The Matron said she considered that a very sensible idea and she would attend to it. The clothes arrived, and with them three or four envelopes, all unsealed and bearing twopenny stamps; a list of newly published educational books; a coupon worth fourpence if you bought a certain detergent; an appeal for funds to take old people to the seaside for the day. Nothing personal at all. It was a bitter disappointment, and Miss Mayfield wept over it. She began again to write to Rose, and a very horrible thought struck her; during this lost interval of three years, Rose might even have died! She wept again, and the nurse said, with patience obviously forced:

‘You’ve really nothing to cry about, you know. Now, if you were the poor woman in number seven . . .’

Miss Mayfield endeavoured to explain her predicament about writing to Rose; the nurse said:

‘Yes, I can see that is a bit awkward. But in any case I think you should write. A nice chatty little letter can’t do any harm.’

A nice chatty little letter!

In the end that was what she did write, however, and she sealed and addressed and stamped it, and sent it off into the void.

Everybody told her that worry was the worst thing; and she tried not to worry. Everybody said that one morning she would wake up and find her memory restored. Every morning she woke up and was aware of having two lives, one which ended in a hospital bed in Entuba and one which began in a hospital bed in Wandford. Out of the gap which divided them there came echoes of another life: flowers and fruit from some people called Frisby, eggs and cream from some people called Maverick.

One day she had another inspiration.

‘If anyone else from Walwyk comes to the hospital, will you ask that they should come and visit me, please? I am allowed visitors now, am I not? I think that if I saw somebody, my memory might begin to work again.’

Two days later a sheaf of gladioli arrived, with the Canon’s card attached to it.

‘Oh, you forgot to ask about my having a visitor,’ said Miss Mayfield, on the verge of tears once more.

‘I did not! I left the message at the porter’s lodge. I’ll see what happened. He may have forgotten, but I didn’t.’

She reported that the flowers had been delivered from a Wandford shop. During her next visit Matron mentioned casually that she believed Canon Thorby had gone abroad; he’d been absent from the hospital managers’ meeting.

Time passed. They took away the bandages. Then the stitches were removed. Her cut hair began to grow in little wispy curls like a child’s.

‘There’s a hairdresser who will come in,’ Matron said cheerfully. ‘Would you like an appointment? You could have it cut short all over. I think it would suit you.’