1923
Visitors, Dr Kennedy told Peg, were generally received in the day room by the friend or relative they had come to see, but in this first instance he would wish to be present when Peg and Norah met.
"Her behaviour is unpredictable," he said, index finger prodding the big brown casebook on his desk. "You can never be sure with her."
He began to read to himself again from the heavy book, silently frowning at it as if the words held a personal insult. Peg sat, hands fastened to the handbag on her lap into which she'd packed food and books and a lovely rose-perfumed hand cream for Norah.
At the window, a fly trapped between the blind and the pane was thudding itself wildly off the glass, but the doctor read on, oblivious. His pen-stand held a careful row of identical pens, shiny and s
