The Cheesemaker's House by Jane Cable Page B

OK, Alice. We’re just kicking ourselves for not noticing how low you’d become. Some neighbours we turned out to be.”
    I am puzzled for a moment but then the penny drops. “I didn’t take the tablets deliberately,” I explain. “At least, not for the reason you think. It’s just I haven’t been sleeping well and I was getting pretty desperate.” It doesn’t sound like a particularly convincing explanation.
    â€œYou said something about stopping crying – it made us think...”
    â€œIt wasn’t me crying, it was someone else.”
    â€œSomeone else?”
    I haul myself into a sitting position. My mouth feels like a hedgehog has been sleeping in it, but there is some water by my bed and I take a sip.
    â€œIt’s someone nearby. I’ve heard them before, a few weeks ago, but last night they sounded really distraught. I got up and tried to trace where it was coming from but I couldn’t pin the sound down. It was weird.”
    â€œIt couldn’t have been an animal, could it?”
    â€œI did wonder the first time I heard it – I had a friend who had a Siamese cat that cried like a baby – but last night it was a definite sobbing, and it never sounded like a child anyway.”
    Margaret frowns. “How very odd.”
    I wonder whether to tell her what I saw in the barn but decide against it. Instead I swing my legs over the edge of the bed.
    â€œI think I’ll go and clean my teeth and have a shower.”
    â€œAre you sure you’re up to it? Owen said you’d feel very wobbly and you were to stay in bed until he got back.”
    â€œI’ll be careful, I promise. I don’t want to cause you any more grief.”
    Owen was right; I do feel rather weak and feeble so I take the precaution of not locking the bathroom door. As I haul the long T-shirt I sleep in over my head realisation dawns that it was all I was wearing – no underwear, no nothing. I was in such a state too; the chances were that I was fairly indecent. I look down at my naked body in horror.
    The shower exhausts me and afterwards I sit up in bed sipping my water, trying to chat to Margaret. Footsteps crunch on the gravel and she peeks out of the window.
    â€œIt’s Owen,” she tells me. “He said he’d be back as soon as the café quietened down.”
    We hear William growl, and before I even have time to blush Owen’s head appears around the bedroom door. “Can I come in?” he asks.
    I manage to smile and Margaret nods.
    He sits down on the bed. “So, how are you feeling, Alice?”
    I have to put on a show for him – just have to. “Better, much better, thanks. You and Margaret – you’ve been wonderful – I don’t know what would have happened without you.”
    â€œWell I do, and I break out into a cold sweat every time I think of it.” He laughs but it sounds false. “William hasn’t forgiven me for making you sick yet, but it’s a small price to pay.” He indicates a bag in his hand. “Right – are you feeling hungry? Because Adam’s baked you some lavender shortbread which should be nice and gentle on your tummy.”
    â€œWell isn’t that kind of him,” exclaims Margaret. “I’ll make some tea to go with it.”
    Once she leaves there is a silence and as usual I feel I have to fill it.
    â€œOwen – there’s something I need to explain. You both thought I took those tablets deliberately, didn’t you? Well that wasn’t the case. I was just desperate to get some sleep. I took a couple, but that didn’t work because…well…it just didn’t. Then William wanted to go out and I read the bottle and it said you could take eight so I...”
    â€œNo more than eight in a twenty-four hour period, probably.”
    I feel about five years old. “Oh,” is all I manage to say, but then a thought