Sarah lay half-asleep listening to the seagulls screaming and squawking outside her window. At first, she thought she was still in her own bedroom back at the beach house. Soon she would wake up and she bad dream would be over. When she opened her eyes, though, she felt a momentary panic. Everything was different.
This room was smaller, for start, and thin white radiator under the drawn curtains infuser the air with what little warmth it possessed. The tip of Sarah's nose felt cold in a way it never had in Los Angeles. In the dimed light, she could make out cream wallpaper pattered with poppies or red roses, matching the heavy duet she pulled up to her chin. Her pillow smelled of lavender. Beyond the noise the gulls made, she could hear the sea pounding the wall.
Then she remembered: she was at the family cottage in Robin Hood's Bay. It stood at the bottom of the hill, on a row to the left of the main street, and looked out right over the North Sea. That was why her father wanted it. In clement weather, Sarah knew, Arthur Bolton like nothing better than to sit in his wheelchair at the bottom of the garden and look out the sea. She fancied that the open horizon somehow helped make up for the years he had spent in the dark, claustrophobic coalmines.
Everything seemed unfamiliar to Sarah because she had never slept in this room before. The last time she had visited, the two adjacent cottages had not been knocked into one and renovated. Though she couldn't remember the visit at all clearly, she had probably slept downstairs on the sofa-bed, stupefied with Quaaludes and cognac.
So far, she hadn't seen either her father or Cathy and Jason. They hadn't know what time Paula and Sarah would get back from the airport, so they left a note saying they'd gone to visit a neighbour and wouldn't be long. Sarah had felt so tired that Paula had packed her off to bed immediately with a cup of tea. It was still there on the bedside table, only half drunk. Sarah slid her hands out and touched it. Cold. She huddled under the duvet again and closed her eyes.
Even though she now knew where she was, Sarah still felt disoriented. Too restless to go back to sleep, she turned over and stretched, arching so her fingers scraped the wall above her. That felt better. She pulled back the sheets and went to open the curtains. Outside, it was getting dark. The rain had stopped and the sky looked like dirty dishrag slashed with charcoal. The slate-coloured sea sloshed heavily against the rough stone wall at the bottom of the garden.
It was sea view, all right, but light years away form the one she used to, where bright sun bleached the vanishing point of water and sky. Sarah turned the bedroom light on and took stock of her surroundings. Everything was fresh and clean, of course; that would be Paula's doing. There was even the old framed print of Atkinson Grimshaw's Park Row, Leeds 1882 from the old house in Barnsley hanging on the wall opposite her bed. Paula knew Sarah had always loved it for its eerie moon and sky and the cobbles and tramlines all wet and shiny after rain. She must have it there specially.
In the small bookcase beside the wardrobe were Sarah's old books. She hadn't looked at them for years and hadn't even known they had survived the move from Barnsley: childhood favourites like Black Beauty and The Secret Garden; Enid Blyton, mostly the Famous Five and the Street Seven; some girls'-school and nurse stories; and one or two Mills and Boon romances. Then came the Romantic poetry of her early teens- Keats, Shelley, Byton- followed by the plays she had read first at home then Studied later at university- collections by Shakespeare, Ibsen and Tennessee Williams, along with well thumbed copies of The Duchess of Malfi, Three Sisters and A Dream Play.
Hanging from a hook at the back of the door was the red knitted Christmas stocking her mother had made, with her name, Sally, embroidered in white. Paula must have dug it out. Perhaps her family really did want her here for Christmas after all. Everything was quiet downstairs. Either they were still out or Paula was hushing everyone up so Sarah could sleep. Time to unpack.
Sarah hefted her suitcase onto the bed and unfastened it. Clothes and presents spilled out, and there, stuck in among them all, was the letter. She hesitated, then reached out, and picked it up. This one had no stamp; it had been delivered by hand. Just then, she heard a door bang downstairs, followed by the clamour of children's voices. Jason called out her name. Paula told him to be quiet. Time to enter into family life again.
Sarah's heart leapt into her throat. She had never felt so nervous, even before going on stage for a first night. She looked at the letter again and dropped it back among the pile of clothes, half pleased that she had been interrupted before opening it. After all, she was in England now, thousands of miles away from her problems in LA. She pulled on her jeans and sweatshirts, then opened the door and started down the worn stone stairs. What she saw made her stop halfway.
Illuminated by the hall light, a man slumped in a wheelchair at the bottom of the stairs. Beside him, attached to the chair, stood a small tank, like the kind frogmen wear, from which a transparent tube ran to his nostrils. His shoulders sloped and his body looked emaciated under the thick woollen blanket. Bluish flesh sagged and wrinkled over hollow, bony cheeks and scared, bright, feverish eyes looked up at her. Even from halfway upstairs, she could hear the soft hiss of the oxygen and struggle as he laboured for breath. White- knuckled, she gripped the banister and tool a faltering step forward. 'Hello Father,' she said.