‘How do you know that?’
‘Linda told me.’
‘How sneaky. Obviously, Linda can’t be trusted.’
‘Lenni, she’s the night shift nurse, it’s her job to—’
‘She’s lying. I sleep with my eyes open.’
‘You do not.’
‘Like Frankenstein’s monster.’
‘What?’
‘Or a bat.’
‘They’re blind.’
‘Yeah, so why would they bother closing their eyes?’
‘Lenni, this is serious.’
‘It is. You are stopping me from going to the Rose Room because I happen to sleep with my eyes open.’
‘That’s—’
‘Aside from Linda’s version of events, what other reason do you have to think that I haven’t been sleeping?’
‘Those.’ She pointed.
‘My eyes?’
‘No, the bags under them.’
‘Don’t you know it’s rude to make personal remarks?’
‘I wasn’t being rude. I was simply saying that you’ve got—’
‘Bags under my eyes, I know.’
‘Lenni, will you calm down a bit? I can’t think. I’m just saying that maybe this week you could use this time to rest, your body needs a break—’
‘My body doesn’t need any breaks. It’s my mind that needs the break.’
She looked at me for a moment like a little girl about to cry, and I felt like a parent telling her that summer was over, that her favourite teddy bear had been left behind in the hotel and that school was starting early in the morning.
‘Lenni, please.’
‘Fine!’ I shouted louder than I needed to, and folded my arms because now I was committed to being furious.
She leant in closer and whispered, ‘This is the first time they’ve let me make a decision like this.’
‘Fine,’ I said again and unfolded my arms, because maybe the hotel maid would find her teddy bear and post it home.
And then she left.
And nobody came.
No Father Arthur, no Margot, no Pippa.
Not even a friendly smile from Paul the Porter.
Even an evil stare from Jacky wouldn’t have gone amiss. But nobody came. And in the end, I slept. I slept for days.
When the Planets Align
‘HELLO, PET.’ MARGOT peeped around my bed curtain.
I tried to give her a smile, but I’m not sure if it worked.
She came in and gave me a kiss on the top of my head. ‘If Lenni can’t come to the Rose Room,’ she said, ‘the Rose Room will come to Lenni.’
On my bedside table she placed a plastic cup full of coloured markers, a tray of charcoals and a clutch of pencils, and she put a white canvas on my lap, and as she sat down on the visitor’s chair, she rested a canvas of her own on her knees.
Using a black pencil, what she drew was so simple – a line of planets in a sky of stars.
West Midlands, 16th August 1987
Margot James is Fifty-Six Years Old
It had been marked in our calendar for three years: 16th August 1987. It was the equivalent of Humphrey’s Christmas. All his Christmases and a birthday thrown in too. Harmonic Convergence. The day that the sun, the moon and six planets from our solar system would perfectly align.
Of course, he didn’t buy the ‘twaddle’ that this day would spark the beginning of an age of enlightenment （an idea that was generating worldwide celebrations）， but he did want to enjoy the ‘once-in-a-lifetime astral event’。 I told him we’d already experienced one of those and he gave me an arched eyebrow in response.
I was much more interested in the two planets that wouldn’t be joining the line. I liked the idea that they were refusing to do what all the others were doing. They were being pulled by a different force – governed by a different law.
Like those two errant planets, I had been invited to the party but had declined. The party was being held by some of Humphrey’s friends in the London observatory. It was to include several hours of looking at the sky and recording what they saw, and then a party with food and drinks and dancing. The observatory team could enjoy an astral event like the best of them.
I couldn’t tell him why I didn’t want to go, I just knew that I didn’t. And so I offered to babysit the girls, rather than having to send them to his friend’s farm. After Bette and Marilyn had flown to the big chicken coop in the sky, we had taken on two older ladies – Doris and Audrey. They were to turn eleven that year. ‘Quite an achievement for a chicken,’ as Humphrey had put it.