Christmas. She’d read every report on the tragedy with relish, had read every news item aloud to Lorna, who had also shown interest.
In April of 1978 Amber read a brief report on the inquest into the death of Margot Macdonald Morrison, disinterested in the one who had died in the fire or in how she’d died. It was the details, the accompanying photograph, that caught her interest. She knew exactly where the cameraman had been standing when he’d taken the photograph, and at what time of day.
She stared at the walnut tree a mite too long, long enough for Lorna to reach out talon-tipped fingers to tap the newspaper. ‘Are we reading or dreaming this morning, Duckworth?’
Her teeth exposed in what served Amber as a smile, she turned the page.
Six days a week Elizabeth Duckworth read aloud to her benefactor. Between ten and twelve each morning they sat at the dining room table, the broadsheet newspaper spread between them, the items of interest to Lorna circled by Lorna in red. Given good light and the aid of a magnifying glass, she could read, though her sight, damaged in the accident that had given birth to her Duckworth guide-dog companion, Lorna’s sight had continued to deteriorate. Twice each day, Amber fetched eye-drops she dripped into Lorna’s eyes, which, when the beetle-brown iris disappeared beneath reptilian eyelids, looked like pickled onions.
Lorna’s injured nose produced its own drops. She’d always snorted. Now she sniffed and snorted. In her seventieth year, proud Miss Hooper was a sorry sight. She’d been likened to a totem pole in her youth – a black-draped pole now, short steel wire inserted into its head, its hawk nose mutilated.
Amber was several years her benefactor’s senior. Elizabeth Duckworth wasn’t. When she’d taken that name, she’d deducted seven years from her own birth date. And why not? If one was taking on a new identity, why not remove a few of the worst years from her past life?
There were days when she cursed her choice of name. Given her situation at the time of its choosing, ‘Duckworth’ had epitomised respectability and, above all else, Amber Morrison had required that undoubted respectability. Should have chosen Smith, Jones, Brown.
Had she recognised the bandage-swathed woman in the second hospital bed, she would have. She’d seen only the spikes of grey hair, the hospital-issue gown. Had she heard her wardmate’s natural voice she may have recognised her haughty tones, but for two weeks, Lorna’s mutilated nose had been packed with gauze; the tones she’d emitted were minimal and unfamiliar. Not until much later, until the bandages and gauze packing were removed, had Amber recognised Lorna Hooper’s snort of disdain, but by then, left with poor sight in one eye and less in the other, she’d become dependent on Miss Duckworth’s excellent vision.
Unsociable was not a word to describe Amber’s benefactor. Antisocial, uncharitable, demanding, ill-tempered, an unrelenting enemy may have sufficed. However, to one who had lived for sixteen years with the insane, then for a few years more with the dregs of humanity, cohabiting with a tyrannical, evil-minded hag was, to Amber, next door to paradise – or her staid brick house set in a quiet Kew street was.
Amber delighted in Lorna’s wall to wall carpets. She vacuumed them with love. She delighted in the large expanses of outdoor concrete she swept daily, and in her spacious bedroom with its crisp white lace curtains and matching bedcover. Here, in paradise, she was living the clean life she’d craved since childhood.
Joanne Hooper’s fine furniture filled Lorna’s rooms. Joanne Hooper’s delicate ornaments, locked away in a dark sideboard for years, had been removed from their tomb, washed and placed once again on display.
Lorna’s obsession with church was the one uncomfortable stone in Amber’s comfortable life. Church rubbed her up the wrong way, or the mother and daughter, Alma and Valda
In April of 1978 Amber read a brief report on the inquest into the death of Margot Macdonald Morrison, disinterested in the one who had died in the fire or in how she’d died. It was the details, the accompanying photograph, that caught her interest. She knew exactly where the cameraman had been standing when he’d taken the photograph, and at what time of day.
She stared at the walnut tree a mite too long, long enough for Lorna to reach out talon-tipped fingers to tap the newspaper. ‘Are we reading or dreaming this morning, Duckworth?’
Her teeth exposed in what served Amber as a smile, she turned the page.
Six days a week Elizabeth Duckworth read aloud to her benefactor. Between ten and twelve each morning they sat at the dining room table, the broadsheet newspaper spread between them, the items of interest to Lorna circled by Lorna in red. Given good light and the aid of a magnifying glass, she could read, though her sight, damaged in the accident that had given birth to her Duckworth guide-dog companion, Lorna’s sight had continued to deteriorate. Twice each day, Amber fetched eye-drops she dripped into Lorna’s eyes, which, when the beetle-brown iris disappeared beneath reptilian eyelids, looked like pickled onions.
Lorna’s injured nose produced its own drops. She’d always snorted. Now she sniffed and snorted. In her seventieth year, proud Miss Hooper was a sorry sight. She’d been likened to a totem pole in her youth – a black-draped pole now, short steel wire inserted into its head, its hawk nose mutilated.
Amber was several years her benefactor’s senior. Elizabeth Duckworth wasn’t. When she’d taken that name, she’d deducted seven years from her own birth date. And why not? If one was taking on a new identity, why not remove a few of the worst years from her past life?
There were days when she cursed her choice of name. Given her situation at the time of its choosing, ‘Duckworth’ had epitomised respectability and, above all else, Amber Morrison had required that undoubted respectability. Should have chosen Smith, Jones, Brown.
Had she recognised the bandage-swathed woman in the second hospital bed, she would have. She’d seen only the spikes of grey hair, the hospital-issue gown. Had she heard her wardmate’s natural voice she may have recognised her haughty tones, but for two weeks, Lorna’s mutilated nose had been packed with gauze; the tones she’d emitted were minimal and unfamiliar. Not until much later, until the bandages and gauze packing were removed, had Amber recognised Lorna Hooper’s snort of disdain, but by then, left with poor sight in one eye and less in the other, she’d become dependent on Miss Duckworth’s excellent vision.
Unsociable was not a word to describe Amber’s benefactor. Antisocial, uncharitable, demanding, ill-tempered, an unrelenting enemy may have sufficed. However, to one who had lived for sixteen years with the insane, then for a few years more with the dregs of humanity, cohabiting with a tyrannical, evil-minded hag was, to Amber, next door to paradise – or her staid brick house set in a quiet Kew street was.
Amber delighted in Lorna’s wall to wall carpets. She vacuumed them with love. She delighted in the large expanses of outdoor concrete she swept daily, and in her spacious bedroom with its crisp white lace curtains and matching bedcover. Here, in paradise, she was living the clean life she’d craved since childhood.
Joanne Hooper’s fine furniture filled Lorna’s rooms. Joanne Hooper’s delicate ornaments, locked away in a dark sideboard for years, had been removed from their tomb, washed and placed once again on display.
Lorna’s obsession with church was the one uncomfortable stone in Amber’s comfortable life. Church rubbed her up the wrong way, or the mother and daughter, Alma and Valda
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