Chapter 70

Chapter 70

Emma

Violet

All is quiet except for the gentle hum of the blue light. Emma teeters on the edge, her body poised as if for a drop. She listens.

‘You can tell a lot about a person by the flowers they send to a funeral.'

Emma looks at the young woman standing by her bed. ‘Did I say that or did you?' she asks.

‘Maybe you thought it,' the girl replies. She has auburn hair tucked into a white cap, and blue-grey eyes. Emma knows her but can't remember from where. She pauses, looking down at Emma. ‘What flowers would you like? Do you have a favourite flower?'

‘Peonies– it would have to be white peonies. And…' Emma has lost the word, but she knows she could find it if she could smell it. The flowers have a distinct fragrance, headily perfumed but delicate. Then it comes to her. ‘Jasmine. How about you?'

‘My mother thought honeysuckle was my favourite, but really I've always loved roses the best.'

She seems so familiar. How does she know her? The answer seems just out of reach.

‘Can I have two choices?' the girl asks. ‘You had two.'

‘Of course– it's your funeral.'

The girl smiles, and Emma thinks she does, too.

‘Roses and lily of the valley.'

‘Good choices,' Emma agrees.

The young woman sits on a chair that she hadn't noticed before by the side of her bed. She has on a black dress and a white apron.

‘Are you a nurse?'

‘Not yet.'

The girl isn't making sense, but she doesn't want her to go.

‘If I'd had a daughter, I think I would have called her Rose. Or possibly Lily,' the girl says. ‘I never had any children.'

‘Do you regret that?' As Emma asks this, she hears a bell ring. Somewhere in the distance a little boy with black hair and sticking-out ears flicks a bell as he pedals furiously away on a bicycle.

‘Oh, I regret a lot of things, but as my mother said … no, it's gone … something about another door opening, I think.' She smiles a little wistfully. ‘She also said that children could be a gift even if you weren't a mother.' The girl tucks a stray curl back into her cap and says more matter-of-factly, ‘I tell you what I do regret. Not taking my toothbrush with me that last night. It's a small thing, but you have no idea how much you can miss a thing like that. Yes…' She pauses. ‘I've found that it's always the small things that end up meaning the most. You don't realise it at the time.' The girl looks round, as if to check no one is listening. ‘I did once think about the jewels, though. It was only once mind, when the roof needed mending. In the end, the boys came to visit, all the way from Australia, and had it fixed in a trice. I never really would have taken the jewels, you know.'

‘What jewels?'

‘It was when I went into that stateroom and fetched the eiderdown. There they were, scattered like chicken feed on the bed and floor. Only, it was diamonds and rubies instead of corn.'

‘Did you think about picking them up?'

‘It never so much as crossed my mind– only much later did it occur to me I could have done. At the time, all I thought was, there you go, Purser– I told you the passengers would mess up your beautiful ship.'

‘What was he like?'

‘The Purser? A real gentleman. His great-nephew came to see me, you know. Sweet boy, he'd just bought a new car. He was that proud. And didn't he have the look of The Purser Priest. It was uncanny.'

The room falls silent. Nothing moves in the corridor beyond the half-open door, and all Emma can hear is the faint buzz of the blue light.

Then she hears another sound, a rasping sound, and she realises it is coming from deep within her. Words are becoming an effort, but there is something she wants to tell this girl.

‘You know I've been looking for you?'

The girl looks down at her. ‘Maybe I've been looking for you. Have you thought of that?'

‘Then you do know me?' As Emma whispers this, it sounds all wrong. Surely she wants to know how she knows this girl, not the other way around? There does not seem to be enough time to untangle the words, so instead she asks, ‘Will you sit with me for a bit?'

‘As long as you like.'

‘I don't want to be on my own.'

‘You haven't been on your own for some time now, but I think you know that already.'

She does.

‘Is dying difficult?' Emma asks.

‘Oh, not at all. It's living that takes some getting used to.'