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“He might not get an MRI for months.” This was said almost triumphantly, as if Harriet was looking for a reason for Rachel not to stay, which she probably was. How things had changed from when she’d first left. “You know what the waiting lists are like on the NHS.”
“True. The letter should come through in the next ten days, so I can wait at least until then.” Although she would have to go back to London to make some arrangements, get some more clothes and her laptop.
Harriet shook her head slowly. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you want to staynow?” The emphasis onnowmade Rachel think she was thinking of another time, when she hadn’t stayed, and they both knew when that was.
“I want to help,” she said, the words coming out stiltedly, like she didn’t really mean them, and maybe she didn’t. Not entirely, anyway. Whywasshe offering to stay? Because she wanted to help, or because she was tired of feeling guilty? Or was there yet another reason she really didn’t want to explore?
Harriet let out a huff of disbelieving laughter. “Riiight.” She turned back to the cookies.
“I do, Harriet,” Rachel said quietly. She thought she meant that. She hoped she did, anyway.
“Look, I can’t talk about this now,” Harriet said, her back to Rachel, her voice suddenly sounding clogged, almost as if she were holding back tears. “I’ve got this order to fill, and these cookies have to be at the Wainwright in twenty minutes.” She sniffed, tellingly, and Rachel felt a welter of emotions—sympathy, confusion, a little exasperation.
“All right, why don’t I help, then?” she suggested. “What do you need?”
“Um…” Harriet looked around the kitchen a bit blankly. “Some platters. And plastic wrap. I bought the platters a few weeks ago. They’re made of foil…” She looked around again, as if expecting said platters to magically appear.
Rachel tamped down on her instinctive irritation, because her sister had always been like this. Disorganised, scattered, a tiny bit hopeless. “Do you remember where you put them?” she asked.
“On the dresser.” Harriet nodded towards the Welsh dresser, its surface now piled with old post—leaflets, flyers, bills. “Dad probably moved them.”
She started hunting around, moving piles of papers uselessly, peering into cupboards where they couldn’t possibly be.
“Do you really think Dad moved them?” Rachel asked sceptically. Their father did not bestir himself much when it came to household matters.
Harriet gave her another one of her looks. “Yes, I do, because he’s been moving stuff around a lot lately, not that you’d know. Butter in the cutlery drawer, milk in with the plates, that sort of thing.”
“Oh.” Rachel hadn’t realised.
“Like I said, not that you’d know.”
“All right, fine, I wouldn’t have, but I am here now, Harriet, and I am planning to stay. Do you think you can lose a bit of the attitude?” The words came of their own accord, fast and sharp.
Harriet stood up from where she’d been crouching to look in a cupboard and blew a strand of frizzy hair out of her eyes. Her expression was more weary than hostile, for once. “I thought you wanted to help?” she asked.
“All right, I’ll look. Where do you think he put them?”
“I have no idea.”
Rachel started hunting around the kitchen while Harriet went back to the cookies. “Look, never mind,” she said. “I’ll just use some china platters. They’re antique—they’re retro and cool, right?” She managed a small smile, and Rachel realised how panicked she was. Baking all these cookies for this retirement do had to be a pretty big deal.
“Okay, I’ll get them,” she said, and went into the dining room, opposite the sitting room, and just as dreary a chamber, with the painted wallpaper, heavy furniture, dusty curtains. There was a mahogany glass-fronted cabinet full of their grandmother’s wedding china, in a rather hideous maroon and dark green pattern, swirled with gold gilt, but like Harriet had said, maybe it was retro. She found two large platters and brought them back to the kitchen.
“Thanks,” Harriet said, a bit grudgingly, but still, better than nothing.
Rachel helped her to put the cookies on the platters, fanning them out attractively. They looked delicious—just the right amount of gooey in the centre and bursting with chocolate chips.
“Since you’ve been busy with this,” Rachel said suddenly, “how about I get something for supper?”
Harriet looked at her suspiciously, as if expecting a trick. “You mean tea?”
Rachel almost laughed. She’d forgotten for a moment that she was in Yorkshire, where supper was tea and lunch was dinner. “Yes, that’s what I mean. Is the Misbah still open?”
“Yeah.” Harriet was covering the platters of cookies in swathes of plastic wrap. “Dad won’t eat a curry anymore, though. Stomach stuff.”
