‘See you on Monday,’ said Pip as they parted ways. ‘Are you doing anything nice this weekend?’ she added as an afterthought, although she really had no interest in the answer.
Audrey’s face set hard and she rolled her eyes heavenwards. ‘Bring-and-buy sale at the church hall,’ she said grimly. ‘No one else stepped up so it’s left to yours truly to organise. Could you tell your mother to bring the baking over by eight thirty? There’s bound to be a queue. It’s ridiculous, really. They’ll barge the doors down for a bring and buy, but not set foot in this shop.’
‘Well, I hope it goes well,’ Pip replied quickly, keen not to get volunteered into helping, and then sidled away to unlock her bike before the thought could occur to Audrey. Even though she wasn’t fit enough to be holding down her proper job in London, this parochial little life with its unimportant problems was driving her mad. How did all these people not die of boredom, tucked away out here in the middle of nowhere? A bring-and-buy sale, for God’s sake.
With the plastic bag containing the stolen diary wedged into the bicycle’s basket, Pip rode back to the farm down the narrow leafy lanes, planning out her evening as she went. She would escape from the kitchen as soon as she could after supper, run herself a deep, hot bath and then have an early night with the diary.
What was happening to her? Rose would be horrified at the prospect of such a dull evening. But Rose wasn’t here and Pip was doing her best to hold things together in whichever way she could. She could hear Dominic scoffing at her plan, too, but she didn’t care. She felt a weird connection between herself and the diary writer, and she needed to investigate it. The writer appeared to be stuck in the wrong place just like she was, although Pip hadn’t yet worked out why. She needed to read some more.
But it wasn’t just the puzzle of the situation that was sucking her in. Spending a few hours lost in someone else’s life would also be very welcome, giving her mind a chance, however fleeting, to break free from the horrible loop that played constantly in her head – guilt, fear, recrimination, grief and then back to guilt.
On her brighter days, Pip could convince herself that it hadn’t all been destroyed, that the world she had painstakingly built for herself before the accident was still there, just waiting for her to step back into it. All she had to do was get well enough to pick up where she had left off.
If only it were as simple as that.
Her parents, delighted though they had been to welcome her back to the farm, didn’t seem to understand why she had had to leave London in the first place. She had tried more than once to explain it to her mother, who, whilst sympathetic, struggled to follow.
‘I had a panic attack, Mum,’ she told her, unable to keep the frustration out of her voice. ‘Well, I had loads of them, but I had a really big one at work.’
‘But surely they should have made allowances for you, Pip, after what happened.’
Nobody would say the words, Pip noticed. The fact that she had killed a child was so washed in euphemism that it came out if not clean, then certainly less bloodstained.
‘They’d already made plenty of allowances, Mum, but I let them all down. I collapsed in the middle of the Supreme Court with everyone watching me. I didn’t even know my own name. They couldn’t let me carry on working after that. They have their reputation to think of, and mine.’
‘But that wasn’t your fault,’ said her mother indignantly. ‘You were ill.’
Pip suspected that her mother had read that panic attacks were a symptom of mental illness and whilst she struggled with the concept, was determined to embrace it for her daughter’s sake.
‘But that doesn’t make any difference, Mum. Clients pay a lot of money for me to act for them. If I can’t do that without breaking down and making a show of myself, then they just won’t give me any more work.’
Her mother nodded as if she could understand this. ‘That doesn’t seem fair,’ she added. ‘It wasn’t your fault.’ She was quiet for a moment or two and then, twisting the tea towel she was holding in her hands, she said, ‘Can I ask you something personal?’
Pip nodded, worried about what was coming but unable to come up with a reason to avoid it.
‘What does it feel like?’ her mother asked. ‘Having a panic attack, I mean. I’ve tried to imagine it, but I can’t, not really.’
Pip didn’t want to have to explain in case the mere description triggered one, but it had clearly cost her mother a lot to ask her.