"It took me three days to find my wife and daughter, and then I only recognized them by their clothes. I won't tell you what had been done to them before they died-it doesn't bear thinking of, even now." The rims of the Major's eyes were as red now as if they'd been lined with a pencil, but he still spoke slowly, reflectively. "I thought nothing of it when Jasmine first moved here, Dent's a common enough name, after all. It was only when she began to tell me about her childhood that I realized who she must be." He smiled. "Thought someone up there," he raised his eyes heavenward, "was playing some kind of practical joke on me, at first. Then the more I came to know her the more I wondered if she'd been sent to me as a replacement for my own daughter. Silly old bugger," he added, the words definitely slurring now. Then he looked directly into Kincaid's eyes and said more distinctly, "You see I couldn't have told Jasmine, don't you, Mr. Kincaid? I wouldn't have hurt her for the world."
Kincaid finished his beer and stood up. "Thank you, Major. I'm sorry." Letting himself out the back way, he climbed the steps to Jasmine's flat and stood a moment at the top, looking down into the garden. The Major's roses were only visible as dark shapes in the light from the flat's windows. Roses as tribute to Jasmine, and perhaps to his long-dead wife and daughter as well. Kincaid felt sure that the Major had carried their deaths inside himself for most of a lifetime, a tightly wrapped nugget of sorrow. Perhaps his contact with Jasmine had begun a much-needed release.
Lights came on in the house behind the garden. Through the windows the illuminated rooms were as sharp and clear as stage sets, and Kincaid wondered what secret despair their inhabitants hid under their everyday personas. Someone drew the curtains, the glimpse into those unknown lives vanishing as quickly as it had appeared. Kincaid shivered and went in.
I've spent my life waiting for things that never happened, and now I find I can't wait for the one thing that will finally, inevitably come.
I'm afraid. Felicity says the tumor's growth could break my ribs, and then even the morphine may not protect me from the pain. As it is, swallowing solid food becomes more difficult every day, and I can't bear the idea of a feeding tube, or of being utterly helpless, bathed and cleaned like a baby.
Life has an odd way of coming full circle. It's rather ironic that Felicity is the one person who's been unhonest with me. Although Meg's adopted my disease like a stepchild, fascinated with its every aspect, she still tries to shield me from what's to come. Can I count on her to help me?
Don't need Meg's help, that's just weakness. It won't keep me from being alone, but at least I'll be prepared, meet death face-to-face rather than have it take me unawares.
Poor Meg. What will she do without looking after me, or without me to look after her?
Should I say good-bye to Theo? No. That's weakness on my part again. Better for him to remember me as I was. And I find I don't want to know if the business is going well-I'd know in an instant from his face if it's not, and this last reprieve is all I can give him. From now on he'll have to manage the best he can.
It's odd how my world has shrunk to the walls of the flat and the view from the garden steps, and what importance those who come through my door have assumed Their visits are the clock of my days: Felicity's morning briskness, Meg's lunchtime breathless disarray, the Major's comforting teatime silence, and Duncan-Duncan is dessert, I suppose. No matter how I've been, if he stops by in the evening I find the strength to talk, to listen, to laugh. He can't know what a difference he's made in my life, yet if I tell him I'm afraid it will spoil the ease between us.
Sidhi watches me as I write, puts a paw up occasionally to touch the moving pen. One of those ridiculous human occupations, I'm sure he thinks, as incomprehensible and fascinating as the turning pages of a book. I think how much I'll miss him before I can stop myself. How absurd. I shan't miss anything at all.
He closed the last journal slowly and returned it to the shoebox. A glass of wine stood half-drunk on the coffee table-he'd become so absorbed in reading that he'd forgotten it.
The final journal entry was dated the week before Jasmine's death and occupied the last page in the book.
Kincaid stood and stretched, finishing his wine and carrying his crepe wrappers into the kitchen. After leaving Jasmine's flat he'd changed into jeans and sweater and walked up Rosslyn Hill to the crepe stand. The young man in the open booth poured batter and wielded his spatula with the dexterity of an artist, his arms bare against the evening chill. "Ham? Cheese? Mushrooms? Bell peppers? Fancy anything else, then?" he'd asked, the questions not interrupting his concentration or the smoothness of his movements. Kincaid had watched, his back turned deliberately to the Häagen-Dazs shop, determined not to think of Jasmine and rum-raisin ice cream.
Now he washed out his glass and stood irresolutely in his kitchen, tired from the day's driving, too restless and unsettled to contemplate sleep. After a long moment he picked up his keys from the counter and went downstairs to Jasmine's flat.
He'd left a lamp on earlier for the cat, chiding himself for being a fool. Weren't cats supposed to see in the dark? And he doubted very much whether Sid found comfort in the familiar light.
Everything looked just as he had left it, looked just as it had looked a week ago when he and Gemma had searched the flat from top to bottom. Nevertheless, he started again, lifting the mattress on the hospital bed, feeling under the armchair cushion, running his hands behind the rows of the books on the shelves. He moved to the secretary, examining each nook and slot as carefully as he had the first time.
People's lives accumulated the oddest detritus, he thought, staring at the items littering the top drawer. Stubs of old theater tickets, aged and yellowed business cards, receipts for things bought and forgotten long ago, all mixed with a jumble of pens, pencil stubs and scraps of paper.
What would he leave behind in his flat if he were to walk in front of a bus tomorrow? What would some anonymous searcher make of his dusty collection of paperback science fiction, or the sixties' and seventies' records he couldn't bear to give away even though he no longer owned a turntable?
What would they make of the wedding photos stuck in the back of his bureau drawer? Of Vic, with her Alice-in-Wonderland hair and pale, innocent face-Vic, who had sabotaged much of his trust and naive faith in human nature? He should thank her, he supposed-neither quality would have proved advantageous to a rising career copper.
The school reports and drawings, term papers and rugby trophies his mother had boxed away in her Cheshire attic with other childish souvenirs. What had Jasmine done with the mementos of her childhood? He'd found no snapshots or letters, nothing from the years in India or Dorset except the journals.
He moved into the bedroom. Jasmine's silky caftans brushed against his fingers as he felt along the back of the wardrobe. To one side hung business suits and dresses, their shoulders covered with a film of dust, as were the stylish pumps neatly arranged in the wardrobe's floor.
Finding nothing there, he sat down on the small stool before the dressing table and stared at his reflection in the mirror. The light from the lamp on the table's right side cast shadows that rendered unfamiliar the planes and angles of his face and left his eyes dark. He blinked and pushed the hair off his brow with his fingers, then pulled open the middle drawer. Women's cosmetics never ceased to amaze him. Even women like Jasmine, who in all other respects were relatively orderly, seemed unable to do more than confine the mess to a specific area. And they never seemed to throw the used bits and pieces away. Jasmine's drawer proved no exception. Half-empty pots of eye shadow and rouge, lipsticks used down to the metal inner casing, brushes and sponges, all covered with a fine dusting of face powder. He sniffed. From somewhere came the scent he associated with Jasmine. Exotically floral with a hint of musk, it almost reminded him of incense.