watch its shimmering fingers shake in the wind. He would then bounce on his mattress like a trampoline, until Mumma came in pretending to be cross, but he would laugh and then she’d laugh and he would leap from the bed into her arms.

He wouldn’t come into this room again. He’d lock it and ask Roger to hide the key. Morgana would never be mentioned or intrude into his mind again. Her ghost finally exorcised. On turning from the window he picked up the purple handbag from the floor. He would throw it away. Stash it deep down inside the wheelie bin and eliminate every last scrap of the vile child. ‘Sorry, Father Ewan. No handbag found. Mumma must have changed her mind. Thank you and goodbye.’

He carefully shaved off his heavy three-day overgrowth with an open bladed razor, showered and washed his hair. Throwing on his mother’s kimono again, he walked back to her bedroom and sat down at her dressing table to study himself in the mirror. Dark shadows had formed beneath his eyes and a florid blotch of rosacea covered his forehead. Picking up a pen brush of Touche Éclat, he carefully applied its smooth cream to hide the flaws. His comfortable, dreamy state had become a surge of euphoria, fuelled by love. He loved Roger, he loved Mumma and he loved the happy man who now looked back at him from the mirror.

He stood up and walked down the stairs to the drawing room, clasping the purple bag, deemed for disposal.

Although the central heating was turned on the room felt empty and alien, so he would light a fire. They would eat their takeaway on trays and relax before its cosy warmth, and then watch TV. He knelt and arranged shredded paper, firelighters, kindling wood and some light, dry logs. A match struck and the smoke and flames began to draw up. He sat down on one of the giant sofas and looked up at the painting of his mother, hanging over the mantelpiece.

‘Everything’s going to be all right, Mumma,’ he mouthed.

Outside the wind made a panting sound. The wild weather was returning and a surge of hail smacked against the window like hurled gravel. He snuggled down, moulding his body to the feather cushions with unprecedented joy. With no particular purpose he idly began to examine the bag.

Horrid bag. Horrid colour. Scuffed all along the bottom where the repulsive child had dragged it on the ground behind her. The clasp of the bag was a pronged metal twist. He clicked it open. Anything inside? Yes. A cream A5-sized envelope, sealed shut with one of her bespoke address labels and written on with Mumma’s hand. To Ewan. Personal and private. To be read only after I’m gone. Clearly there were some documents inside, but how could they be personal and private? He was the only person of importance in her life. Father Ewan was only a priest with whom she’d had a detached relationship. Priests were never personal friends. Anything she had to say to Father Ewan could be shared. He ran his thumb under the envelope flap and removed the contents.