Thieving Fear

Hugh opened his mouth. He closed it at once – dismayingly, to no effect. The sound that was scraping his nerves continued with scarcely a break. While it was a cry he might very well have uttered, he'd last heard it from Charlotte in the tunnel. This time the powerless desperate almost shapeless plea was struggling from between Rory's slack lips. It took perhaps a minute to subside without rousing him, and then he was as inactive as before. Hugh waited until Ellen and Charlotte looked at each other and eventually, quite possibly reluctantly, at him. 'Do you believe me now?' he said.

TWENTY-FIVE

As soon as the doors clumped shut behind Annie on her hasty way to lunch Hugh said 'What do you think's happening to you, Ellen?'

He wanted her to admit to living in a nightmare, Charlotte guessed. Her own instinct was to hope for an interruption – hope that Rory might cry out again and bring back the staff, not that their prolonged examination had identified any change – but the hope was so irrational that she would have been ashamed to betray it. 'Hugh,' she protested instead.

'We've got to talk. We mustn't let anything stop us. You have to see that now.'

Charlotte wondered if he imagined he was exhorting Rory as well as both his cousins. His face was red with the effort or embarrassment of attempting to take the lead. 'Depends what you want to talk about,' Ellen told him.

'I said.'

'Hugh, you know we love you, but you aren't too good at understanding women. Sometimes we just need to be left alone.'

His face grew more thoroughly suffused as he searched for somewhere to look, and Charlotte had to intervene. 'Not if we need help,' she said.

'You know we'll help you in any way we can, Charlotte,' Ellen said.

'That's right, we should help one another, but we can't if we don't know what's wrong.'

'I shouldn't think either of you is in any doubt about me.'

'I can't speak for Hugh, but I am. Honestly, Ellen, what's happened to you? If it's stress and I'm responsible, I'll take as much of it off you as I possibly can. Just tell me how.'

'That isn't what needs taking off me, and nobody can except me.'

'I'm not sure I understand that. In fact I'm sure I don't.'

'Oh, Charlotte, for heaven's sake. You're getting as bad as Hugh.'

'I'd say that was as good.'

'Sorry, Hugh. I'm sure Charlotte's right and it must be stress. What else would you expect just now?'

Ellen swung her free hand towards Rory before letting it drop out of sight, and Hugh held onto his brother as he turned to Charlotte. 'She can't have got like this since then, can she?'

'You're forgetting I lost my job.'

'So did I, but I'm still eating. Why won't you?'

As Ellen sprang to her feet a haphazard bouquet of perfumes filled and seemed to shrink the space around the bed. If any of this had stirred Rory it would have been worthwhile, Charlotte thought, but he was as inactive as a statue. 'They used to say you had to be cruel to be kind, Hugh,' Ellen declared, 'but you're being kind to be cruel.'

'I don't mean to be.' Hugh struggled to hold her with his gaze as he said 'I just don't see why you have to do this to yourself.'

'Oh, Hugh.' Ellen stretched her arms wide, less like a preamble to an embrace than as if to ensure none could occur. 'Take a good look and say what you're seeing,' she said. 'Don't dare to be kind, that's all.'

'I'm seeing you. The same person you've always been.'

'Inside, you mean. Maybe I'm the same person, but not the same thing.'

'You aren't a thing.'

'I know how you feel about me, but don't bother any longer. That's what I am.'

As Charlotte caught up with Ellen's first comment and felt absurdly unobservant not to have realised, Hugh turned his dismayed gaze on her, which she saw Ellen take as evidence that he couldn't stand any more of the sight of her. 'Can't you talk to her?' he pleaded.

'Ellen, you tell us. How are you expecting us to say you look?'

'Obese. Gross. Lumpish. Doughy. Pasty. Mammoth. Gargantuan. Cumbersome. Hippopotamish or whatever word there is. I haven't finished.' Ellen held out her hands as if they were objects she was disgusted to have picked up. 'Then there's putrid,' she said, 'and foul and rotten and tainted and septic and festering. Are you proud of me? I'll make a writer yet with all these words. And as for the smell –'

'Stop it, Ellen. You're just indulging yourself now.' As Charlotte saw Hugh's eyes flicker wildly in their sockets she felt as if she'd been delegated to calm her cousins down, although who could be calmer than Rory? 'Let's stay with how you started,' she said. 'You aren't overweight, you're very much the opposite. You weren't the last time we all met, and you haven't had time to put it on since.'

'Listen to her, Ellen. She's telling you the truth.'

'I've said before I'm glad we're so close, but you're both trying too hard. I know what I am.'

'All right then,' Charlotte said and stood up. 'Come and show me.'

Hugh didn't quite clutch at his brother's unresponsive hand. 'Where are you going?'

'Not far. We shouldn't be long. Let's hurry, Ellen. Stay there, Hugh.'

For a moment Ellen looked too concerned about him to leave him, and then she tramped like a mime of defiance to join Charlotte. As Charlotte hurried down the ward, which felt significantly narrower with the two of them abreast, she heard Hugh murmuring to Rory. 'Mum and dad don't know about you yet, that's why they're not here. They'll be down below us, all the way down. On their outback holiday they always wanted, but it means I can't get in touch.'

The ward doors cut off his monologue, and Ellen said 'Maybe we should leave them together for a while.'

'As long as you like,' Charlotte said and turned along the corridor.

It wasn't nearly spacious enough – with its lack of windows, it underlined the remoteness of escaping from the hospital – but it was ample compared with the Ladies'. She had to lead Ellen into the room, which was narrowed by cubicles and additionally cramped by a pair of sinks. Only the mirrors above the sinks were important, except that Ellen jerked up a hand to block the view until she'd turned her back on them. 'Why were you so anxious to bring me in here?' she said.

'Just to look at us.'

'You aren't asking me to get undressed. You wouldn't care for that any more than I would, believe me.' When Charlotte shook her head and did her best to seem amused by the first suggestion, Ellen said 'Then why in here?'

'Because we can see us together. Just have a look.'

As Charlotte faced the mirrors she was confronted by Ellen's stubborn back. 'I've seen all I want to of myself,' Ellen said.

'Please, Ellen. See yourself with me.'

Ellen twisted around, her eyes wide enough to be parodying madness, but didn't stop until she was facing away from the mirrors again. In the instant during which she braved her reflection her hands wavered towards her eyes before sagging by her sides. 'All right, now I have. Can we go?'

'What did you see, Ellen?'

'You putting on a good show. Nearly managing not to look as if you'd rather not be standing next to this. Nice try at a smile but you couldn't quite keep it up.'

'If anything about you is making me unhappy it's the thought of you starving yourself for no reason at all.'

'You aren't going to convince me, Charlotte. I've seen how people look at me that don't need to pretend, look at me and say things they don't care if I hear, even people I used to care for. When I was at my appeal –'

She fell silent as a nurse blinked at the sight of the cousins facing opposite ways. 'Everything all right?' the newcomer said.

'Would you say anything wasn't?' Charlotte risked asking.

The nurse gave Ellen a longer look on her way to a cubicle. 'Needs feeding up,' she said.