The Legacy

didn’t mean that,’ Peter started to say, but trailed off. He couldn’t tell her the truth. If she knew the truth, she’d read the message – she’d know that Jude had not asked him to come. Would she realise that his not asking Peter to come was the very reason why he felt compelled to go?
    ‘If you want to go to London, you go without us,’ Anna said, her voice low. Then she picked up Molly, took Ben by the hand and walked out of the room, leaving Peter staring at the space they had filled just moments before.

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    Chapter Twelve
     
    Margaret Pincent sat very still. She could feel the dryness of her clasped hands, could feel the overwhelming fatigue begin to take hold. It was all she deserved and she welcomed it – welcomed death with its release, its finality. Other convicted murderers were taken off Longevity quickly – a short, sharp shock – but not her. For her they’d strung it out bit by bit, little by little, supposedly because being Richard Pincent’s daughter bought certain privileges. But Margaret suspected that this was yet another punishment. Her decline was so gradual that she was hardly aware of it and questioned every symptom, not sure whether it was in her head, whether she’d lost her mind, whether it was ever going to end.
    But now, now she could feel it. She was an old woman. Twelve months ago she’d been the House Matron of Grange Hall – feared, respected, obeyed unquestioningly. Now she was slowly decaying. Rotting flesh, collapsing organs, inevitable death – these were the things that lay ahead. These were her future.
    She’d do it again if she had the chance – she’d kill him again and again. Stephen, her former husband, had taken their child from her, made him a Surplus. He’d made her believe Peter was dead – her little boy, the older boy she’d tortured unknowingly, like all the others she’d punished for not being him, for not being her baby. For that, Stephen had deserved more than just death; she regretted that she hadn’t made him suffer more.
    But her own decay still revolted her. In a world where death had been averted, mortal, frail flesh was feared and despised. Margaret felt the same abhorrence for her condition that she saw on the faces of her guards, their eyes squinting, their lips curled as though they were facing a plate of rancid food. She was vile, disgusting. She smelt of decay – something that the grey walls surrounding her seemed only to enhance. Death was a revolting spectacle, a vile concept. Even her doctor found it hard to look at her, as though her symptoms might be catching, as though she might tarnish him with her weakness.
    She deserved it all, she knew. It was this knowledge that stopped her from curling up in a ball and howling inconsolably. It was this knowledge that gave her the smallest sense of control, for she had brought it on herself. She was no victim.
    In a notebook that Margaret kept by her bed, she kept a running list of all the changes she’d experienced since being imprisoned, since her Longevity dosage had gradually been reduced. First had been her skin – dry and rough to the touch, then sagging, as though it had given up any pretence at being fit for purpose. Cuts wouldn’t heal, sores appeared out of nowhere, her eyelids hung heavy over her eyes.
    Her hair was the next most obvious symptom. Undyed, her roots were growing through white as snow – such a contrast to the black she was accustomed to, the black strands which she pulled into a bun each morning. Black and white. Old and new. Now and then. The ‘now’, the whiteness, was growing longer each day. Margaret had read once that hair continued to grow after death; she wondered how long for, and why.
    The cold was unbearable. Her muscles, previously a form of internal heating, their strength spreading warmth around her body, were wasting away and her limited fat stores were unable to protect her, helpless against the relentless cold of the prison. Margaret Pincent, who had always prided herself on her hardiness, who had continually rejected the requests of her staff at Grange Hall for one more radiator, for an increase in the thermostat, now found herself unable to prevent her limbs shaking, shivering against the icy air that surrounded her.
    Some of the symptoms were more welcome than others. Myopia, Margaret’s virtual blindness, was a comfort to her, for who would wish to see a prison clearly? Who would wish to look upon the face of her gaoler, the