‘So it’s to start now?’ she said, and her lips trembled.
‘Yes, Roz. I’m freeing you of all obligations for the time being. You know, I also know what it’s like to be unable to relax, to be able to forget when everything seems to stand up and scream your memories to you. Not that mine were quite on the same scale as yours, not so … horrific. But we have one thing in common—what happened when I lost Werrington and you lost your grandfather was not our fault. It happened, that’s all.’
‘Yes,’ she whispered, ‘I guess so.’
‘And the fact that you’ve been awake for nearly the last twenty-four hours can’t change it.’
‘No, but …’
‘I know, I haven’t helped exactly. But that’s all the more reason for us to do this. You have to learn to relax, and this is the best way.’
Roz wandered upstairs into her bedroom after she had watched Adam drive away. She stared into her mirror and tried to see how she looked haunted. But all she could detect was that she looked dazed and tired—and apprehensive. Did that all add up to looking haunted? Certainly like a player who had lost the script …
She sighed and went through to her bathroom to have a shower, and afterwards she pulled on her favourite grey silk wrapper with birds of paradise on it and lay down on the bed to think. But to her immense surprise, when she woke up, she had fallen asleep and slept deeply and dreamlessly for hours.
To find, when she got up, her sister-in-law Nicky on the doorstep full of apologies because she had arrived a few days early, but she was broke, she said. Positively destitute, which she would hate to have to admit to her mother, which she’d thought of admitting to Adam last night but had not been able to nerve herself to, and the only other thing she had been able to come up with was to arrive early and sweat out the few days until her next allowance, availing herself of his hospitality at the same time—what did Roz think‘?
Roz didn’t get a chance to say, because Nicky charged on—was that a coward’s way out, not to mention really creepy, but didn’t Roz share her sentiments that one small mouth to feed for an extra couple of days, especially one’s sister’s small mouth …?
‘Nicky,’ Roz broke in laughingly, ‘come in, and think no more about it. Of course he won’t mind. Anyway, we won’t tell him if you’d rather not, and I’m thrilled you’ve come a couple of days early. How were the exams? I meant to ask you last night but forgot.’
‘Horrific,’ Nicky replied, rolling her dark eyes. ‘Really hard, so I’ve got that on my conscience too. If I fail …’
‘You won’t,’ said Roz confidently. ‘You never have yet.’
‘Yes, but I’ve been—well, not quite so conscientious this semester … I say, Roz, are there any other members of the family lurking around? Like Aunt Margaret or Mum or——God forbid!—Lucia?’
‘Not a one, and none invited,’ Roz assured her. ‘Why ?’
Nicky sighed with relief, then said comically out of the corner of her mouth, ‘You ain’t got no idea what it’s like to have a large interfering family, kiddo, and especially one like the Milroys. Oh,’ she stopped and coloured, ‘well, you do now, but you’ve got Adam to use as a buffer, and to have no family mightn’t be very nice, although I can’t see it at present, but … oh damn, do you know what I mean, Roz?’
‘Entirely,’ said Roz with a grin. ‘But if you’re being harassed by the family at present—although I can’t think why, because they all adore you, I’m sure Adam would be happy to act as a buffer for you too. He … seems to know how to handle them,’ she added wryly.
But to her surprise, Nicola’s face fell, and she sighed confusedly. ‘If only I knew where Adam stood!’
‘Nicky,’ Roz said slowly, ‘you’re not thinking of shaving your head and going to join the Hare Krishnas or something like that, are you? Because …’
But Nicola started to laugh delightedly and said finally, ‘Oh God, can you imagine it? Oh Roz, I’ll remember that!’
‘Nicky!’ Roz exclaimed in some alarm.
And Nicola looked at her contritely, then kissed her on the cheek. ‘It’s nothing,’ she said gaily. ‘Well, only that I am nineteen and I resent everyone trying to tell me how to run my life as if I was fifteen or sixteen still. I guess that’s one of the penalties of being the baby of the family, though. Now, would it be too much to ask for a bite to eat‘? It’s nearly lunchtime and I didn’t have any breakfast, and …’