Signs for Lost Children by Sarah Moss (top ten ebook reader TXT) 📕

her skull and her ears. Her arms float. She could dissolve into this water, dissolve and wash away. Cleanse us of our sins, we beseech thee. There would be nothing left.

‘Ally? You haven’t fainted in there?’

‘I’m here, Aunt Mary. I’m sorry, of course the rest of you need the bathroom. I’ll be out in a moment.’

She sits up and everything drains black. Postural drop caused by lack of food and exacerbated by the vasodilation consequent upon a hot bath. She leans her head forward between her knees so her forehead and hair dip again.

‘No-one needs anything and if they do they can use the downstairs lavatory. But you should take some food. There’s a tray in your room.’

She sits up again, more carefully. Her ears ring but in a moment she can try to stand. ‘You’re too kind, Aunt Mary. I don’t need a tray. Really. Please, don’t go to any trouble for me. I don’t need it.’

She hears Aunt Mary sniff. ‘Less trouble than having you faint in the drawing room, my dear. I’m leaving a dressing gown outside the door and we’ll give that dress to Fanny to be washed.’

No, she thinks, no, no-one is to do anything for me. I cannot bear it, you must not treat me so. Hysteria. Eat and rest first. Why did you come here, if not to be cared for, to be fed and bathed and clothed like an infant? Weak, you are weak and useless as a little child. She stands on the bath mat. She has indeed lost flesh, the bones in her feet clear to see. The towel lies over the mahogany rail. Take it and dry yourself, she thinks. Come now, dry your body. Another drip falls from the pine cone. Dry yourself.

‘Gracious me, Ally, I thought you had gone up to bed. What are you doing here, darling?’

She is standing on the upstairs landing, beside the bathroom door, because it is the height of laziness and self-indulgence for a healthy woman to take to her bed in the middle of the day, because she is plainly assuming illness as a means of securing to herself that attention for which she appears to feel an incessant craving, and because at the same time she cannot go into the drawing room in a dressing gown several inches too short and in any case if she is going to be unwell it is better to take quietly to her bed rather than displaying herself on the sofa in a blatant bid for sympathy and concern.

‘Come, let me take you to your bed. I must cable to Elizabeth and Alfred, darling, just to let them know where you are. And then I think I will call Dr. Stratton.’

Ally looks at Aunt Mary. Elizabeth and Alfred, Mamma and Papa. She finds herself weeping. ‘No, Aunt Mary, please. Don’t tell Mamma. Please. She will be so angry. You can’t think how angry. Please, I can’t bear it.’ Fool. Weak-willed, hysterical fool. She swallows. ‘And not Dr. Stratton. Aunt Mary, I’m so ashamed. I could never practice again.’

Aunt Mary puts her arms around Ally. Ally is stiff. ‘Perhaps it is better if she doesn’t see you today. Promise me that you will eat and rest, and I won’t call her until tomorrow. But darling, I must tell Elizabeth that you are safe. They must be in great distress. You left no note, no explanation?’

She shakes her head. ‘It wasn’t—I didn’t plan to leave. I just couldn’t clean the pantry. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t do it.’

Aunt Mary strokes her wet hair, which is dripping into the frills of the dressing gown. She wants Tom, wants him to hold her.

No, he must not see her like this, must not know that he is married to such a worthless thing.

‘Shh, Ally. Shh. Very well. What if I cable to Mrs. Lewis and have her send a message to say that she has heard that you are safely lodged?’

Then Mrs. Lewis will know what has happened, and Professor Lewis will know that she is weak and foolish, that she cannot even cover part of a practice for a few measly weeks.

‘No. I don’t want anyone to know.’

‘They may have called the police. And what if your Papa should appear at the door looking for you?’

‘No. No. I don’t know what to do.’

Aunt Mary begins to lead her down the hall. ‘Well, I do, my dear, and so you must allow me to do it.’

Aunt Mary takes her up the stairs to her own room, where she lived for all the time she was becoming a doctor. Years that now seem to have peeled away, to have been erased by Mamma. Years that she has allowed Mamma to erase. The room smells as it always did of the jasmine-scented soap on the washstand and the coal fire burning in the grate. Aunt Mary draws down the sheets for her. Outside, behind the bare plane trees, the sky is dull and heavy with rain.

‘I don’t need a fire, Aunt Mary. Don’t waste the coal.’

‘Shh. Get into bed, Ally. Or I must call Dr. Stratton.’

Ally obeys. Aunt Mary beats the pillows and props them against the headboard.

‘Now, sit up and eat your breakfast.’ Aunt Mary places the tray on the bedside table and removes its silver dome. The smell of bacon mingles with the jasmine, and there is a pot of coffee. Ally remembers the bread and water at Mamma’s house. She does not deserve this, the fine china and linen napkin, the white toast in a silver toast rack and the butter pat and marmalade bowl. She looks up at Aunt Mary. Aunt Mary meets her eyes, and then begins to spread butter for her, to pour coffee and cream.

‘Eat it, darling. And then I’m going to bring my embroidery and sit with you while you rest—I want the fire even if you don’t—and then we’ll talk. You can come down to supper if I think you’re strong