‘Let me try. I’ve got smaller hands.’ Belle reached right into the back of the drawer and felt something soft that appeared to have been jammed there. She pulled gently and then more vigorously and brought out what must have once been a baby’s white muslin square, yellowing now, and wrapped around something solid.

‘Christ,’ she said as she held it in her hand. ‘This is so old.’

‘What’s inside?’

She gently unwrapped the muslin and, when she saw what she was holding, the tears came.

15.

Diana, Cheltenham, 1921

As the man in the blue mackintosh comes up the stairs I find myself desperately wishing that Simone were here. She gave me a gift for Elvira when I was feeling downcast – a beautiful silver rattle – and it was so pretty I believed her when she told me the dark times would pass. She’d been a nurse and was always seeking ways to look on the bright side. She’d know what to say to this mackintosh man – all I can think is to run and conceal myself in my bathroom. Even I know that wouldn’t be the right thing to do, although I can’t help feeling the madder I prove myself the better it will be for everyone else.

The man reaches the top of the stairs and holds out his hand. ‘Mrs Hatton, I’m Doctor Williams.’

‘I know who you are,’ I say, recognizing the weaselly, grey-haired man with the watery pale-blue eyes. ‘We’ve met. You’re the madness man.’

‘I am indeed, although we do tend to prefer the term psychiatrist. Shall we?’ And he points at my door, then smiles, arms folded, studying me.

We go in and he settles himself on one of the two chairs beside my coffee table.

The room feels suddenly stuffy and I want to look out of the window, so I walk over there and face away from him, my back stiff.

‘I’m wondering how you are coping with the new medication. Although a little bitter, the Veronal is usually tolerated better than the bromides, and has less of that strong unpleasant taste. You are taking it daily?’

I twist round and nod. Well, everybody lies, don’t they?

‘It makes me feel drowsy,’ I then say, remembering the effect the few times I really had taken it.

‘Anything else?’

I shake my head. He looks at me and I think, I don’t trust you.

‘You have been unlucky,’ he says.

I take an angry step towards him. ‘Unlucky!? Is that what we are calling losing a child, now? “Oh, how unlucky, well never mind, you can always have another, can’t you?”’

‘You did have another.’

‘That’s not the point.’

‘Won’t you come and sit down with me? Tell me what the point is?’