The Visitors (68 page)

‘Only a quarter of the chicken breast,’ Helen would say, and we’d inspect what was left, and tell one another that it was better than yesterday.

‘She’s drunk
all
the milk,’ I’d remind her and Helen would sigh and say: ‘Milk’s so nutritious. You can
live
on milk, Lucy. I’m sure I read that somewhere… You remember Harold Jones, that archaeologist in the Valley, Herbert’s friend? He had TB, and all that milk he drank kept the disease at bay for
years.
’

I looked away quickly: across a luncheon table in a tomb light years before, I heard Frances’s light childish voice: ‘
What became of Mr Jones, Daddy?
’

When, ten days later, the doctors confirmed that the artificial pneumothorax procedure had been effective and there were signs of healing: we gained new hope. It was then early November. Helen began to make eager plans for Frances’s twenty-second birthday, which fell on 9 December – weeks away still, but it would be on us before we knew it, she said. Frances’s younger sister, Barbara, whom I had never met, would be coming up from New York with her father that day: her visits had to be rationed, for they disturbed both her and Frances. ‘She can’t go upstairs, you see, Lucy. It isn’t allowed. We daren’t risk that. So she stands outside, and we bring Frances to the porch windows, and they wave, and call to one another.’

Reaching for an album, she showed me photographs of the two sisters: the resemblance between them was strong. This picture had been taken in New York, that one in Boston, and this at their holiday house in Maine, on the island of North Haven.

‘Oh, I wish you’d come there to stay with us, Lucy,’ Helen said. ‘Frances loves it so much – she always wanted to take you there.’

I looked at the photograph she was indicating: it showed a place I recognised from Frances’s little shrine to her dead brother in her bedroom at the American House: a dangerous jetty, the turbulent waters of Penobscot Bay. Helen had already lost one child. I stared at the picture: an eternal summer’s day; at sea, two young girls in a sailing boat.

Helen snapped the album shut. ‘Let’s not think about that,’ she said, suddenly restless. ‘Let’s plan Frances’s birthday, Lucy – should I order a cake?’

‘I’ll make one, Helen. I’m quite good at cakes. My governess taught me.’

‘Bless you, dear.’ Helen pressed my hand. ‘Bless you for everything. Will you make a chocolate one? That’s Frances’s favourite. Twenty-two candles.’

The next day, a ridge of high pressure came in – and the weather changed. There had been day after day of mild weather, which had brought mist and rain and depressed Frances’s spirits. ‘Oh, all I can see is
cloud
,’ she’d say
,
propping herself on one elbow,
straining to see the view from her porch windows. ‘The mountains have disappeared, I can’t even see the valley.’

‘The forecast is good, darling,’ Helen said, from one side of the bed.

‘Sun for days,’ I said, from the other.

And the sun
did
come, transforming the valley and unveiling its beauty. The light sparkled, glittered on the snow-capped Adirondacks, turning Saranac Lake itself from black mirror to gleaming mercury. The blue sky was unclouded; there was scarcely a breath of wind, and when I walked into town to collect the latest batch of books, the air was everything the guidebooks affirmed: cold, dry, curative and exhilarating.

Frances was allowed up that day for the first time in weeks. She walked from her cure porch to her bedroom, along the landing and back again. Two days later, Dr Lawrason Brown, the senior medic, said he was astonished by the progress she’d made. ‘I wouldn’t have predicted this,’ he said. ‘Significant improvements. The will-power is very strong, of course.’

She could now attempt the stairs, he decreed, provided she took them slowly. Flushed with excitement and triumph, Frances did so: she made it down to the sitting room, even out onto the veranda. Wrapped in coats, she insisted we should sit there, watching while her mother painted a watercolour. I’d picked berries, grasses, a few last wild flowers on my walk back from the town. Helen, whose eye was unerring, placed them in a dark blue jar that set off the sealing-wax red of the rose-hips, and Frances, her lips and cheeks as red as the berries, helped her arrange them. It is that watercolour that hangs in my Highgate sitting room now. Helen gave it to me, afterwards.

Two days after that, when the bright weather still held, we bundled Frances into coats, helped her into a taxi and took her for a drive – not far, just around the town, past the river and the skaters on Moody Pond; the ice sizzled and hissed under the speed of their blades as they shot past us. They bent into the corners, performed waltzing dizzying spins. ‘Oh, how good it is not to be cooped up, how I wish
we
could go skating,’ Frances cried – and Helen cautiously agreed that she could take a small walk around the garden when we returned home. With her mother supporting one arm and I the other, she did so, lifting her eager face to the blue sky, sniffing at the scents of dry grass and autumn leaves. ‘I can smell the
sun
,’ she said, and then, after a little silence, catching at Helen’s hand, ‘When’s Daddy coming?’

‘At the weekend, darling. You know that. And he’ll be here again for your birthday.’

‘I wish he were here
now.
Look how glorious it is. When he comes, I shall go for a walk with him. Meantime, I need some practice. I’m so stiff and unsteady, like some ancient old woman… ’ She glanced sidelong at her mother. ‘I promised to walk by the river with Lucy – may we do it tomorrow?’

Helen demurred, the doctors were consulted. Frances nagged and fretted and finally, two days later, anxious to avoid the excitement dissent caused, Helen gave her permission. We would be driven to the start of the river walk in a taxicab, and it would wait for us. We could walk along the level path by the riverside for precisely fifteen minutes.

‘Five minutes each way. We have to be quick, Lucy,’ Frances said, clasping my arm tight as we walked away from the car, ‘there’s something I need to show you.’

‘We can’t be quick, and you’re not to get excited,’ I replied, in the firm dull tone that, imitating Helen, I’d adopted –
Can you lie, Lucy?
Yes: with the best of them.
Can you hide heartbreak?
Sure: when we need to, we all can.

‘I’m not excited. I’m as calm as can be. I was never calmer in my entire life. And look how slowly I walk – a snail would be faster.’

She gave me one of her quicksilver glances, then turned her eyes to the path ahead: to one side of us, pines; to the other, the fierce smashing turbulence of the river. We walked on along the path at a slow pace: crystal-clear air, a heavenly blue sky, our breath coming out in small white puffs. Frances’s thinness was disguised by layers of woollens and a dark fur coat that Helen had insisted upon. She was wearing a flowered scarf over her dark shining hair, and I knew it must be one she had chosen herself, for it was brilliantly coloured, embroidered with red roses. Frances had never lost her love for objects that were gaudy, and she craved bright colours. The roses on the scarf matched the roses in her cheeks, Helen had said, kissing her. I knew the flushed cheeks were misleading, a symptom of her illness, but they gave her an air of radiant health. Her bright eyes, glancing at me, then fixing on the path ahead, were resolute; her expression was tight with concentration.

‘I’m sorry I lied to you, Lucy, in my letters,’ she said suddenly. ‘I wanted to tell you the truth – I’m pledged to tell you the truth always.’

‘It doesn’t matter. You told me as much of the truth as you could. There were reasons why you couldn’t tell me more. Anyway, I’m here now.’

‘Even before I was ill – I didn’t always tell you the
entire
truth.’ She hesitated. ‘When I wrote from school – I wasn’t always as happy as I made out.’

‘You weren’t?’

I looked at her closely, thinking of the rapturous letters I’d received from the famous school she’d attended, Milton Academy near Boston. I could remember descriptions of the beauty of its campus, the schoolgirl fun in its dormitories; games, rivalry – and then, later, the graduation ball, the dress she’d made for it, the beau who would escort her. I had been jealous, I think. I envied her this school, envied such normalities; taught by Nicola Dunsire from the age of eleven onwards, I had never experienced them.

‘I expect I didn’t tell
you
the entire truth either,’ I said gently.

‘I got used to it eventually.’ Frances kept her eyes on the path ahead. ‘And it wasn’t their fault. It was a wonderful school, the teachers were excellent – it was altogether civilised. And I made friends there, in the end. But to begin with, I didn’t fit in and they found me strange, I think, Lucy – this earnest little girl, a bit of a misfit, obsessed with Egypt, and tombs and pyramids. I gave a talk once, about Hatshepsut and Daddy’s dig. I hadn’t been there long then, I was thirteen, I think. It wasn’t a complete failure, my talk. It had novelty factor, I guess… it was unusual. But that all wore off, and some of the girls would get impatient. They wanted to talk about lacrosse and basketball – and about boys, once we got older. I had to keep Egypt locked up inside my heart and my head. I learned not to speak of it. But I missed it so terribly. I used to dream of going back there. I’d lie in bed at night and plan secret voyages.’

‘You
will
go back there. When you’re better, Frances. I’ll take you.’

‘No. I shan’t. I shall never go back to Egypt. You know that as well as I do. Please don’t lie to me, Lucy.’

She spoke quietly, but there was a finality in her voice that silenced me. We walked on a little further, Frances glancing continually at her watch, and at last came to a halt by a large grey boulder. To our right, the river valley narrowed and there was a series of falls, the water rushing over them, churning in pools, then swooping to the next. The spray flung up a diamond brilliance, and the noise of the water was loud, almost drowning Frances’s words when she next spoke, so I had to lean closer to hear her.

‘That took us five minutes,’ she said. ‘We have five minutes here before we have to turn back. You’re not to waste it, Lucy – not one second. I’m so watched over – we might not have another chance. Do you recognise this boulder?’

I examined the rock, which was taller than I was, damp with spray, its crevices containing tiny sproutings of ferns and emerald mosses. At first I couldn’t understand – and then I began to see: a suggestion of female breasts, a slender waist, a curve on the side exposed to the prevailing wind that gave a fleeting impression of a blind, passionless face. Ivy for hair, not limestone rivulets, but even so. I knew Frances’s ways. Yes, I recognised it.

‘It’s a truth place. Some places naturally are, some aren’t – and this
is.
I knew that as soon as I found it. So, don’t lie to me, Lucy, don’t even attempt it. Not here. My father won’t tell me the truth, neither will my mother or the doctors – but I know you will. How long have I? Six months? Another year?’

I dropped my gaze. I couldn’t have met her eyes, not then. Helen had never discussed this issue with me and I would never have raised it. Taking me aside when he last visited, his face drawn with exhaustion and strain, Herbert Winlock had said: ‘You’d better know, Lucy. We’ll be fortunate if she makes it to the spring. That’s what we’re praying for: another four, perhaps five months.’ I suspected that estimate had been revised downwards since the last pneumothorax procedure.

‘Will I make it to the spring? I so want to see the spring. All the plants springing up, and the clouds racing… ’

Frances turned her face eagerly to the river and then the blue arch of the cloudless sky. My vision had blurred and I couldn’t have spoken. I felt the burn of Frances’s gaze, as she turned back to look at me, though I still didn’t dare meet her eyes. She gave a deep sigh, removed her glove and took my cold hand in her hot one.

‘Ah, you can’t lie, not to me. I thought as much. Three months, then? Two? Is that all? That’s not so very long, is it? And I used to think I had all the time in the world… Will you come to my funeral, Lucy? Will you miss me? Will you mourn me?’

‘You know the answer to that.’ The tears began to flow from my eyes. Frances leaned forward, kissed the tears and then hugged me tight in her arms, with a strength that surprised me.

‘Well, I hope I pass muster when I get to the Weighing of the Heart ceremony,’ she said, speaking lightly and rapidly. ‘I should think I will. I must have a good chance – I’ve always been light-hearted, haven’t I? And I’m not old enough to have sinned too badly. I’m sure I’d have sinned with the best of them, given more time… Such a journey. I
am
afraid, sometimes. Not always. Dry your eyes, Lucy. If anyone sees you’ve been crying, they’ll guess – and I don’t want you blamed. I knew anyway. I’ve known for quite a while, I think… I expect that’s why I wrote you. I just wanted to be certain. Here.’ She passed me a gauze square. ‘Now mop your eyes. Prove you can smile – ah, you can. How dear you are to me. I have something for you.’

Reaching into the pocket of her fur coat, she brought out a small and compact object. I couldn’t see what it was, but I caught a kingfisher flash of blue and knew what it must be, even before she opened her hand, pressed the little
shabti
figure into mine and closed my fingers around it.

‘Keep him safe for me, Lucy. He can watch over you. He can see all the things I won’t be able to see – what becomes of you, who you marry, the children you have – I hope you have a boy and a girl,
lots
of children. My
shabti
will see them, and the work you do, the journeys you make, the life you live – all the joy ahead. I wish you so
much
joy and goodness and fulfilment, Lucy – and the wishes of the dying are powerful.’

So she had planned this, I thought: for how long? I bent my head. Seeing I couldn’t speak, she embraced me again and then clung to me, burying her face in my shoulder. I held her tight against my heart and there was a flurry of words and blind panic: all the things that had not been said were said then. I covered her face in kisses and she kissed my eyes in frantic haste. You taste of salt, she said, that’s how grief tastes, Lucy. Then – time running out on us – we walked slowly back to the cab. We reached it exactly fifteen minutes after we’d left it.