It’s strange how her words have affected him. He’s thinking of Gulnaz every waking moment. When he’s alone he longs to be near her. Whenever she’s around he finds himself enthralled by her actions: the way she performs each and every degrading task without the slightest protest. The more he watches, the more in awe of her he becomes. Yes, at times she can become irritable, but those frustrations never once give in to rudeness. Her versatility astounds him even more than her energy. One moment tenderness, the next formidable strength; her long thin arms can become a gentle cradle or knotted rope. When her hair falls forward over her eyes she’s forced to break off from work and tuck it back into place. He imagines the smell of that hair, the sensuousness of that thick black cascade against his face. Sometimes she ties it back out of the way – his chance to study her long neck, her delicate throat, the little hollows to either side softening into those slender shoulders. He aches to stroke her skin. If she catches him staring this way she becomes at once self-conscious and pleased. Her face lights up with a grin, then mocks itself with a look that seems to say, ‘Just who in their right mind would work in a place like this?’, before she’s back with her coaxing and persuading and cleaning up sick and wheeling off to the toilets people who’ve left it too late to ask.
And incredibly, despite such a workload, she’s always able to spend time with him. Over afternoon tea, she draws up a chair and starts chatting about Margaret’s party, suggesting ways he might like to help out. He’s moved by her enthusiasm for the useless roles he’d be able to take on.
“It reminds me of New Year,” she beams. “When Daniel just announced out of the blue that he was going to stay and muck in. He just rolled up his sleeves and got on with it. Everybody loved his waiter service, and the Karaoke he organised was brilliant.”
To hear her saying these things, one wouldn’t think this was the same individual from whom they’d just fled. Has she forgotten so soon? Or simply forgiven? But she mustn’t forgive; not before Daniel has paid for his actions. Alex could scream at her, shake her to her senses. But if she knew he could speak she would only start interrogating him over his memory again; over his past and everything else. And what could he possibly say in reply that wouldn’t have had him instantly sectioned?
And so he says nothing. He just sits and stares.
He does decide though, later that day, to let her know that he’s now walking without crutches. Of course Gulnaz is overjoyed. Word of his recovery soon spreads throughout the care home. Others begin claiming they too have been miraculously healed; one woman falls and hurts herself. Someone calls him holy. Bagshot calls him a charlatan and something in Double Dutch that is probably much ruder. Alex is given a walking stick and strict instructions to go easy, build up slowly, take gentle afternoon walks. It’s on one of these that Gulnaz almost collides with him in the corridor.
“Oh, Alex!” she smiles, “I was just coming for you. Not overdoing it, I hope. I came to tell you that everything’s laid out ready; people will be arriving soon. We’ve put you on sandwich duty.”
He’d known something wasn’t right. With dinner less than an hour away the air should already be filled with the stench of over-stewed vegetables. All the familiar noises have been there – clanking of trays, the jangle of cutlery and clatter of dishes, but none of the usual bad smells. No fat frying, no boiled cabbage. But of course: Margaret’s party. Their excuse to downgrade from a hot meal to a cold snack. Friday has crept up on him unnoticed.
“By the way, you have a letter.” She pulls it from her tunic and flips it over. “I found it among Daniel’s mail in his pigeonhole. From an M. J. Greenall?”
It takes him a moment to recognise the name and its significance. So, Uncle Martin had done as he’d promised, set down his account of his father’s death. Margaret Shenton-Stevens’ words again prophetic: ‘Whoever you’ve lost, Daniel, now is the time to reach out to them and make your peace.”
“Would you like me to open it?” Gulnaz asks, her fingers playing inquisitively over the seal. Alex shakes his head and holds out his hand, clutching the letter between forearm and chest when she gives it over. He will share it when the time is right for her to find out he can speak. She sucks her lip in disappointment. “Oh, right. You can show me later, if you like.”
Only once the party gets underway, as Gulnaz becomes embroiled in a squabble between Bagshot and his latest target, does Alex feel it safe to sneak away to the toilets and read what Greenall has written.