Dead of Winter - James Goss [13]
In the candlelight, my wife shone with a fragile beauty, like a paper lantern. Her hair was tied up in tight ringlets which framed her face with wonderful curls. She smiled thinly, and bowed elegantly to Dr Smith.
Dr Smith whistled. ‘Someone is batting out of their league,’ he murmured.
‘What?’ I asked.
Dr Smith looked embarrassed. ‘Madam, I am delighted you are recovered enough to join us.’
‘Thank you.’ My dear wife shook Dr Smith’s hand, tightly and politely. ‘Good evening, monsieur, I am delighted my husband has the company of another of his profession.’ She held up a hand, stilling my anxious entreaties for her to retire to bed. ‘No, please don’t look at me like that – it’s just a headache, that’s all. I have enough trouble putting up with dear Johann’s constant attention when I so much as sneeze!’ She smiled at me fondly, bless her. ‘Now then, may I bring out some cheese for you both? I may even add to the fire.’ She waved away both our offers of help. ‘Servants are thin on the ground here, Dr Smith. We scrape along quite well by ourselves in winter. Everyone is very tolerant of our housekeeping…’ She paused.
Dr Smith helped her heap some logs around the glowing coals. ‘Apart from poor Mr Nevil?’ he asked with a laugh.
Perdita straightened, dusting her hands before settling them on her hips. ‘Quite! How on earth do you practise medicine in England, if all your patients moan so?’
Dr Smith looked at her, and then his face fell. ‘I’m terribly sorry,’ he admitted sadly. ‘You know what? I just can’t remember my medical practice at all.’
She nodded, sympathetically and motioned him to the cheese. Dr Smith plucked some grapes, spitting out seeds into the fire without a care for his company.
He kept trying to return to the subject of the beach, but my dear Perdita waved each enquiry away effortlessly. Her every word was a kind paean to my achievements, to the wonders of the area, to the crystal purity of the air, the wonderful weather, to her genuine pleasure in seeing a hopeless case go home cured for ever.
Eventually, after coffee (not much improved, sadly – really must have another word with Cook), Dr Smith stood and bowed to us both, thanking us for a pleasant evening. Then he turned and stared out of the French windows. There was not a sign that anything had ever been there. He coughed again, bowed, and left.
After Dr Smith had retired for the night, dear Perdita turned to me. ‘Well,’ she smiled. ‘I don’t believe he came from The Sea, do you?’ And we laughed.
What Dr Smith Thought
I am the Doctor.
I am in a room. The room is very large and very dark. In the middle of the room is a small box that’s even blacker. With ‘THIS WAY UP’, ‘HANDLE WITH CARE’ and ‘DO NOT OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS’ chalked on it.
It is not yet time to open the box.
The room has a window. Out of it I can see the beach and everything that is happening on it. I can see Maria. I know that she is important in a way she doesn’t understand. I can see that Dr Bloom thinks he is in control of this clinic. But he is not. Is it his wife? Perdita Bloom, who is so very pretty and wears such wonderful dresses. What about the Elquitine sisters – especially the quiet one who draws out complicated mathematical algorithms over and over?
Who owns this place, really? What is actually on the beach? What is wrong with Amy?
The difference between a really good chutney and a really good jam recipe. That’s a tricky one. Both involve boiling fruit with sugar. Is it the ingredients or the preparation? You could argue, very carefully, that marmalade is a chutney. But you’d be on thin ice. Or maybe that’s sticky ground.
The box in the middle of the room is very black and very small. It should not yet be opened.
Boiling down fine Seville oranges to make marmalade. Oddly, it is about this period that marmalade was invented – legend has it that Marie Antoinette was ill one day and had requested a fine orange cake (she did so like