Quickly, she forced her mind to change direction. Her head still felt muzzy and strange, and she sighed and shifted uncomfortably in the bed. I love Castletara, even though Mammy says ’tis crumblin’ away from neglect, but like my daddy I t’ink the fields and the meadows, the woods and the lake and the mountains, are more important than any house, no matter how old it may be. And horses are most important of all, because my daddy is the best horse breeder in Ireland, so he is, and when he puts up a horse for sale or to stud the fellers come from miles around, even the Irish tinkers, though Daddy won’t sell to them and when they’re in the neighbourhood he brings the horses in and locks the stables. Tinkers’ animals get more kicks than kisses, Daddy says – even their donkeys look as though they never had a decent mouthful of food – but some of the tinks can whisper horses. Horses have little brains, poor t’ings, and will follow a whisperer even if it means leaving grand pastures for the hard life on the road. Daddy won’t let the tinkers get so much as a sniff of Castletara’s animals.
But despite assuring her mother, when she came carefully up the stairs carrying a nice hot cup of tea, that she
was fine so she was, by the time Dr Cassidy arrived Dana was bone weary and ached all over. The doctor was an old friend and examined her carefully before telling her that she should remain quietly in bed for several days. He said her leg had what he called a green fracture, which would mend with rest, quiet and good food, and he decided on a light splint, with bandages, to hold it in position.
Dana gritted her teeth and bit her lip stoically and endured, but when the job was done she was glad to hitch herself down the bed, to thank her mother for another cup of tea which she felt too sick to drink, and to agree to have the windows curtained so that she might try to sleep.
Next time she woke, it was pitch dark and she hurt so much that she was unable to suppress a few tears. But this was not the first time she had been thrown from a horse or had a crack on the head, and, despite her few years, past experience told her that the pain would ease if she gave it a chance. Dr Cassidy had said he would loosen the bandages if the splint still hurt when he visited the next day, but if possible he wanted to avoid sending her to hospital to have her leg put in a plaster cast. It was a long way to the nearest town, and he thought that being jolted over the rough Irish roads would probably widen the crack in her bone besides giving her a most uncomfortable journey.
The six-year-old Dana had never been in hospital – never spent a night away from Castletara – and had no desire to experience such a horrid fate. She knew nothing of plaster casts but could not imagine them to be less painful than splints and bandages, so she had done her
best to remain cheerful as Dr Cassidy ‘tidied her up’, as he put it, and saved her tears for when she was alone. Presently, she slept.
‘She’s still slightly concussed,’ the doctor told Caitlin and James when they visited Dana next day. ‘A trifle out of sorts as well. But it’s good that she’s drunk a cup of tea and tried to sit up. Go through to her, and don’t be surprised if she’s a little confused.’
‘Right,’ James said. He took Caitlin’s arm in a masterful manner. ‘Come along. I’m sure, if she can drink a cup of tea, she’ll be able to tell us just what happened.’
They reached Dana’s bed, smiling. But Caitlin felt her smile freeze on her lips when her friend looked up at her, then past her, then sighed and switched her gaze to the far end of the ward as though she was still waiting for someone she knew to appear.
‘Dana?’ Caitlin’s voice was almost frightened. ‘The doctor says …’
Dana’s eyes flickered over her, then over James, before returning to gaze thoughtfully towards the doors at the far end of the ward. She did not speak at all.
James stepped forward. ‘Don’t you know your friends when they come a-visiting?’ he said, and Caitlin realised that his tone was meant to be jokey, light-hearted, but it came out tense, almost bullying. ‘Come on, Dana, here’s Caitlin been worried out of her life and you don’t even say hello.’
Dana frowned. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t think I know either of you,’ she said slowly. ‘What did you say your name was? And mine? I – I don’t seem to know who I am … well, not my name, at any rate.’
There was a long stool by Dana’s bed; Caitlin sat down on it with a thump. ‘You’ve had concussion, Dana,’ she said slowly and clearly. ‘But surely you must know who you are! Everyone knows who they are.’
‘Do they?’ Dana’s voice was verging on the aggressive. ‘Then let’s pretend we’ve just met for the first time. Give me your name and perhaps the sound of it will awaken something in my head.’
Caitlin cast a frightened look at James, then turned back to Dana. ‘You’re pretending, aren’t you?’ she said, trying to sound as light and jokey as she believed James had done and failing quite as miserably. ‘I’m Caitlin Flannagan, your partner in the tea room we started a few months back. We met on the ferry from Ireland and palled up. I was running away from – from an unhappy affair and you were leaving Ireland to make your fortune.’ She sighed as the other girl’s face remained blank. ‘Dana? You’re not even
trying
to remember! Your father had died and there was no more money, which was why you took the ferry to Liverpool. You simply
must
remember!’
Dana compressed her lips but said nothing for a moment. Then she pointed at James. ‘Who’s he?’
‘This is James Mortimer, who rents the tea room to us, as well as our dear little flat … oh, Dana, you’re frightening me. You’re Dana McBride and we run Cathy’s Place together.’
‘Oh,’ Dana said blankly. ‘But if you’ll excuse me asking, how do I know you’re telling the truth? I believe someone hit me over the head and knocked me down.’ She turned an impersonal glance on Caitlin. ‘I don’t suppose it was you, because you look a respectable kind of girl, but it might well have been him.’ She pointed an accusing
finger towards James. ‘He looks capable of all sorts of skulduggery.’
Caitlin felt her face flame with annoyance; how dared Dana insult James! But she knew nothing about concussion or memory loss and if Dana really neither recognised them nor knew who she was herself, she could scarcely be blamed for thinking that James, with his tough, aggressive appearance, could be the person who had hit her over the head.
But when she looked at James he was grinning and did not seem in the least offended by Dana’s accusation. ‘So far as we know, you weren’t hit by anyone. You fell down a flight of stairs, cracking your head on the bottom one and breaking your leg as you fell,’ he said. ‘No one was about, and you lay in the rain for a long time. Naturally enough it made you ill, so perhaps that’s why you’ve lost your memory. But the doctor is sure it will return in a couple of days. And now, dear Dana, if you’ll excuse us, Caitlin and I must go back to the tea room. It’s being converted into a proper restaurant, but I don’t suppose you remember that?’
Caitlin looked hopefully at her friend’s face, but Dana’s expression remained politely blank. Sighing, she followed James out of the ward.
After the two visitors had left, Dana lay back against her pillows and tried very hard to remember who she was. She supposed she must accept that she was Dana McBride, that this hospital was situated in Liverpool and that the girl, Caitlin, was her partner. Though why it should have occurred to either of them to start a tea room she could not imagine.
She had the feeling that the city was alien to her. She believed she was a country girl, and since Caitlin had told her that she had come from Ireland she supposed that this at least must be the truth. But she was getting tired; no doubt her memory would return in its own good time. The doctor had told her not to worry, but anyone would worry if they woke up in a strange hospital bed with one leg in plaster, a bump the size of a hen’s egg on the back of her skull and absolutely no recollection of who she was. ‘Get plenty of rest and above all don’t worry,’ the young doctor had said. Well, all she could do was obey his instructions and for the time being at least accept what the girl, Caitlin, had told her, and hope that her memory would soon return.
As she settled herself, a nurse in a blue striped dress came rustling up the ward and stopped by her bed. Hesitantly, Dana said, ‘Nurse, could you find me a mirror? If I saw my own face …’
The nurse beamed at her. ‘What a good idea,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I’ll fetch one at once. I gather from Sister that the sight of your friends didn’t do the trick? Oh well, I suppose it was too much to expect. I’ll just see to Mrs Stevens and then I’ll fetch you that mirror.’
Moments later, Dana gazed into a cheap little mirror and found that she was astonished by the face reflected therein. Hair the bright orange of carrots and curly as – as a pig’s tail. A face smothered in freckles and eyes green as bottle-glass with white lashes and brows. Not a pretty sight, but … She grinned at her reflection, then lowered the mirror, suddenly almost frightened. The person she had just seen reflected was a stranger! Not me; I’m – I’m not like that, she thought confusedly. I
didn’t think I was pretty, exactly, but … that orange hair! I’ve seen better-looking cats, she thought, and realised even as it entered her mind that somewhere in her life was a large ginger cat with green eyes and a bottle-brush tail …
‘Well, queen? Aren’t you a nice-lookin’ gairl, then?’ The nurse’s voice was cheery. She laughed. ‘Reckernise yerself, do you? Well, I can assure you that the gairl in that mirror and the gairl in the bed is both Dana McBride. How did you get on with your pal, eh? Know her, did you? And the feller?’
Dana gave a little shiver. Thinking back she realised that Caitlin’s companion gave her the creeps. He had seemed straightforward enough, as though he wanted her to regain her memory, but suddenly she was sure he wanted nothing of the sort. She did not know why she felt that, but decided that for the time being at least she would continue to regard Mr James Mortimer with a good deal of suspicion. Caitlin, on the other hand, seemed a nice enough girl; perhaps if she could get her alone she might also get some answers. The only trouble was that right now she could not think of any question she ought to ask.
‘Well? Can I have me mirror back now, or do you want to freeze on to it for a bit?’ The nurse’s rosy young face suddenly broke into a broad smile. ‘Want to ax it some questions?’ She giggled again. ‘
Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?
’ she quoted.
Dana laughed with her but handed back the mirror. ‘I always was plain as a pikestaff,’ she said ruefully, then wondered what had made her say that. But the nurse was moving away from the bed, going over to another patient whose wildly waving hand indicated her urgent
need for a bedpan. Dana slid down the bed, abruptly realising that she was worn out. Even talking to her visitors – she could not call them friends – had taken all her strength. Now she would take the doctor’s advice and rest. Soon, she slept.
When Dana had been in hospital for a week, James invited Caitlin out for a meal. He had been hinting that there was something he wanted to tell her and Caitlin had hoped he meant to reveal his feelings, for his attentions had become more marked ever since Dana’s accident. So after their daily visit to the hospital James told Caitlin that he had booked a table at the Adelphi and did not intend to take no for an answer. ‘For a whole week I’ve been trying to get you to myself,’ he grumbled. ‘First of all, you’ve spent every spare moment trying to help Dana to get her memory back. Then you’ve been fussing round the tea room – or restaurant I should say – trying to persuade the men to get the work finished so that the place can reopen. But now it’s my turn. I want to tell you – but no, I won’t say another word until we’re seated at the table.’
‘Sounds nice,’ Caitlin said. ‘Dana’s getting better every time we visit, don’t you think? She doesn’t mind talking about the tea room – restaurant, I mean – though she still looks puzzled when we try to tell her about the improvements. She’d never heard of a dumb waiter – think of that, dear James!’
James grinned. ‘Neither had you, before I told you I was having one put in,’ he reminded her.
‘Oh well, that was ages ago,’ Caitlin said airily. ‘I’ve learned a lot lately. ‘The only thing that worries me is
that although the restaurant belongs to Dana and me, the staff you’ve employed will know much more than either of us about catering, particularly about hot food. Oh, I know they served hot food at the Willows, but we just did as we were told when we worked there. Now it’s different because we shall be telling other people what to do; people who’ll probably know ten times more than we do.’
She spoke as James, a hand on her elbow, was guiding her across the large, softly lit dining room and James shushed her rather peremptorily. ‘No talking until we’re seated,’ he said, pulling out her chair and then taking his place opposite her. ‘Ah, here comes the waiter; we’ll order, then talk.’
As soon as the man left with their order, James’s hands shot across the table and seized Caitlin’s. ‘I guess you know I want you to marry me,’ he said gruffly. ‘I’m a plain man and I’ve been far too busy making my way in the world to consider marriage until now. You’re very young and I didn’t want to hurry you, but something has happened which changes things. I’m going abroad, dearest Caitlin, and I desperately want to take you with me. I’d like us to marry here – I’ve got a special licence – but if we can’t fit it in, we might have to marry in America; would you object to that?’
Caitlin stared at him, for a moment unable to say a word, and when she did speak her voice shook. ‘Oh, James, aren’t you taking rather a lot for granted? You’ve not said you love me, nor why you have to go to America, and you’ve bought a special licence without even mentioning marriage until now. I’d love to be married, but how can I possibly go off with you and leave Dana,
still in hospital, still not knowing who she is? She couldn’t possibly manage the restaurant in her present state; even if I was there, things would be very difficult.’ She heaved a sigh. ‘I wish to God we’d never made the place so big. All we wanted to do was run a nice little tea room, selling tea, coffee and a few snacks. Then you came along with your big ideas, never taking into account the fact that we were just a couple of girls trying to make a living. And now you mean to swan off to the States, with me tucked under your arm like a trophy, leaving Dana to try to control staff who are total strangers and a business we neither of us ever truly wanted – oh, James, how could you?’