The Sudden Appearance of Hope

Chapter 77

There is a place, on the edge of Nottingham: a grand old house with a view of the Trent, fields that flood often in winter, oak trees shedding curling leather leaves, a dog playing in the grounds, the residents, sometimes happy, sometimes sad, sometimes in that strange place that does not conform to your meagre emotional understanding, but living — for all this — living.

A walk up the path on a blustery day, my umbrella turns inside-out, is pressed down hard by the wind from the east. Trousers soaked up to the knee with water and mud, where did you park the your car demands the receptionist, I didn’t, I reply, I took the bus and this is an outrageous notion but who is she to argue?

I sign in as me, as Hope Arden, just this once, in just this place, and climb the stairs to the second floor, while a woman, fifty, head on one hand, fingers clenched tight, descends on a stairlift on the other side, and smiles as we pass each other in the middle.

An old house, but the corridors have been converted to medical dullness and I count the doors, the steps, the windows and the cracks in the wall until I reach her room, and knock twice and let myself in and as I do,

Gracie, my baby sister, looks up from her chair by the window, and her face bursts into a smile and she says, “Hope!”