Maura thought about the dark flat awaiting her, considered the prospect of cheese and biscuits eaten in front of the flickering light of the telly, and suddenly rushing home didn’t seem all that appealing.

She knocked back the last of her Scotch, her eyes watering, and set her glass down on the table with a thump. Some small part of her mind wondered if it was only the whisky talking, but she found she didn’t really care.

“Okay,” she said. “Why not?”

Winnie stirred a heaping spoonful of Horlicks into the mug of milk she’d heated for Fanny in the microwave, then popped the drink back in for a few more seconds while she rooted in the cabinets for a packet of biscuits. She’d made them both omelets for dinner, then helped Fanny get ready for bed and settled her on the chaise longue.

She’d been surprised to learn that Fanny could stand on her own, if only briefly. “It’s not like a spinal cord injury,” Fanny had explained as Winnie helped her into her nightdress. “Although I was completely paralyzed the first few months. I even had to have help breathing the first weeks in intensive care.”

“How long were you in hospital?” Winnie asked.

“Six months, although I don’t remember much of the first part. GBS comes on very suddenly, and they still don’t know the cause. I am getting better, though,” she’d added brightly. “It’s just that… sometimes it’s hard to be patient.”

Winnie had been about to say, “I can imagine,” when she realized she couldn’t, and that there was no aphorism adequate for Fanny’s everyday struggles.

Silently, she’d tucked Fanny up under her faded quilt. Then she’d come into the kitchen and rattled things in an effort to vent the anger she was feeling towards Elaine Holland. If Elaine had been dishonest with Fanny about a small thing like the mobile phone, what else had she lied about? Although Winnie cautioned herself against jumping to conclusions, she couldn’t shake the feeling that Elaine had been using Fanny in some way.

She’d located the biscuits, on the low table that held a toaster, an electric kettle, bread, tea, and most of the other necessities that allowed Fanny to function fairly independently during the day. When the microwave dinged, she carried the mug and biscuits into the sitting room, breathing in the malty aroma of the Horlicks with a smile. “Isn’t it odd how smells seem to connect with our memories so directly?” she asked as she positioned the things on Fanny’s table. “One sniff of Horlicks and I’m five years old, staying the night with my gran, just as if it were yesterday.”

“We drank cocoa when I was a child, but after I got sick I couldn’t tolerate the caffeine,” Fanny said, pushing herself up on the chaise so that she could reach the cup. “The Horlicks was Elaine’s idea. She made it for me every night, even when she was late getting in.”

Winnie tried to reconcile this small nurturing act with what she’d seen of Elaine, without much success. “Fanny,” she asked slowly, pulling up a chair, “what do you and Elaine find to talk about? It doesn’t seem as if you have much in common.”

“Oh, well… we talk about her work, and the hospital – it makes me feel I’m still a bit involved – and about the daily household things, you know, what we need from the shops, what to have for supper. Sometimes we watch telly together.” Fanny’s face took on a faraway look. “Sometimes we’d plan holidays we were going to take when I was well enough, somewhere in the sun. Italy, or Majorca. I always liked to imagine Elaine on the beach, going brown as a nut, and I thought that if she could get away for a bit, she wouldn’t mind things so much.”

“Mind things?”

“Oh, you know. She’d get her feelings hurt easily… if someone said something at work or if she felt she’d been passed over. And sometimes she’d take against people for no real reason, like-” Fanny stopped, a little color rising in her pale cheeks.

“Like me, you mean?” asked Winnie gently. “It’s all right, I don’t mind.”

“I don’t think it was you personally. More the church in general.”

Winnie had suspected Elaine of being jealous of her. Now she wondered if Elaine had been afraid of having her own relationship with Fanny too closely inspected.

“I thought she was beginning to soften up a bit recently, though,” Fanny went on. “At least she stayed when you brought the Eucharist on Sundays. She’d always made a point to be out of the house when Roberta came.”

“I’m flattered,” Winnie said with a smile. “Although I can’t imagine anyone not liking Roberta.” She took Fanny’s empty cup. “Will you be all right on your own tonight? I can stay if you like.”

“You’ve done too much as it is.” Fanny reached out and gave Winnie’s hand a squeeze. “I do have some tablets, though, that I take sometimes when I have a bad night. Maybe I should take one of those.”

“Good idea. I’ll fetch it for you.”

Having been directed to the drawer in the kitchen, Winnie found the bottle and shook a small oval white tablet into her hand. She recognized the name of a mild sedative hypnotic, but frowned as she glanced at the prescription date. The prescription was only a week old, but the bottle seemed at least half empty. She poured the remaining tablets out in her palm and counted them – there were ten left out of thirty.

She suspected this type of medication was addictive. Was Fanny taking more than the prescribed dose? And how could she go about asking her?

The room had grown dark. Harriet lay on a narrow bed, still half dreaming, disjointed images flitting through her mind.

Beneath her, a musty, sour smell rose from the mattress when she moved. It made her think of the time her friend Samantha had come for a sleepover and had wet the bed, and of old Mrs. Bletchley.

A spark flared in her mind. Mrs. Bletchley’s, that’s where she was. She’d overslept for school. But no – the images came crowding back, fuzzy and jittering like an old newsreel she’d seen in history class.

Her dad – she remembered seeing her dad, and ducking down to slide into the backseat of his car. Her backpack had caught on the door frame, and the lady in the front seat had looked back at her and smiled.

She drifted again, riding a current of flickering movement – her dad saying something – she could see his lips moving, but she couldn’t hear the words.

More darkness. A lamp globe made of swirly orange glass swam into view. Coffee, she’d smelled coffee. It made her think of their flat in the morning, of her mother getting ready for work… but no, that wasn’t right…

She struggled to pull herself out of the dream. Not home. Starbucks. The lady had taken her to Starbucks. But where was her dad?

Movement again, the world tilting. Another car ride – no, a taxi. She remembered the shiny black door. A man’s face asking a question, his blue eyes kind. She felt the warmth of a body against hers, heard a woman’s voice saying, “She’s not feeling well… bit of a bug…”

Walls rose, taller than she could see, blocking out the light. Gray brick, topped with broken glass and strands of wire that curled.

Then a gate – or had it been before? Her mind fixed on it, trying to hold the image. A silvery arch, like a keyhole, filled with black flowers. And through the keyhole, a flash of green.

The bright color receded and winked out, as if a door had closed at the end of a tunnel, and the darkness descended like a weight.