“What?” Nan said. “I can’t hear you properly. The reception’s terrible. Flora? Hello?” Nan’s voice was too loud. “It’s about Dad,” she shouted.
“Daddy?” Flora said, her mind already spinning towards all the possible scenarios.
“There’s no need to worry immediately, but . . . ”
“What?”
“He’s had an accident.”
“An accident? What? When?”
“I can’t hear you,” Nan said.
Flora stood up, stepped into the bath, and opened the window onto the gap below ground level. It was dark outside, confusingly dark. A blast of wind blew in, and above her shapes of trees and shrubs thrashed back and forth. “Is that better?”
“That’s better,” Nan said, still shouting. “Dad fell off the promenade in Hadleigh. Cuts and bruises, concussion maybe, a sprained wrist. Nothing serious . . . ”
“Nothing serious—are you sure? Should I come now?”
“. . . or maybe he jumped,” Nan continued.
“Jumped?”
“No, don’t come now.”
“Off the promenade?”
“Flora, do you have to repeat everything I say?”
“Well, tell me then!”
“Are you drunk?”
“Of course not,” Flora said, although she may still have been.
“Or stoned? Are you stoned?”
An unexpected laugh bubbled out of Flora. “No one says stoned anymore, Nan. It’s high.”
“So you’re high.”
“I was asleep,” Flora said. “Tell me! What’s happened?”
“Have you just got up? It’s nine thirty in the evening, for goodness’ sake.” Nan sounded outraged.
“In the evening?” Flora said. “Isn’t it morning?”
Nan tutted and Flora could imagine her sister shaking her head.
“I was up all last night,” Flora said. She had no intention of telling Nan that she and Richard had stayed in bed for the past two days. That twice Flora had pulled on jeans and a jumper and run to the shop on the Stockbridge Road to buy another couple of bottles of wine, a lump of plastic cheddar, sliced white bread, baked beans, and chocolate. Richard had offered to go, but Flora had needed those ten minutes away from him. When she had returned and let herself in through the basement door, she had dropped the bags and her jeans, and climbed back under the covers.
“Doing what?” Nan said. “Oh, Flora, you’re not late with an essay, are you?”
“Are you in the hospital? Can I speak to him?”
“He’s sleeping. Flora, there are a couple of other things.” Her sister sniffed and rustled as if wiping her nose, and then took a deep breath. “He told me he saw Mum outside the bookshop in Hadleigh, wearing his old greatcoat—the one you used to dress up in—and that he followed her to the breakwater boulders.”
Adrenalin rushed through Flora, a wave surging out from her centre to her limbs, the ends of her fingers, and up to her head. “Mum? In Hadleigh?” The scent of coconut came to her, inextricably linked with the colour of golden honey, sweet and clean, from amongst the thorns and dying flowers of gorse.
“He didn’t though,” Nan said. “He just thought he did. It’s probably his age or the concussion.”
“Yes,” Flora whispered. The wind splattered rain at her, and she ducked back inside the bathroom, leaning towards the window to keep the phone signal strong.
“Flora, are you still there?” Nan said into her ear.
“Still here,” Flora said. “I’m coming to the hospital. I’ll pack a bag and get the next train.”
“No, don’t do that. Dad’s sleeping. I was hoping they might discharge him tonight, but it’s too late for that now. It’ll be tomorrow morning after someone from the mental health team has seen him.”
“The mental health team? What’s wrong with him?”
“Flora, calm down,” Nan said. “They’re just ruling things out. It’s probably a urinary tract infection. Come over tomorrow. I’ll meet you at home and we can talk.” The Swimming Pavilion: home. They both still called it that, although neither lived there now.
“I want to see him.”
“You will, in the morning. Make sure you check the bus timetable for the ferry. Don’t get stuck like last time.”
Flora had forgotten her sister’s irritating habit of thinking of everything that anyone might require.
When they had said good-bye, Flora put her phone on the side of the sink and brushed her teeth. As she turned to go, she knocked her mobile and it fell into the toilet with a plop.