Chapter 37

Chapter 37

Emma

Grey Tulips

From where she lies on her hotel bed, she can tell that the light has changed. The previous night she pulled one curtain, but it had been too great an effort to reach for the second.

Her performance downstairs had taken every last bit of her strength. She had mounted the steps to the hotel, talked to the receptionist, booked her room for a few more nights, explained she would be working and would not wish to be disturbed. She had even smiled.

Closing the curtains on her one-woman show was just beyond her.

She knows it is early– 6 a.m., perhaps. She has no idea where her phone is and no interest in finding it. She cannot see the glass of the window from where she lies curled under the covers, just the muted light of an overcast day falling on the linen curtains. Their pattern of grey and white tulips seems smudged and lifeless.

She closes her eyes and goes back to sleep.

When the evening streetlights turn the tulips to pale orange, she gets up and runs a bath, moving slowly, carefully, each step an effort. She lies in the bath and looks at her legs and wonders what they will be like when she is an old woman. Her skin still looks young, flushed from the previous day's sun and the warm water surrounding her, but her bones feel like they belong to another, prehistoric age. She would like to curl up and sleep in the bath, but the cooling water and hard edges drive her back to bed.

She wakes looking at the same curtains in the same grey light and wonders if the previous day was a dream. Her head is aching, but then so is everything, and she doesn't think paracetamol or any doctor is going to help her.

She orders breakfast she doesn't want, to stop the staff from speculating and possibly calling her room or the police. She feeds her croissant to the pigeons on the windowsill but drinks her coffee with a vague feeling that half reminds her of pleasure. Her phone has run out of battery and she makes no attempt to find her charger. She does not want to know what time it is or to move beyond the limbo she now finds herself in. She has thought in circles for days and weeks and months and she has been through every emotion from disbelief to rage, from despair to misery, and it has always led her back, totally exhausted, to where she started:

Why did Will have an affair?

There was a time when she would have bet the happiness of her marriage on the certainty that she would have known. Or that, at the very least, looking back, she would appreciate there had been signs. Now she cannot believe her naivety.

But they had been happy, hadn't they?

Emma stops the thought before it can nudge others like it to the cliff edge. The only way from there is down. Did she bring it on herself? Had she neglected Will? Was there something wrong with her– something intrinsically unlovable? Was her mother right?

Instead of letting loose these thoughts, Emma sits by the open window and pushes her fingers deep into her hair, thumbs pressing into her aching neck.

She returns to the bed, curled up like a question mark. When a sudden downpour drums against the window, the sound brings some comfort, but then comes the drifting metallic scent of the rain, and she is taken back to a late December garden, the day she found out about Will's affair. Kneeling in the mud in the freezing rain, clutching at snowdrops she had ripped from theearth.

On the third day, the ringing of the hotel phone breaks in upon her like a pneumatic drill. She sits up in bed, hugging her knees, and stares at it. A few minutes later there is a gentle knock. When a piece of paper is pushed under the door, she realises she has been holding her breath. The note is from Roberto, asking if she's all right. He has included his mobile number.

Emma turns the television on just to raise the volume of sound in the room. If the phone rings again, she has no intention of answering it, but she wants some background noise to cushion its impact.

It is Agatha Christie season on ITV3 and Emma settles down with crisps and a small bottle of red wine. She has only just discovered the minibar in the wardrobe and she thinks she might work her way through it. It seems preferable to talking to someone about room service. She banks the pillows around her and pulls all the cushions off the bedroom chair so she is cocooned in a little pod in her bed. She wonders what Agatha Christie thought about when she ran away from the world and hid in a hotel in Harrogate.

Miss Marple knows better than most that flowers can kill you. Her friend, Dolly Bantry, might have missed the clues, but Jane Marple spots that the sage leaves picked to stuff the duck have been swapped with foxglove leaves which contain the poison digitalis. Sir Ambrose might think he has got away with it. But Miss Marple and Emma know what he's done.

The knocking is more persistent this time.

‘Emma, are you in there?'

She recognises the voice immediately and after a second presses ‘mute' on the television.

‘Emma?' The voice sounds anxious.

Fighting the almost overwhelming urge to keep quiet, Emma throws back the covers.

Betty is standing in the hallway, her glasses misted from the sudden change in temperature. She has a maroon anorak on and Emma finds herself wondering what animal jumper is underneath. She is carrying the kind of old-fashioned suitcase that, up until now, Emma thought only existed in Agatha Christie films.

‘Emma, love, are you ill? Les and I were so worried when you didn't turn up yesterday and then again today. I said, "It's not like her" and Les agreed, he said, "She's always here ahead of time. An early bird catching the worm, that's our Emma". And then the flowers came, and they were so pretty, love, and oh, how they smelt, and they look just perfect on the dresser with the blue and white china. I can't remember the last time someone sent me flowers. But there was no mention in your message of not coming back, so I gave Clem a call, and she said she hadn't seen you since you visited her but she remembered the hotel you were staying in, but when she phoned there was no answer, although they did say you were still here. And you're not answering your mobile, although I expect you know that without me standing here like a fool telling you. So Les suggested I come myself, because we wondered if you'd had an accident or were ill. Because there's no denying something is up…' Betty changes her suitcase into her other hand.

Emma starts to say something, but Betty interrupts.

‘… and you can tell me to mind my own business, but a fool can see you have the weight of the world on your shoulders, and as Les said, "Betsy, a trouble shared is a trouble halved", and I thought, you know what, he's right. He may not say a lot, my Les, but he has the knack of putting his finger on it…''

Emma takes hold of the handle of the suitcase and pulls it, with Betty, into the room, closing the door behind them. Betty blinks in surprise, then puts the case down. She continues with barely a pause.

‘… So anyway, I didn't like to take the van as Les was due to deliver some slabs, an acer and a nice lemon clematis to the other side of town, so I worked out the trains and buses and it really wasn't that difficult at all once I'd got my bearings and with a couple of magazines to pass the time the journey was a bit of treat in its way. Although I have to say I've been that worried, love …'

Emma sits down suddenly on the bed. ‘It's okay, Betty,' she says, knowing it isn't but wanting to reassure her, to calm her, to stem the flow. ‘I don't know what I was … I'm so sorry … I should have sent a text … I didn't mean you to … and Les, too …'

If she could laugh she would. A woman who can't stop talking and a woman who can't start. Emma knows Betty deserves better from her, but reserve, embarrassment and reluctance still drag at her legs, hobbling her every effort.

Betty sits down beside her and grabs both of Emma's hands. ‘Just tell me what it is, love. Just say it.'

And then she finds a way.

The Spanish words start like a rumble of thunder in the distance. Then they bank and flow, cascading into the room. As Emma spread her words out in front of her, she pulls her hands from Betty's and with gesture and inflection she lifts the words and throws them at the walls. Angry Italian words explode over Betty's head and words riddled with bitterness hit the window and drip down the glass as if they were rain. Softer French words curl around the legs of the furniture like smoke and cry and die there. For her finale, Emma returns to her first love, Spanish, and she lifts her head and howls her words like a she-wolf.

Betty looks down at her hands, no longer holding Emma's. They are still held flung outwards, like a child waiting for an inspection after washing.

She looks up. ‘Now tell me so I know,' is all she says.

This time, Emma finds the words in the language of moderation and common sense. The plain, no-nonsense English words.

‘Back in December, seven months after Will died, I found out he'd had an affair. It was somebody at his work. I haven't told anyone about it. I can't share it with my best friends because, despite it all, I feel it would be disloyal. They really liked Will and I want to hold on to that. Stupid, I know, but I don't want them to think badly of him. So now I rarely contact them and I miss them. And I miss Will and I miss us.

‘But I don't trust the memories of us anymore. All I thought I had has been torn apart. Every day I walk and think in circles until I don't know where I am or who I am– or who he was. And all I can do is keep getting up, getting dressed, saying stupid things and fixating on this research, this florist. And sometimes it feels ridiculous and pointless, even mad, but it's all I can hang on to. Sometimes it's the only thing that makes sense. And everything hurts, Betty. My head, my heart, my bones hurt, and there never seems to be an end to it. And I don't know what to do anymore.'

‘Oh, you poor love,' is all Betty says, but the four words are too much for Emma. She thought that after the night in the tapas bar, she had no more tears. It seems she was wrong.

Betty wraps her arms around as much of her as she can hold, and Emma leans into her and sobs on her shoulder, smearing old mascara and tears across Betty's maroon anorak.