Free Her Living Image by Jane Rogers

find any pretext for remaining in her company. She very obviously wanted to be left alone.
    But after a few days Clare began to worry. Carolyn looked no better. Sue (who was at home most of the day) confirmed her suspicion that Carolyn never came out of her room. She was hardly eating
anything. Bryony attacked on the third night.
    “What are you going to do about her?”
    “Caro?”
    “This is a communal house. It’s ridiculous, we can’t have someone like that here. No wonder you didn’t bother to ask us, you know what we’d have said. We have to
live with her as well as you. She’s hopeless – she doesn’t do anything. She doesn’t speak to anyone. She can’t take a share in child-care. She’s a nervous wreck.
Didn’t you ask her anything before she came? Didn’t you tell her it was a shared house?”
    Bryony, on occasions like this, was always self-righteous: the problem and answers were obvious, why hadn’t she been consulted?
    “For God’s sake, the girl’s ill. She’s just come out of hospital.”
    “Well it’s deeply wonderful of you to offer this as a convalescent home – but you’ve got no right to do it without consulting me and Sue. You’re not the only
person who lives here. Have you considered the kids? Has it occurred to you that she might disturb or upset them? She doesn’t even bring her dirty cups down. Does she think it’s a
hotel? Why doesn’t she go home to her Mum?”
    Clare did think it odd that Carolyn’s Mum hadn’t been. Ironic that that was originally the reason she’d hesitated to invite Carolyn: fear of her Mum hovering round the house
all the time. She went up and knocked on Caro’s door. There was no reply. She looked at her watch, it was nearly ten o’clock. Would she be asleep already? Clare opened the door quietly
and looked in. Carolyn was sitting in the dark looking out the window.
    “Shall I put the light on?”
    She didn’t reply. Clare switched it on. The room looked uninhabited.
    “You all right?”
    Carolyn nodded.
    “Why don’t you unpack? D’you want some help?”
    Carolyn shook her head.
    “Caro, does your Mum know where you are?”
    “No.”
    Despite herself, Clare was shocked. “Where does she think you are?”
    “I told her I was coming here. But I didn’t know the address.”
    Instinctively, Clare glanced out of the window. It was amazing they hadn’t been invaded by detectives and policemen already. Carolyn’s Mum wouldn’t leave a stone unturned.
“Look, shall I tell her? Shall I ring her up for you?”
    “No.” The voice was the same tight voice that had told Clare the hospital ceiling was coming down.
    “Can I – why don’t –” Clare stopped. “She’ll be terribly worried – frantic.”
    Carolyn continued to stare rigidly through the window.
    “I think we should tell your Mum where you are,” said Clare firmly.
    “No.”
    “Why not?”
    “She’ll come and get me.”
    Clare thought this was probably true. She also quite hoped it would happen. She had thought Carolyn needed a space in which to pull herself together, not to crack up. Jesus Christ, she told
herself angrily, the hospital’s discharged her. There can’t be that much wrong with her. “Look, Caro, if you want to stay here, you’ve got to make a bit of an effort to fit
in. The others aren’t very happy about you.”
    “Why? What have I done?” For the first time, Carolyn looked away from the window and at Clare, an expression of anxiety on her white face.
    “Nothing. It’s just – well, it’s a shared house, we all do things like cooking and cleaning, you know – and usually we eat together. They just think it’s a
bit odd because you hide in your room all the time.” She hesitated. “I mean, there’s no need for you to bother with cooking or anything, yet. But I don’t think it’s
doing you any good, sitting up here on your own. I just think you’ll get depressed. I think you should come down for meals.”
    There was a