Deborah Crombie - All Shall Be Well

Instead of answering, Vi ran some water in the electric kettle and pulled two mugs off the shelf. "Sit down. We'll have another cup."

Gemma almost laughed. Tea, the universal problem solver. Her mother never dealt with anything unless fortified by strong, sweet tea. From the sitting room she heard her father's voice and Toby's giggle, then the opening music from Coronation Street . Her mum was making a real sacrifice.

"Have you looked for him?" asked Vi as she sat opposite Gemma and pushed her cup across to her.

"Of course I have. I tell you he's done a skip, Mum. Left his job, no forwarding address, no phone number. I've talked to everyone I can think of who knows him-nothing."

"His mum?"

"If she knows anything she's not telling me, and it's her grandchild that's going to suffer, for god's sake. How could he do this to us? The bastard." Gemma felt her throat tighten, heard the threat of tears in her voice. She gulped down tea so hot it scalded her mouth.

"Just how bad is it, Gem?"

Gemma shrugged. "The mortgage is high, even if the place is a hole. One of Rob's great investment ideas-I'd lose everything if I had to sell it. But it's Toby's care that eats me up, not just regular days but nights and weekends when I have to work."

Vi took a sip of her tea. "Could you find something less expensive?"

Shaking her head vehemently, Gemma said, "No. It's not as good as it should be, even with what I'm paying."

"Gemma," Vi said slowly, "you know we'd look after him. You only have to ask."

She met her mother's eyes, then looked away. "I couldn't do that, Mum. I'd feel… I just couldn't."

"Think about it, anyway, love. Even as a temporary measure."

Temptation rose before Gemma. It would be an easy out, but it would mean a loss of independence that she didn't want to consider. She took a breath and smiled at her mother. "I'll keep it in mind, Mum. Thanks."

Twilight was falling as Kincaid joined the North Circular Road. The journey back from Dorset had seemed interminable, and after miles of listening to his own thoughts make the same repetitive loop, jockeying for position in London traffic came as a welcome antidote.

He escaped the main artery and crossed the relative quiet of Golders Green into North Hampstead. When he reached the junction of North End Way and Heath Street, he made an impulsive left turn. Spaniard's Road ran like a bridge across the top of the darkening Heath, isolated, empty of traffic. A white face flashed in his headlights-a solitary figure waiting at a bus stop-then the jut of the Bishop's tollgate into the road and he was negotiating the bustle of the Spaniards Inn carpark. As Kincaid pulled up the car, the door of the old pub opened, spilling a wave of light, warmth, and savory smells into the night.

A few minutes later, balancing a plate of sausage, chips, and salad, and a pint, Kincaid squeezed his way into a seat at a single table. Back to the wall, he could watch the room as he ate. He was always more comfortable as observer rather than observed, and the mill of activity allowed his mind to wander.

Had today brought him any closer to finding the real Jasmine? Tantalizing disconnected images ran through his mind-Jasmine's face framed in the window of the Briantspuddle cottage; Jasmine's dark hair swinging to cover her face as she bent over the typewriter in Rawlinson's office; Jasmine propped up in bed in the Hampstead flat, laughing as he told her some exaggerated story from work. If he dug long enough and deep enough, would all the little pieces finally fit together to make a whole? Was there any such thing as a definitive person-could one ever say that this was Jasmine, and not that ?

He realized that some of the melancholy restlessness that had been riding him since he left Dorset had to do with a growing reluctance to continue reading Jasmine's journals. Everything he learned increased his perception of her as an intensely private, even secretive person, and his sense of trespass became ever more pronounced.

He found himself staring absently at two girls ordering food at the counter. One had orange hair cropped almost to her skull, the other a straight fall of fair hair halfway down her back. Spandex minis left their legs bare from the buttocks down, in spite of the chill, damp evening. He supposed vanity provided them sufficient internal warmth- what bothered him was not the likelihood of their catching a chill, but that he'd no idea how long they'd stood there before he noticed them. He must be getting old.

The sight of the girl's long blond hair triggered the usual response-a deja vu of pain shut off almost before it became conscious. Vic. How odd to have this insight into Jasmine's innermost thoughts, when he had never known what his own wife was thinking. His relationship with Jasmine had in some perverse way become more intimate than marriage.

Kincaid mopped up the last bit of chip and sausage with his fork. Reluctant or not, he would go home and pick up the journals where he had left off. It was impossible now to leave the job unfinished, the life not followed to its conclusion. A feeling of urgency, almost of necessity, compelled him.

For months after Jasmine's settling in London, the journal entries reminded Kincaid of the daybooks kept by Victorian wives. Bought curtains for flat. Spent ten pounds to furnish kitchen with necessaries. Enough left to pay rates ? Gaps appeared, then finally the entries began again, undated, sporadic and disconnected. Kincaid skimmed the pages, stopping occasionally to read an entry more carefully.

May's dead, just like Father now. Should feel something, I suppose, but I don't. Just blank. Did she know she was dying? Was she frightened, or did she stay starched as a preacher's drawers even at the end? Did she think of me? Was she sorry?

Could I have loved her, if I had tried harder?

Won't go back, not even for Theo.

This city seems to breed solitude in its slick, wet streets, in the cold that inhabits the stones. You could pass your whole life here, faceless, unrecognized, unacknowledged. I walk the same way to work every day, stop in the same shops, but I'm still a stranger, just "Miss."

The flat welcomes me home with its stink of old grease and I feed just enough coins into the electric fire to keep from freezing. Sometimes when I fall asleep I dream of India, dream I'm in my bed in the Mohur Street house, and I hear the early morning peddlers singing below my window.

I never dreamed May had so much money. Or that she would divide it equally between us. She did try to be fair, even though she didn't feel it. I have to give her that.

Why did she squirrel it away all those years? She lived like she couldn't buy the next day's milk, bitched about how she couldn't afford to keep me even when I was paying my share of the housekeeping, and all the time she had thousands of pounds sitting in the bank. The old cow.

A new flat, a groundfloor in Bayswater. Small, but clean, with sunlight through the windows, and the tiny patch of back garden has a plum tree just beginning to bloom. Look forward to coming home to a simple meal I've made myself, a glass of wine, everything just the way I want it. Safe. For the first time I feel a sliver of hope that life here might not always be so dreary, then there's the nagging reminder that May's money made it possible. I used it for the down-payment, but I won't spend more. Determined to live off my wages, not use the principal. Theo's already asking for loans against his balance, can't say no to him. He seems so lost.

The dreams started again. Woke up sweating and sick, didn't sleep the rest of the night. Wrote his mum again last week. No answer. There's no one else I can ask.