Pip busied herself amongst the racks of clothes so she wouldn’t trigger Audrey’s idleness radar. Since getting over her feelings of revulsion at handling the cast-off clothes of strangers, she was able to find a kind of affection for these pre-owned, pre-loved things. Sometimes, to pass the time, she even imagined little backstories for the garments, trying to picture the people who had bought them, worn them for something special and then passed them on to be worn and loved by someone else. She didn’t want to buy the clothes herself but perhaps she could understand the process a little more. It was as if her sharp edges were being gradually smoothed, just as the perpetual rush of the sea smooths a jagged rock face.
Pip tried to visualise Nicholas Mountcastle. He had been quite tall and rangy, although most people would look rangy when standing next to Audrey. His hair was the colour of gingerbread and long enough to reveal curls. He’d worn it pushed away from his forehead, which made his face look very long, too, and his nose matched. In fact, that was Pip’s overall impression of him – long. Did he look like Evelyn, she wondered? It was hard to say what the woman in the window had looked like at all, let alone whether there was a family resemblance.
He’d been quite desperate to get the diary back, she thought, which either meant he felt bad at losing it or Evelyn was formidable and he was scared of her. From the way he had spoken to Audrey, Pip had the impression that it might be the latter, but this didn’t quite chime with her own impression of Evelyn. Maybe she’d hardened in the years since Scarlet’s death, though. Perhaps she had grown into a bitter spinster, surrounding herself with cats and rebuffing any offers of help or compassion.
Pip smiled to herself and let out a little huff of laughter. What on earth was she doing, wasting all this time thinking about a complete stranger? It was madness, even bordering on obsession. Ever since she had found the diary, its contents and Evelyn herself had occupied Pip’s mind almost constantly. It wasn’t normal, she knew, but then again not much had been normal since the accident. It probably wasn’t healthy, either. She knew what she was doing, focusing on the diary so she could avoid thinking about Dominic, although each time she did allow thoughts of him to creep into her mind she felt a little less sad. The longer she was at home, the further she felt from Rose. She was fading in her memory, like the scent of her namesake flowers kept overlong in a vase. Dominic had loved Rose – or at least the idea of her; Pip wasn’t sure which. But when Rose had started to wither, so had Dominic’s interest in her, and he had shown no interest at all in Pip. Pip was beginning to think that spoke volumes. Didn’t these things generally work out for the best? Maybe that was the case here. When she got back to London, she would see Dominic almost every day at work, but that thought didn’t worry her at all. That must mean something, surely?
For the first time, a new idea appeared in her head: cautious, like a snail stretching out its horns as it checked for signs of danger. Maybe she could start looking for a new flat. After all, she couldn’t spend the rest of her life hiding out up here in the sticks. She was going to have to get back to work sooner or later, and she would have to live somewhere. She could simply transport her things from one place to another, rather than bring everything to the farm. There was something very final about bringing her possessions back to Suffolk. It would feel like a failure to her, and she was certain there were others in the town who would think the same. She would be the girl who flew too close to the sun, and everyone knew what happened to her. A new flat would avoid all that, she thought.
But then, out of nowhere, came the memory of her sliding to the floor in the Grand Hall of the Supreme Court. How could she contemplate returning to London when she had no idea when she might have a panic attack like that one? Just thinking about it made her heart beat harder. She gripped the clothes rail tightly and breathed slowly in and out, as she had been taught. It took a good ten minutes before she felt in control again, and every part of her was exhausted by the strain of trying to hold herself together. Despair crept into her heart yet again. She might be improving, but clearly she was a long way off being better.
31
Every morning, Evelyn had a bowl of cornflakes for her breakfast. She didn’t even like cornflakes that much, but when she had first set up her online food shop, cornflakes had been the only cereal she could think of. And so they had ended up in her basket, and there they had stayed. She knew it couldn’t be that hard to switch the order to something else, but somehow she never seemed to have the energy to think about it. It was much easier to keep reordering the same things week after week: bread, milk, Granny Smith apples, tinned pilchards, Philadelphia cream cheese, Jacob’s cream crackers and cornflakes. It made for a very dull diet, but it hadn’t killed her yet. Each week she promised herself she would shake things up a little, and yet the same food kept arriving.