‘But, you read my letters! Out loud, the two of you sat there. Those letters were meant for him, just him.’ She jabbed a finger in Edward’s direction. ‘I feel sick. I want to go home. I just want to be at home.’ The thought of being in her own bed in Buncarragh hugging a pillow made her begin to sob once more. A long thin thread of snot left her top lip and slowly descended onto her lap. She could hear Mrs Foley moving around the room.
‘We’ll put the kettle on. A hot-water bottle. A cup of tea. A good night’s sleep. You’ve had a bit of a shock, that’s all. Teddy, will you make yourself useful and get down the cups?’
Patricia heard his thick-soled shoes moving across the lino. She couldn’t bear to look at him. What a useless lump of a man he was! Patricia had never considered herself a violent woman but she wanted to do him physical harm. She wanted to hurt him, make him feel something. How could he have managed to never learn to read and write? She wondered if there was something wrong with him. She stole a glance at his broad back, his coarse hands holding the delicate china cups. How had she ever thought he was handsome or sensitive? He was Frankenstein’s monster. He turned and she saw his big gormless face. Patricia buried her face in her hands, a hot knot of fury and regret.
The morning sun crept past the curtains and gave the small bedroom a golden glow. Patricia tried to remember coming upstairs or going to bed but couldn’t. She wondered what more had been said. It was only when she thought of getting up that she realised that she couldn’t. Her legs were almost like dead weights and she became light-headed if her head left the pillow. A quiet whimper escaped her lips. This was no time to be ill. She longed to go home but even she had to accept that the trip was very unlikely to happen today. A light tapping at the door.
‘Come in.’
The door cracked open and Mrs Foley’s foot pushed it further ajar so that she could come in balancing a tray with a small pot of tea and a rack of toast.
‘I brought you up a little breakfast there. I didn’t think you’d want to come downstairs just yet.’
What did that mean? Had something else happened last night? Rather than asking any questions, Patricia just said, ‘Thank you.’
The older woman looked drawn and had applied some rouge and lipstick which gave her the appearance of an elderly ventriloquist’s dummy.
‘I’ll just pop it down there.’ The tray was wedged into the side of the mattress, pinning Patricia against the wall. ‘Did you manage to get some sleep?’
‘I did. I don’t feel very well,’ she blurted out like a child.
‘Well, have a bit of toast. That might settle you.’ Mrs Foley placed her chilled bony hand on her forehead. ‘No temperature. That’s something.’ She turned and closed the door quietly behind her.
The toast tasted good. She ate two slices and then drank her tea. Sick or ill weren’t the precise words for how she felt, but something wasn’t right. Peculiar. Yes, she decided, that was just the word for it, peculiar.
She only realised that she had fallen asleep when the crash of the tray hitting the floor woke her up. Her body felt even heavier than before. She thought she remembered Mrs Foley coming in to clean up the mess but she might have imagined it. The rest of the day was a blur of sleeping and waking. There had been no sign of Edward all day but at some point his mother had spoon-fed her a bowl of soup. It had been dark outside. The old woman had helped her onto a commode by the window. Patricia knew she was supposed to be angry with this old lady but found that she was just grateful to her for her kindness.
The next day passed by in a similar fog of deep sleeps interrupted by visits from Mrs Foley with various offerings of sandwiches or soup. Patricia was vaguely aware that this was the day she was supposed to go back home to Buncarragh. She had meant to ask if she could use the phone to call her brother to explain what happened but she wasn’t sure she had. The wind was back and the rattle of the window seemed to fill her head whether she was asleep or awake.
On the third day she woke to find she was wearing a nightdress that didn’t belong to her and the chair where her clothes had been folded neatly was now empty. More tea. She remembered getting sick over the side of the bed and now a smell of Dettol hung in the air.
Was it the fourth day when Mrs Foley told her about the doctor’s visit? Apparently they had called him out and she had slept right through. He could find nothing wrong, she was told, but maybe she was a little anaemic. She had sipped at a cup of beef tea, while Mrs Foley wiped the drips of liquid from her chin with a towel. Patricia wanted to cry but she found she didn’t have the strength. Sleep.