Watched by Anna and Dr O’Connor, she moved to the door of Krish’s room, crumpling against it, her hands splayed on the wood each side of the window. ‘Krishna . . . my Krishna . . .’ His name spilled from her mouth over and over, as if she couldn’t stop, her forehead pressed white against the glass.

Chapter 39

Krishna and Olivia both went to Rubery Hill Hospital: Krishna as a voluntary patient. Olivia was not given a choice in the matter.

Anna and Jake were Olivia’s only visitors over the next month. Theo went to see Krish with sombre faithfulness.

Krish’s first questions now were, ‘How is she? What’s she saying? Is she blaming me?’

It was only recently though that he had started to talk at all. At first he had remained in a paralysed state, almost completely dumb except for whispered replies to the most basic questions regarding his needs. Anna and Jake visited every other day and Krish sat in inscrutable silence. He had been assigned a psychotherapist, and stonewalled him for hours at a time. No one could detect any maliciousness in this, but simply a need to withdraw, to be out of things. He had refused absolutely, and was still refusing, to see his mother. The hospital staff deemed it right to keep them apart.

After three weeks he had gradually begun talking to Steven, the psychotherapist. Then to Theo. Then Anna and Jake. One day when they approached him, Anna carrying a box of Rose’s chocolates, Krish looked up and, very softly, said, ‘Hello.’ He looked exhausted, his face drawn, black shadows under his eyes. He told them he wasn’t sleeping. He talked in sudden jerks about his life with Olivia, sitting childlike in pastel green pyjamas, his voice so quiet they had to concentrate hard to hear.

‘I’ve hated her so much.’ He was weeping into his hands. He shook his head from side to side as if to dislodge the thought of her. ‘I do love her – but she makes my life impossible.’ He looked up at them through his fingers. ‘God, what the hell are we going to do?’

He held his hands out in front of him, palms down in a despairing gesture, watching their slight tremor. ‘Look at me. I can’t do anything any more. I can’t even make a cup of coffee by myself.’

Afterwards, gloomily, they drove away from the hospital in the van. Finally Anna said, ‘Well – at least he’s speaking.’

The last time they saw Olivia was in mid-October. Anna took flowers to her that day: a bunch of vivid blooms, blue, yellow, pink, deliberately chosen to shout at the pallid walls of the hospital. This outcry of colour was in part an expression of her own guilt, her protest against helplessness, despite the reassurance of Dr O’Connor and the other staff that they had done the right thing. The only thing.

Olivia looked old. Older than Anna had ever seen her, the skin of her face flaccid as if something in her very being had collapsed. She was brushing her hair. Brushing and brushing. It was newly washed, long and wild looking.