Free The Vows of Silence by Susan Hill Page B

eyes. Her mother was there again, rekindling the bonfire with a handful of sticks and weeds.
    “What would you do, Ma?” And the voice replied, “What your professional conscience dictates, of course—tempered by common sense. And don’t call me Ma!”
    Cat smiled. Footsteps down the aisle beside her pew. She looked up and nodded to the verger. The smell of guttering candle wax reached her as it wove its ghostly way down the nave. She bowed her head, prayed for a few moments, then left, pausing as always to look up at the glory of the fan-vaulted roof, the stone angels on the tops of the columns blowing their gilded trumpets.
    She had missed a lot of things during their time in Australia and this cathedral perhaps the most.
    As she walked out into the warm evening, her phone beeped for a text message from the surgery.
    Urgent ring Imogen Hse re Karin M.
    Karin McCafferty. The last time she had spoken to Cat was before Australia, but she had sent a couple of emails. She was fine, she had said, still fine, scans all clear, two years after her diagnosis, the oncologist at Bevham General was “surprised but delighted.” “Dare say that goes for you too!” Karin had ended.
    Karin had refused all forms of orthodox treatment for a late-diagnosed and aggressive breast cancer and had embarked, against Cat’s best advice, on a journey through all things holistic, naturalistic, alternative—both familiar and what Chris called “wacky.” Karin’s husband had left her to live with another woman in New York, but her business as a garden designer and horticulturalist had flourished and so had she. Against the odds and the medical advice, she had got well and stayed well.
    Chris called it a statistical aberration, Karin called it a triumph. Cat had been both delighted—and furious. She had found it hard to talk about—and had replied only briefly to Karin’s last email.
    Now she stared at the message on her phone.
    She went back to the car, texting as she walked. A message to Chris that she was going to the hospice, Get curry out freezer .
    How strongly did a doctor want to be proved rightwhen being right meant a patient’s terminal illness and death? How much had Cat wished for Karin to be both wrong, totally and utterly and profoundly wrong, and yet cured? What would her mother have said? She desperately needed to know, but Meriel’s image was no longer vivid in her mind. Meriel had faded. She was leaving her to sort this one out by herself. “You don’t need me,” she heard her say.
    Oh God but I do, Cat thought, as she stood, afraid to drive to the hospice, not wanting to find out what was happening to Karin, smelling the last faint smoke from the burning of the leaves.
    Imogen House. There was change here too. The new wing was complete, the old senior sister had retired, a couple of other nurses Cat had known well had moved on, new ones had arrived. But Lois on the reception desk for evenings was still there and greeted Cat with a look of pleasure and a warm hug. It was Lois who was the first face of the hospice when patients arrived at night and were apprehensive as well as desperately ill. Lois who welcomed relatives who were afraid and in distress, Lois who made every one of them feel at home, in safe and loving hands, Lois who was cheerful and positive but never too chirpy, Lois who remembered every name and who absorbed what she could of the anxiety and dread.
    “Karin McCafferty?” Cat said.
    “Came in last week. She’s been refusing to see anyone at all, but this afternoon she asked if you were back.”
    “How is she?”
    Lois shook her head. “Be prepared. But it’s more than her physical state, which is actually better now they’ve sorted out her pain control. She seems very angry. I’d say very bitter. No one can get through to her. Maybe you’ll have some luck.”
    “I might. I can guess what’s making her angry. Surprised she wants to see me though—Karin’s very proud, she won’t want to