The meanest Flood

have found an answer for men like him. Or perhaps the frequency with which the timid latch on to the bullies was a question too far for the founding fathers of modernism?
    Celia got her coat and locked the office. She walked around the corner to the taxi stand on St Leonard’s Place and directed the cabby to Angeles Falco’s house. ‘Wait for me, will you?’ she said. ‘I’ll only be a few minutes.’
    The cabby reached for the morning’s edition of the Sun.
    ‘Celia,’ Angeles said as she opened the door wider to admit the older woman. ‘How lovely, I haven’t seen you for ages.’ She closed the door behind her. ‘There’s nothing wrong is there? It isn’t Sam, is it?’
    ‘Nothing to worry about,’ Celia said. ‘No deaths or broken bones. You can relax.’
    Angeles was almost totally blind now but if you didn’t know you wouldn’t have guessed. Not in her own house, anyway. She knew where everything was and she focused her eyes so you didn’t feel as though she was gazing at empty space. She was in her early-thirties with a soft complexion and clear skin; the face of a model and the confidence of a successful businesswoman with a large bank-balance. When Sam had fallen for her he had landed on both feet.
    ‘Have you seen him since he got back?’ Celia asked.
    ‘No, I’ve been working all day. He’s coming round this evening.’
    Celia shook her head. ‘He might not make it,’ she said. ‘The police have picked him up. I’m not sure what it’s about at the moment - George Forester is on his way round there now - but it seems he wasn’t in Nottingham yesterday.’
    Angeles looked surprised. ‘He rang me last night, said he was in a B&B.’
    ‘That’s right,’ Celia said. ‘He was there for the last couple of days, but the official story is that he was here.’ Angeles smiled. ‘You don’t mind lying for him, do you?’ ^    H
    ‘I don’t believe in lying, Angeles, and I don’t like people who do. But if Sam Turner tells a lie it’s because it’s closer to the truth than the truth.’
    ‘Do you want to stay for a drink?’
    ‘No, thanks. I’ve still got one more job to do. Then I’m going to have an early night.’
    The cab dropped her at Sam’s house and she paid the driver. She let herself in with a key from her purse and stood listening in the hall for a few seconds. Nothing. Just the deep silence of a man gone away. In the kitchen she turned off the gas and opened the oven door. The top layer of lasagne was black and brittle. She used the oven glove to remove it from the shelf and placed it in the sink, where it hissed and crackled for a moment.
    She shook her head. A grown man and he didn’t even eat properly.
    There it was again, that numb feeling on the left side of her head. She reached for the edge of the door to steady herself in case she was about to fall. She’d rarely been ill in her life and had always imagined that she’d die in bed, peacefully in her sleep. Never contemplated any kind of fatal illness or something that might take away her reason.
    She’d been astonished when the doctor had suggested an appointment with a specialist. She’d submitted to the X-rays, bitten her lip and grudgingly allowed the technicians to manipulate her, pretended not to understand when they’d avoided her questions. Ridiculous, she thought now, how she had felt impelled to allow them to feel good about themselves. That inexplicable willingness always to please doctors.
    But there was that numb feeling and from time to time a shift in the visual plane. ‘This is not something I want you to worry about,’ the doctor had said, rubbing his hands together. ‘There could be a completely reasonable explanation for it.’
    Her appointment in Leeds, to get the results of the scan, was in a few days’ time. Until then she’d keep it to herself. No point in starting a panic.
    When her dizziness cleared she did a quick recce to make sure the house was secure. She was outside on the street within a few minutes, walking back towards Lord Mayor’s Walk where her own house was. She’d have something to eat and a bath and then she’d get into bed with Gerard Manley Hopkins: ‘Glory be to God for dappled things ...’ But she’d keep her mobile on the bedside cabinet, wait for George or Sam to ring and let her know that he was back on the street.
     

5
     
    Marilyn was washing herself in the bathroom and taking her lithium, the first dose of the day, to correct the