Forget Her Name(4)

But of course she never dropped it.

The snow globe feels smooth and heavy in my hands, snug on its black plastic plinth. There’s a thin crack across the plinth; I can see where it was mended. My father did that with superglue, then it had to be left to set for half a day.

I glance about the busy café, but nobody’s looking my way. Nobody cares about this strange, unsettling reminder of my sister.

Only me.

It’s like looking into the past. Like my childhood still exists inside a locked room in one of those snow-covered Swiss chalets, almost within reach, if only I could see through the white-out of the storm . . .

Then something else bobs round with the fake snow, bumping against the glass.

I cry out, almost dropping the globe.

An eyeball?

Not a joke-shop eyeball. A real, honest-to-goodness eyeball, white and fatty, with ragged bits of pinkish tissue still hanging off where it was cut out.

There’s an eyeball in the whirling snow, staring back at me.





Chapter Two Our flat is five minutes’ walk from the Hanwell Cemetery end of Ealing Broadway, a large old Victorian house divided into one-and two-bedroom flats. We’re on the top floor.

‘Hello?’ I ask warily, unlocking the front door.

There’s no answer.

I kick the door shut and hurry straight into the bedroom of our one-bedroom flat, not pausing to strip off my thick scarf and gloves. The curtains are still drawn. The windows are narrow and the ceilings slope on the top floor, so the room constantly feels small and gloomy.

I flick on the light, breathing quickly after my fast walk from the bus stop, and look about the place. Books and open magazines lie everywhere, cups balance on book stacks, dirty plates gather dust on the floor, the wastepaper bin overflows silently in a forgotten corner. The double bed is still messy from this morning’s scramble to get up in good time, the duvet thrown back in a tangled rush, one of Dominic’s dark hairs on the pillow. A crumpled sock dangles over the lampshade.

It looks like the flat has been burgled.

Nothing unusual, then.

I bend and shove the anonymous parcel, still partially wrapped, under the bed. It slides into the narrow space with barely an inch to spare. Easy to remove though, and hidden from view when I step back to check.

‘There.’

I’ll deal with it later, I tell myself, and try to ignore the guilty thump of my heart. Dominic will be home any minute, and Rachel’s snow globe isn’t a conversation I want to have with my fiancé. Not today, anyway.

Dominic sheds like a bloody cat, I think, glaring down at the long strand of hair coiled on his white pillow.

I strip off my gloves and shove them into my coat pocket. With a grimace, I tweak the long hair off the pillow and drop it into the wastepaper bin, then plump up both head-dented pillows. Shaking out the duvet, I arrange it neatly across the bed. Straightening up, I eye the dirty sock on the lampshade, then decide to leave it there.

I don’t want him to suspect anything is wrong.

‘There,’ I say again.

Before leaving the room, I pause in the doorway and glance dubiously back at the parcel’s hiding place.

Will I even be able to sleep with that thing under the bed all night?

The front door bangs.

Closing the bedroom door, I turn with a quick smile. ‘Dominic.’

‘Hey, baby.’

Dominic looks exhausted, still in his blue hospital scrubs, his nurse’s identity badge twisted up in a loop on its lanyard and stuffed into his top pocket. There’s a dark shadow on his chin where he needs to shave. Twelve-hour shifts as a nurse practitioner in Accident and Emergency. Not easy to cope with.

He smiles wearily and kisses me on the lips. We nuzzle together for a moment in silence, his head on my shoulder.

I should tell him about the snow globe.

Only I can’t.

‘You’re early,’ I say instead. ‘And I’m late.’

‘Busy day?’

‘Busy day,’ I agree without elaborating. ‘And the bus took forever to arrive. I was just going to make a pot of tea. Want some?’

‘Gin would be more appropriate,’ he says, ‘and hold the tonic.’

‘I expect that can be arranged,’ I tell him lightly, but raise my head to study his face. I know that tone. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Oh, you know . . . same old shit in A & E.’

‘Dom, come on.’

‘It’s nothing. I’m knackered, that’s all.’ I raise my eyebrows, still waiting, and he adds reluctantly, ‘An old lady died. Old ladies do that, don’t they?’

He drags the identity badge up over his head and tosses it onto the hall table, then staggers past me into the tiny living room. I follow in silence, wishing there was something I could do to help. But he hates me fussing. Making an irritable noise under his breath, he reaches up and pulls off the hairband that holds his ponytail strictly in place during the working day.

‘Except they’re supposed to die at home, or on the ward,’ he mutters, and throws himself onto the sofa, taking up all the space. ‘Not in a bloody uncomfortable chair in a crowded corridor, after waiting nine hours to be seen by a doctor.’

I don’t ask for details. He’ll tell me more if he wants to. When he’s had a crappy day like this, Dominic rarely wants a two-way discussion. He just wants to get the acid out of his system for a few minutes, which usually means bitching about Sally Weston, his manager in A & E, or the increasingly visible cracks in the NHS. Then he’ll sink down in front of the television with a beer for a few hours and not mention it again.