was one reason why she had grown up saying so little, why she was disturbed by noise and busy city streets. Silence had been her environment for so many years.
‘You’ll want some food; they never have anything worth eating on the train these days,’ he said as they drove away.
‘I’m not hungry!’
‘Nay, you must eat!’ He shook his head at her, half smiled. ‘Grace told me to make sure you did. Won’t do any of us any good if you get ill too! We’ll stop at a pub on the way, get a bite to eat there.’
They stopped at a pub just a stone’s throw from the hospital, found a seat in a corner, then John Thornton went up to the bar to order them both a ploughman’s platter—chunks of local cheese with pickles and salad and home-made bread.
‘How’s Aunt Grace bearing up?’ Nerissa asked, sipping her glass of cider which had a strong, homebrewed taste of fermented apples, rich, golden, autumnal, sending a warm glow through her and making her feel slightly less strung up.
Her uncle looked sombre. ‘She never leaves him. She’s sat by his bed ever since it happened, talking to him. She’s certain he’ll hear her voice and start to wake up.’
A pang hit Nerissa. She bit her lip. ‘How long is it now?’
‘Since he went into coma? Three days. We thought…hoped…he’d come out of it sooner, but he hasn’t, and the doctors can’t tell us when he will…if he will.’ His hands curled into helpless fists on the table between them.
‘Of course he’s going to get better! You mustn’t think like that. It isn’t like you to give up.’ She gently uncurled his fingers, held them tightly. ‘You know Aunt Grace won’t stop talking until he wakes up in self-defence!’
He gave a reluctant chuckle. ‘You bad girl, you! Lucky for you she can’t hear you!’
Nerissa smiled at him. ‘Have you finished your drink? Shall we go?’
If only took a few minutes to reach the hospital. She had spent a few days there once, years ago, when she’d had her tonsils out. The smell of polish and disinfectant and soap was familiar; her nostrils wrinkled at it. Their footsteps echoed on the stone floors as they tramped for what seemed hours along cream-painted corridors, up stairs, along more corridors, until they reached the intensive care unit where Philip Thornton lay, on a life-support system.
His mother sat beside the bed watching him unwearyingly and for a few seconds Nerissa and her uncle stood in the doorway, watching her while she was unaware of them, so intent on her son that she had no attention to spare for anything else.
Nerissa looked at him, too—and away again, appalled by what she saw. Everything his father had told her was suddenly a reality, in front of her; she hadn’t believed it fully until that moment—now she had to.
It was a relief to look at her aunt instead. Grace Thornton was the opposite of her husband. Where he was tall, she was short; where he was thin, she was plump. His skin was brown and weather-beaten; hers was as soft as a rose-petal and as rosy as an apple.
His eyes were very pale blue and deep-sunk; hers were slightly protuberant, very bright and a warm, rich brown, and her curly, goldy-brown hair showed no trace of the grey which had taken over in his hair.
Her voice was soft and warm; it flowed unceasingly while Nerissa and John Thornton listened. She had always done all the talking in the family while her husband and her son and Nerissa listened, and it was somehow reassuring to hear her talking now—it made the alien hospital surroundings seem more homely.
‘And the top field will be given a dressing this next week—if your father gets round to it—now the ploughing’s done. The turnips are coming on nice, then when the sheep have eaten all the grass we can turn them into the top field to eat turnip tops—and turnips too, if need be. Did I tell you the vet had been to see that ewe we thought might be carrying? Well, she wasn’t. Hardly worth keeping her; she hasn’t lambed for eighteen months. Past it, I reckon. She can go to market with the others next time.’
John Thornton moved forward and his wife stopped talking and turned her head. She saw Nerissa and her face lit up.
‘Here’s your father now, Philip,’ she said conversationally. ‘And Nerissa’s with him! There, I told you she’d come, didn’t I? And she looks just the same; she hasn’t changed.’
She got up and held out her arms; Nerissa ran into them and they hugged, kissing. Aunt Grace moved back to look at her, tears sparkling in her bright brown eyes.
‘You look well. She looks well, Philip. Lost weight, mind. Skinnier than ever! Don’t you eat down there in London? Did your uncle take you to have a bite to eat before you came here? I told him to make sure you got some lunch first—I know those trains—nothing but sandwiches and crisps; that’s all you get on them these days. In the old days they had a proper buffet car and a three-course lunch, with waiters in white coats and silver cutlery and good glasses on the table, but these days they can’t be bothered.’
‘We stopped and had a ploughman’s in a pub,’ Nerissa said, and her aunt clucked her tongue.
‘Is that all? Did you hear that, Philip? Isn’t that just like your father? John Thornton, you should have taken her somewhere better than that. A bite of cheese and some bread isn’t a fit meal for anyone but a mouse.’
‘She said she wasn’t hungry!’
‘You shouldn’t have taken any notice of her!’
Nerissa had stopped listening. She moved to the bedside and looked down at Philip, her heart wrung, wanting to cry. The top of his head was bandaged, domed, only his face visible. He had been shaved, she noted. There was no sign of stubble on his cheek and she knew that Philip needed to shave every day. He had once stopped shaving for a weekend camping trip on Hadrian’s Wall, not far from his home, and come back on the Monday morning with the rough beginnings of a curly brown beard.
His mother wasn’t talking any more. She was watching her niece. ‘Say hello to him, Nerissa. He can hear you; they say he can, even if he isn’t showing any signs. You know she’s here, don’t you, Philip? You’re waiting for her to talk to you.’
His hand lay on the white coverlet, brown and strong, with wide-spanned fingers, nails cut very short, a practical hand used to hard manual work. Nerissa touched it lightly, whispered, ‘Hello, Philip, it’s me.’
‘Say your name,’ her uncle urged her. ‘Say, it’s Nerissa.’
‘He knows,’ Grace Thornton said, still watching Nerissa. ‘I told him she was here, didn’t I? Not that I needed to; he’ll have known her voice the minute he heard it. We’ll go and have a cup of tea, Nerissa, and leave you to talk to him.’
Nerissa didn’t look round, just nodded. She heard them go out, heard the door click softly into place. She sank down on the chair her aunt had been sitting on and picked up Philip’s hand, stroked it lightly.
‘I’m sorry I haven’t come until now. Your father only rang me yesterday.’
It had been one of the biggest shocks of her life. She had been at work, had picked up the phone expecting it to be a business call and heard her uncle’s voice with a start of alarm. She had known it couldn’t be good news; he wouldn’t ring her at work for
