oil, and the smell of wood. That lovely smell.
An old black phone stood on the wooden counter in the pantry.
She dialed the hotel.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Lying here in bed feeling lonely and sorry for myself. I went over to the cemetery this morning with Aaron. I’m exhausted. I still ache all over, like I’ve been in a fight. Where are you? You aren’t over there, are you?”
“Yes, and it’s warm and empty and all the old woman’s things are gone, and the mattresses are gone, and the attic room is scrubbed clean.”
“Are you the only one there?”
“Yes,” she said. “And it’s beautiful. The sun’s coming out.” She stood looking about herself, at the light pouring through the French windows into the kitchen, at the light in the dining room, falling on the hardwood floor. “I’m definitely the only one here.”
“I want to come over there,” he said.
“No, I’m leaving now to walk back to the hotel. I want you to rest. I want you to go for a checkup.”
“Be serious.”
“Have you ever had an electrocardiogram?”
“You’re going to scare me into a heart attack. I had all that after I drowned. My heart’s perfect. What I need is erotic exercise in large doses sustained over an endless period of time.”
“Depends on your pulse when I get there.”
“Come on, Rowan. I’m not going for any checkup. If you’re not here in ten minutes, I’m coming to get you.”
“I’ll be there sooner than that.”
She hung up.
For a moment she thought about something she’d read in the file, something Arthur Langtry had written about his experience of seeing Lasher, something about his heart skipping dangerously, and about being dizzy. But then Arthur had been a very old man.
Peace here. Only the cries of the birds from the garden.
She walked slowly through the dining room and through the high keyhole doorway into the hall, glancing back at it to enjoy its soaring height and her own seeming smallness. The light poured in through the sun room, shining on the polished floor.
A great lovely sense of well-being came over her. All mine.
She stood still for a few seconds, listening, feeling. Trying to take full possession of the moment, trying to remember the anguish of yesterday and the day before, and to feel this in comparison, this wonderful lighthearted feeling. And once again the whole lurid tragic history comforted her, because she with all her own dark secrets had a place in it. And she would redeem it. That was the most important thing of all.
She turned to walk to the front of the house, and for the first time noticed a tall vase of roses on the hall table. Had Gerald put them there? Perhaps he had forgotten to mention it.
She stopped, studying the beautiful drowsy blooms, all of them bloodred, and rather like the florist-perfect flowers for the dead, she thought, as if they’d been picked from those fancy sprays left in the cemetery.
Then with a chill, she thought of Lasher. Flowers tossed at Deirdre’s feet. Flowers put on the grave. In fact, she was so violently startled that for a moment she could hear her heart again, beating in the stillness. But what an absurd idea. Probably Gerald had put the flowers here, or Pierce when he had seen to the mattresses. After all, this was a commonplace vase, half filled with fresh water, and these were simply florist roses.
Nevertheless the thing looked ghastly to her. In fact, as her heartbeat grew steady again, she realized there was something distinctly odd about the bouquet. She was not an expert on roses, but weren’t they generally smaller than this? How large and floppy these flowers looked. And such a dark blood color. And look at the stems, and the leaves; the leaves of roses were invariably almond-shaped, were they not, and these leaves had many points on them. As a matter of fact, there wasn’t any leaf in this entire bouquet which had the same pattern or number of points as another. Strange. Like something grown wild, genetically wild, full of random and overwhelming mutation.
They were moving, weren’t they? Swelling. No, just unfolding, as roses often do, opening little by little until they fall apart in a cascade of bruised petals. She shook her head. She felt a little dizzy.
Probably left there by Pierce. And what did it matter? She’d call him from the hotel just to make sure, and tell him she appreciated it.
She moved on to the front of the house,