Rachel shrugs. ‘It’s hard. I keep thinking he’ll walk through the door. He’d be so sad to see all his work dismantled like this.’
‘I remember what it was like when my mum died,’ Lucy says. ‘It took me ages to realise fully that she wasn’t coming back.’
They sit together in silence for a moment before Rachel pushes herself up to her feet.
‘Would you like something to eat?’
Lucy nods. Rachel dishes up, a chicken tagine. It’s hot, savoury; the more Lucy eats, the more she wants to eat. Food’s tasted like cardboard the last while, but this is cutting through. It’s not the meal, though; it’s sitting with someone who understands what’s happened, what they’ve been through.
‘You look tired,’ Rachel says. ‘Aren’t you sleeping?’
‘Not that much. I’m finding it hard to settle. Waking up early.’
‘Me too.’
Lucy keeps eating. Whenever she comes close to the end of her glass of wine, Rachel tops it up, and she dishes a second portion on to Lucy’s plate as soon as she’s finished eating.
‘Thank you,’ Lucy says. ‘It’s so kind of you to be looking after me like this.’
‘Good to have something else to think about.’
By the end of the meal, Lucy is replete, full as she hasn’t been for some time. Perhaps it’s that fullness, or the wine, but she’s beginning to feel drowsy. It must be because she’s starting to relax. It’s hard to keep her eyes open.
‘Looks like all those sleepless nights are catching up with you,’ Rachel says. ‘Do you want to go and lie down?’
Lucy wants to say no; she wants to make a start on Edgar’s papers right now, help Rachel out. Rachel is the one who has suffered the real loss, after all. But she’s losing her battle with sleep. The suggestion of stretching out on the sofa, lying herself down, sleeping for just an hour or two, is too tempting to resist.
‘Would you mind?’ she says, hardly able to articulate the words.
‘Of course I don’t mind,’ Rachel says. ‘Go and lie down.’ She points to the sofa that runs the width of the kitchen. With an effort, Lucy gets up and lies down on it.
‘I’ll just get you a blanket,’ Rachel says. ‘Won’t be a minute.’
Lucy’s too tired to reply. She tucks her head more comfortably into a cushion, asleep as soon as she shuts her eyes.
Someone’s clawing at her wrist, shaking her. Hissing in her ear.
Wake up wake up WAKE UP NOW.
Lucy doesn’t want to wake up. She can’t. Her eyes won’t let her. She wants the noise to stop. It’s not stopping, though, it’s carrying on, intensifying, and now someone has pulled her to her feet.
‘Keep her moving,’ a male voice says. ‘She needs to wake up.’ It sounds familiar, though she can’t place it.
Lucy wants to tell him to leave her alone, let her sleep. She can’t say the words. She’s slumping on to the hands that are supporting her, barely able to put one foot in front of the other. Someone’s screaming in the distance, and there’s a smash of glass breaking.
Footsteps are coming closer now, a heavy tread. She’s been picked up, the weight of her taken into someone else’s hands, and she’s lying down again, if they would just leave her alone—
59
Words are rusty for Marie, her tongue slow to form them. She had the old story down pat, but now she’s having to learn a new one. She thought she knew her skeletons, but she was wrong. They’ve been put together backwards – now she needs to re-form them, revise.
It’s time to talk. She leans forward to the hospital bed, takes the girl’s hands in hers.
Where to start, though? At what beginning? The point where she fell in love with her teacher, like all the best stories? The point where he fell in love with her, too? Or so she’d thought. Itfelttrue, though. Right and true and everything she could want. Everything he could want, too.
‘You and Edgar?’ Lucy says.
‘Yes.’ Marie bows her head.
