by Kirsty Ferry
Becky wondered if Cori was feeling a little homesick. It wouldn’t help if she was feeling that way and also dealing with other things that might or might not be related to the diary.
‘Nothing matches in our place above the studio either,’ said Becky. ‘I don’t think it’s a problem. Makes it more homely, I think. I’m happy amongst it all, anyway.’ She glanced at Jon.
Jon caught Becky’s glance and smiled at her, gesturing to the seat next to him. Lissy had already installed herself at the head of the table – yes, even on a round dining table, Lissy still managed to assume the head of it. Becky slipped in beside Jon and he squeezed her hand under the table.
‘So the new Rossetti painting has been loaned to us from America,’ Lissy said as she pulled her cup towards her and reached out for the cafetière. ‘It’s a new discovery and we are all really excited about it. It’s going to be the centrepiece of an exhibition, which is due to run in the summer. Nobody can see it until then, which is a crying shame in my opinion.’
Becky thought the way that Lissy had basically claimed the Tate as her own was quite comical; but, instead of finding out any more interesting information, Becky found herself watching Cori.
Cori was stirring her drink over and over again. She never raised the cup to her lips. She was more or less sitting there watching the stuff go cold. Jon, on the other hand, had already spilt some of his vastly expensive coffee and the shiny, wet mark showed up terribly on the highly polished surface of the table. It didn’t take him long to lean in it as well and smear it around with his shirtsleeve, but Lissy didn’t seem to notice it; and if she had, she was clearly unconcerned.
Becky, however, noticed the way that Cori kept staring out of the huge bay window as if her mind was drifting elsewhere; then she would shake her head slightly and try to pull her attention back to the little group around the table. Lissy could talk for England and she was usually quite interesting, but Becky’s main concern at that particular moment was Cori. Her tea had gone cold and she hadn’t touched the chocolate biscuit Becky had put in front of her to try and tempt her. Eventually, Becky reached out and laid her hand gently on Cori’s forearm.
‘Are you all right?’ Becky asked. ‘Your arms are freezing.’ She rubbed Cori’s arm to try and get some heat into it. Cori nodded vaguely, then looked out of the window again.
Feeling a little frustrated, Becky tried again. ‘Cori. Are you sure you’re all right? You haven’t touched your tea and, well, you just don’t look right.’ Almost as soon as she said it, Becky bit her lip. What an awful thing to tell someone; even though Lissy had clearly thought the same. ‘I’m sorry.’ This time Becky shook her head. ‘Ignore me.’ She turned back to Jon and Lissy, intending to find out more about the new exhibition, until she felt cold fingers pressing on her own forearm. Becky looked back at Cori, surprised she had even bothered to try and respond.
‘I don’t like feeling like this,’ Cori said. ‘This isn’t me. I feel like I don’t even know what day it is at the moment.’ The way she leaned forward towards Becky and the way her eyes flicked across to Jon and Lissy then back to her, made Becky think she didn’t want anyone else to hear her story. ‘I can’t stop thinking about the diary. Daisy’s getting into my head. She sounds so convincing in places, but so mad in others. I’m having difficulty separating truth from fiction and it’s like she’s with me, all the time. I never feel alone, if you know what I mean. Didn’t you feel it when you read it? Or is it just me?’
Becky raised her finger to her own lips and shook her head imperceptibly. It was obviously something Cori wanted to share with her; but where was the best place to do it privately?
Cori understood. She stared at Becky, her greenish-blue eyes angry and scared, silent questions bubbling up in them. Where can we talk? What can I do? Is it just me? Becky couldn’t help but notice the faint smudges of black beneath her eyes; the girl looked exhausted.
‘Cori, come and help me clear up,’ she said too loudly, yet still hoping it sounded convincing. ‘Grab those cups and we’ll go into the kitchen.’
‘Oh, just leave them!’ Lissy said. ‘Agnes won’t mind cleaning them up tomorrow.’
‘Agnes?’ replied Becky. ‘Oh no, poor Agnes will have plenty to do. And we might want the cups again later.’ Her excuses were feeble and she knew it. But no matter; Lissy had asked her down here urgently, and so Lissy had to try and understand why she needed to take Cori into the kitchen. She cursed inwardly, wishing she could simply spell it out to her, but Lissy wouldn’t have a clue. Lissy had stubbornly refused to try and learn any sort of sign language whatsoever. But again, no matter. Cori was reaching over and collecting the cups, her face not giving anything away; eager, Becky knew, to carry the charade along.
‘But—’ Lissy said.
‘Jon! Ask Lissy about that … thing. That picture you were interested in,’ Becky said, suddenly. Jon looked at her confused. He opened his mouth to speak, but she ducked her head away and hurried after Cori, clutching her own cup in her hands.
Once they had escaped from the dining area, Becky felt she could breathe again. She watched Cori locate and stock a well-hidden dishwasher and saw how her hands were shaking.
One of the precious cups almost slipped out of her grasp and fell onto the floor. The quarry tiles would have shattered the thing, had Becky not managed to reach out and rescue it before that happened. Becky placed the cup carefully in the dishwasher, along with her own, and looked up at Cori, concerned. Cori’s eyes suddenly filled with tears and she wrapped her arms around her stomach, the colour draining out of her face and her whole body tensing as if a pain had cramped up the whole of her insides.
‘What is it?’ Becky asked, standing up. She had absolutely no experience of any of this behaviour at all. Dear Lord, what if Cori was pregnant and just didn’t know it? She had heard of it happening to some people. She desperately hoped that Cori wouldn’t take it into her head to give birth, right in the middle of Lissy’s immaculate kitchen. Her emotions definitely seemed to be all over the place.
Cori closed her eyes and seemed to take a couple of deep breaths until her shoulders relaxed and she opened her eyes again. ‘They smashed a cup at your house,’ she said, ‘and she said you hadn’t realised. Yet here you are saving her cups at this house. I smashed a mug at my house too, just this morning. One of my art catalogues was ripped up and I got a shock and I ended up smashing my mug. ’
‘Yes, I think I told you I had noticed there was a mug missing at the studio and Lissy dropped herself in it when you came to visit, remember? But where does all that fit in with you?’ she asked.
‘What?’ said Cori. ‘Oh, it doesn’t. It’s just a coincidence. In the same way as I’ve been hearing and seeing Daisy ever since I brought the diary back to London. Then, yesterday, I ended up wandering around London and Simon had to come and find me.’
‘It’s easy to get lost in London,’ said Becky. ‘I do it all the time – it’s the scariest thing in the world for me. It makes me panic, so I know how you must have felt.’
Cori nodded, apparently in agreement. ‘You know, Simon and I had a perfect time in Whitby,’ she continued, ‘and then after that, I invited him in for coffee and I took him onto the roof and showed him the garden, but we didn’t get to take that any further because the door slammed and a pot smashed. And now I’m wondering whether that was even real or if it was Daisy just starting to make herself known. I don’t know, maybe she was jealous? And it’s Daisy – it’s Daisy all the time, and she’s talking to me and telling me things and she’s in my head and I seriously think I’m losing my mind!’
‘Cori!’ Becky put her hand on the girl’s arm. ‘I hate asking. I hate it. But can you just … slow down. Please.’ Becky did hate asking. It annoyed her intensely. But she wanted to know what on earth Cori was trying to say and all the words were running together. Combine that with Cori’s hiccupping sobs and the streaming nose and Becky was lost. It was no good to either of them if she on
ly got half a story and tried to make up the bits she missed.
Cori covered her face with her hands. Becky had to fight the urge to scream at her to take them away. How the hell could she hope to talk to her like that? Instead, she reached out and pulled the girl’s hands away.
Cori was visibly upset and shaking even more. ‘I feel sick. I feel really sick,’ she said. ‘It’s her, isn’t it? She’s doing it to me. I looked it up. I don’t think she’s happy just hanging around me any more. She’s making me feel things as well. She told me she’d show me how she felt. What if that’s what she’s doing?’
‘Cori. Do you want to go for a walk?’ Becky asked, frantically. ‘Get out of here completely and get some fresh air?’
‘But last time I went for a walk, that’s when I got lost. I ended up in Gower Street,’ said Cori. Her eyes filled with more tears. ‘Bloody Gower Street, where Millais had his studio.’ She gave what was more than likely a bitter little laugh. ‘And there I was, right in front of number seven. And you know what the plaque said?’ Becky shook her head, and Cori continued. ‘It said, “In this house the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded in 1848.”’
‘I’m sure it’s a really interesting place to visit,’ said Becky. ‘I can imagine it’s good to see where it all started.’
Cori shook her head vehemently. ‘No, you see, that’s how I know there’s a big problem here.’ She looked Becky straight in the eyes. ‘I’d never been to that part of London before and I still don’t have a clue how the hell I got there.’
Chapter Twenty-Six
Becky managed to get Cori and herself out of Lissy’s penthouse, on the pretext of finding a local shop to buy some more milk.
Lissy looked at Becky vaguely as she pulled on a coat and announced her intentions. ‘Haven’t I got any milk?’ she asked. ‘Oh well, yes, by all means, go and get some.’
Becky leaned over to kiss Jon goodbye and discreetly made a little sign. You stay. He looked hurt for a second, then, as Becky nodded to the kitchen where Cori was standing, chewing her thumb with one arm still clutched around her stomach, he understood.
Becky then turned to Lissy and, with her back to Cori, whispered, ‘I’ll try to get her to tell me what’s going on? Try to discover why she’s acting so oddly and whether or not it’s to do with Daisy’s diary or something else.’ Lissy nodded. It was the reason she and Jon were here after all.
They left the building and Becky smiled and nodded at the concierge sitting at his neat little desk. The place was like a high-end hotel – she still couldn’t believe people lived like this.
‘Where shall we go?’ Becky asked more to make conversation than anything. Cori, hunched up and bundled up in her coat shrugged her shoulders. She looked as if she barely had the energy to move and her nose was all red from the crying. ‘Okay. I’ll make an executive decision then,’ said Becky. ‘This way.’ She turned left and headed out towards where she thought Old Brompton Road was. If they headed towards civilisation they might find somewhere they could talk. It seemed fairly surreal to Becky – the fact they had left Whitby that morning, driven all the way down here and now she was walking the streets of London. She felt pretty exhausted herself, never mind Cori.
She reached out and rubbed Cori’s arm again. ‘It’s okay,’ she said.
Cori nodded, but kept her eyes to the ground as if she couldn’t be bothered to raise her head. She stumbled a little and Becky steadied her, her eyes scanning the shopfronts and the little offshoots of streets lined with tall, elegant buildings looking for somewhere to go. She swallowed down some panic and risked another look at Cori. She was seriously floppy now and Becky tried to pick up the pace, half-dragging her along, praying that she would find somewhere to take her.
‘Oh thank God!’ she muttered as she caught sight of a mobile coffee cart. Another coffee was the last thing Becky wanted but Cori was shivering and definitely looked in need of something and something quickly; the coffee cart was better than nothing.
‘Are you eating properly?’ Becky asked Cori as she paid for a single-shot Americano and a nasty herbal concoction that Cori had pointed listlessly at when given a choice in the matter. ‘If I don’t eat I don’t feel very well.’
‘I think so,’ Cori said. ‘I can’t remember. But I feel sick all the time and sometimes I don’t want to eat.’
Becky bit her lip. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask once again if the girl was pregnant. She was pleased she hadn’t asked that, though, when Cori came out with her next words.
‘I think it’s the laudanum,’ she said. ‘I think she used to take it and she’s showing me what it was like. But I wish she’d stop.’
‘What?’ Becky squawked. ‘Say that again. I thought you said “laudanum”.’
‘I did,’ said Cori. ‘You have to understand me. I’ve never taken it. I don’t even drink that much wine. I can’t handle it.’ Cori’s eyes flickered and they began to glaze over, just like they had in Lissy’s kitchen earlier. Her pupils began to shrink until they were nothing more than little pinpricks and Becky watched in amazement as she lost Cori, right in front of her.
‘I feel sick,’ Cori murmured. It was hard to make out what she said with all the traffic noise around them; her voice was quiet and her lips were dry and barely moving. Cori began to sway and Becky grabbed hold of her arm. She looked around helplessly, trying to quash the sense of panic that was rushing into her. She saw a little garden square opposite. The gate wasn’t quite shut, but it was obvious that random trespassers weren’t generally going to be welcome.
‘Come on,’ Becky said, not caring about the consequences. She would lie and say she thought it was Lissy’s square or something if she was challenged. But the main thing was to get Cori in there, away from everybody and sitting down.
She manoeuvred Cori over to the square, taking quick little worried looks at her and hoping she wasn’t going to fall down in the middle of the road. Cori’s eyes were half-closed and she was stumbling along beside her; but at least she wasn’t resisting. She dropped her paper cup halfway there, though, and the vile smelling herbal stuff dribbled away down a drain.
Becky, still balancing her Americano in her hand, got Cori safely to a bench and forced her to sit down. ‘I’m sorry, Cori, but I think I read that this is the best way to deal with feeling faint,’ she said, realising she probably sounded more matter-of-fact than she felt. Becky placed her cup on the ground, then put her hand at the back of Cori’s head and pushed her head down between her knees.
Becky looked around and, feeling rather stupid, leaned forward to join her; but at least if Cori wanted to turn her head to say something, she would be there. And if not, she was close to her coffee. Jon would have laughed at that. God! She wished now she had brought him with her. She had no clue what she would do if Cori suddenly became really ill.
Eventually, though, Cori did say something; she turned her head and focussed briefly on Becky. ‘I told you, it’s the laudanum. It’s Daisy. It’s how she felt when she took it. She …’ She dropped her head again and put it in her hands. She started to shake her head, and Becky guessed she was moaning about feeling sick again.
Becky sat up and looked down at the girl. It was making her back ache too much to stay all hunched up like that and, besides that, the baby was kicking an almighty protest at being squashed up.
So instead, Becky pulled out her mobile phone. She might not use it for calls any more, but she still had to check her e-mails; they were usually discussing the commissions that were the source of her income. Becky looked at the icons and selected the Google search one. She typed in the words ‘laudanum antidote’ and waited for the screen to load.
Her eyes widened as she saw page after page load about laudanum and the effects it could have on a person: nausea, tiredness, confusion, depression, lack of appetite, stomach cramps … She pulled a face at bloating, constipation and a more frequent urge to urinate and wondered why people had done that to themselves. It did seem more
and more like the worst parts of pregnancy though, and Becky found that inappropriately humorous – although she, thank goodness seemed to be getting away without most of the horrible stuff.
The lists went on: dizziness, hives, hallucinations, cold and clammy skin … Becky shuddered. It was Cori, today, all laid out in front of her on a phone screen. She whizzed the pages up until she found the one she needed. A gentleman in a Victorian scientific journal had advocated the use of coffee. It was a stimulant, and negated the soporific effects of laudanum. More and more people continued to advocate this, as Becky continued checking, the journalist in her wanting to ensure there was a broad range of people who said exactly the same thing before she used the information.
Some people suggested a stomach pump and others suggested imbibing warm water or emetics, but in the absence of either a stomach pump or a handy emetic, she opted for forcing strong, black coffee into the victim, the application of cold to the spine – here, she pulled Cori’s arms out of her cardigan, and untucked her shirt from her jeans, rolling it up to expose her back, which was the best she could manage – and walking the sufferer around the square, talking rubbish to her to keep her attention.
Becky neither knew nor cared if Cori was responding. She just kept hoping Daisy would have her fun, move on and leave Cori alone. This was all thanks to that bloody diary.
When the dizziness and the sickness started to fade, Cori realised she was shivering. She was on her feet and something was pumping through her veins bringing her back to life. Caffeine; it had to be. She could still taste the bitter flavour of strong, black coffee in her mouth.
‘Oh, welcome back,’ said a voice to her left.
‘Becky?’
‘Who else did you expect to see?’ asked Becky. ‘I’m just about fed up of walking around in circles now – so I’m pleased you’re a bit more human.’
Cori looked around and saw she was in a kind of park and then found that there was an uncomfortable lumpy feeling around her ribcage. She realised her shirt was rolled up like a giant sausage and, feeling her face colour as she wondered how much of her body she had exposed to the general public, she tugged it down.
