‘Yes, Doctor?’
‘You’re not imagining all this, are you?’
‘Oh no,’ she replied indignantly, ‘No, Doctor. I wish you’d see my brother, I really do.’
‘There are such things as rumours,’ he said, smiling. ‘Very well, I’ll arrange to have a talk with him. By the way, isn’t he the Minister at Penuel. I have heard about some very good sermons there.’
Margiad positively beamed. ‘That’s it. Knew you’d remember, Doctor.’
‘Don’t worry’ he said, opening the door, ‘it never helped anyone.’
‘No, Doctor, thank you.’
The smiling receptionist led her to the front door. ‘Good morning.’
The receptionist put her head in just as the doctor called, ‘Next, please,’ and as she went out, asked, ‘Do you know Miss Thomas?’
‘Never heard of her.’
‘Or a Miss Vaughan staying at Cartref in Prince’s Road?’
‘Never heard of her,’ the receptionist said, and went out again, and he heard her call out, ‘Miss Davies?’
‘Miss Thomas should take some pills, too,’ he thought, as he rose to receive his next patient.
Miss Thomas was still standing outside the door, looking anxiously up and down, as though not quite certain as to the direction she should take. She felt disappointed, she had expected more, and got less, she did not like Dr Hughes’s manner, he had seemed to dismiss the whole thing with a mere toss of the head. He had seemed indifferent, not caring.
‘He is a very busy man, I know.’
‘Ah well,’ and she felt a sense of relief at having done her duty by her brother, and she looked forward to his calling. Mervyn would be angry, but then he had been angry, and moody, and totally incomprehensible these past weeks. Something had to be done. People passed by on their way to the town, there was the occasional ‘Good morning’ in her ear, and ‘Out early this morning.’ The town had sharp eyes, and missed nothing.
‘Morning,’ Margiad would reply, staring at the pavement.
She felt imprisoned in this street, and then a hand touched her arm, and she turned violently to find her friend, Mari Richards, smiling in her face.
‘Nicer morning than yesterday, Margiad, awful, wasn’t it?’
And Margiad stuttered, ‘Yes, it was, wasn’t it?’ and walked quickly away, to the astonishment of her friend, who, going her way, stoked the fire of her own imagination.
‘Very odd indeed, at that time of the morning,’ she thought, staring after the rapidly distancing form of Miss Thomas.
‘Of course, it’s that brother of hers, that’s it,’ visualising the morning when a man wearing a white coat would call and take Mervyn away. ‘Well, well!’
Miss Thomas was glad to slip into the first cafe she came to, to sit down, to order herself a cup of coffee, and even more glad to find the place empty. Even the girl coming forward to serve her was a relief. She looked up at her. A total stranger.
‘Yes, Madam?’
‘Coffee, please.’
‘Certainly.’
And she accepted the coffee, and the mercenary smile that accompanied it. ‘Anything else, Madam?’
‘No, thank you.’
And watched the girl suddenly vanish behind the blue curtains at the end of the room. She sat over her cup, slowly stirring, wondering, asking herself questions, answering them. Had she done the right thing? And what on earth did that doctor think he was doing, asking if she had imagined it all. Of course she’d done the right thing, and she sipped quietly, and looked out of the window at the people passing by.
She put down the cup, thinking, ‘Perhaps I could go and see this Vaughan woman myself,’ but instantly dismissed it from her mind, her pride stiffening. No. But there was this Mr Blair, the solicitor, for whom she worked. Perhaps she could talk to him. When she turned away from the window she saw the girl’s face between a chink in the curtains. It made her call at once.
‘Another cup, please.’
‘Thank you.’
If only she had never arrived in the town. Yes, she would see Mr Blair. But how to avoid that woman? In a sudden desperation she even thought of seeing Mrs Gandell herself, thought even of Jones. ‘I wish I knew what best to do?’ Saw her brother mad, heard the laughing town, and her hand trembled as she put the cup to her lips.
When she looked up the girl had gone, she was alone again. And even as she sat there, the cafe seemed to have grown suddenly larger, and the blue curtains more distant, the silent, invisible assistant even more silent. She longed for the feel of a hand, longed for the words that might come, reassuring as open arms, and she stared around the empty room, and listened to the tick of a little blue clock on the shelf above her head. Eleven o’clock. ‘I’ve been out two hours, and nothing has happened, nothing,’ and suddenly she was lost and drowning in her own dilemma. She did not hear the ring of the bell, nor see the door opening, nor the tall man that entered and sat down at a nearby table. And there was the assistant hovering over him in an instant, with a fresh smile.
‘Morning, Mr Blair.’
‘Good morning, Nancy. Usual, please.’
‘Certainly, Mr Blair.’
Margiad Thomas jerked upright, stared at the man. ‘Blair. Blair. Of course, yes, the solicitor, him.’ The small miracle over the horizon in a moment, and again her hand shook, and she spilt some coffee, and she continued to stare at this tall, well-dressed man.
‘He could tell me everything,’ she thought.
‘Good morning,’ she blurted out, and the head turned, there was a momentary pause, then the man smiled, and said casually, ‘Ah, good morning, Miss Thomas. And how are you today?’
