‘Here we are then,’ said the driver, pulling into the kerb outside the Shalimar. He was a big bluff Cockney in a red anorak who’d chatted to her all the way from the airport. She couldn’t remember a single word he’d said, and she didn’t know what she’d said back to him either. Her mind was fogged with grief and weariness.
Annie paid him and got out into the rain, dragging her case and hand luggage with her. The cab pulled away. Almost instantly she was drenched, and she stood there with the cold rain battering down on her upturned face, looking up at the Shalimar sign, grey now in the noonday gloom, all its bright red neon lights turned off. She looked up and down the soaked street, traffic nudging along, jostling pedestrians with umbrellas held low against the gusting downpour, trying to avoid the puddles on the glimmering wet pavement. For better or worse, she was home.
‘Annie?’ asked a female voice.
Annie turned, and there was podgy, dark-haired Ellie, standing in the rain clutching a pint of milk, her neat two-piece burgundy suit darkened with moisture around her shoulders. Dolly, Ellie and Annie – over the years they had become a trio of mutual cheerleaders. Now, one of them was gone. Annie watched as Ellie’s face crumpled.
‘Christ,’ said Ellie, and threw herself sobbing into Annie’s arms. ‘Can you believe it?’ she choked out. ‘Dolly!’
Annie hugged her tight in the pouring rain.
Gina Barolli looked out of the window and saw the car coming up the drive toward the big sprawling villa, churning up a yellow dust-cloud as it came.
So it was done. It was put right.
Two of their best had gone to correct the mistake she had made; she couldn’t remember their names and that was annoying, but they had gone, she knew that, and she knew that everyone was very agitated and angry about it all.
She couldn’t remember what her mistake had been.
She knew she’d made it, yes of course she did, she wasn’t a fool, even if the people here treated her like one sometimes. Shouting at her, saying why did she do that, why did she make these stupid mistakes?
Ah, none of it mattered now anyway. The car was coming, and she craned out of her wheelchair, using the windowsill as a support, to see it pull in at the front of the building where the lavender grew thick and violet-blue, heavy with bees and a delicious fragrance. A man got out, black-haired, darkly tanned. She didn’t recognize him and that puzzled her. Where were the other people,
