Free Tree of Hands by Ruth Rendell Page A

been so unimaginably affected, so transformed, in less than two years by another person and that person scarcely able to speak?
    She did not want to think of him as a person, as himself, of the things he had done and said. That was the worst. That way unbearable panic lay, the kind of panic that comes from knowing one more step in that direction and the mind will break. She went downstairs, all the way down the long flight that wound through the middle of the house, and came into the basement room and sat in the window looking up at the garden wall and the street. She felt she would never go out there again. It was impossible toimagine going into the open air, walking, confronting other human beings.
    Mopsa was at the kitchen end of the room, apparently making a cake. What was the use of it? Who would eat it? Mopsa wore an apron Benet had never seen before, a pink-and-white check gingham apron with straps that crossed over at the back. She had cleared every trace of James out of that room. The doors of the toy cupboard were closed. The highchair was gone. Upstairs Benet had closed her eyes while passing James’s bedroom door on her way to the bathroom. She had been afraid it might be open and its contents showing. Now she knew she need not have bothered to close her eyes. Mopsa would have seen to those things. Dimly, through that timeless time up there, she had perceived that Mopsa had been seeing to things, had seen to everything.
    The things she could not name even in her own thoughts. The registration of death. The undertakers. The funeral. To herself she named them, shivering long and inwardly, with a euphemism she had once despised: the formalities. Poor mad Mopsa, who was mad no longer, who had taken up this terrible challenge better than the sanest of women, had seen to . . . the formalities. Vaguely, up in that high room, that dark tower, Benet had been aware of Mopsa going out, of the car starting, of doors closing and opening, of Mopsa returning, of Mopsa
bustling
, busy in her recording angel, amanuensis, indispensable role. And now, having turned to look at her daughter and give her a small, sad, pitiful smile, she was making a cake, beating eggs with a hand whisk into a creamy concoction in a glass bowl.
    Mopsa had been – wonderful. That was the word one always used of someone who did what she had done in this situation – wonderful. Often Benet had heard the phone ringing. Mopsa had answered it, though Benet never heard what she said. It rang now. Mopsa rested the whisk against the side of the bowl and went to the phone and took up the receiver. She spoke to Antonia as if they were old friends, though to Benet’s knowledge they had never met.Her tone was chatty, pleasant, in no way tragic. Benet would certainly phone Antonia, Mopsa said. As soon as she was up and about and fit again, she would phone her. Yes, Mopsa would pass on the message.
    Benet addressed the first question to her mother she had put since she had come home from the hospital. Her voice which had been silent for so long sounded strange to her. She walked over to Mopsa, her legs feeling weak as if she were convalescent.
    â€˜Have there been many phone calls?’
    Mopsa was sifting flour through a sieve. She worked neatly, without spilling. ‘Half a dozen. Quite a few. I didn’t count them.’
    â€˜What have you told people?’
    â€˜I’ve told them you’re not well enough to speak to anyone. I’ve told them you’re confined to your bed and can’t be expected to talk.’
    It was the correct response, it was the prescribed, ideal, merciful way for anyone in Mopsa’s position to behave. Benet felt, creeping into the immense wide cold sea of her misery, a trickle of unease. She ignored it. It was nothing. Unease was nothing any more, of no importance, and never would be.
    â€˜Have you spoken to Dad?’
    â€˜He’s phoned every evening nearly.’ The complacent look touched