Chapter 41 PHYLLIDA
PHYLLIDA
‘Let’s go for a walk.’ Mary was standing at Phyllida’s front door. She had a strange, unflattering skirt on. Mary wore alarming outfits, and Phyllida wondered if one day she might tell her these outfits did not suit her.
‘Come on, Phylly. You need to get out of the house. You can’t go on shutting yourself up like this. Let’s visit the cemetery. Let’s go and see David.’
The trees were making swishing sounds, and it was so interesting to watch the way they moved in the wind behind Mary’s shoulder. All bent over to one side, bending, bending. So very flexible.
‘Phylly?’
Mary’s hand rested now on Phyllida’s arm. How strange, the way she put it there. She was ageing fast, Mary. The lines and veins in her hand were prominent. Did she use hand cream?
‘That scar’s healed up nice and tight,’ said Mary, turning Phyllida’s own hand over. ‘Dr Patel did a good job with them stitches.’
Phyllida stared absently at the long purple gash that ran the length of her hand and up her wrist. She recalled a shard of glass, blood. The vibrant red patterns.
‘I’ll get your hat. We’re going to see David, Phylly. You need to visit the plot. You need to face it.’
Phyllida wondered why they were in the garden, walking out the front gate.
The colours were bright. Everything was green.
Except the sky. Blue. Wind and moving clouds, so Phyllida was moving too.
Her feet along the grass and the road, and over the verge and up onto the pavement.
There were gates here, and a carpark, and the church.
‘Along here now, you know the way. That’s his headstone, right over there.
It’s lovely.’ Mary was gripping Phyllida’s elbow, talking, talking.
‘The granite we chose, didn’t we? Because it’s nice dark grey, and it weathers the best. And the gold writing on it.
You’ll feel better when you sit with him.
You can come, every day if you like. Bring him some flowers from your garden. ’
Her words were like litter, blowing away in this interesting, noisy wind.
Phyllida peered at Mary. She seemed so serious; what was wrong?
She wondered where they were. They were outside.
The wind was lovely. She stared into the wind, the vortex of the wind.
Round and round like the fae in the hedgerows.
‘The words on the headstone came up well. Lovely in the gold. Remember we chose that quote? The word of God is a lamp unto his feet, and books were the light along the way.’
What was the woman saying? Why was she talking? There was a plastic flower, so ugly, lying on the ground. It was strange that people bought plastic flowers when there were lovely real flowers in nature all around, and there was green and the smell of summer.
‘Come on, Phylly.’
Phyllida’s lips were tingling, her whole face now, and she wondered if this would stop. Could she step out of it? Was she even here? She was away, somewhere odd, as if she were two things. Had she cut a hawthorn bush? Disrupted nature?
‘Phylly?’
A hand was on her arm, and it was hard, grasping, shaking her arm, and pain. Pain.
‘Phyllida, you’ve got to listen—’
She heard the words from far away. Oceans away.
‘You’ve got to listen, lass!’ Mrs Wilson is so still.
So certain, the way she sits by the Aga, looking across the kitchen.
There is blood here too. It is all over her, she sees now.
Why is Mrs Wilson speaking so calmly when there is so much blood?
He will die, she thinks. The man will die. What has she done?
‘Phyllida? Phyllida!’
Who is Phyllida? She must see to Francis. The baby is crying, crying, and nobody is coming and now Mrs Wilson is at her feet, removing her boots as she stands at the bottom of the staircase in this terrible house. There is blood on her boots, blood everywhere.
The babbling woman had gone and now the pressure on her arm was lesser.
Lesser. Then no longer there, but still the wind.
And now someone else. The doctor who drank too much, Caleb, with the Indian name, and his words like chocolate, so smooth, like his skin and his lovely eyes and he was saying Phyllida and walking her away from this awful place that was a made-up place and not real.
And now she was in a strange van, and a bed, a nice lady who wanted her to sleep and that would be lovely. A needle and a rest.
Phyllida closed her eyes and lay down and slept.