My mind whirls. What have I forgotten?
‘My birthday. I know – at my age there isn’t much to celebrate but Nathan likes to come and see me.’
I feel like the worst daughter in the world. Because she’s right, I had forgotten. ‘Oh, Mum, I’m so sorry. I’ve had so much on my plate, what with opening and Selena coming and …’
She waves a hand dismissively. ‘It’s fine,’ she says, in a voice that clearly means it’s not. She picks up a jug of orange juice and stalks out.
Nancy turns up at ten thirty, as she’d promised when I met her last week, her dyed black hair scraped up in a topknot. She has on too much liquid eyeliner, and her dark leggings are stretched so thin in places you can see glimpses of her flesh. She’s older than me – I’d put her at mid-forties – but dresses much younger.
‘Hi,’ she says, as she breezes into the hallway and takes off her padded coat. She looks around and then, not finding an obvious place to hang it, hands it to me. ‘Where shall I start?’
She’s never been here before as I’d hired her in the Seven Stars after Kath and Derek recommended her, and I’m surprised she doesn’t make any comment about the house. Kath said Nancy lives in the village, so she would have seen how rundown the place was. ‘Well, the guests in Tulip have just gone out so there’s the bed to make, hoovering, dusting, the en-suite needs cleaning, and there’s the tea tray to deal with.’
‘What about the other rooms? Are they all named after flowers?’ She laughs as though the idea is ridiculous.
I ignore the question. ‘The same, apart from the two unoccupied rooms, but I’ll also be helping.’
‘Cool.’ She’s chewing gum. ‘I’d better get a wriggle on as I’ve got to go to the Seven Stars after to do their rooms.’
‘Okay.’ I hand her a plastic box of cleaning equipment. ‘I’ll bring the vacuum up.’ I dart into the office, throw her coat over the back of the chair and retrieve the key to Tulip. ‘Here we go.’
‘Great. Thanks.’ She takes the key and wanders up the stairs, looking around her as she goes, taking in everything.
‘Third on the left,’ I call up after her but she doesn’t answer.
I follow her up the stairs with the vacuum and knock on Janice’s door before entering, even though I’m fairly sure I saw her go out with Horace earlier. Her bed is unmade and there is a dog-shaped indentation on the chair where Horace must have slept. I straighten the bed and run the vacuum cleaner over the carpet, amazed by the amount of dog hair. As I’m replacing her tea tray I notice a stack of tarot cards by her bed. Intrigued, I pick them up. They are loose and the one on top is Death. I flinch at the sight of the armoured skeleton on horseback and replace it quickly.
When I’m outside the room I take out my inhaler, closing my eyes as I puff and breathe in, feeling my airways open.
‘Are you okay?’
I open my eyes to see Nancy standing in front of me.
I return the inhaler to my back pocket. ‘Just the dust. Gets to my chest at times.’
‘It’s all the building work you’ve had done,’ she says, still chewing gum. ‘It unsettles things.’
I think of the tarot cards in Janice’s room, the broken doll Evie found under the floorboards, and repress a shiver.
After I’ve left Nancy vacuuming, I let myself into Selena’s room. It’s just as it was in the middle of the night. Beds unmade, clothes spewing out of a suitcase. As a kid she was always untidy. I notice her mobile phone on the pine dressing-table and, remembering what she said last night, I pick it up so that I can look at the model to see if it will fit my charger. The battery sign to the right of the screen indicates that she has 27 per cent charge. Puzzled, I replace it where I’d found it.
I straighten the beds and make up her tea tray with fresh cups, coffee, teabags and biscuits, all the while thinking about her phone. Maybe she’d panicked. It was dark, she was worried about Ruby. Maybe she’d assumed it had died. That must be it. Otherwise, why would she lie?
Selena calls mid-morning to say they should be back by teatime.
‘What did they reckon is wrong with Ruby?’ I ask.
‘An infection. Because of her problems they wanted to keep her in. But she’s feeling much better. They gave her a strong dose of antibiotics.’ The relief in her voice is evident, although she sounds exhausted. In the background I can hear the faint chatter of other people and the clatter of cutlery.
‘Thank goodness,’ I say happily. ‘We were all worried about her.’ Evie had been upset when I’d explained that Ruby was in hospital, and asked if she was going to die. I’d downplayed it by telling both girls it was just a check-up. ‘Mum said you’d called her earlier. You had her number in the phone I gave you?’
‘No.’ Her voice sounds echoey. ‘I remembered it. Years of calling her, I suppose. She refuses to update her phone.’
Years of calling her.How often had they been in touch?
‘Do you want me to pick you up from the hospital?’ I ask. I can leave Nancy to sort out the rest of the rooms.
She clears her throat. ‘Um, no, that’s really kind but it’s okay. We’ll get a taxi.’ She says goodbye and hangs up. I stare at the phone in my hand, then replace the receiver. I know I shouldn’t let it bother me, it’s all so inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, but I can hardly believe Mum and Selena have been in touch all these years. Did Mum feel she couldn’t tell me because of my rift with Selena? I glance out of the window to the driveway. It’s raining again. I can hear the sheep bleating in the nearby field. I’m in the little office with the 1980s wallpaper and the new leather diary that is depressingly empty. My mind goes back to the dead flowers, and I wonder again who put them there. Is it a threat of some kind? The thought that someone is lurking outside makes me shudder, reminding me to ask Adrian to get some locks for the attic.
