She must make sure that Teddy knew she wanted to be cremated. To go up in flames, a pyre, and be returned to the atomic world of elements. It would be better for Viola not to spend the rest of her childhood imagining her mother buried in the dark, damp earth, worms feeding on her flesh. Nancy’s heart was heavier every day. To be thinking of such things (to feel obliged to think of such things) while lying with one’s arms around one’s child, Anne of Green Gables open on the bedspread, Viola’s glass of milk half drunk on the bedside table (cocoa, library books, and so on).
In the past few weeks they had also read together The Secret Garden and Heidi. No coincidence that they were all tales about orphans. After Anne (if there was time) Nancy planned to move on to Little Women—not orphans, it was true, but strong, resourceful young women. All the Shawcross sisters had loved Louisa May Alcott. “And fairy tales, too,” she said to Winnie, who had “popped up for a quick weekend visit.” Winnie, the eldest of them all, lived in Kent. She had “married well” to a self-styled “captain of industry,” a title that amused her sisters. But she was a good sort, kind-hearted and competent.
“Think about all those heroines who have to be quick-witted just to survive,” Nancy said. “Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Snow White. People have the wrong idea about fairy tales, they think they’re about being rescued by handsome princes, whereas really they’re like Girl Guide handbooks.”
“Beauty and the Beast,” Winnie offered, warming to the subject. They were having tea and Winnie was slicing up a cherry Genoa she had brought with her. No one expected Nancy to bake any more. Which was as well as she could barely lift a kettle. Teddy came home every evening and cooked and did housework. Nancy was never hungry any more. Always tired. She used to be up with the lark, but now Teddy brought her tea in bed every morning and she lay there for hours after Teddy and Viola had left the house to get on with their lives.
“You look so well though,” Winnie said.
“I have headaches,” Nancy said, feeling rather defensive. She was tired of people telling her how well she looked, as if she were cheating somehow. Of course, Winnie didn’t mean it like that, she chided herself.
“The Goose Girl,” Winnie said. “Did she have a name? I can only remember the horse’s name.”
“Falada. A funny name for a horse. But I don’t know about the goose girl herself. Nameless, I think.”
“Shall I be mother and pour?” Winnie said. Even the simplest of sentences could be like a dagger to Nancy’s heart.
“Please.” Would this be the last time that she ever saw her eldest sister, she wondered? Soon (now even) it would become a cascade of last times. It was imperative that she go quickly, early, sidestepping the awfulness of all the farewells. She could throw herself beneath the wheels of an express train (but then think of the poor driver). Could she walk into the sea or cast herself into a river? But by instinct she might swim.
“The girl with the brothers who were turned into swans,” Winnie said. “What was she called? She was very brave.”
“She was. Elise. ‘The Wild Swans.’ ” What about poison? Too horrible, Nancy thought, too uncertain—she might gag on it rather than swallow it.
“Hansel and Gretel,” Winnie said. “But just Gretel really. Hansel wasn’t too bright, was he?”
“No, he got himself locked up. Sisters are always cleverer than their brothers in fairy stories.” Hanging was supposed to be quick, but deeply distressing for whoever found you, which might well be—probably would be—either Teddy or (unthinkable) Viola.
“Goldilocks,” Winnie said. “Was she foolish rather than enterprising?”
“Foolish, I think,” Nancy said. “She had to be rescued.” She was going to have to rescue herself. She must start a cache—sleeping tablets and painkillers, anything she could get her hands on. She must take them while she was still capable, still in control. It was difficult to assess what would constitute a fatal dose. It wasn’t the kind of thing you could ask, although she had a different GP now, a Dr. Webster, who was the older, wiser partner of the GP she had first seen (“a young buck,” Dr. Webster called him). Thankfully, Dr. Webster was happy to talk about the reality of what was to come.
But what if she had left it too late? Was it already too late? “Gerda in ‘The Snow Queen,’ ” she said to Winnie. “She was very resourceful.”
The Fourier series, theorems, lemmas, graphs, Parseval’s theorem, natural numbers—words hummed in her brain. She had understood them all once, but now their meaning was lost to her. The bees were back, an endless infuriating buzzing that she tried to drown out with the piano. She had played nothing but the Heroic all day. It was incredibly challenging but she was determined to master it.