Helen should be here soon. Any minute her car will drive up in front. If I kneel on the window seat, lean on one hand, and put the side of my head against the glass, I can see almost to the end of the street. I want Helen to come. I want to see her car drive up, hear the reassuring sound of tires scrunching on the tarmac outside the house. There’s nothing I need. I just need her, my daughter. I lean over again to look up the road. The wind catches the shrubs in the front garden, beating them against the gate post, and the noise of it—the rustling, the sharp shuffling—makes me shudder. I find I’m staring very hard at the gaps in the branches. A car comes by, the headlights swinging on to the house and the gate and the hedge, and for a second I think I see someone crouching amongst the leaves, a hand crushing the fragile stems, and a mouth open—to eat or shout.
I scramble backwards, the cushion slips from under me and I lose my balance, dropping on to the floor. There’s a sudden sharp pain in my thumb and a crunching sound. I whip my hand up in shock, letting out a wail and holding my thumb in the other hand. I hold it tight, and the pain subsides. I can’t think what I’ve done. “Hush, hush,” I say, cradling the hand. Helen used to hold my thumb when she was a baby. Sometimes she holds my hand now, but not very often.
There’s the sound of a car behind me and I turn in hope. But it only glides past, not stopping. It wasn’t Helen at the wheel, anyway. The streetlight shone on a fair-haired man. So the streetlights are on, but I didn’t notice it get dark. I stare out of the window and feel a hollowing of my insides. Helen doesn’t come this late. She isn’t coming tonight. Or perhaps—it’s unlikely, but perhaps—she has already been. And I’ve forgotten. I stare out at the empty street. Tears make the lights sparkle and I lift a hand to wipe them away, feeling a sharp pain in my thumb. I gasp in shock, but I can’t think what I’ve done to it. I look across to the telephone, but it seems miles away, far too far away for me ever to get to it. I seem to have this feeling more and more. I suppose it’s my age; it’s how I always thought getting old would be. But I remember this sort of tiredness from when I was ill the summer after Sukey disappeared.
I hadn’t been sleeping and my brain seemed to be too hot and tired to work properly. I forced myself through the kitchen door one morning, on my way to school, and found that I couldn’t make it to the end of the road. I was walking for what felt like miles, but had barely got past Mrs. Winners’s gate. I looked back towards home but it seemed to have moved further off, as if it was going out for the day, same as I was. I didn’t know what to do and so I just stood still for a moment, hoping to get my breath.
And of course it was Mrs. Winners herself who found me, collapsed on the pavement, not unconscious, but not quite right in the head, either. I remember the feel of the pavement, chalky under my hands, and the smell of perfume as Mrs. Winners came out of her house. I remember thinking it was really lovely, the way a warm sweater is when you’re cold. I kept breathing in the scent as she helped me up and back to my house.
I was in bed for weeks and weeks after that, staring at the light patterns on the walls and straining to hear the radio in the sitting room. Ma had it brought up to my bedroom for a while, but it made me sleep fitfully, and what I needed most of all was rest. Both my parents were very worried, I found out after. Dad hardly ever came in to see me because he was sure I would die and he couldn’t face it, what with Sukey gone.
Ma was more anxious about my mind. She said I talked a lot in my sleep and some of it frightened her. I’m not surprised I talked. I must have been really delirious at one stage because there were several times when I thought Sukey was lying on her old bed, staring at me. And once when I saw Douglas doing the same.
I had lots of strange visions. I saw Sukey with her hair tangled, telling me she didn’t have a comb, and I kept saying, “I gave you one, Sukey, don’t you remember?” And I saw hundreds of snails all over the ceiling. And, once, I saw the mad woman leaning over me, her teeth bared and her umbrella raised. And I heard songs over and over, silly Vera Lynn songs that I didn’t even like. And I thought I heard mice scratching in the skirting and bombs dropping over the town, and my friend Audrey calling me. And there was the constant roll of waves close to my ear, though I had no shells to listen to. And one time I was sure someone had come in the back door, but when I called down I got no answer.
“It’s nice to be home,” I say to Helen. “Nice to be back in my own home after all this time.” We’ve come from the hospital. I had to go because of some problem. What was it now? Anyway, it’s nice to be home.
“You were only at the hospital for a few hours, Mum. Don’t overdo it.” She drops her car keys on to the coffee table.
“No, Helen,” I say. “It was longer than that. Several weeks. Perhaps months. A long, long time.”
“A few hours,” she says again.
“Why must you argue? I’m just saying that it’s nice to be back.” I hit my hand on the chair arm and it makes a muffled thud. It’s all bandaged up.
“Okay, Mum, you’re right,” I hear Helen say. “It is always nice to be home again, isn’t it? And I thought you’d feel better after a visit. I know it wasn’t very nice, I know it was a bit sad, but at least you can stop worrying now.”
I don’t know what she’s wittering on about. Can’t she see my hand’s a giant white cocoon? I can’t move it like this. “I don’t think I need to have these bandages on any more,” I say. “I think it’s about time I removed them, don’t you?” I start to unwind the white strips of material.
“No, no, no! Mum, please.” She rushes towards me and cradles my hand in hers. “You have to keep them on until the sprain has healed. It will be a little while yet.”
“Nonsense, Helen,” I say. “I haven’t sprained it. It doesn’t hurt.” I pull away from her and wave my hand in the air to prove it.
“Even so. Leave it on, for me? Please?”
I shrug and tuck the hand between my thigh and the side of the chair so I don’t have to look at it.
“Thank you,” Helen says. “Shall I make you some tea?”
“And a little bit of toast?” I say. “With some cheese?”
“Maybe later, Mum,” she says, leaving the room. “The nurse said you should cut down a bit.”
Oh, yes. I forgot. The nurse says I’m getting fat. She says it’s because I forget when I’ve eaten.
“You’re not getting fat,” Helen calls from the hall. “You just need a better diet. More varied. Less bread-based.”
I have a note that the nurse made for me: Are you hungry? If not, don’t make any toast. I’m surprised they let me decide for myself if I’m hungry. No wonder you hear about old people starving to death in hospitals, what with nurses telling them to stop eating all the time. Beneath the note is a list of care homes and I feel a sudden weight on my chest. Am I to go into one? I listen to Helen in the kitchen, to the innocent sound of cups being taken down from the cupboard. Would she? I look at the list more carefully. My hands are shaking. There are a few names with cross-throughs, and lots more with question marks. One or two of the cross-throughs have “NOE” next to them. What does that mean? NOE. It looks like my handwriting, but Helen’s is very like mine. Mill Lane NOE. Or perhaps more like NoE. North of England, perhaps. Is that where the home is? My God, that’s it. But how would I ever see Helen or Katy if I moved there? This one is crossed through, though, and maybe that’s why: too far away. I relax a little. Still, I don’t want to go into a home. Not yet. I’m not old enough. I must tell Helen. I must call her now and tell her. As I get up to find the phone the bits of paper fall from my lap on to the floor.
“Damn and blast,” I say, getting on to my knees to shuffle them together. My left hand won’t move. It’s covered in white bandages, though I can’t see why; it feels fine. Perhaps Katy was playing nurse again. Well, I can’t keep it like this. I pull at the end of the material and unwind it. A piece of plastic falls away as I do. The hand looks crumpled and pale. Katy did it too tight. I hope she doesn’t grow up to be a real nurse. I start to scoop up the bits of paper and a sharp pain shoots through my thumb. I cry out.
Helen rushes into the room. “What happened?” she says, breathless.
“My hand, my hand,” I say. Waving it at her. It doesn’t hurt so much now I’m not trying to use it, but the memory makes me rock about and wail.
“I told you not to take the bandage off,” Helen says. “Christ sakes, Mum.” She holds my wrist tightly and starts to wrap the material round again. “What are your notes doing on the floor?”
I look at the bits of paper; one has a list on it. “I don’t want to go into a home, Helen,” I say.
She stops winding. “You’re not going into one, Mum.”
I nod, but I can still see the list lying on the carpet. Helen looks, too.
“Oh, God. I thought you’d chucked that list away. That’s your old list,” she says. “For . . .” She stops and narrows her eyes. “Don’t you remember? What you were looking for?”
I have to tilt my head to frown at her, but my neck muscles are still tight from shock. What could I have been looking for? “Elizabeth,” I say, and I feel as if my limbs are suddenly lighter; my back straightens. “So it’s ‘no E.’ No Elizabeth.”
“Right.” She finishes safety-pinning my bandage and pulls the notes into a pile. “Only you don’t need these numbers any more, do you? And we were going to put the list in the recycling so you don’t call the care homes again.”