‘Hurt my back,’ she whimpered through a split lip.
‘Oh my God, Lauren! Did you fall? Down the stairs?’ Marianne was white, shaking.
‘Can you move? Oh my darling!’ Claire put out her hands. Lorna ignored them. She heaved herself up on one arm and held onto Marianne in a bear hug. Marianne crooned and carried her awkwardly to the sofa. Claire hung behind them.
‘What hurts, lovely?’
‘My back and my mouth,’ the girl groaned.
‘And what happened, lovely?’
‘I had a horrible dream, and I called for Mum, but she didn’t hear me. You were both talking. And I couldn’t find the light and I was scared, and I’ – she began to choke – ‘fell, all the way down!’
Marianne cooed and stroked while Claire went into the kitchen to get the medical box, a horrible image creeping into her mind: Lorna standing on the stairs, listening to their conversation, so scared, feeling betrayed, feeling angry. What on earth was I thinking? About to speak to Marianne about all that, about the fire? What were you thinking, Claire? Her hands shook so that she nearly dropped the box, and the first thing she said to Lorna when she went into the living room was: ‘I’m so sorry!’
‘What for?’ The girl’s dull eyes were fixed at a point just above Claire’s shoulder.
‘That – that we didn’t hear you. I’m so sorry, darling. Here, let me see your back.’ Lorna turned over painfully. A small red graze at the bottom of her spine. Claire dabbed it ineffectually with arnica. ‘And how’s your lip?’
‘Hurts. And my arm, and my fingers too.’
‘Ah, you poor little poppet!’ Marianne pushed her stricken face at Lorna. ‘You poor love!’
Lorna closed her eyes. ‘I was calling and calling but you just kept on talking.’ Both women stood guiltily before her. She opened her eyes, narrowed them. ‘What were you talking about, anyway?’
‘Nothing,’ Claire blurted. ‘Nothing really. Just chatting.’ Lorna stared deliberately at the fire and pursed her lips.
‘Just chattering away.’ Marianne sounded nervous now too. ‘We mustn’t have heard you through the door. Thick doors in these old cottages.’
The girl stayed silent and the two women edged about her, offering water, paracetamol, a story, but she shook her head.
‘I’ll go back to bed now,’ she said flatly, accepting Marianne’s help up the stairs. She didn’t look at Claire.
Claire wandered into the kitchen and poured herself a drink. Not much brandy left, and hardly any whisky either. She drank every night now. Even though she’d always enjoyed a small brandy at the end of the day, she never used to have more than one. Nowadays she never had less than three. Sitting at the kitchen table, under the unforgiving fluorescent strip light, she could see the veins and age spots on her hands, their slight quiver. I’m getting old, old, she thought. I’m getting weaker, and a sudden bolt of fear drove through her. A voice deep down, not Mother’s, something else, something more primal, whispered – Take care of yourself, Claire, stay safe Claire. She thought about that little boy, the one at the farm. She remembered his little face cracked in pain. The bruise. Would Lorna be badly bruised in the morning from her fall, she wondered. How far did she fall? Did she fall at all?
She’d almost finished her drink and was thinking, guiltily, of pouring another, when Marianne crept back into the kitchen, grim-faced, and pulled the door shut ever so gently. The strip light didn’t do her any favours either; deep grooves showed on her forehead and down the sides of her mouth. Twinkling white roots showed at her parting.
‘Is she OK?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘Can I? I mean, should I go and see her?’
‘I don’t know. She’s quite upset.’
‘I don’t understand how we couldn’t have heard her.’
‘No. But, it can’t happen again. You know she’s afraid of the dark.’
‘Since when?’ This was a new one on Claire.
‘Since always.’ Marianne’s voice crackled with irritation. ‘You know that.’
‘She’s never told me that.’
‘Well, I knew, so you must have done.’ Marianne drummed her nails on the table, and took a seat. ‘I should have got her that night light she was asking for the other day. Stupid! She was asking for it, said she needed it. I didn’t think.’
‘Well, listen, don’t be too hard on yourself. She’s always been able to find the light before—’
‘Well, she didn’t tonight, and now she’s hurt. Because of us!’
‘Marianne—’
‘Because of us chattering away.’
‘Would you like a drink?’
‘No. No. I think perhaps we’re drinking too much. Maybe that’s why we didn’t hear her on the stairs.’
‘Come on, you haven’t had a drink today.’ Claire smiled.
‘No. But you have.’ Marianne stared at her hands, her mouth a tight line.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Look, nothing. I don’t mean anything. But I will say this, we have to be alert, we have to be more – present. Lola’s special. She has to be taken care of.’ Marianne’s voice quivered between tears and anger. ‘I think from now on, early nights wouldn’t do either of us any harm. I’ll go to bed when she does, just so she knows that someone is in the room next door, so she knows she’s safe.’
‘She’s been fine up till now,’ Claire bridled.
‘But she hasn’t. She’s been too proud to tell you. She’s been frightened at night for a while. All this time we’ve been nattering away downstairs, enjoying a drink, she’s been terrified and alone up there.’
‘I don’t . . . I mean, how were we meant to know?’
Marianne passed a lumpy hand through her hair. ‘Keep our eyes open? Think a bit less selfishly? Oh God, look, we know now. Go and see her. Tuck her in.’
‘Really?’ Claire felt suddenly frightened.