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‘I couldn’t help it, a car ran into me from behind. Good of you to come all this way. I know you hate leaving home, especially at such short notice. You must stay in my flat – I’ll give you the keys if you pass me my handbag.’
Mrs Knox looked around. ‘Where is it, then?’
‘In the cupboard down there.’ Miranda pointed and her mother bent to open the small cupboard under the bedside table top.
‘Oh, I see it.’ Mrs Knox brought out the brown, yellow and navy-blue harlequin patchwork leather shoulder bag which Miranda had bought at a trade fair in Dublin last year during a short trip there with Terry on business. Miranda opened the zip compartment inside it and found her keys. ‘Here you are, Mum. Don’t forget to give them back to me, I have only this set.’
‘Why don’t I have another set made for you while I’m here. You ought to have a spare set, you know, in case you lose these.’
‘I suppose you’re right. Thanks, good idea.’
Putting them into her own bag, Mrs Knox pulled up the chair which was pushed under Miranda’s bed at the far end, and sat, smoothing down her brown velvet skirt. She was wearing shades of yellow and brown, today; a sweater as vivid as the feathers of a canary, toffee-coloured suede shoes, that rich, silky skirt. Miran
da felt people staring. Her mother had always made people stare. As a young woman she had been beautiful. As an old woman she was still lovely, in a different way. She glowed with life and other people watched her with admiration and envy, wishing they felt as obviously happy as she did.
Some people were so dull, so traumatised by their humdrum lives that they trudged along without lifting their heads, merely straining to get through each day. Dorothy Knox almost danced through her life.
It must be her genes, Miranda thought. But I inherited them, too, so why don’t I look like her, give off that radiant self-assurance, that laughing certainty? I inherited genes from my father, too, of course, a completely different set. Impossible to untwine them all, decipher the secrets of my own biology.
How many genes were there? Hundreds? No, thousands, if not millions. The ones that dictate your colouring, height, tendency to put on weight, your ability to draw, or sing, or dance? The ones that make you good-tempered or irritable, that give you the talent to cook brilliantly, or shape wood into amazing reality? It was like a card game where you never knew what sort of hand you would draw, you just had to play it the best you could.
Was there a gene for luck? Were some people born fortunate? Some who habitually won a prize in raffles, or a bet on a horse race? While others inherited bad luck.
She was sure she wasn’t lucky. When Tom died, that had been bad luck – but had it been her genes or Tom’s dictating that outcome? And when she saw Sean in that bathroom, whose bad luck had caused that? Surely, Sean’s. Yet she felt as if it were she who had unlucky genes. If there was such a thing.
‘Tell me about the accident,’ her mother said, taking a plum from the bowl of fruit on Miranda’s bedside table. She peeled it delicately, dropping the dark red skin into a paper handkerchief, before putting the fruit into her mouth with a sighing sensuality.
‘I was crossing a road near my flat. A car came round the corner, very fast, and hit me.’
Dorothy swallowed the fruit in her mouth. ‘And didn’t stop, so the police told me!’
‘No, it was a hit and run driver.’
Miranda was getting sick of telling the story, this was the third time today, she had the words off pat and muttered them in a cross voice.
‘Feeling fed up?’ her mother guessed shrewdly. ‘A bit tart, those plums, not quite ripe enough for me.’ But she took another one and began peeling that. She loved fruit, perhaps she was so healthy because she ate well, lots of fruit and salad and vegetables. She grew a good deal of what she ate, saving money, too. She had green fingers; she could persuade the most difficult plants to grow for her.
‘I don’t feel too good.’ Miranda admitted.
‘I don’t suppose you do.’ Dorothy eyed her thoughtfully. ‘You don’t look good, either. Are they looking after you well?’
‘The nurses are very kind.’
‘I hate hospitals, myself. If you’re ill, they make you worse. If you aren’t, you soon catch something with all these germs buzzing around. As soon as the doctors allow you to leave here you must come home with me. You need some fresh air and good country living.’
‘I’d like that, thanks, Mum,’ she said gratefully. It would be wonderful to get away from London. Especially at the moment.
Her mother finished her second plum and wiped her fingers on another paper hankerchief. ‘I suppose you’ve let your firm know you’re in hospital?’
‘I left there. I haven’t got another job yet.’ Miranda didn’t want to explain the whole story to her mother, she didn’t feel well enough to talk about Sean and the girl, and what she had heard and seen.
Dorothy Knox looked surprised. ‘I thought you liked working there.’
‘I did, once. It’s too complicated to explain, I’ll tell you all about it later. I’m not up to talking much just now.’
Her mother stayed another ten minutes, then, seeing Miranda’s eyes half-closed, her body limp, left, kissing her.
‘I’ll be back tomorrow. Anything I can bring you?’
