Little, happy Ruby never seemed to tire or lag. She never complained or got ill – she had enough for everyone, and especially for Enid; rapping on her bedroom door when she stayed in there too long, or seeking her out in the library, greeting her with a smile that was enough for both of them. Enid found herself honed in on, as if preferring one’s own company was strange. Did it really make her look so hopeless? Was she not allowed to die quietly? She tried to appreciate the little kindnesses, she really did. She tried very hard to settle her mind when Ruby came up with another bright idea to cheer her; she tried not to think, leave me alone. They made breakfast together, they flapped sheets together and on Tuesdays they shared a sink. Ruby asked her one day, as they stood side by side, “What is it that you want, Enid?”

Enid stared at the suds, her knuckles appearing like mountains above bubble clouds, and thought: why haven’t they tried to find me?

Enid, 1925

19

Enid, 1925

One more month. One more month, and if they didn’t come, she’d write. She was in her attic bedroom, avoiding people as usual. She took off her dressing gown, pushed her slippers from her feet, took the towel from her shoulder, threw it over a chair, went back to her bed and lay down. She’d had vague thoughts of dressing, and had got as far as washing her face.

Her room was tiny, the bed too large, an overhanging bedstead in a place of narrow angles where there wasn’t enough carpet to lie down. She pulled the eiderdown over her and turned onto her side. She’d begun lots of letters. Her mother, she’d settled on first. She’d sat in the library, paper at the ready: Dear Mother, You must be wondering where I am. She’d torn it up – wondering had sounded like the sentiment for a lost hat. Dear Mother, please don’t be angry. But her mother had been angry with her, well, forever. Dear Mother, I’m sorry. But she wasn’t, and she’d thrown that one on the fire too and gone for a walk across the wide, open parkland.

The next month it had been Douglas. Dear Douglas, I think I will have made my point by now. How are the children? Hopeless. He’d laugh at her and she didn’t know what her point was. To say she couldn’t cope? They’d have her locked up.

Light flickered through the thin patterned curtains and for the millionth time she swore to remember to get something heavier, something that would give her dark when she needed it – like today, when constant doubt in a compound of believers had almost done her in. When she would have left, if she’d been sure of where to go.