Oh God but I do, Cat thought, as she stood, afraid to drive to the hospice, not wanting to find out what was happening to Karin, smelling the last faint smoke from the burning of the leaves.
Imogen House. There was change here too. The new wing was complete, the old senior sister had retired, a couple of other nurses Cat had known well had moved on, new ones had arrived. But Lois on the reception desk for evenings was still there and greeted Cat with a look of pleasure and a warm hug. It was Lois who was the first face of the hospice when patients arrived at night and were apprehensive as well as desperately ill. Lois who welcomed relatives who were afraid and in distress, Lois who made every one of them feel at home, in safe and loving hands, Lois who was cheerful and positive but never too chirpy, Lois who remembered every name and who absorbed what she could of the anxiety and dread.
“Karin McCafferty?” Cat said.
“Came in last week. She’s been refusing to see anyone at all, but this afternoon she asked if you were back.”
“How is she?”
Lois shook her head. “Be prepared. But it’s more than her physical state, which is actually better now they’ve sorted out her pain control. She seems very angry. I’d say very bitter. No one can get through to her. Maybe you’ll have some luck.”
“I might. I can guess what’s making her angry. Surprised she wants to see me though—Karin’s very proud, she won’t want to lose face.”
The telephone rang. “People,” Lois said to Cat, before she answered it, “behave unexpectedly. You know that as well as I do. There’s no second-guessing how it’s going to take anyone. She’s in room 7.
“Imogen House, good evening, this is Lois.”
The sense of calm and peace Cat always experienced walking through the quiet corridors of the hospice at night met her as she left the reception area, though there were voices from some of the wards, and lights were on. Whatever their beliefs about death, Cat thought, no one could fail to be affected by the atmosphere here, the lack of rush, the absence of noise and bustle that was the inevitable part of any other hospital. She turned into B wing. Here, rooms 5 to 9 were grouped around a small central area which had armchairs and small tables, and double doors that led onto a terrace and the hospice garden. Patients who were well enough sat here during the day or were pushed out in wheelchairs and even beds, to enjoy any fine weather. But now the doors were closed and the room empty.
Or so it seemed. But as Cat went across to room 7, someone said, “I’m here.”
Karin McCafferty was sitting in the chair closest to the darkened windows. The chair was high-backed and turned away, towards the light. Cat realised that she had failed to see her not only because of that but because Karin, who had never been tall, seemed the size of a child curled up in it.
Cat went over and would have bent to hug her but Karin made a movement to lean back and away from her.
“I was afraid I’d die,” she said, “before you got home.”
Looking at Karin in the light from a lamp in the corner, Cat understood that this might well have been so. The flesh seemed barely to cover her, her skin had the transparent gleam and pallor of the dying. Her fingers on the chair arm were ivory bones interlaced by the blue threads of veins. Her eyes were huge in deep sockets sunk into her skull.
“Don’t gloat,” she said, looking intently at Cat. “Don’t crow because you won.”
Cat pulled up one of the chairs. “You think very badly of me,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
Karin’s eyes filled with sudden tears and she shook her head furiously.
Cat took her hand. It lay almost weightless in her own. “Listen—everything fails. Sooner or later. Everything. We don’t know nearly as much as we pretend. You did what you believed in and it gave you time—good time too, not time recovering from awful side effects, not time without your hair and being sick and exhausted or recovering from major surgery. You had the courage to reject the orthodox. And, for you, for a long while, it worked. What do I have to crow about? You could have had surgery and chemo and radiotherapy and been dead in six months. Nothing’s guaranteed.”
Karin smiled slightly. “Thanks. But it hasfailed. I’m angry with it, Cat. I believed, I really and truly believed, that it would cure me for good. I believed that more than I have ever believed anything, and it let me down. It lied to me. They lied.”
“No.”
“I’m dying nevertheless—and I wasn’t going to die. I was going to stay well. I thought I’d beaten it. So I feel totally betrayed and if anyone asked me, should they go down the road I took, then no, I’d say, no, don’t bother. Don’t waste your money or your energy or your faith. Put your faith in nothing. None of it’s any good.”
The tears splashed down onto Cat’s hand, and now Karin leaned forward so that she could be held.
No one can get through to her. Maybe you’ll have some luck, Lois had said.
Cat felt Karin’s frail body shake in a fury of crying. She said nothing. There was nothing to say. She simply held her and let her cry her tears of weariness and pain, disappointment and fear.
It took a long time.
In the end, Cat helped her to bed and sent a text message home, fetched tea for them both and came back to find Karin lying, white as the linen of her high pillows, exhausted but calm.
“Have you been in touch with Mike?”
Karin’s mouth firmed. “No, I have not.”
“Maybe he’d want to know?”
“Then he’ll have to want. I’ve moved on from all that.”
“OK. It’s your call.”
“There is c” Karin hesitated. “I want to talk about it. About dying.”
“To me?”
“Do you know what happened to Jane Fitzroy?”
Jane had been the chaplain to Imogen House and a priest at the cathedral.
“No, but I could find out. She went to a convent—I had an address before we went to Sydney—and if she isn’t there any more they’ll probably know where she went.”
Simon might know, she thought but did not say.
“I liked Jane. I could talk to her.”
“I’ll do whatever I can.”
“I’ll try not to die first.”
Cat stood up. “Do you want me to come and see you again?”
“If you can bring Jane.”
“And if I can’t?”
Karin turned her head away.
After a moment, neither saying any more nor touching her again, Cat went quietly out of the room.
Her phone buzzed the receipt of a text message as she crossed the courtyard.
Feel crap going bed. Si here mad as hatter. Hurry up. Xx.
Seventeen
Ten past six. This end of town is quiet. Offices shut. Shops shut. And the Seven Acesnot open till eight. Plenty of time.
Timed it right. Perfectly calculated.
The floor of the old granary looked dodgy but he’d been up twice and it was better than he expected. He’d walked on the beams and the boards. Tested. There was woodworm. Dust flew. But it wasn’t about to give way under his weight.
The evening sun had warmed it. There was straw and white splattering where the swallows had nested in the summer. They’d found the holes in the roof. He came up the old fire escape at the back. He wore trainers with the soles covered in thick wedges of polythene foam. No prints.
It smelled of wood and dust and dryness. There was a FOR SALE sign on the temporary fencing at the front. DEVELOPMENT POTENTIAL. Half of Lafferton. The Old Ribbon Factory. The canalside buildings. The old munitions store. Now this. Lafferton was changing. Apartments, boutique shops, smart offices.
He didn’t mind. Not sentimental. Wasn’t born here anyway. Nowhere near. Safer that way.
He’d come up here three days ago, at this time. Looking down onto an empty street. The odd car, but the granary wasn’t on the road to anywhere and this end of town was still run-down. Not for long. But run-down now. Which suited.