“William went to the bathroom, and looked in the cupboard. He found a bottle of pills with a hospital label on them. It was the PCP. It had been there all the time. He said many drugs are illegal on the street but are legally prescribed by doctors for therapeutic reasons.”
“Did the label give the name of the prescribing doctor?”
“No, but he said the police could easily trace it to Dr. Nichols through the hospital pharmacy records. I felt so stupid. I’d thought that an illegal drug would be hidden, not openly on show. It had been there all the time.”
I’m sorry; I’m starting to repeat myself. My mind is losing focus.
“And then …?” he asks.
But we’re nearly at the end, so I summon what remains of my mental energy and continue.
“We left the flat together. William had left his bike chained to the railings on the other side of the road, but it had been stolen, though they’d left the chain. He took that with us, and joked that we could report the theft of his bike at the same time.
As he spoke to the stall holder, I texted Kasia two words:
William turned to me, holding two bunches of daffodils.
“You told me they were Tess’s favorite flower. Because of the yellow in a daffodil saving children’s sight.”
I was pleased and surprised that he had remembered.
He put his arm around me and as we walked into the park together, I thought I heard you teasing me, and I admitted to you that I was a big fat hypocrite. The truth is, I knew that the affair wouldn’t last, that he’d stay married. But I also knew that I wouldn’t be broken by it. I wasn’t proud of myself, but I did feel liberated from the person I no longer was or wanted to be. And as we walked together, I felt small green shoots of hope and decided I would allow them to grow. Because now that I had found out what happened to you, I could look forward and dare to imagine a future without you. I remembered being here almost two months before, when I had sat in the snow and wept for you among the lifeless, leafless trees. But now there were ball games and laughter and picnics and bright new foliage. It was the same place, but the landscape was entirely changed.
We reached the toilets building and I took the cellophane off the daffodils, wanting them to look homegrown. As I laid them at the door, a memory—or lack of one—tugged its way through, unbidden.
“But I never told you that she liked daffodils, or the reason.”
“Of course you did. That’s why I chose them.”
“No. I talked about it with Amias. And Mum. Not you.”
I had actually told him very little about you, or me for that matter.
“Tess must have told you herself.”
Carrying his bunch of daffodils for you, he came toward me. “Bee—”
“Stop calling me that.” I backed away from him.
He came closer, then pushed me hard inside.
“
I break off, shaking from the adrenaline. Yes, his call to DI Haines had been faked. He probably got the idea from a daytime TV soap—they’re on all the time in the wards—I remember that from Leo’s hospital stays. Maybe it was sheer desperation. And maybe I was too distracted to notice anything very much. Mr. Wright is considerate enough not to point out my ludicrous gullibility.
The teenagers have abandoned their loud game of softball for raucous music. The office workers picnicking have been replaced by mothers with preschool children; their high, barely formed voices quickly turning from shrieks of happiness into tears and back again, a mercurial quicksilver sound. And I want the children to be louder, the laughter more raucous, the music turned up full volume. And I want the park to be crowded with barely a place to sit. And I want the sunshine to be blinding.
