Christian Science wasn’t new, even back in 1912 when she’d first come across it. Before the war it was a fad, one of the many she’d played with: New Thought, Humanism, Pantheism. It was just another she’d taken with her on her tour across Europe with her haphazard aunt. What else was she supposed to do? The Presbyterians had done her in. She hadn’t wanted to be like her father, bursting to escape the confines of a God served in sermons, but too battered by rules to find voice or strength to defy the church and reduced, instead, to confiding in his daughter on the banks of Loch Fyne. She’d been young and optimistic. She’d seen no barriers. Who was a man in a black frock coat to tell her of the state of her soul, or stand as translator of holy words? She could translate them all by herself, thank you so much. She didn’t need a pulpit and a wooden bench to keep her straight, or a numbing cleric to tell her who she was. She was Enid Campbell. She had thoughts of her own.

Before she’d stood beside Douglas in a cold and empty church and been married, she’d sat up till midnight reading her copy of Science and Health, the copy Douglas had bought her. There was no hierarchy in the movement. Every Christian Scientist was equal. Illness was a sign of sin that could only be cured through prayer. To treat the body and ignore the soul was tantamount to ignoring the words of Christ. Medicine was banned. Her copy had stayed with her through war and funeral service, hidden on the bookshelf and in her mind, put away between the Bible and Gardens of England, until one day she’d found it.

The lounge stank of rotten teeth and old sofas. The television was on. She’d missed the news, and, instead of Vietnam, a woman in a neat red cardigan was encouraging viewers to make soup from the ends of broccoli.

“I’ll sit here.” She waved her stick at a chair facing the television. Everett would have made soup out of the ends of everything, not just broccoli. If her family had given her one thing she was grateful for, it was the ability to find the right staff. Everett had come with the villa in Berkshire, and her comforting bulk had filled the kitchen with warmth and bubbling pots, ham hock and carrots in butter. What she wouldn’t give to have Everett here now, taking care of everything, ordering the nurses, sending Enid to bed with a cup of sweet milk. Everett would have known what to do.

“There,” said Mandy, her hand leaving Enid’s. “You’ll be happy here till lunch, I should imagine.”

Should you indeed, thought Enid. “Wait.” She caught Mandy’s sleeve. “The telephone.”