Black Cake(40)

When Covey woke up, she was in the hospital with a tube in her arm and a pounding in her head. She could smell her own hair on the pillow, burnt oil and smoke mingling with the scents of cotton sheets and rubbing alcohol and the faint whiff of a bedpan. She saw Elly’s handbag, sitting on the chair near her hospital bed. Where was her own purse? Where was her hat?

She looked under her blanket. She was wearing a cotton gown. Where were her clothes? She had been carrying her mother’s wooden box in her jacket. She had stuffed it with pound notes and pushed it into a pocket that she’d sewn onto the lining of the jacket for the trip, touching the area around her waist periodically to feel for the bulk of the box. Covey swiveled her head further, despite the pain. There it was. The jacket was gone but someone had removed the box and placed it on a wheeled tray. She stretched out her hands, trying to reach it.

A nurse, seeing what she was doing, picked up the box and handed it to her. Covey put the box on her stomach and held it there, arms trembling.

“How are you doing there, Eleanor?” a nurse said.

“Covey,” said Covey.

The nurse frowned. “Pardon me?”

“Coventina,” Covey said. The nurse hurried away, then came back with a second woman.

“Coventina Brown?” they asked. Covey nodded. “Was Coventina your friend?” Covey opened her mouth to speak. “We’re so sorry, Eleanor.” They were shaking their heads. “Coventina didn’t make it. She didn’t survive the accident.” They meant Elly, didn’t they? Covey closed her mouth, its parched corners stung by the salt of her tears. She thought of her friend’s limp hand. Poor Elly. She felt a wave of nausea and leaned toward the edge of the bed.

One of the nurses coaxed Covey back toward her pillow and patted her wet face with a towel. Covey turned her head away and tried to shift her body but cried out at the pain in one leg.

“Careful, now, Eleanor,” the nurse said. “You’ll be all right but you’re rather badly banged up there.”

“Covey,” Covey said.

“I know, Eleanor, we’re so sorry. It’s a terrible thing.”

Covey was sobbing openly now. She replayed the last moments she could remember from after the crash. Elly was still alive when Covey found her, she was sure of it. Elly had made a kind of mewing sound as Covey tried to pull her up, as she tried to pull her out from under something heavy. If Covey hadn’t blacked out, could she have saved her friend? Then she remembered what Elly had looked like under all that metal. Probably not. Elly really was gone, wasn’t she?

Elly had always filled a room with light. How could that light be gone for good?

Covey drifted in and out of sleep, waking sometimes to find the room dark and filled with the snuffling and wheezing of other women on the ward. How many days had gone by?

“Is there anyone we can contact for you?” the nurse asked one morning. “Do you have any kin? Any friends?”

“Elly.”

“Elly? Is that a relative?”

“Eleanor.”

“Oh, Elly for Eleanor,” the nurse said. “Of course. Is that what you prefer? Shall we call you Elly, then?”

Covey was too tired to argue, but her head was beginning to clear. Next of kin? She couldn’t afford to have next of kin or friends notified, and Elly had no family. Covey thought that maybe some of their mates at the boardinghouse would have wanted to know, or maybe even that nun back on the island that Elly liked to talk about. But what about Covey? Would there be announcements in the papers? Would she be named as one of the survivors?

What if someone from the island found out that she was still alive and came looking for her? And if they found her, would they figure out Pearl’s role in her escape? Or Bunny’s? And what about the family she’d traveled with? Their children were still small but Covey knew this would make little difference to Little Man’s family if they decided to seek retribution. No, even now, she still owed it to everyone who had helped her to stay hidden.

Early the next morning, when the others were still asleep, Covey reached for Elly’s purse, rested it on the bed beside her, and pushed a hand inside, pulling out its contents, one at a time. Lip rouge. Pound notes. Train ticket. Passport. Tucked into the passport was a photograph showing a row of smiling young women, Covey and Elly included. Covey smiled, even as a tear rolled over her mouth. People used to ask Covey and Elly if they were sisters and they would laugh. But looking at this photograph now, Covey sees, in their smiles, in the tone of their skin, in the way they both tipped back their chins, why people might say that.

Elly.

Covey reached further into Elly’s purse and pulled out a small sack with Elly’s shells and coins and tortoiseshell hair comb. Elly’s bag of treasures. Covey put one of the shells up to her nose, searching for the smell of the earth. Elly had never let anyone convince her to give up her dreams. They had been on that train to Edinburgh because of Elly’s determination. Now that Elly was gone, Covey was back to being a person without a plan. Without a friend. What would become of her?

Covey wished she could have talked to Elly about Gibbs and the plans they’d made. She wished she could have explained how she was trying to let go of that dream and what it was doing to her.

Later, Covey took Elly’s purse again and fished for the photograph of the women. She lay there looking at it for a long time, running a finger over the tiny, smiling faces, held the photograph to her chest for a moment, then tore it into bits and pushed the pieces down into a corner of the purse. Her hand found an air mail envelope, flattened against the bottom of the bag. Inside was a letter from Sister Mary. Covey read through the letter twice, then ripped the soft blue paper into strips and stuffed the pieces back into the purse with the remains of the photograph.