At home, her mother helps her in her pyjamas and washes her face and hands with a warm washer. She puts her into bed with an empty ice-cream container and a glass of water. ‘Keep your fluids up,’ she says. ‘I’ve got to get Ida up and wash her sheets—again. And she wants her hair put in curlers. Of all things.’
Later she overhears her mother tell Poppy that Cassie slept for the rest of the day. But Cassie slept not a second. She lay, unable to move, her muscles too lethargic to be restless, her mind racing, rushing from place to place like an ocean in a storm. Every face she ever saw lives out a life from beginning to end, tragic lives, mostly mundane lives, occasionally lives that soar momentarily, all end the same. In a grave. In a crematorium.
The next day Cassie stays at home. Her mot
