Then Esme was in the back of a car with Mrs Dalziel driving, and then they were home and Mrs Dalziel was telling her mother that Esme had had a wee bit too much to drink, made a fool of herself, and that she might feel better in the morning.
In the morning, though, Esme did not feel better. She did not feel better at all. When her mother came in through the door and said, exactly what happened last night, young lady, Esme sat up in bed and the noise came again. She opened her mouth and she screamed, she screamed, she screamed.
Iris lets Esme go ahead of her on the stairs and she notices how slowly she climbs, resting her weight on the banisters with every step. Maybe the outing was a bit much for her.
As they make the last turn, Iris stops. Along the bottom of the door, she can see a line of glowing light. Someone is in her flat.
She pushes past Esme and, hesitating for just a moment, she turns the handle. 'Hello?' she calls into her hallway. 'Is anyone there?'
The dog brushes against her side. Iris curls her hand round his collar. She feels him stiffen. Then he raises his head and lets out a deep bark.
Hello?' she says again, and her voice gives way in the middle of the word. A person appears in the kitchen doorway. A man.
'Don't you keep any food in this place?' Alex says.
She drops the dog's collar, darts towards her brother but stops just in front of him. 'You scared me,' she says, cuffing him on the arm.
'Sorry.' He grins. 'I thought I should come, seeing as-' He stops and looks over her shoulder.
Iris turns, she walks towards Esme. 'This is my brother,' she says.
Esme frowns. 'You have a brother?'
A stepbrother,' Alex says, stepping forward. 'She always forgets the "step". You must be Euphemia.'
Iris and Esme inhale in unison: 'Esme,' they say.
– and when she wouldn't stop-
– it was difficult as the whole family is full of only ones. I had no cousins and the man I was marrying was an only one too so there were no sisters-in-law-to-be. I needed someone to hold my flowers, to help me with my train, even though it was a modest size, to be with me in the moments just before the ceremony. You can't get married without a bridesmaid, Mother said, you'll have to think of someone. There were a couple of friends I could have asked but it seemed so odd after-
– and when she wouldn't stop screaming, Mother sent me out of the room and-
– it was only a fortnight later that Duncan Lockhart came to call. Nobody had been near us. No first-footers, no telephone calls. Nothing. The house was deathly quiet without her. Hours could pass without a single sound. In an odd way, we no longer seemed like a family, just a collection of people living in different rooms. Duncan came to see my father, ostensibly, but I'd met him at the party: we'd danced together. The Dashing White Sergeant, as I recall. He'd had very dry hands. And he mentioned seeing me that time on the Meadows. I, of course, had forgotten that he was even there. On the day he came, a cold January afternoon, I'd woken up and found ice on the insides of the windows. And I'd shut my eyes again because the room was still full of her things, her clothes, her books. Mother hadn't yet got round to-
– remember walking the floor with the baby in the middle of the night. I knew nothing about babies – you don't with your first, of course, so you fall back on your instincts. Keep moving, mine were telling me. He wouldn't eat, tiny wee thing that he was, he would beat the air with his red fists. I had to feed him with a muslin rag, soaked in milk. The fourth day he took it, sucked at it, tentative at first, then ravenous. And then we had pans of water on the stove, boiling the bottles, at all times of day, nappies hung by the fire, the air opaque with steam-
– and when she wouldn't stop screaming, Mother called the doctor. I was told to leave the room but I listened outside, my ear against the cold brass of the keyhole. I could only hear when the doctor spoke to Esme – he seemed to speak louder when addressing her, as if she was hard of hearing or simple. He and Mother whispered to each other for several minutes and then he raised his voice and said to Esme, we are going to take you somewhere for a wee rest, how would you like that? And she, of course, in her way said she wouldn't like it at all, and then his voice went stern and he said, we are not giving you a choice so-
– in the end, I asked a second cousin of Duncan's, a girl I'd only met twice. She was younger than me and seemed pleased. At least, my grandmother said grimly, we needn't worry that she's going to outshine the bride. I took her to Mrs Mac for the fitting. I didn't stay while she had it done, I couldn't-
– did I tell about the blazer? I did. I think I did. Only because they asked me, straight out. And I always make a point of being as honest as I can. Did I tell about Canty Bay as well? But what difference could it have made, really? I always make a point of being as honest as I can. I was just so eaten up, at that time. I never meant her to go for ever, just for as long as it took me to-
– so I was sent out of the room and I went, of course, but really I stayed behind the door and listened, and Mother was whispering with the doctor and I could barely hear a thing and I was worried in case my grandmother came up the stairs and caught me. Eavesdropping was very bad form, I knew that. I could barely hear, as I said, but Mother was saying something about how she was sick to her back teeth of these fits of shouting and raging. And the doctor rumbled something about hysteria and young girls, which offended me slightly as I have never behaved in such a fashion. He said the words treatment and place and learn to behave. And when I heard that I thought it sounded like a good idea, like a good plan for her because she had always been so-
– surprised me more than anything, how much you love them. You know you are going to and then the feeling itself, when you finally see them, when you hold their tiny body, is like a balloon that just goes on filling with air. Duncan's mother insisted we hire a nurse, a fearsome creature with feeding schedules and a starched apron, and I found my days were rather empty then. I missed Robert. I would go up to see him in the nursery, but before I got to the cot, the nurse would have got there first. We're asleep, she'd say, which always made me want to say, all of us? But I never did, of course. My mother-in-law said the nurse was worth her weight in gold and that we should be careful not to lose her. I wasn't sure, then, what it was I was supposed to be doing. The cook and the housekeeper ran the house, Duncan was at the office with my father, and Robert was with his nurse. Sometimes I would wander the house in the middle of the day, thinking that perhaps I ought to-
– dementia praecox is what they said for her. Father told me that when I asked him once. I made him write it down for me. Such pretty words, in a way, much prettier than they had any right to be. Of course no one uses them any more. I read that somewhere in an article. 'Outmoded term', is what it said. Today, the article told me, they would say 'schizophrenia', an ugly, horrible word, but a very grand one all the same, especially for something that is, after all-
– dress she made for the bridesmaid was actually better than anything she had ever made for me. I was in Mother's dress, of course, it had been specially fitted and let out for me. Many people remarked upon it. But the bridesmaid's dress had sequins, sewn into chiffon, all over-
– never meant her to go for ever, I never meant that at all. It was just that-
– she fought and kicked; my father had to help the doctor and together they managed it but right at the bottom of the stairs she got her hands round the banister. She clung on and the name she kept screaming was mine. I had my hands over my ears and my grandmother put her hands over mine but I could still hear her. KITTY! KITTY! KITTY! KITTY! I find I can still hear it now. I found a shoe later: it must have come off during the struggle in the hall because it was wedged under the hatstand and I took it and I sat down and leant my head into the banisters and-