‘Thanks, sis. If you could try to find out what this is about …’ Jess sounded vulnerable; she wasn’t used to asking her little sister for help. It was always the other way round.
‘I will.’
While they were speaking, Hattie got up from the table and left the room. She was so light that her feet made no sound on the stairs, not even the second one from the top that always squeaked, and it was only the click of the bathroom door upstairs that let Lorna know where she’d gone.
And then the lock clicked across and they both heard that.
Later, when Lorna was making up a bed on the sofa from the spare pillows and a crocheted blanket that was more decorative than functional, she tried to winkle out what had happened.
‘You don’t have to tell me the whole thing,’ she said as Hattie stood chewing her hair. ‘But I promise I’ll do my best to help, whatever it is.’
‘It’s nothing,’ Hattie muttered, and looked heartbreakingly like the little girl in pigtails that Lorna had pushed on swings and carried to feed ducks. So heartbreakingly like that little girl, in fact, that Lorna couldn’t bear to probe, and instead made her a hot drink and warned her to grab the bathroom before Tiffany got up, or else she’d be waiting hours.
Hattie wouldn’t reveal anything the following day either, even though Lorna tried to create plenty of quiet moments together, and Tiffany focused her not-inconsiderable nannying skills on Hattie in between persuading men to buy handmade jewellery.
‘I thought she was going to say something earlier when she was showing me the photographs on her phone,’ Tiffany whispered as they watched Hattie gift-wrapping at the desk. ‘She’s taken some amazing photos of the town.’
‘Which town?’ Hattie was a skilful gift-wrapper; it was satisfying watching her smooth the paper to a neat crease, twirling the ribbons ruthlessly on a scissor edge.
‘Dur. This town. Dogs in the park, and the fancy railings – she must have been wandering around for hours before she came here last night. It’s so cold, poor kid!’
Lorna opened her mouth to speak, then closed it. It didn’t make sense. Why hadn’t Hattie just come over? No, wait. Thinking about it, it was obvious why not – because Lorna would have phoned Jess immediately, and Jess would have tanked straight over to get her. Hattie clearly wanted to be on her own, and Lorna could understand that, even if she didn’t know why.
‘So what did she nearly say?’
‘She started to say something about not wanting to be at home, then she clammed up. Kids always tell you eventually but you have to let them come round to it.’ Tiffany shrugged. ‘My guess is that it’s a boyfriend her dad doesn’t approve of, or maybe a falling-out at school. She trusts you; she’ll tell you in her own time. Hey, you know what? If all else fails, offer to do an exhibition of her photos here. I told her to post them to Instagram but she went shy and said no, they were rubbish and everyone would laugh at her.’
At least that was more Hattie-like. ‘Well, thanks for trying, Tiff.’
‘No problem.’ Tiffany turned her head. ‘You’re a very arty family. Your mum, you, now Hattie!’
‘I’m no artist,’ said Lorna, automatically. ‘I just find it.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ said Tiff.
The rest of the day passed in a steady chain of sales, and Hattie relaxed over tea, joining in with Tiffany’s tales of nightmare babysitting with some hair-raising stories of her own about Milo and Tyra that Lorna hadn’t heard. It was only when Lorna was putting her on the train home, armed with a coffee and a magazine and some cards from the gallery for Valentine’s Day, that the teenager suddenly threw her arms around Lorna’s neck and squeezed her tightly.
‘Thanks, Auntie Lorna,’ she said, her voice muffled. ‘Sorry if I got in the way.’
‘You didn’t get in the way, you were a big help!’ Lorna held her at arm’s length so she could see in her face that she meant it. ‘Come back any time. Just call me first, so I can get a proper bed made up. And tell your mum and dad you’re coming.’
A cloud passed across Hattie’s open face. ‘They’re going to go mad, aren’t they?’
‘Only because they worry about you.’
Hattie dropped her gaze to the tips of her white DMs, and her hair swung in front of her, a shield over her expression.
‘Let me give you some advice,’ said Lorna. ‘Get your apology in first, and just tell the truth. I know your mum. She needs to know stuff. Whatever it is that’s happened, let her help you with it. That’s all she wants to do – to help you.’
‘She won’t understand.’ It was a painful mumble.
Lorna sighed. ‘The thing is, Hattie, me and your mum – we loved our mum, but we didn’t talk to her that much about our problems. She found it hard – she was an artist, as you know, and I guess her head was often … somewhere else. So if Jess is asking questions it’s only because she worries about what you’re not saying. She’ll be imagining some awful things! She’s got a much better imagination than me …’
It was an attempt at humour, but Hattie didn’t smile.
‘But you know she’d go to the ends of the earth to help you.’ Lorna bit her lip, gripped with sudden love for the awkward girl who looked so like she had once. ‘I would too, if you asked. So … please ask. Ask us anything.’
The train appeared at the end of the platform, and the few evening passengers around them began to step forward. Still Hattie said nothing. Oh God, thought Lorna, panic rising inside her, I’ve run out of time, I’ve failed, Hattie’s going home with nothing solved and everything a mess.
And then Hattie lifted her head and said, with tears in her eyes, ‘I wish I could but even Mum can’t fix this,’ and pushed her way onto the train before Lorna could ask her what she meant.
Valentine’s Day arrived, and there were no cards for Lorna on the mat when she and Rudy returned from his special dog-avoiding morning walk. Not that she was expecting any, she reminded herself.
‘The post hasn’t been,’ said Tiffany. ‘Don’t panic.’
She was barely visible at the kitchen table behind a huge vase of red roses that had arrived before Lorna and Rudy had even left. The deliveryman had informed her that they were the biggest bunch of the day. ‘I needed them out of the van to make room,’ he explained, shoving them in her arms.
‘Who said I was panicking? I’m not expecting anything.’ Lorna filled Rudy’s breakfast bowl, conscious of his adoring gaze directed at her. Her, or the bowl. That was all she needed. ‘Still no clue about your floral overture?’
‘Absolutely none.’
Lorna didn’t believe that. Tiff was glued to her mobile, obviously waiting for a follow-up call from someone. Someone very generous, very smitten, and very mysterious. She nearly always had a boyfriend of some description, and sometimes more than one, but generally she was happy to go into details. Too much detail for Lorna, usually, but she seemed strangely reticent about this.
The landline rang and they both jumped, but Tiffany’s hand was quickest.
‘Hello?’ she said, and the way her face froze, then relaxed with relief, gave Lorna’s suspicions another twist. Why was no one telling her anything these days?
‘OK, I will. No problem.’ Tiffany rolled her eyes, and handed the receiver over. ‘It’s your social worker.’
‘My …?’
‘Keir Brownlow.’
‘Oh. Calling to see if you got his floral tribute?’ Lorna shot back, pressing the phone to her chest.
‘Ha ha. Come on, Rudy, let’s go downstairs and open up Mummy’s gallery.’ Tiffany swept out, Rudy under her arm, his short legs dangling like a child on a ride at Alton Towers. For some reason, Rudy didn’t seem to mind Tiff carrying him round. He seemed calmed by her aura. Maybe it was her executive nanny training, Lorna thought, a special module on Neurotic Dogs of the Rich and Famous.
‘Hello, Keir.’ Lorna topped up her coffee from the cafetière. She’d been expecting a call from Keir about signing up to the dog-walking rota, something she
hadn’t had time for yet. ‘How are you?’
‘I need a favour. Urgently.’ He sounded stressed, and his voice echoed, as if he were in a corridor. ‘Can you go round to Joyce’s and collect Bernard this morning?’
‘Yes, why? What’s up? Does he need to go to the vets?’
‘No, Joyce is in hospital. He’s been on his own since seven last night.’
‘What?’ Lorna put her coffee down. ‘What’s happened? Is she all right?’
‘She fell again yesterday, at home. Probably over Bernard, though she’s denying it. Luckily a neighbour was dropping off the village magazine and heard Bernard going nuts, but the ambulance had to come out and bring her into the hospital for some checks on her hip. The gerontologist couldn’t get round to her until this morning and apparently she’s been creating merry hell all night about the bloody dog. I offered to go over, but she wouldn’t have it – told me to call you. She said you’d know what to do.’
Lorna had to smile. Joyce, dismissing Keir with a flick of the hand, even on a hospital trolley. Poor Keir, always wanting to be the knight in shining armour, and no one ever letting him.
‘Can you believe she said under no account was I even to try to walk it? I mean, him?’ he went on grumpily. ‘She asked if you could go over. It’s all she’s bothered about – doesn’t care about her own condition.’
Lorna could picture Bernard searching through the house, trying to find his mistress, worrying and barking and stressing out. He’d done his best to protect Joyce but Keir was right, he probably was the cause of her fall, weaving around her feet in play. Lorna had nearly tripped over Rudy herself, more than once. ‘No problem, I’ll head over there now.’
‘Thanks, Lorna.’ The relief in Keir’s voice was palpable. ‘That’s made my day way easier already. You wouldn’t believe the forms I’m going to have to go through with her. Wish me luck …’
‘Keir!’ He’d almost gone, but she caught him in time. ‘How’s Joyce? When will she be able to come home?’
It was a question she almost didn’t want to ask, and Keir’s long pause said more than client confidentiality allowed him to.
‘I think she’s going to be fine,’ he said carefully. ‘But as for coming home to her own house … let’s play that one by ear.’
A fresh crop of snowdrops had popped up by the front door since Lorna had last been out to Much Yarley, their drooping heads like fat jade-tipped pearls against the wintry soil. Bernard’s furious barks were ricocheting off the tiled hall floor as she approached the path. It sounded as if he was doing circuits from front door to back, roaring away any intruders.
The barking ceased the second Lorna walked through the door, and was replaced by a joyful panting. Bernard bounced around her legs, tail wagging, thrilled to see his walking companion, eagerly looking past her to see if his friend Rudy was there too. They were quite a pair, the apprehensive dachshund and the gung-ho terrier. Lorna thought that between them they had a whole balanced doggy personality.
‘Calm down!’ she said, trying to get a lead clipped on Bernard’s collar. ‘We’ll have a walk then we’re going into town. You’ll like that. Town’s full of stuff to bark at. I just need to get some things for your … for Joyce.’
Inside the house felt wrong. Lorna sensed Joyce’s affront still lingering in the house, a crossness like firework smoke in the air. The orderly world of Rooks Hall had been invaded: in the sitting room, the armchairs had been pushed to one side, and the stacks of books knocked over, the titles spilling in tipsy piles, hastily nudged under the chair by an impatient foot. A china cup of cold coffee was left by the fireplace, next to a heap of knitting – the knitting Joyce had been doing last time Lorna had visited. She felt a sudden sharp fear that maybe it wouldn’t be finished.
From this, thought Lorna, gazing round at the paintings, to a fluorescent-lit hospital ward. That would be worse for Joyce than the physical discomfort. Rooks Hall was more than a home, it was an extension of her creative mind: the sophisticated palette of colours on the walls, silvery taupes in the curtains and woven rugs, sharp reds and ochres picked out in the gallery of paintings. Joyce’s personality was everywhere: in the threadbare patches on the chairs’ arms where hands had rested and the painted nails had tapped along to the radio, the postcards on the mantelpiece, the knitting.
Lorna paused in front of the painting of the Welsh fisherman’s house above the fireplace, the low white haven above the crashing waves, and an echo of her childhood came back to her – Mum, pinning up sketches in every holiday cottage they rented, so their rooms felt like home. Joyce needed that too, she thought, and made a note to take her a card from the gallery. Something colourful to look at on her bedside table.
Her hand hesitated over the knitting – would Joyce want that too, in hospital, to take her mind off the tedium? Did she need other things, a toilet bag or pyjamas, a book to read, things from upstairs, in her bedroom? Keir hadn’t said but maybe she should save Joyce the embarrassment of asking, and just do it.
Or maybe she shouldn’t, maybe it would make Joyce think she’d been prowling around. Lorna was torn. Joyce Rothery was a private person, that was the one thing she knew for sure about her. Fiercely private.
She wavered. Bernard was restless in the hall, scratching to get out. Lorna’s eyes wandered around, drinking in the detail of the paintings she hadn’t felt able to study properly with Joyce sitting there, watching her. Everywhere she looked there was something intriguing, drops of colour and texture and light. This was the perfect chance – maybe the only chance she’d get – to explore the fascinating corners of Joyce’s artistic mind. To see whether she even had any of Lorna’s mother’s illustrations in her collection. That thought made her tingle. Had they met, two artists living in the same area? Did Joyce know her? Did she rate her?
But even as Lorna thought it, she saw the Welsh cottage again, and shame swept the temptation away. Stop thinking about yourself.
Joyce had trusted her with her two most precious things: her dog, and her privacy. She wasn’t going to betray either of those.
Lorna picked up the knitting, and the ball of sea-green wool it was attached to, and led Bernard out into the garden, locking the door to Rooks Hall behind her.
Chapter Ten
The nurse who took Lorna down to see Joyce on the geriatric ward informed her that since Joyce had no serious injuries, she’d been put in a room with three other elderly ladies until she could be discharged.
‘Social services need to make sure home’s nice and safe,’ she explained as Lorna scurried to keep up with her rapid pace down the corridor. ‘No real damage done this time, definitely not to her vocal cords, anyway. But there’s a duty of care, see …’
The three other patients were asleep, their heads tilted and toothless mouths open like dozing turtles, but Joyce was sitting bolt upright, fighting the green hospital gown and the plastic tray with an untouched lunch on it with all her might. She was glaring at the juicebox in particular. It had a straw .
‘Visitor for you, Joyce!’ said the nurse, then immediately corrected herself. ‘Mrs Rothery.’
Joyce looked up, and managed a wintry smile when she saw Lorna. ‘Thank you, Kelly.’ Her eyes were bright in her face, but she looked smaller, more vulnerable in the hospital gown instead of her usual tunic and earrings. Her silver hair was flattened to one side where she’d been sleeping, and Lorna felt a protective urge to fluff it up for her. A protective urge that she hastily suppressed.
‘Hello, there!’ she said in a low voice, so as not to wake the others. ‘How are …?’
Joyce raised a warning hand. ‘Absolutely fine, thank you very much, no need to go through that rigmarole.’ She indicated the chair by the bedside and Lorna obediently sat down. ‘First things first – Bernard. Is he all right?’
‘I walked him down the lane, and now he’s back at the flat having a nap with Rudy.’
That was sort of true. Lorna had been towed up and down the lane for half
an hour on the other end of Bernard’s lead while he lunged and barked at everything in sight, from trees to squirrels to gusts of wind. Although Lorna strayed as close to Sam’s farmland as she could, she hadn’t seen any sign of human life – not Sam, Gabe or their dad. And then she’d kicked herself for straying up there in the first place.
‘Good. Good.’ Joyce folded her hands, and unfolded them. Then, just as Lorna was beginning to wonder if she was really all right, she squared her thin shoulders and looked straight into Lorna’s face, her deep blue eyes urgently conspiratorial.
‘Thank you for taking care of Bernard. I thought it better to leave him where he was until you could intervene, rather than let Keir attempt to walk him.’ She elongated Keir’s name with a withering sigh. ‘By the time he’d consulted his committee about the ethical way to walk a terrier, or indeed if a pedigree terrier was even ethical in and of itself, I expect Bernard would have been on the other side of Longhampton with a trail of carnage in his wake.’
Lorna wasn’t sure she could come up with a quick answer to that, so she reached into her bag for the knitting. ‘He’s fine. I’m happy to have him. Just concentrate on yourself. The nurse said you could be sent home any moment, but I’ve brought you some distractions, just in case.’ She put the needles and wool on the side table, along with a copy of The Times. None of the magazines in the hospital shop seemed appropriate. ‘I hope it’s all right – this is the knitting you left on the chair by the fire? I’ve got my own dog jumper here too – I’m stuck again on a leg hole. I don’t know if you could have a look …’
Joyce turned her head with interest when she saw the half-finished work. If she were being honest, Lorna hadn’t planned to bring Rudy’s new jumper for Joyce to check – she carried it in her bag all the time, anyway – but she’d noticed how a new energy came into the old lady’s eyes when she was straightening up Lorna’s puckered stitches into something approaching neatness.
‘Only if you feel up to it,’ she added.
‘Of course. That little chap needs a warm jumper in this weather. Hand it over.’ Joyce gestured to the needles, and as soon as Lorna passed them, she started running her fingertips along the stitches, counting silently and twisting the wool around her fingers to get the tension right.