Chapter 2
M irren loved her great-aunt dearly, always had. On the other hand, if Mirren were to tell you she loved going to visit the old people’s home as well, she would be lying. This wasn’t a particularly fancy one; it was a vast creaky old Victorian house in south London with plumbing noises and rooms subdivided in odd ways to accommodate wheelchairs, and it basically looked deliberately designed to frighten children, who were rarely over the moon to be there in the first place.
But Violet was different. She didn’t raise Mirren, but she had always been such a good counteroffensive to her mum, when she really needed it. Violet put up with no nonsense whatsoever, was endlessly generous with caramels, and told lots of lies about being in the war. (She had, technically, been in the war, she’d just been eight at the time.) Mirren had spent hours at Violet’s house as a teen, eating carrot cake and being lectured about feminist literature and told to go to university, which she was very glad about, even when her mum sniffed that it was a waste of money. Mirren loved Violet very dearly.
Violet had been furious about the whole going-into-a-home thing; she was mentally sharp as a tack, but kept falling over, and her arthritis was horrible. She had objected furiously to moving until the third time she tripped over the oven door, and Nora told her the only alternative was moving in with her, whereupon Violet went mutinously quiet – and now, here they were.
Mirren hadn’t seen Violet for a couple of weeks and she’d been all right then – signing in to an old person’s home always felt like telling the dentist you floss all the time. She never felt like she’d been quite good enough.
Mirren was nervous by the time she made her way along the first-floor corridor to the turret room at the end. It was the fanciest room; Violet had adopted a policy of outliving everyone else who got it, then putting in an early bid, so she’d made it there eventually. The nice thing about the turret room was that single-paned windows lined the turret and they were old and draughty, so it slightly took the edge off the 50-degree furnace temperature the facility was kept at. The heavy fireproof doors weren’t meant to be propped open, but hers were.
The last time Mirren had seen Violet, she’d been sitting in her day chair, nicely dressed, with make-up on.
This time, she was in bed, barely lifting her head.
‘Violet?’ Mirren said, worried. ‘It’s me, Mirren.’
Violet looked slightly confused – not like her at all – then her face cleared.
‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘Little Mirren.’
‘Hey,’ said Mirren. ‘Mum said ...’
Well, Nora hadn’t said much actually.
‘What’s up?’ Mirren said, suddenly very frightened.
Violet fussed and moved herself up the bed, and Mirren helped and poured her a glass of water and found her – actually rather chic – oversized reading glasses.
‘Did you know,’ Violet said, by way of an opener. ‘Did you know that about eighty per cent of people my age have cancer? I mean, basically we all have it?’
Mirren shook her head, her mouth falling open.
‘No . . . and you?’
‘Yes,’ said Violet. ‘So common. Honestly. Between this and ending up in Bexleyheath, I really don’t know why I bothered with university.’
Violet had gone to Cambridge when not many women did. It had been the most remarkable time of her life.
‘I am so, so sorry,’ Mirren said. The breath went out of her, and she sat down on the bed. She knew her aunt was old, of course. She’d just always found it easier not to think about it. ‘When do you start treatment?’
Violet gave Mirren a look.
‘Oh, Mirren, don’t be ridiculous. They don’t do treatment at my age.’
‘Of course they do!’ Mirren said, scandalised.
‘Well, all right. They are technically putting me on a list. Kind of. I think they put my name on in a very light pencil.’
‘That’s a scandal!’ Mirren said. ‘That’s awful. You should be at the top of the list!’
Violet shook her head.
‘What, I should take the place of a child? I don’t think so, do you? Who exactly should I push out of the way, Mirren?’
‘But . . .’
She shook her head again. ‘No. It’s ridiculous. I don’t want an extra miserable six months of chemotherapy. I want lots and lots of good drugs. You might have to help me with that. You’re a young person. You’ll know about drugs and that.’
‘Violet, I’m a quantity surveyor.’
‘Hmm.’
‘What kind of cancer?’
‘Oh, it’s everywhere,’ she said. ‘I’m basically so old I’m just one big blob now anyway. I’ve fused. With black threads running through me.’
Mirren suddenly got a lump in her throat. Violet just seemed so stoic, all alone in this room lined with her books. She had never married or had children – it was apparently frightfully bourgeois and boring after Cambridge – and had instead lectured in English at the University of Sussex.
‘You are being very brave,’ Mirren said.
‘Good,’ said Violet. ‘Tell everyone. I am being terribly matter-of-fact and practical. Extremely admirable and brave.’
‘Do you feel terribly admirable and brave?’
Violet looked at Mirren then, through the big glasses, and gave her head one sharp shake. Then Mirren sat and held her, and they both had a good cry.
‘Don’t you DARE tell Nora,’ said Violet, hiccupping as Mirren passed her a hanky. ‘She’ll start sending me inspirational messages on the internet and doing sponsored swims.’
‘I shan’t,’ lied Mirren. Nora would get it out of her in two seconds flat. ‘Okay. What is going to help? Sweets? Whisky?’
‘I don’t ... I don’t feel like eating at all.’
Mirren almost said, Oh, you have to eat , before remembering how many other well-meaning people would be giving her exactly this advice, so she shut her mouth.
Violet got a sly look on her face.
‘You’re young, Mirren. Do you know where to get any drugs?’
‘Violet! And no, I really don’t know where to get any drugs!’
‘Can you pretend that you do? Just in case they won’t give me any in case I get addicted to it in the three months I have left to develop a habit and start living under a bridge?’
‘I ... I’ll have a think,’ said Mirren, remembering her Persian friend whose father had always smoked opium in Iran and had seen no reason to give up the habit on arriving in Europe.
‘I want my daddy,’ said Violet suddenly, then she covered her mouth with her hand. ‘Oh God, don’t tell anyone I said that. I don’t even know where it came from.’
‘I won’t,’ Mirren said.
Violet had lost her father, Mirren’s great-grandfather Reg, in the war. She could barely remember him. She covered her face with her hands.
‘There is one thing,’ she said eventually. ‘One thing I would really like.’
‘Not heroin?’
Violet shook her head just a little. Her long pale hand was trembling. The veins stuck out. Her watery eyes suddenly stared over Mirren’s head, looking at something that wasn’t there.
‘I had ... we had something. When I was a little girl. A book.’
‘What kind of a book?’
‘ A Child’s Garden of Verses ,’ said Violet, quite without hesitation. ‘By Robert Lighthouse Stevenson. No, wait. Robert Louis Stevenson.’
Mirren frowned.
‘That sounds familiar,’ she said.
‘It should,’ said Violet. ‘I used to read it to you.’
Mirren thought about it.
‘It had big pictures of flowers?’ she said eventually.
‘Well, your edition did,’ said Violet. ‘My dad’s edition ... the one I had. There are lots of different ones. But the one he gave me was special. It had hand-drawn plates. He used to read it to me and my best friend, June. June was very cheeky and funny and naughty, but he used to read it to her anyway. Her dad was dead. I used to feel so sorry for her, and very glad I still had a daddy.’
She looked so very sad then, and Mirren tried to keep her focused.
‘What happened to it?’
‘I don’t know. After we lost Daddy ... we moved away. I never saw June again. I suppose my mother must have sold it; we certainly needed the money, and she sold everything else we had. Crockery, silverware – everything really, practically almost down to his bloody kit bag. My life changed so much.’
Her eyes and voice were cross now, and still generations away, buried in tweed and pipe smoke and horse-drawn coal deliveries and cobblestones. Then her tone changed.
‘ The moon has a face like the clock in the hall; She shines on thieves on the garden wall, On streets and fields and harbour quays, And birdies asleep in the forks of the trees .’
Mirren patted her gently on the shoulder.
‘I wonder,’ Violet said. ‘I wonder if it’s still out there somewhere. My dad always said it was special.’
Mirren pulled out her phone.
‘We could have a look,’ she said. ‘If it will stop you asking me for heroin.’