But of course she never dropped it.
The snow globe feels smooth and heavy in my hands, snug on its black plastic plinth. There’s a thin crack across the plinth; I can see where it was mended. My father did that with superglue, then it had to be left to set for half a day.
I glance about the busy café, but nobody’s looking my way. Nobody cares about this strange, unsettling reminder of my sister.
Only me.
It’s like looking into the past. Like my childhood still exists inside a locked room in one of those snow-covered Swiss chalets, almost within reach, if only I could see through the white-out of the storm . . .
Then something else bobs round with the fake snow, bumping against the glass.
I cry out, almost dropping the globe.
An eyeball?
Not a joke-shop eyeball. A real, honest-to-goodness eyeball, white and fatty, with ragged bits of pinkish tissue still hanging off where it was cut out.
There’s an eyeball in the whirling snow, staring back at me.
Chapter Two Our flat is five minutes’ walk from the Hanwell Cemetery end of Ealing Broadway, a large old Victorian house divided into one-and two-bedroom flats. We’re on the top floor.
‘Hello?’ I ask warily, unlocking the front door.
There’s no answer.
I kick the door shut and hurry straight into the bedroom of our one-bedroom flat, not pausing to strip off my thick scarf and gloves. The curtains are still drawn. The windows are narrow and the ceilings slope on the top floor, so the room constantly feels small and gloomy.
I flick on the light, breathing quickly after my fast walk from the bus stop, and look about the place. Books and open magazines lie everywhere, cups balance on book stacks, dirty plates gather dust on the floor, the wastepaper bin overflows silently in a forgotten corner. The double bed is still messy from this morning’s scramble to get up in good time, the duvet thrown back in a tangled rush, one of Dominic’s dark hairs on the pillow. A crumpled sock dangles over the lampshade.
It looks like the flat has been burgled.
Nothing unusual, then.
I bend and shove the anonymous parcel, still partially wrapped, under the bed. It slides into the narrow space with barely an inch to spare. Easy to remove though, and hidden from view when I step back to check.
‘There.’
I’ll deal with it later, I tell myself, and try to ignore the guilty thump of my heart. Dominic will be home any minute, and Rachel’s snow globe isn’t a conversation I want to have with my fiancé. Not today, anyway.
Dominic sheds like a bloody cat, I think, glaring down at the long strand of hair coiled on his white pillow.
I strip off my gloves and shove them into my coat pocket. With a grimace, I tweak the long hair off the pillow and drop it into the wastepaper bin, then plump up both head-dented pillows. Shaking out the duvet, I arrange it neatly across the bed. Straightening up, I eye the dirty sock on the lampshade, then decide to leave it there.
I don’t want him to suspect anything is wrong.
‘There,’ I say again.
Before leaving the room, I pause in the doorway and glance dubiously back at the parcel’s hiding place.
Will I even be able to sleep with that thing under the bed all night?
The front door bangs.
Closing the bedroom door, I turn with a quick smile. ‘Dominic.’
‘Hey, baby.’
Dominic looks exhausted, still in his blue hospital scrubs, his nurse’s identity badge twisted up in a loop on its lanyard and stuffed into his top pocket. There’s a dark shadow on his chin where he needs to shave. Twelve-hour shifts as a nurse practitioner in Accident and Emergency. Not easy to cope with.
He smiles wearily and kisses me on the lips. We nuzzle together for a moment in silence, his head on my shoulder.
I should tell him about the snow globe.
Only I can’t.
‘You’re early,’ I say instead. ‘And I’m late.’
‘Busy day?’
‘Busy day,’ I agree without elaborating. ‘And the bus took forever to arrive. I was just going to make a pot of tea. Want some?’
‘Gin would be more appropriate,’ he says, ‘and hold the tonic.’
‘I expect that can be arranged,’ I tell him lightly, but raise my head to study his face. I know that tone. ‘What’s happened?’
‘Oh, you know . . . same old shit in A & E.’
‘Dom, come on.’
‘It’s nothing. I’m knackered, that’s all.’ I raise my eyebrows, still waiting, and he adds reluctantly, ‘An old lady died. Old ladies do that, don’t they?’
He drags the identity badge up over his head and tosses it onto the hall table, then staggers past me into the tiny living room. I follow in silence, wishing there was something I could do to help. But he hates me fussing. Making an irritable noise under his breath, he reaches up and pulls off the hairband that holds his ponytail strictly in place during the working day.
‘Except they’re supposed to die at home, or on the ward,’ he mutters, and throws himself onto the sofa, taking up all the space. ‘Not in a bloody uncomfortable chair in a crowded corridor, after waiting nine hours to be seen by a doctor.’
I don’t ask for details. He’ll tell me more if he wants to. When he’s had a crappy day like this, Dominic rarely wants a two-way discussion. He just wants to get the acid out of his system for a few minutes, which usually means bitching about Sally Weston, his manager in A & E, or the increasingly visible cracks in the NHS. Then he’ll sink down in front of the television with a beer for a few hours and not mention it again.
I kneel on the rug beside him. ‘Fuck.’
‘Nobody even noticed.’ He throws an arm across his eyes. ‘She’d been dead maybe twenty minutes, half an hour, before anyone even thought to check she was still breathing.’
I lean my forehead on his shoulder. My heart aches for him. And for the old lady.
‘This fucking government . . .’ He kicks the far end of the sofa, and there’s a distinct crack. ‘Shit, sorry.’
‘Don’t worry about it.’ I stroke his hair, trying to communicate how sorry I am without being mawkish. Dominic distrusts sentimentality; he says it clouds the important issues, that love is better without pity in the mix. ‘What was her name?’
‘Ida,’ he tells me after a long pause. ‘Her name was Mrs Ida Matthews, a widow. And she had a son, and three grandchildren.’
‘Weren’t they with her at the hospital?’
‘On a winter holiday, she said. Two weeks’ bloody skiing in the Alps.’
I tense, pushing away a sudden vision of Swiss chalets against a backdrop of snowy mountains . . .
‘That’s awful.’
‘I left Sally trying to find a number for their hotel.’ He gives a croak of humourless laughter. ‘If I hadn’t spent so long talking to her, we wouldn’t even have known about them. She could have been lying unclaimed in the morgue for days.’
‘You did your best.’
‘Oh yes, I did my bloody best. No one can blame me. Or the doctor. Or the system. We were all doing our best under difficult circumstances, that’s what the report will say.’
Dominic sits up suddenly, knocking me away. His eyes are damp and bloodshot. He stares at nothing, his face grim, then turns his head towards me and says, ‘Sorry,’ without actually meeting my gaze. ‘You’re only trying to help, and I’m being shitty. Come on.’ Standing, he holds out a hand to me. ‘Let’s make supper together. I’ll do us chicken pasta. You can tell me about your day.’
I think about my day, and my smile falters. ‘You’re too tired.’
‘I insist.’ He pulls me up effortlessly, six foot of pure brawn, and kisses me again, this time a lingering kiss that leaves me warm and aching. ‘Mmm, you’re so good to come home to. I love this.’ His fingers play with my short, ash-blonde hair. ‘Soft hair, soft skin . . .’ His hand slips down to my behind. ‘Soft bumps.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
To his credit, Dominic gives an embarrassed laugh. ‘Curves, then. Though I like to think of them as bumps.’
‘You mean like speed bumps?’