Halfway down the stairs, halfway up, stuck while her family waited in the drawing room. She remembered that. Glendower had been again; it must have been a few weeks after the accident, maybe three. They were due to leave, their trunks were packed, everything was ready, piled in the hall. Her mother had insisted Glendower come and see Fagus again – he’d arrived with callipers, but Fagus had screamed when they’d tried to put them on his legs. She and Douglas had stood on either side of him instead, encouraging him, hoping, pretending he was better than he was, but his legs had collapsed beneath him, and only Douglas’ quick hand had caught him before he hit the floor.

Enid, 1921

7

Enid, 1921

Halfway down the stairs from the nursery, not daring to go back, not daring to go down. Her mother, her husband and her sister waited in the drawing room two flights below.

Fagus couldn’t stand up, he had hardly spoken since the day of the accident, and he couldn’t see anything but the grey shapes of Enid’s hand waving frantically before him. For a month he’d lain in his nursery bed and been fed soup. For a month she’d sat with him while the rest of the house grew quiet around her, and anger climbed the walls making dinner parties impossible. She’d held his hand in hers and cried. She’d shouted at him inside her head to wake up, stop it, to bloody well come back. She’d shouted at herself. There’d been moments of wild hope, surges of excitement when he’d tried harder than usual to push himself up on the pillow, or turned towards her when she’d spoken, but they’d died away as nothing followed; no great recovery that she could take running down the stairs and into the drawing room. He’d sunk down again and slept and slept as if he’d mostly left the world and was only passing through at meal times, to open his mouth and be fed.

Nothing the medics had done had made a difference. They’d carried him out to the garden to let him bathe in the light. They’d applied head compresses and massage. They’d talked of getting him to a hospital, but Glendower had said he shouldn’t be moved beyond the grounds – any bump could make it worse. Enid had thought, how much worse can it get? but Douglas had agreed, and the family had descended into a new routine of Enid’s absence, an absence shattered by talk of other things when she was there.