‘And you know what she said?’ she asked Mary. ‘You know what she said to me, the daughter who’d taken care of her for all those years? You know what she called my fiancé?’
‘She didn’t mean it,’ said Ahmed. ‘She wasn’t really conscious.’
‘Oh, she was conscious, alright. That was the real woman you were hearing. That was one word she always knew how to say.’ Miranda sighed. ‘I couldn’t help myself, I just couldn’t. After all those months, those years and that word was what she gave me. I just wanted her to shut up.’
Miranda looked down at the flowing water. A trace of sunshine emerged from the clouds and played on the ripples. Ahmed looked away.
‘You’d better leave,’ said Mary.
‘We can’t, can we? This bloody flood has trapped us.’
‘The water level’s dropping. Drive up onto the verge, get past that corner and then the road’s higher. It’ll be dry there.’
‘But what are you going to do? Report us?’
Mary stared at her, thinking over all she’d learnt, trying to arrive at a decision.
‘I haven’t seen you. Leave now,’ she told Miranda.
Miranda moved back to the car, but then turned round.
‘Can you forgive me?’
‘That’s not my job.’
Mary walked back to the hospice. She’d have to face the police soon. What should she tell them? She couldn’t lie. But did she have to tell them everything she knew? She couldn’t tell them about Miranda, she just couldn’t… No one had seen her talk to Miranda, she didn’t have to say anything.
‘Nice walk?’ asked Harrie.
‘Not bad. I went up into the woods.’
‘Must have been wet. The police are here now. They’re in the main meeting room.’
‘Really?’
As Mary walked along the corridor, Harrie turned on the radio that sat on her desk.
‘…after these catastrophic floods,’ the radio interviewer was saying, ‘it is clear that there are many lessons to be learnt.’
‘Lessons to be learnt?’ said the Welsh woman. ‘Lessons to be learnt? Oh, yes. But do you think anyone will do anything?’
Sharif Gemie is a happily retired History professor. He has written eight books and countless academic articles. The main topics of his research were marginalized and minority groups in modern Europe. Together with Brian Ireland he wrote “The Hippie Trail”, tracing the history of the Hippie Trail and those who followed it. He is currently writing a novel set among UN aid-workers in Germany, 1945—46, provisionally entitled “The Displaced”. Since starting writing fiction, he has published twelve short stories.