She hardly saw Douglas these days. He came home at weekends, to tinker with his car. If she managed to get up and dress for dinner, he went on about trains, not meeting her eyes, looking anywhere but at her. Well, that was all right. It suited her perfectly not to see him. If only he’d leave her be completely, she’d probably perk up, but she’d learnt that messages got through, new messages about The State of Enid, as if she were a constitution in collapse. One day in bed usually passed un-noticed, two and she was pushing it; three in a row and a message would be sent, the troops called in, a doctor, sometimes two doctors, bearing tonics and opinions about blood. Was she eating enough? No. Was she getting enough exercise? No. Wasn’t little Ian enough to make any mother proud? No, no, no. They kept shoving him at her too like the tea, as if all she had to do was have enough of him and she’d warm up.

She had no idea what time it was. She’d got rid of the clock, the one with Douglas’ inscription on the back. She didn’t want to watch time passing for a single second more, and she couldn’t stand the insistent tick. She’d wrapped it in a shawl and stuffed it down the back of the wardrobe.

Come on. She swung her feet to the floor. Get up. Do something. She wandered downstairs in her dressing gown and stopped in the hall, the red tiles cold beneath her bare feet. Kitchen with Everett? Garden with Mary and the children? Sitting room alone? Perhaps she could eat something; tackle the stew Everett had made yesterday, especially for her. She could sit quietly in the dining room with a book and the stew. It would pass at least half an hour. Perhaps, after that, she’d have some new thought. It all comes down to effort – she’d heard one of the doctors say that outside her bedroom door, as if, just because she didn’t want to sit up, she’d lost the power of hearing too. Effort. Yes. Perhaps by being upright the blood would do some magic trick of clearing her head and firing life into her bones. She’d remember who on earth she was, and what she was doing here in this neat and ordered house, where no one seemed to need her, but everyone seemed to need her to get up.

In the dining room she stood in front of the bookshelf. Wuthering Heights had been slotted in between the Bible and Gardens of England. She stared at it.