‘From Burma?’ she had said. ‘Oh, Rosie …’
About her hair, Rosie said only, ‘Had it cut off, did you?’ She was preoccupied because she had mislaid their sweet coupons. ‘You’ve not moved them anywhere, Miss D?’ She slapped Malcolm about the legs when he tried to look for them in her purse. The new baby yelled. ‘Remember you promised to take us to the Toy Exchange.’
In the afternoon she forked over one of the flowerbeds, even though she felt chilled still. Next morning she woke with the beginnings of a cold, which she ignored. Today was the day for entertaining Dr McIntosh. She had managed to get some oxtail. She was standing over the stove stirring it, when she fainted.
Or almost. Feeling bad, she turned, caught at the kitchen table and stumbled into a chair. There she blacked out. She was alone. Rosie and family were not due back for another hour.
She was pretty sure that she had a temperature. Cold, hot, sweaty and shivering now, she telephoned the surgery and left a message with the receptionist: she was sorry but due to unforeseen circumstances she must cancel that evening’s invitation.
‘Wait, Doctor’ll speak to you,’ the receptionist said. ‘No, no,’ she said.
She lay shivering in bed. The warmth she had made ready for the evening did not extend to her bedroom. She was too weak to carry back upstairs the electric fire she’d taken to make the dining-room warm for him.
Two or three minutes after Rosie and the children returned, he was at the house. He came straight upstairs.
‘What’s all this, now?’
‘I didn’t send for you,’ she said.
The Golden Lion Page 33