‘Sorry,’ he gasped. ‘Alarm clock. Public transport. Have you been waiting long?’
‘Just a few minutes. It’s fine. We don’t have an appointment or anything. It’s just a visit. I thought you’d be interested to meet her and I know she likes visitors. We’ll have coffee after and you can tell me about Carrie.’
They walked up the stairs and along the corridor of gaudy murals, wheelchairs and Zimmer frames, then through the double doors and into the ward. The woman in a Victorian nightie who did jigsaws was no longer there, but everything else looked unchanged. The bed that Michelle Doyce had occupied was now filled by a very large woman who stared at them blankly.
‘She’s through there,’ said the nurse, gesturing towards a door. ‘On her own. Orders.’ She raised her eyebrows at them, inviting a humorous response.
Frieda nodded. ‘Good.’
Michelle Doyce’s new room was small and poky, with peeling light green walls. It would have been unremittingly grim but for a large window that let natural light into the room and led on to a fire escape. The metal stairs spiralled down to a courtyard that was filled, Frieda saw, with a nearly empty skip and several overflowing refuse bins. She couldn’t imagine any of the patients she had seen managing to manoeuvre their way down to safety. There was a cockroach under the miniature sink in the corner. She opened the window, picked the insect up with a tissue and dropped it neatly into the skip below. Jack pulled a face.
Michelle Doyce was sitting in the metal chair beside her bed. On the bedside table were several small scraps of paper, three plastic bottle tops in a row, an old pill docket, whose compartments now contained small curls of fluff and hair, five jigsaw pieces and a few thin tabs of soap, presumably collected from the bathroom bins. This, Frieda reflected, was Michelle Doyce’s way of making herself at home.
Michelle put a finger to her lips as they approached. ‘They’re sleeping.’
‘We’ll be quiet,’ said Frieda. ‘Can we sit at the end of the bed, or do you want us to stand?’
‘You can sit if you’re careful. He can stand.’
Jack held out his hand. ‘I’m Jack,’ he said. ‘Frieda’s friend. I’m glad to meet you.’
Michelle Doyce looked at his outstretched hand as if she didn’t know what it was, and after an awkward moment he dropped it to his side, but then she leaned forward and picked it up, examining it curiously, running her finger over his callouses, tutting over a broken blood vessel and torn nail, murmuring to herself.
‘Look,’ she said, turning it over so the palm lay upwards in her grasp. ‘Life lines.’
‘Will I live long?’ Jack asked, smiling.
‘Oh, no.’ She patted his hand softly, then let it go. ‘Not you.’
Jack looked disconcerted, although he tried to smile.
‘Do you remember me?’ Frieda asked.
‘You introduced us.’
‘My name’s Frieda. We talked about the man who lived in your room.’
‘He never came back to me.’
‘Do you still miss him?’
‘Where is he?’
‘He’s safe now.’
Michelle Doyce nodded. She made one of her floating gestures, tracing a vague outline in the air with her blunt fingers.
‘What do you remember about him?’
‘His poor hand.’ She turned her face to Jack, her milky eyes. ‘Worse than yours.’
‘Just his hand? There’s nothing else? Nothing you picked up?’
‘I never steal. I look after things.’
‘I know that. Is there anything you need?’
‘In the end.’
‘Where’s your dog?’
‘Everyone leaves. Ports and rivers.’
‘But your dog, has he left you?’
‘They’ll wake.’
She pointed at the brown blanket pulled over the pillows.
‘Is he in there?’
‘Friends now. It took time.’
‘Can I see?’
‘Promise.’
‘I promise.’
With infinite gentleness, Michelle turned down the blanket. ‘There,’ she said proudly.
Under the blanket lay not just one soft toy, but two: the floppy-eared dog with button eyes that Frieda had given her, and a small pink teddy bear with a red heart stitched on to its chest.
‘That’s good,’ said Jack. ‘They can keep each other company.’
‘Here.’ Michelle lifted the dog into his arms, positioning it carefully.
‘Where does the other one come from?’ asked Frieda.
Michelle looked at her uncomprehendingly.
‘Did someone bring him?’
‘I look after her.’
‘I can see that. But how did she come here?’
‘You never can tell.’
‘So you have no idea how Michelle Doyce came by the teddy?’
‘That’s what I’m saying.’ The ward manager spoke loudly and deliberately, as if Frieda was hard of hearing or slow to understand.
‘Or when she got it.’
‘That’s right. No idea.’
‘Someone must have given it to her.’
‘It’s just a cheap little bear,’ the woman said. ‘Maybe she took it from someone else’s bed, or maybe someone threw it away and she picked it out of a bin. What’s your problem? It makes her happy. She spends every minute of the day looking after them.’
‘I need to find out if someone else has been to visit her. How long do you keep your CCTV footage?’
‘What footage?’
‘I’ve seen several cameras round the hospital.’
‘Oh, them. They’re just for show. Where do you think we’d get the money for the real thing? This isn’t one of your hospital trusts, you know. It’s hard enough to pay our nurses or get people to clean the floors, let alone have all the mod cons.’
‘So there wouldn’t be anything on film?’
‘I don’t think so. Not from here at any rate. There’s a camera at the entrance but they only keep footage for twenty-four hours.’
‘I see. Thank you.’
Jack and Frieda sat in the downstairs café, which was really just two Formica tables in a corner of the lobby, next to the shop where Frieda had bought the button-eyed dog. A man in overalls trundled past them with a trolley full of magazines and newspapers that he threw in large bundles on to the floor. Frieda ordered a green tea from the bored-looking woman behind the counter, and Jack a cappuccino with chocolate on top and a dried-out blueberry muffin.
‘Poor Michelle Doyce,’ he said. There was a line of froth above his upper lip.
‘She seems much happier now.’
‘Because of those toys?’
‘They’re not toys to her. They’re living creatures she can look after and love, and be loved by in return. It’s what most of us want, after all.’
‘Yes,’ said Jack, gloomily.
‘Tell me about Carrie. You’ve seen her twice, I think. How’s it going?’
‘Well.’ Jack brightened. He broke off a crumbling lump of muffin and posted it into his mouth. ‘I was so nervous. It was like going on stage. I took ages choosing what to wear, which isn’t like me.’
‘It’s natural,’ said Frieda. ‘So how did it go?’
‘I was in my room at the Warehouse, waiting, an hour before she came. Paz was a bit startled. Carrie was ridiculously early too. And she was nervous, Frieda. As soon as I saw her, I felt ashamed of my own anxiety. I’d just been thinking of myself, but she was going through the real thing. She came in and sat on the chair opposite me and took a long drink of water, and then I said that although I knew of some of the events in her life that had brought her to me, I wanted her to tell me in her own words. And she started to cry.’