I took the letter and opened it. It was from a private dermatologist in Harley Street; the appointment Nick had promised. He’d remembered and kept his word, and arranged an appointment the very day after he’d promised it.
“It’s an appointment for this morning,” I said out-loud as Maggie poured my tea. “He’s made me an appointment forthis morning!”
“What’s that, dear?” asked Maggie.
I didn’t know why I felt like crying. I looked around theroom, at the rocking horse, the ballerina in her dome, the dolls house. It was all too much, too soon. I bowed my head and sobbed, hard, clutching onto the letter.
“My goodness, what’s wrong?” Maggie circled the trolley and drew me against her body, holding my head and stroking my hair.
If only I could speak for crying, I would tell her. I would tell her that it was all too good to be true.
I showered and got dressed, not forgetting my parasol before I left the house. Nick had left a message with Maggie that I was to spend the morning attending appointments with the doctor and the tailor, and to buy myself lunch after that. Mr Lloyd’s viewing would be taken care of by Nick and the other members of staff, who I had met but hadn’t got to know yet. I was to then spend the afternoon however I pleased, which thrilled me. My parasol and my long-sleeves would protect my skin, and I could finally get myself a modern wardrobe.
I took a cab to Harley Street and paid the fare using my banking card. Once my new phone arrived, I would be able to pay using a virtual wallet, and wouldn’t need to use cash or cards at all. As I waited for the driver to pull over, my stomach was in knots, and my skin buzzing with anticipation.This is what real, grown-up people do in the city. This is what it’s like to not fade away as a ghost in Heather House.
I sat in the plush waiting room and looked at the glossy health magazines on the glass coffee table, and the iPad showcasing their skin services on a reel. There was a bowl of white sugared almonds, too, which I took from – a whole handful – and nibbled while I waited. I was already bulkingout from all the rich food I’d been eating, so delicious and varied compared to the same dry bread, sweaty cheese, and flaky ham I was used to at Heather House. My limited diet and the heavy workload of the farm – not to mention tending to my mother – had made me stick-thin and sickly over the years.
Already I could feel curves forming as a healthy layer of fat began to fill in over my bony frame. To think it took so little to change me; a healthy diet, proper rest in a heated house, and the chance to focus on myself. It was all I had ever dreamed of. If I hadn’t been handed the Crowthorne card at mother’s wake, I would have never known this life. I would never have met Nicholas, and I wouldn’t be here in a Harley Street doctor’s office.
Only God knew where I would be if I’d stayed.
I was called into my appointment by a nurse. A doctor was seated behind a clean white desk in a modern, comfy, yet functional room with abstract artworks on the walls. The doctor looked like a celebrity with her unnaturally plump, glossy lips and long dark hair tumbling from a high ponytail. Her skin was smooth and glowing, and her eyelashes seemed impossibly long. She looked nothing like the stuffy old doctor we had in the village, who was well beyond retirement age and still consulted physical text books.
This was the modern world I had been shielded from. Educated women who looked like models, running their own businesses, earning fortunes while they were at it.
I felt like a page torn from the past compared to her. Like a fragment of dust. It inspired me to wonder where my life might lead me now, when I had a career ahead of me asa funeral director.
The doctor spoke to me about my condition and examined the red rash that Nick had noticed on my neck; the one that prompted him to make this appointment for me. She diagnosed me with polymorphic light eruptions, which were harmless yet irritating rashes caused by exposure to sunlight. There was no cure, and I would do well to keep my skin covered and use sunscreen, even in the autumn months, but I already knew all that.
She prescribed me a tablet to reduce the impact of the sun, and a topical cream, and made a follow-up appointment for me to attend in six weeks’ time. For the first time ever, I was going to receive actual treatment for my condition. Once the appointment was over, I stood up, feeling stunned. I had to be walking in someone else’s skin, attending this appointment. This luxury could not possibly belong to me.
I noticed a bowl of fruit on the counter-top of a small coffee station as I was leaving through the waiting room. Shiny apples, two yellow bananas, and something else that made my heart spasm. I carried on walking, scared to investigate and see if my eyes were deceiving me.
It looked like a single rotting fig. Just like the kind we grew at Heather House. Just like the one in Nick’s orangery. The sight of it unnerved me and made me bristle. I had the feeling of being followed, but by what, I couldn’t tell. The fig itself felt like a spectre from my recent past, reminding me that I could never quite leave the Dales behind.
I hurried out of there and opened my parasol in the street, shielding myself inside a white dome of safety.
I made it to the tailor and was measured and fitted forthree suits; one black wool-cotton blend, one in a stiff black plaid, and another in a soft, subtle brocade pattern that reminded me of Nick’s ties. The tailor matched me with cotton blouses in plum, maroon, and white, and black hose to go with the suits – which included skirts and trousers – and even a pair of court shoes, too. I was told my suits would be ready for collection within a week, once they’d made the adjustments.
The rest of the afternoon was then mine.
I walked a little way until I found a pretty garden square that reminded me of the gardens of Crowthorne House, and many of the other houses in Hampstead Garden Suburb. Lush green grass surrounded me, along with joggers and dog-walkers and people talking into devices hooked over their ears. There were abundant plants and flowers, and in the centre, a great spraying fountain with copper pennies glittering beneath the water.
I took a walk around the park and found a small café to buy a sandwich and something to drink. I chose a bottle of elderflower and a seeded bread sandwich filled with all the things we never ate in Heather House. A red pepper hummus, baked Mediterranean vegetables, and spicy sweet potato falafel. I ate my meal at a wrought-iron table and chairs and felt at peace, wondering what else I might do. I watched the people going by, especially the young women, who were my age, and felt so separated from them. I was still on the outside looking in.
On Saturday I would get a glimpse of what it would be like to live among them. To be like them, instead of merely spying them from a distance, as I did now, like a crow on a chimney flue.
I stood and tossed my wrapper and bottle into the bins and continued my walk, watching the trees swaying across the green, their leaves fast turning brown as Autumn crept in. A figure made me stop, a pain ripping through my chest. A figure in shabby denim and a brown woollen coat, and a flat-cap over a stern, humourless face. He was some distance away, and seemed like a figment of my imagination. He walked out from behind a tree and paused, watching me, standing stock-still. I gasped and turned away from it, terror coursing through me, until I almost threw up my lunch.
When I dared a glance back over my shoulder, the figure was gone.
“Tom,” I said out-loud in my shattered voice, almost too terrified to make another sound.
My imagination was running wild in response to all the excitement. Too many changes, all at once, could devastate a sheltered person. I hugged my shapeless coat around me, drew up my parasol, and carried on walking, willing the terrible thoughts away...only they wouldn’t go. In the distance I could hear a faint knocking, knocking, knocking, just like the woodpecker I’d seen from the balcony.
Only I knew it wasn’t a woodpecker, not really.
When my eyes fell on a dead grasshopper on the pavement, teaming with ants, I wanted to scream. Some presence was following me, terrorising me, and now I was seeing hallucinations of Tom, too. I wondered if I should go back to the doctor, beg her to see me again, and tell her that I was going crazy.
