And your friend definitely doesn’t have the missing pages?

She shakes her head, helpless. She looked again for me, bless her, went through everything in Aunty Clem’s trunk, but there’s nothing else of Grunnie’s.

Gideon tilts his head, considers. Makes sense.

What do you mean?

Whoever ripped them out would have probably destroyed them.

Oh. Laura sighs, deflated, and stares at her glass, the rich red glinting in the light.

Maybe your grandmother tore them out herself.

Laura looks at him, suddenly alert again. So …

Which means she was the one who destroyed them?

She shakes her head gently, her glass tipping, spilling port on her jeans. I don’t know. There was something she needed to say.

The mantel clock chimes twice, and Gideon puts his empty glass on the coffee table. He looks across to the heater. On that note, sir, time to go.

Allee-Cat yawns disdainfully over his shoulder and stretches.

Laura’s still staring into her glass.

What else’s worrying you, Dr Ellery?

She looks up at him, this rangy man with his fisherman’s pullover, his wild greying hair, her grandmother’s notebooks tucked under his arm. It’s late and she’s just sober enough to know that what else is worrying her is far-fetched, doesn’t make sense.

You’re the one who should be worried, she tells him.

How so?

Because one of these days, I’m going to have to cook you dinner.

26

Avril

It’s as quiet as it ever gets in the ICU, early-morning quiet, when Avril slips in to see Cooper. She whispers hello, and knows he hears her, his eyes blinking, the slightest inclination of his head towards hers.

She slumps down in the chair, rakes a hand through her hair. She’s dazed from sleepless hours in the lounge, from the accumulation of tragedy, the scream of a child with his mouth full of sand. Coop’s great-uncle. Two cigarettes and ten minutes in the wind tunnel between Admin and Emergency couldn’t clear her head. Her eyes feel gritty, like they’ve been floured.

Joley puts a hand on her shoulder. Avril, physio’s on her way.

Code for Not a good time, you’ll have to go.

Coop seems agitated, anyway, moaning and restless, and she’s helpless, unable even to stroke his face, watching the ebb and flow of chronic pain from tissue inflammation and nerves rebuilding their chains, making new synaptic connections, receiving messages. It’s a relief to see the syringe in Joley’s tray.

She rests her head a moment beside Coop’s on the pillow and whispers, Back soon, OK?

There’s movement in the gowning chamber, someone already in white, pushing clumsy fingers into cotton mittens, but one of the nurses stops him entering the ICU, gestures towards the door. He begins discarding the gloves, unclipping the gown.

Huh, Avril mutters, it’s about time.

~