CHAPTER 6: THE CORRIDOR

"Six hundred pounds, Alden. For a girl I met ten minutes ago."

Della said it quietly, which was worse than shouting. She had walked out of the bay without a word. Alden had followed, because the only other choice was staying behind that curtain with his mother's eyes on the back of his neck.

The corridor was bright and cold. The clock over the nurses' station said ten to eleven. At the far end, Nerys stood at a vending machine, feeding it coins one at a time and not looking at them.

"Del, let me explain," Alden said.

"I'm asking you to," Della said.

"Okay." He rubbed his face with both hands. "Her landlord sent her a letter. If the rent wasn't in by Friday, he was putting her out."

"Yesterday," she said.

"Yeah," he said.

"And your mum told you this," she said.

"She rang me. She was in bits, Del. She said Tamsin had nobody. Her mum died in March, she was going to be on the street." His voice was climbing, and he dragged it back down. "I didn't know what else to do."

"You could have said no," she said.

"Mum was crying," he said.

"So you didn't say no," she said.

"I said I'd sort it," he said.

"You'd met her before today, then," she said.

"Once. At Mum's." He held up a hand before she could speak. "Five minutes. And I told her I'd tell you myself."

"After the wedding," she said.

"After the wedding, yeah. I didn't want you worrying on the day," he said.

Della nodded slowly. She wasn't shouting. Her face had gone calm, and he knew that calm. It was the one that came right before she made a decision.

"You don't hide things because I might worry," she said. "You hide them, and then I do."

"I wasn't hiding it,"he said.

"What were you doing?" she said.

"Waiting," he said.

"For what?" she said.

"A better time," he said.

"There isn't one, Alden. That's why people say it," she said.

A coin hit the floor at the far end and rolled. "Sorry!" Nerys called, to nobody, and bent to look for it very slowly.

Alden looked at his shoes. I'm not lying, he thought. Lying is when you say something that isn't true. He hadn't said anything untrue. He'd put things off. There was a difference. There had to be.

And there was the other thing. It sat in his pocket, on the same phone, where he'd set it up that morning. The standing order. The sentence was right there in his mouth, and all he had to do was open it.

He looked at her face. Not tonight. I'll tell her. I'll find the right time.

"Ten o'clock," Della said. "Tomorrow. Nothing's changed about that."

"Nothing's changed," he said.

"And it all goes on the table. Not just the statements. Everything," Della said.

"Everything," Alden said.

It was true when he said it. Nearly.

At five to midnight the young doctor signed Marguerite out. She came down the corridor on Tamsin's arm with her handbag over her wrist, walking perfectly well, and her face was bright.

"Don't look so grim, darling," she said. "A bit of anxiety, that's all. Tamsin's going to see me home."

"Mum, I'll take you," Alden said.

"You'll do no such thing. Stay with your wife." She kissed the air beside his cheek. "It's your wedding night."

"Goodnight, Marguerite," Della said. Her voice had nothing in it at all.

"Goodnight, dear. Get some rest." Tamsin gave a small wave over her shoulder, and then the two of them were gone through the double doors.

The taxi app said forty minutes. At one o'clock it said ninety. It was a Saturday night in wedding season, and every cab in the city was somewhere else. They waited in the A and E waiting room under a television showing a cooking programme with the sound off. Nerys fell asleep sitting up in a plastic chair with her veil in her lap. Della sat three seats away from Alden. Not four. Not two.

At quarter past two, a silver Toyota pulled up outside. Della got into the back beside Nerys without looking at him, so Alden took the front seat and stared at the dashboard.

"Is this the part where we all talk about our feelings?" Nerys said, with her eyes shut and her head against the window.

"No," Della said.

Good. I'm full. I've had enough of the Marguerite special for one night." She yawned. "Wake me when we've worked out who the villain is," Nerys said.

"Go to sleep, Nerys," Della said.

"I'm trying. Everyone's being very loud with their feelings," Nerys said.

The driver glanced in his mirror and said nothing. Alden turned in his seat. "Del—"

"Ten o'clock," Della said, still looking out of the window. "I meant it."

"I know. I only wanted—"

"Ten," Della repeated.

He faced the front again. Streetlights slid across the roof of the car, one after another. In the back, Nerys began to snore, a small, indignant sound.

The taxi pulled up outside their flat at half past two.

Alden saw it before he'd got the door open. The living-room window was lit. Through the frosted glass beside the front door, a strip of yellow showed from the hall.

"I turned everything off," he said.

"Did you?" Della said, behind him.

"This morning. I did the lights myself. I remember the switch."

Nerys had woken up. She craned between the seats. "Burglar?"

"No." He crossed the pavement, fast. The front door wasn't forced. It was just unlocked, and it swung inward when he touched it. Only one person had a key, and he'd given it to her himself. For emergencies, Mum.

The hall smelled of tea.

He walked to the kitchen doorway and stopped.

Marguerite sat at their kitchen table in her mauve dress, with her handbag at her feet and a pot of tea in front of her, steaming. One cup was already poured. Her hands were folded around it, and her face was perfectly calm, as if she'd been sitting there for hours. She didn't get up.

"There you are," she said. "Sit."

"Mum." His mouth had gone dry. "You said you were going home."

"I am home, darling. Wherever you are." She lifted the cup and took a small sip. "Sit. We're going to talk about what Tamsin said. And Della, you're going to listen."

Behind him, he heard the front door close, and then Della's footsteps in the hall, and then nothing. When he looked back, she was standing in the kitchen doorway in her wedding dress, with one hand on the frame.