Another Night, Another Day (40 page)

‘Tim!’ she said. ‘What are you doing here?’

Suddenly he was conscious his cheeks might still be red from crying. ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘I’m sorry.’

They were the most honest words he’d said to Sal since their separation.

* * *

Once Tim had gone, Delia sighed softly and flung the windows wide to clear the air. Then she stopped. For there, beneath her patients’ chair, lay a turquoise-and-white
polka-dot umbrella.

Must be Tim’s, she thought, faintly surprised that a man inclined to such black moods owned something with such a cheerful pattern. I mustn’t forget to give it back to him next week.
She slipped it into the base of the coat stand in the hall and went into the kitchen to make herself a coffee before her next session. Soon, Delia found herself having to calm another irritable
patient. ‘My skirt’s soaked!’ the patient said. ‘The sofa in your waiting room was all wet.’ Delia couldn’t understand how, but the woman was prone to paranoia,
so she put it down to an anxious imagination.

Delia never did remember to give Tim the umbrella, and Tim never had the presence of mind to ask for it, and for several months it remained in the coat stand in the hall of her home in Didsbury.
Unless it was bucketing down, Delia seldom remembered to take a brolly with her, and when she did, she just grabbed the nearest one, caring little for its size or colour. But usually she left the
house with nothing bar her purse – and she sometimes forgot even that, spending most of her time too immersed in her patients to consider such unimportant issues as her own well-being.

Winter passed in a flurry of altruistic activity. A number of Delia’s patients made good progress. She gave several groundbreaking papers around the country and even gave Paxman short
shrift on
Newsnight
.

In the spring her son, Peter, and his girlfriend, Astral, came up from London for May bank holiday. They had a train to catch at 4 p.m. on Monday afternoon so Peter could ‘be in the right
headspace’ for work the next day. It was raining, and unlike Delia, Astral did care a little about her own well-being. Moreover, she cared enormously about Peter’s. Privately Delia
thought Peter must find her attentiveness suffocating, but her son seemed happy enough to go along with it so she kept her opinion to herself. By 3.15 the two of them were in a hurry.

‘Delia,’ said Astral. ‘Have you an umbrella we could borrow?’

Delia looked up from the paper she was preparing in order to lobby Parliament about cuts to NHS mental-health care. ‘If we have, you’ll find it in the coat stand.’

After a bit of a rummage, Astral retrieved one covered in polka dots.

‘Hey, this is nice,’ she said, as Peter zipped up his jacket. Peter grunted, and laden with the hand-woven bags they had acquired in Guatemala on their round the world trip two
summers before, they bumped their way down the hall and out of the front door.

* * *

Sitting opposite them on the train to London was – to use Astral’s words later – ‘a sweet old lady’. Actually, when you knew her well, there was
nothing markedly sweet about Poppy, but her name, her snowy white hair and her lavender-water scent created an illusion that took several encounters to shift. Astral chatted away to her for most of
the journey while Peter read his paperback; Astral, who normally lacked confidence, found the elderly woman surprisingly easy to talk to. Poppy told Astral she lived near the sea with her cat,
Sukey, and Astral ended up confiding in her extensively, being careful not to mention anything that might antagonize Peter.

As the train approached Euston, Peter seemed to come back to life. He gathered up his things and made his way to the end of the carriage to beat the queue. Astral, loath to leave Poppy, got up
to follow him.

‘Well, goodbye,’ she said. ‘It was lovely to meet you.’

‘You too,’ said Poppy. ‘You can do better than him though, dear.’ She nodded towards Peter, who was waiting for Astral at the end of the carriage, drumming his fingers on
the back of a seat. ‘Remember that.’

Astral was miffed at hearing her boyfriend criticized, even though it came in the shape of a compliment to her. But a few months later, when she and Peter were having one of their increasingly
frequent ‘I’d like us to get married/I’m not ready quite yet’ spats, Poppy’s words echoed in her ears.

‘Actually,’ said Astral, ‘I don’t think I want to carry on living together any more.’

‘Eh?’

Astral was rather startled by her own words – this was usually Peter’s line – but she felt strangely freed by saying them. ‘You heard me,’ she said.
‘I’m sick of all this bickering. If you don’t want commitment, then nor do I. In fact, I’m really sick of you.’ And although it took several more weeks for them to
divide up their possessions and finally part, the argument marked the end of their four-year relationship.

* * *

At eighty-two, Poppy was in no hurry to get off the train. So when she reached for her case and a turquoise-and-white polka-dot umbrella nearly knocked her out as it tumbled
from the luggage rack, Astral and Peter were already stepping onto the platform. And although Poppy hurried to catch up with them as best she could, she was old and stiff and far from speedy. Even
her shout of ‘Astral!’ had no effect, with the sound of the train’s engine drowning her out.

She didn’t have time to deliver the umbrella to Lost Property; the delay would mean she would miss her connection. Still, it was with regret that she put the umbrella into her handbag
– she’d warmed to Astral and would have liked to return the brolly to her.

More and more these days Poppy was finding travelling tricky; the schlep from Brighton to visit her brother in Manchester had been a huge effort. On the whole she preferred to stay put in front
of the telly, which meant once she’d got it home she had little opportunity to lose the polka-dot umbrella. It stayed with her for the rest of her days, accompanying her and her tartan
trolley whenever she had to go out to the shops in Seven Dials and rain looked likely.

Years passed, and when Poppy finally breathed her last one dull October day, it was the woman who lived in the house next door who found her. She’d dropped by for a glass of sherry –
she too found Poppy remarkably good company and she’d occasionally nip in before her fiancé returned from work – and when she knocked, she found the front door slightly ajar.
Poppy’s ancient cat came meowing and distressed-looking down the hall.

‘What’s the matter, Sukey?’ asked the woman, bending to stroke her before entering the living room. There, in front of the telly, sat Poppy, quite still, with a pile of
shopping – cat food, milk, bread – on the floor beside her.

‘Oh my Lord!’ cried Abby, and phoned for an ambulance, even though she knew it was too late.

After they’d taken the body away, Abby took one last look around Poppy’s flat. I’m going to miss Poppy, she thought.

‘And who’s going to look after you, dear old puss?’ she said to Sukey. Then, amongst the groceries, something caught her eye. ‘How strange.’ Abby picked up the
tattered brolly and examined it. ‘I’m sure I used to have a polka-dot umbrella just like this years ago.’

So saying, she scooped it under one arm and Sukey under the other, and took them both home.

Sarah Rayner is the internationally bestselling author of
One Moment, One Morning
and its follow-up,
The Two Week Wait. Another Night, Another Day
is the
third novel to feature her Brighton-based characters.

She grew up in London and worked as an advertising copywriter for twenty years but now writes fiction full time. She lives in Brighton with her husband Tom and stepson Sebastian.

Sarah loves to hear from her readers, so please do visit her website: www.thecreativepumpkin.com

The Two Week Wait

One Moment, One Morning

Getting Even

The Other Half

First published 2014 by Picador

This electronic edition published 2014 by Picador
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Basingstoke and Oxford
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com

ISBN 978-1-4472-6470-5

Copyright © Sarah Rayner 2014

The right of Sarah Rayner to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Every effort has been made to contact the copyright holders of photography

The Macmillan Group has no responsibility for the information provided by any author websites whose address you obtain from this book (‘author websites’). The
inclusion of author website addresses in this book does not constitute an endorsement by or association with us of such sites or the content, products, advertising or other materials presented on
such sites.

You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital,
optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be
liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Visit
www.picador.com
to read more about all our books and to buy them. You will also find features, author interviews
and news of any author events, and you can sign up for e-newsletters so that you’re always first to hear about our new releases.