The nurse on duty expressed surprise when Jean mentioned her concerns. From their point of view, Mrs. Swinney was an ideal patient—placid and untroublesome, grateful for small attentions, where others were restless and obstreperous.
“But she’s not herself,” Jean protested. “She was perfectly sane when she arrived. Now she hardly knows who I am.”
She remembered with shame her previous irritation with her mother’s irksome habits and predictable conversation. What trivial dissatisfactions these now seemed.
The nurse looked disappointed. There was a hint of reproach in her voice.
“I’ll tell the doctor what you’ve told me. But we’re all really pleased with her progress.”
Jean cycled back to the empty house and a supper of beans on toast. She was getting used to having the place to herself and a little flexibility was creeping into her routines. Her evening meal could be anytime and consist of anything—bread and jam if she fancied it—and bath night could be whatever night she chose. She could listen to the record player, the radio or neither without any negotiation and after nine o’clock.
By the time she returned from the hospital in the evening it was hardly worth lighting a fire, so she took a hot-water bottle up to bed instead and left the grate unswept. In an exceptionally bold act, she threw out the threadbare brown rug from the sitting room, which had come with them from the flat in Gipsy Hill with the rest of their belongings. Jean had always hated it, because it curled at the corners to trip the unwary and darkened an already dark room.
She replaced it with a pale blue carpet from Nash’s of Orpington in a defiantly impractical shade that matched nothing. Its newness was a dazzling reproach to its surroundings, which now looked evermore tatty and forlorn. But it was difficult to enjoy even these small liberties untarnished by feelings of guilt and remorse, while her mother was so lost and strange.
In those undisturbed evenings she turned back again to Alice Halfyard’s diary, rereading the entries covering the dates when Gretchen had been a patient, and then idly—and because she rather enjoyed Alice’s brisk prose—reading on into the days and weeks beyond. Gretchen’s place in the ward had been taken by a girl called Ruth, who was being treated （unsuccessfully） with ultraviolet light therapy for psoriasis. There were occasional references to someone called V, whom Jean was unable to identify among the other inmates or staff and whose symptoms were only alluded to in vague terms.
September 19
V not tolerating the new drugs. V excitable.
October 6
V worse than ever today.
This awakened Jean’s curiosity and she reread the entire diary to see if there were any other mentions. There was just one entry from May—before Gretchen’s arrival:
May 24
Startled to find V waiting for me today in the rain.
Absolutely soaked through like a faithful dog. I managed to conceal my alarm.
But there was no record of an admission or discharge date, which puzzled her. V had clearly been a long-term patient throughout the period of Gretchen’s residency and yet none of the girls had ever mentioned her. Jean decided to query this with Alice herself and made several attempts to telephone her, during office hours and in the evening, but there was no reply.
Howard, and the memory of their lunch and that strangely intimate walk in the fog, was never far from her mind. He had said he sometimes slept at the shop, but when she tried ringing there one evening there was no answer, so she assumed he was back at home. Calling him during the day was problematic in a shared office of shameless eavesdroppers, so she sent a brief note, thanking him for the lunch and explaining about her mother’s accident.
The following evening, Friday, on her return from the hospital, she was contemplating, without enthusiasm, the range of cans in the pantry and wondering what manner of meal might be conjured from sardines, new potatoes and oxtail soup, when she heard the flap of the mail slot. The fact that the sardines had already brought to mind the Italian restaurant and Howard himself sent her hurrying to the door. On the mat was the now-familiar white envelope. She tore into it without waiting.
Friday, 8:30 p.m.
Dear Jean,
I have just come home to find your letter with the news of your mother.
I am so sorry that our afternoon should have ended so unfortunately and that you had to deal with it alone. I will not ring the doorbell in case you have company, but I will wait at the end of the road for half an hour or so, in the hope that you receive this in time and want to talk.
Yours,
Howard
Jean snatched up her keys and flew from the house, realizing at the end of the drive that she was still wearing her apron and slippers. She tore the apron off and stuffed it into the hydrangeas; the slippers could not be helped and Howard was the last person to mind or notice.