'How's Rory Lucas? It's his brother.'
'The same as when you called this morning, Mr Lucas, and this afternoon. No change, but that's no worse.'
'I've got our cousins here now. When can we come and see him?'
'We're having a few problems on the ward just at the moment,' the sister said, and Hugh was disconcerted to overhear a laugh that sounded anything but pleasant, not merely muffled but clogged. He could only suppose it was somewhere other than the ward, since she didn't react to it, instead saying 'Do you mind if I put you off for a while?'
'If you've got to. Till when?'
'Tomorrow would be best.'
'It won't make any difference to him, or will it?'
'Not at the minute, sadly, I'm afraid. I'll contact you if there's any significant development.'
'Thanks. That's kind,' Hugh said, but as soon as he pocketed the mobile he thought he'd been too eager to accommodate her – worse, that he was glad to have a reason to delay travelling all the labyrinthine way to Leeds. 'The ward's shut to visitors till tomorrow,' he announced, and Ellen let out a groan that vibrated her bed. He had to dodge as Charlotte darted out of her room. 'I'll make it,' she informed him, at which point he grasped that she was thinking of the tea, not proposing to escape from the house. He might have been grateful if he hadn't needed to choose which cousin to stay with, which direction to take. As he hurried downstairs, terrified of losing sight of Charlotte, he began to dread that the reunion would turn into the longest night of his life.
TWENTY-TWO
As the smell of breakfast drifted through the house, Ellen tramped out of the bathroom. 'None for me.'
'It's only toast,' Charlotte called up the stairs. 'That's all there is.'
'I know that. I said none, thanks.'
'You ought to have something,' Hugh protested before turning back to the grill more hastily than Charlotte understood.
'I did last night.'
'You didn't have much,' Charlotte said.
'I had all I wanted. Don't start another argument or I won't be going to the hospital.'
'You wouldn't not see Rory,' Hugh cried, twisting around as if she'd unbalanced him.
'Then don't either of you make me. I'll stay up here until it's time to leave,' Ellen declared and shut herself in her room.
Charlotte would have expected her to spend longer in the bathroom. In a moment Hugh voiced her own feelings, if barely audibly. 'What's wrong with her?'
She might have asked the same about him. This morning he'd stayed in his room until Charlotte headed for the bathroom, and on emerging she'd discovered him outside. Had she sensed him lurking out there? Certainly her impression that someone unseen was uncomfortably near had rendered the confined space yet more claustrophobic. She could only assume that Hugh didn't want to be left alone with his anxiety, for Ellen now as well as for his brother. 'I expect it's like you were saying yesterday,' she murmured. 'She's under a lot of stress.'
How much of it was Charlotte's doing? She might blame Glen and the new regime at the publishers, but this hardly absolved her of responsibility. She didn't need Hugh to remind her by pleading 'What can we do?'
'Leave her alone for a while if that's what she wants. Maybe seeing Rory will help.'
How thoughtless was that? Hugh seemed less than persuaded. He was silent while he brought four piebald slices of toast on a cracked plate to the bare stained table, and produced a battered carton of Frugerine from the battered refrigerator, and lifted the plump ragged cover from the clay teapot to fill two mugs, after which the kitchen grew oppressive with his and Charlotte's painfully polite crunching. Last night's Indian meal, which Hugh had arranged to have delivered even though the takeaway was only in the next street, had soon turned wordless too, and afterwards the cousins had applied themselves to trying to enjoy a string of comedy shows on television. Charlotte had kept wondering if she alone could hear an unpleasant snicker as dry as an insect's stridulation amid the mirth of the various studio audiences. The sound had followed her to bed, inside her skull at any rate, along with a sense of so much left unspoken that it had felt more like a presence in the dark. Whenever she'd managed to doze she had wakened either afraid to learn where she might be or convinced that the pent-up darkness was more crowded than she'd left it. Once if not more often she'd heard a model aeroplane suspended on threads stir as if fingers – no less flimsy and jerry-built, she'd thought for some reason – were toying with it in preparation for doing so to her. The prospect of mentioning this made the kitchen seem smaller and darker, as if she were in danger of reviving the night. She finished her toast as fast as she civilly could in order to call 'I think we're ready, Ellen.'
The narrow hall flattened her voice, reminding her of the size of the house – the lack of it, rather. 'I'll be down,' Ellen responded but wasn't while Hugh picked up the plates and looked uncertain where to put them. Was he really so incapable or just taking advantage now that there were women in the house? Charlotte seized the plates and bore them together with the synthetically buttery knife to the sink, which at least gave her a view of the meagre back yard and its outgrown swings. Once she'd washed up she made for the hall with Hugh at her heels. Ellen was descending the stairs, pausing if not resting on each step. She was wearing the same clothes again or still – unnecessarily capacious trousers and a nightdress, if not a blouse that resembled one too much for anybody else's comfort. 'Aren't you going to get changed?' Charlotte had to ask for fear that Hugh would say worse.
'I don't think Rory's going to mind, do you?'
'I hope he might, if you see what I mean. Maybe you should –'
'I've nothing to change into.'
Charlotte could only wonder what Ellen's case was full of – perfume bottles, to judge by the scents of her, which were close to suffocating in the narrow hall. 'Would you like something of mine?'
'You're kind, but it wouldn't be any good.' As Charlotte parted her lips Ellen said 'I've told you I won't have an argument. If you want me with you at the hospital, let's be on our way.'
She was almost at the front door when Hugh said 'Hang on, I'll phone a taxi.'
As Ellen hesitated the gloomy perfumed hall seemed to shrink. Charlotte pushed past her to drag the front door open. 'Good heavens, we can walk that little distance,' she said. 'It'll do us good.'
Ellen frowned as if she suspected some kind of gibe, then held up her hands. Presumably they signalled resignation before she glanced askance at them and jerked them away from her face. 'I expect it won't make any difference,' she said. 'Lead the way then, Hugh.'
'You two go out. I've got to lock up.'
This simply meant pulling the door shut with one hand through the letterbox. He kept hold of it as though it or something beyond it had seized his fingers, a notion so unwelcome that it drove Ellen to a feeble joke. 'The house won't fall down without you, Hugh.'
As the women left the narrow path he dashed after them. Ellen was staring about as if, all too understandably, she hoped not to be seen. Perhaps someone was observing the cousins from one of the houses; certainly Charlotte felt spied upon. Nobody was skulking behind the trees at the junction, although as she hurried past without sparing them a glance she heard an unseen magpie utter its sniggering call. Of course the bird was the shape, pale as bone where it wasn't black as earth, that she thought she glimpsed among the tree-trunks.
Hugh stayed just behind his cousins as they turned along the road towards the station, although the pavement was broad enough for the three to walk abreast. Perhaps he was leaving room well in advance for an approaching Muslim woman, veiled and so thoroughly robed in black that only her eyes and hands were visible. Ellen watched her pass and turned her head to keep the woman in sight until Hugh muttered 'What's wrong?'