‘Anyway.’ Pepper brightened. ‘How are you? How are you feeling?’
‘Fine, all fine.’ Josephine fiddled with the buttons on her blouse. ‘Are you looking forward to our second little jaunt?’
‘Of course!’ Pepper sat forwards in her seat. ‘Barcelona. I still can’t believe it. But are you sure that you want me to come? I mean, I don’t want to impose and––’
‘Oh, do pipe down, darling,’ Josephine said. ‘You are part of this little adventure of mine now, so I’m afraid there’s no wriggling your way out of it.’
Josephine went to cross her legs, only to wince and place her foot back down on the carpet. ‘What’s the matter? Are you hurt?’ Pepper had leapt instinctively to her feet.
‘Just a bit of cramp, that’s all – perfectly normal for an old crone like me.’
‘If that’s the case, then why can’t you look me in the eye?’ Pepper pressed gently. ‘There’s something you’re not telling me.’
Josephine took a deep breath, her hands knotting together in her lap as she stared around at Pepper’s living-room walls, at the photos, paintings and large vase of cabbage roses in the window – a gift from a happy customer.
‘I went to London this morning,’ she began. ‘On the train.’
‘Right . . .’ Pepper had returned to her seat, her mug clasped in both hands.
‘I was there to meet with a doctor.’
Josephine fixed Pepper with a look that stilled her.
‘A specialist in Parkinson’s disease.’
Pepper wanted to stick her fingers in her ears and scream. She tried to speak, but nothing but suffocated air came out. Josephine’s mouth was downturned, and her eyes had lost their trademark foxy glint.
‘You’re not trying to tell me that you––?’ Pepper asked, her voice catching in her throat. Josephine struggled for a few moments to remain composed, then she smiled a sad sort of smile.
‘I’m afraid so. The little horror has progressed to stage three now, which is dire enough that I will soon have to take up my daughter Georgina’s offer and join her over in Australia,’ she said. ‘Terribly frustrating to be losing my independence, of course, but Georgie is adamant.’
Pepper had lost the ability to speak and mouthed at her friend in horror.
‘So, you see why I needed to go on these trips now – and also why I could not risk going alone,’ Josephine went on calmly, as if she was discussing a shopping list, not a debilitating illness.
‘I manage quite well, most of the time,’ she went on. ‘But lately it’s been . . . Well, I have found it rather more difficult.’
‘I . . . I’m so sorry.’ Pepper put down her tea, her hands flailing uselessly in the air. ‘I don’t know what to say. I can’t believe it. It’s awful.’
And it was. It was all too much to take in – first the story of Josephine’s big love affair, and now this devastating diagnosis and the fact that she was going to move away to the other side of the world. So soon after Pepper had found her, too. She felt the weight of everything sitting heavily across her, the panic rising like lava inside her chest.
Illness frightened her, but death terrified her – the thought of losing anyone else she cared about made it feel as if the world had been whipped away from underneath her, as if she was about to plummet to earth without a parachute, with nothing and nobody to stop it. Knowing that her friend was in pain made Pepper want to weep, but she knew she must be stronger than that; she must be as brave as her dear friend was being.
‘Do you know,’ she said shakily, when Josephine fell silent, ‘I have just this moment remembered that I hid a packet of Hobnobs in the microwave for emergencies. Can I interest you in one?’
Josephine managed a smile. ‘Attagirl!’
Pepper made it as far as the hallway before the tears came. Running through into the kitchen, she scrubbed them furiously from her cheeks with a tea towel, but she could not stem the incoming tide of dread. She already knew enough to know that there was no cure for Parkinson’s disease. Josephine was going to become increasingly frail and there was nothing either of them could do about it.
Josephine would not be drawn on the subject further, except to say her symptoms were being managed by her medical team, so over the next few hours, they chatted about anything and everything else, dipping biscuits into their tea while each did their best to sidestep around the conversation crater Josephine’s bombshell had created. They discussed Barcelona, and Josephine asked after Finn, braying with delight when she heard that he would be flying in the day after tomorrow.
Pepper made them a simple dinner of vegetarian sausage stew, served with soft, crusty white rolls that Josephine happily slathered in butter, declaring the feast ‘delectable’. She seemed more relaxed now that she’d shared her secret, but Pepper was still reeling. By the time she had walked her friend home and traipsed slowly back through the muggy Aldeburgh streets, she felt exhausted, yet wired at the same time, and headed straight out to the studio.
The idea had come to her in Hamburg, as Finn, his hand in hers, took her around the city, showing her one impressive landmark after another. He knew so much, and was so passionate in the way that he spoke, that Pepper had found herself enthralled. She wanted so much to recreate that feeling now and have something to show for her time spent there, her time spent with him. She loved the idea of a mosaic, not made of broken pieces but of painted tiles, each slotting perfectly into place to make a whole.
She began by sketching out the striking medieval bell tower of the Rathaus across five blank tiles, then lay a further eight down on the table and drew the outline of the Elbphilharmonie concert hall, complete with its cresting-wave rooftop. In the courtyard of the Mahnmal St Nikolai church, Finn had shown her a haunting bronze sculpture that he loved called ‘Angel on Earth’, which was of a woman stretching away from hundreds of grasping hands. Pepper decided that she would recreate it now, and unthinkingly gave the figure her own features.
As Pepper worked, she thought about Finn, of the way he had looked at her as they lay tangled together between the sheets, of how much they had laughed as they strutted around like Tina Turner, and how proudly he had introduced her to his closest friends.
For once, she didn’t obsess over the little details, choosing instead to trust her instincts. She stayed there for a long time; until the light drained from the day and was replaced by a thick and heavy blackness. Her hands reached for her paints, for more blank tiles, for the volume dial on the stereo.
The only time she paused was when she thought she heard a noise outside in the garden, felt the unmistakable weight of another person’s gaze. But when she turned abruptly to look, there was nothing there.
Nothing but the shadows.
Chapter 27
Pepper broke the surface of the swimming pool with a gasp, her eyes and throat stinging from the chlorine. She was out of breath, panting with effort, but it felt good to move her limbs and get her heart pumping.
She had stayed up until the early hours in her studio the previous night, crouching over the table until her shoulders and back ached, wholly focused on her work. The tiles she had painted were now laid out on the workbench drying, and for the first time in years, Pepper had not destroyed a single one.