He’d been given strict instructions on what to do, which procedures to follow, if anyone ever dropped by, like a postman, or a counsellor, or a lost tourist.
There was no questioning the routine.
It was not up for discussion.
He walked backwards, unsure of whether he could recall the exact order he was supposed to follow, and eventually he came to Ursula’s bed and sat down. Though when he felt for it, it was a lot lower than he remembered and as he turned, he realised that it wasn’t a hospital bed at all but an ordinary one, and his things were laid out on it.
His head hurt and he reached for a cup of water on the bedside table, and the knocking got louder.
Acorn barked and alerted him to his current situation, but it still took a minute or so to evaluate if it was real or imagined. So much of his life was dreamlike at its edges that he was constantly unsure of what was real and what wasn’t.
Like the Heron Hall Hotel, for example.
Had he really been there?
He felt for Acorn, and she nuzzled his hand.
She was real, at least. But she’d lost her silk scarf. He’d tied Ursula’s purple scarf around Acorn’s neck, for comfort? To remind him of her? He couldn’t remember, but it wasn’t there now.
The doctors had told him that this might happen. He was expected to go the way of Ursula. They were the same. What were the chances? Their brains were designed to disintegrate over time, and that was what would eventually realise their value. Their legacy was their future. Their value to medical science. Their riches were not for them but for their future selves, as yet unacknowledged. They’d both known what they were signing away when they’d been called to volunteer on a rainy afternoon in Chicksands in Bedfordshire. For Ursula, it was her elderly sister, who lived in Brighton, who would be the recipient of their savings. For Melvin, it was his daughter who lived in London. But she had no idea who he was. One day, when Melvin finally succumbed to this awful disease, then his daughter would get a letter from his solicitor informing her of her father’s existence and she would receive everything he owned.
At least that’s what he hoped.
He’d chosen an executor carefully.
Everything was arranged.
And he’d been paid well.
The knocking was rude now and it threatened to derail the wonderful dream he liked to have about Ursula being his wife and not simply an asset murdered by a clinical trial.
Fat chance.
All he wanted was to be left in peace.
He went to the door and the sound of the banging hurt his temples. As his hand reached the knob and turned it, a hand came around the frame, and he stepped back in shock. A man stood in the doorway and Melvin shook his head. He was baffledat first, but then sanity returned once more, and the man stepped into the kitchen.
Melvin’s familiarity with the man was a mixture of pain and relief.
‘Hello, Doctor,’ Melvin said. ‘Have I got worse?’
The man closed the door behind him and took out an iPad from his satchel that was strapped across his chest. He tapped the screen and Melvin watched him.
Then his pain went away.
Chapter 51
‘You’re not going to Rydal Caves on your own. Ted, tell her.’
Ted was lying on the sofa in Kelly’s lounge and Johnny fetched him some paracetamol. He refused anything stronger, saying it didn’t help the healing process. The body was designed to heal itself, he told them. He was a stubborn old mule, and Johnny knew where Kelly got it from. It was one o’clock in the afternoon and Kelly had surprised them by walking through the front door and telling them her plan.
‘It’ll be heaving with tourists,’ Kelly said in her defence.
She glared at him as if to ask how dare he talk over her as if she was some pathetic female in need of male assistance. Johnny knew the look, but he didn’t care. They weren’t together anymore. His actions now had different consequences and one of them wasn’t being kicked out of her bed.
He stood his ground, and he could see she was livid. She went to speak but then glanced at her father and walked out of the room.
Johnny shrugged and Ted raised his eyebrows.
