blizzard and you might have done,’ she agreed. I had the fleeting impression she wouldn’t have minded too much if that had proven to be the case. She gave herself a little shake. ‘Still, nothing a nice warm fire and some blankets can’t put right. I’ve been making soup. I’ll bring you some, if you like.’
‘I don’t want to put you to any trouble…’
‘You’ve done that already, haven’t you? I’m stuck here for the night now, the road’s completely blocked and according to the news there is more of this weather to come. It looks like we’re both stranded here, so we’d better make the best of it, eh?’
Colour flooded my face at her candour.
Then she smiled and her face lit up. ‘I’ll go and tell Mr James you’re awake. After carrying you over the threshold like some hero out of a Jane Austen novel he vanished off to his study.’
She was about to retreat to the kitchen again when a thought struck me and I sat bolt upright in alarm. ‘When he brought me in, did Mr James say anything about finding a cat?’
Tara paused and looked back at me, shaking her head. ‘No, the boss didn’t say anything about a cat. Did you have one with you, then?’
‘I think so.’ I wondered how much of what had happened was real and how much was a dream. ‘It’ll freeze to death out there in the snow.’
‘Cats can look after themselves.’ She shrugged. ‘I’m sure it’ll be OK.’
‘It was locked in a plastic box. It won’t stand a chance.’
‘We can’t do anything about it now.’ Tara turned to look out through a chink in the curtains at the cold, dark night outside. ‘Maybe Mr James can go look in the morning.’
She left and I sat morosely, rubbing at my painfully thawing hands. Jadie came and stood next to me. She gave me a reassuring smile. ‘Amber says your little cat will be OK. And Amber is always right.’
‘Where is Amber?’ I looked round the room again for this all-knowing sister of hers.
Jadie peered at her shoes in much the same way she had when I’d asked her about her mother. ‘She’s not here.’
‘Where is she then?’ I was confused, wondering how Amber could have told her anything about the mystery cat. ‘Is she with your daddy?’
Jadie continued to study her feet but she shook her head infinitesimally.
Tara came in carrying a tray with a steaming bowl of soup and what smelled like freshly baked bread wrapped in a cloth. ‘Here you are.’ She laid the tray across my lap. ‘I thought you’d better eat in here by the fire until you’ve thawed out properly.’ She held out a hand to the child. ‘Come on, Jadie, let’s go and have ours in the kitchen. I’ll give your father a shout.’
She paused as if sensing something was up; looked from Jadie to me with a puzzled half-smile. ‘Am I missing something here?’
‘I was just asking her where Amber was, that’s all.’
Tara’s mouth dropped open and her face paled. I thought for an awful moment she was going to faint, and then she squared her shoulders, grabbed hold of Jadie and marched her out of the room. A door slammed somewhere nearby and a moment later Tara returned alone and deposited herself between me and the fire. She gave me a hostile glare. ‘What’s your game?’ She had planted her hands on her hips, staring at me as if I had sprouted horns. ‘Who the hell are you, anyway?’
I wanted to say that I didn’t know who the hell I was, but this didn’t seem quite the right time to mention my lack of memory. ‘Jadie informed me her sister knew I was coming, that’s all. Amber told her the cat was going to be all right.’
Tara continued to stare at me as if I were some sort of rabid monster. An awkward silence yawned between us.
‘Amber was Jadie’s sister.’ She took her hands from her hips and crossed them tightly in front of her chest as if to protect herself from the pain of what she was going to say. ‘Amber passed away two years ago. Jadie’s mother couldn’t cope with the grief and walked out on them a few months later. Amber’s name hasn’t been mentioned since her mother left, and Jadie hasn’t uttered a single word since then. She’s what they call an elective mute; no one has been able to make her talk, not her teachers nor doctors or several different psychologists.’ Tara narrowed her eyes suspiciously at me. ‘So like I said: who the hell are you and what the devil do you think you’re playing at?’
Tara’s eyes bored into me. I felt as if I’d been invited to participate in some gruesome game where everyone else knew the rules but me. I didn’t even know my own name. In the last few hours I had woken on a snow-filled roadside without any idea how I’d got there, nearly died from exposure and hypothermia, been rescued by a man with whom I’d felt a weird affinity, abandoned someone’s cat in a snow-covered field and gate-crashed a household where a supposedly mute child had informed me her long-dead sister had been expecting my arrival.
My hand went to the sticking plaster on my temple. I felt as if I had been sucked into that warm, beckoning tunnel I’d seen as I’d teetered on the brink and, like some sort of worm-hole meandering through space, it had coughed me out in an alternative universe. Tara’s question was fair enough, but it was annoying all the same.
I fought a desire to throw back the blankets, struggle to my feet and run crazily through the snow, back to my own life, whatever and wherever that was. I suddenly felt very lost and alone; as uncomfortable with throwing myself on the mercy of this stranger as she seemed discomfited by my presence. It was odd; I knew how to speak and how to act in a given circumstance. I felt sure I could still read and write and perform the normal functions of living, I just couldn’t remember who I was or how I’d got here. Resisting the temptation to thump my fists and scream, I decided instead to adhere to the time-honoured social conventions that prevented me from knocking the dinner tray to the floor, pushing past this angry sentinel and making a bolt for the door.
‘I don’t know why Jadie spoke to me.’ I summoned as much calm as I could muster. ‘I didn’t know she couldn’t.’
Tara continued to regard me with suspicion. I returned her scrutiny with what I hoped was an apologetic gaze and then, for want of a better idea, and because I was actually pretty damn hungry, I picked up the soup spoon and scooped up some of the delicious-smelling soup.
‘This looks lovely. I really am very grateful to you for bringing me into your home like this.’ It was true, I was grateful.
‘It’s not my home, I just work here.’ She stuck out her chin but the familiarity of the action had broken the spell of hostility; I was a guest again. ‘We’ll be in the kitchen; if you want anything just call.’
Tossing her head she retreated from my line of vision.
When she had gone I dropped the spoon onto the tray and lay back exhausted, squeezing my eyes shut for a moment. If the worm-hole theory wasn’t a realistic possibility, I thought with the stirrings of hysteria, then maybe I’d arrived in a madhouse—or perhaps I’d died out there in the blizzard after
