It is like an answer to prayer. That is the ironic thing. Mobiles are not strictly allowed in the morning prayer meetings. But she has never switched hers off. There is always the chance for news. To switch off her phone would be to concede defeat.
The ringtone gets a dirty look from the twenty-something curate. Emily knows she should silence the phone and continue but she sees the caller ID and the contact she saved before that first interview.
DR PRINCE (THE ABBEY).
‘Excuse me,’ she says, breaking off mid-prayer, much to the flamboyant confusion of the curate and the others. Her words break the spell. She disappears through the church office door. She hears the rector hastily cover with a prayer of his own.
Time is a strange beast. She remembers swiping her thumb across the screen. She remembers the freshness of the carpet outside the church office. Then, after that, events fuzz and crackle. Afterwards she can never recall how long she waited for a cab or how quick the journey from St Margaret’s to the Abbey was. She remembers looking at the name ‘RICHARD’ in her phone contacts and knowing she must call him but without knowing how. All she hears is the melodic sound of Benedict Prince on repeat.
I think you should get to the Abbey as quickly as possible. It’s Anna . . .
There is a cab. Central London washes by in a blur of landmarks and tourists and traffic. She fiddles with her contactless payment and stumbles onto Harley Street and feels blood-sugar weak, strength drained from each limb. There is more, of course: Dr Prince waiting for her on the ground floor; rushing up to the third floor, rather than the usual second floor; explanations about the functional MRI test and a superstitious reluctance to move Anna in case her eyes close again.
Emily hears very little of it. Instead, there are just nerves. She is a different person to the last time Anna saw her. The Emily Ogilvy of 2019 was in her pomp. She was a member of the Shadow Cabinet, a heavyweight figure within the Opposition, poised on the threshold of major government office. She had staff, an entourage, fellow travellers, hangers-on, supporters, even fans. Her old self had a husband, two peachily perfect children. Today she is rebuked by a man twenty years her junior during a morning prayer meeting. She is single. Her son has fled halfway across the world. She isn’t the person Anna once knew.
There is that other worry too. The unspoken one. Not Anna asleep. But Anna awake. All the things she might remember.
And then, like that, Anna is there. Or the person masquerading as Anna. The Ill Anna, she must think of her daughter now. The strength-starved limbs, the matted hair, the skeleton thinness and air of decay. The Ill Anna who has aged decades, growing old while still being young. But that doesn’t matter somehow. The worries, the media, the questions, the guilt – all is temporarily stilled. Emily sees her child lying in bed with her eyes open for the first time in four years. And the memories come: the bedtime stories, the holiday snuggles, the school bugs, the Christmas mornings, the birthday surprises, the brow-stroking, the endless cycle of interactions, each one humdrum and blissful.
Emily sees her tears drip onto Anna’s face. She wipes them dry. She leaves her hand there, caressing her daughter’s cheeks, the eyes reacting.
Anna’s personality slowly overtakes everything, her face suddenly injected with soul again, the miracle of life enacted before them both.
‘Hello, my darling,’ says Emily. ‘Welcome back.’