to my lip. I did not know what a hospital would be like. I had no idea that it would be an exciting place, andbeautiful, and dangerous,and yet also a place of the greatest comfort and safety. I wanted to stay for ever among the white beds and shining trolleys and powerful people.
What they did to me hurt. They bathed my lip in antiseptic. I loved its smell. Then they stitched my upper lip. The pain was indescribable yet I loved the doctor who did it, and the nurse in the shining white cap who held my hand. You had stayed outside.
So, you see, the fact that you loved the dog more than you loved me and that you betrayed me with it, did not matter in the end because I had found my way. I can even forgive you for the betrayal because yours was not the worst. That came later. I got over your betrayal but the other never, because I was betrayed by what I had to love. I did not love you.
I have never told you that. But now Iam telling you everything. We are agreed on that, aren’t we?
Three
Thursday morning and the dawn just coming up through a dove-grey mist. Mild air.
On the Hill, a velvet green island emerging out of a vaporous sea, the trees are all but bare, but the patches of scrub and bramble which lie like body hair in the hollows and folds are still berried and have the last of their leaves. Halfway up the Hill are the Wern Stones, ancient standing stones like threewitches squatting round an invisible cauldron. In daylight, children run in and out of them, daring one another to touch the pock-marked surfaces and at midsummer, robed figures gather to dance and chant. But they are laughed at and known to be harmless.
At this hour in the morning a few runners are making their way up and down and round the Hill, pounding intently, always alone, noticing nothing.Two are out this morning, men running seriously in silent shoes. No woman. After a time, as the light strengthens and the quilt of mist rolls back upon itself, three young men on mountain bikes race up the sandy track to the summit, straining, panting, aching, but never dismounting.
An old man walks a Yorkshire terrier and a woman two Dobermanns, around the Wern Stones and briskly back down tothe path.
At night there may be people on the Hill, though not the runners and cyclists.
Later the sun rises, blood red over the scrubby bushes and brambles and mossy grass, touching the Wern Stones, picking out scraps of blown paper, the white scut of a fleeing rabbit, a dead crow.
No one sees anything unusual out on the Hill. People walk, run, ride there but find nothing, report nothing toalarm them. It is just the same as always, with its standing stones and crown of trees, yielding no secrets. Vehicles keep to the paved paths, and in any case it has rained; any tyre marks have been washed away.
Four
Debbie Parker lay in bed, curled tight, knees drawn up. Outside her window the sun shone, bright for a December morning, but her curtains were dark blue and closed.
She heard Sandy’s alarm, Sandy’s shower water, Sandy’s Radio BEV, but none of what she heard meant anything to her. When Sandy had gone to work Debbie could sleep again, sleep her way through a silent morning, shutting out thesun, the day, life.
There was always a split second when she woke and felt OK, felt normal, ‘Hey, it’s day, here we go,’ before the crushing, blackening misery crawled across her brain like a stain seeping across absorbent paper. Mornings were bad and since she had lost her job were getting worse. She woke to headaches that fogged her mind and dragged her down, lasting half the day. If she madea mighty effort, went out and walked around the town – did anything – the pain got slowly better. Mid-afternoon and she felt she could cope. Evenings were often quite good. Nights were not, even if she had had a few drinksand fallen into bed if not cheerful then at least not caring. She woke around three with a start, heart beating too hard, sweating with fear.
‘Debbie