One Small Act of Kindness Read online

  Margaret’s blatant favouritism had always been a running joke, but Donald wasn’t here to tut gently at his wife. And now . . . well, Libby had never thought it was fair, the way Luke was left out. ‘We all wanted you to have a good time.’

  Margaret caught her awkward expression. ‘I suppose so. And we did have a good time.’ She smiled sadly. ‘It was brown toast. And would you cut it into triangles this time, Elizabeth? Sorry to be a fusspot.’

  ‘You’re not being a fusspot,’ lied Libby. ‘You know, if you wanted to pop out with Bob for his morning walk, I can finish here . . .’

  ‘Ah, well, I was rather waiting until Jason came down to ask about that.’ Margaret poured herself some more tea. ‘It’s Bob’s Pets As Therapy day and I was wondering if Jason could run us up to the hospital. It’s such a highlight of the old dears’ week, by all accounts, Bob’s visit.’

  On cue, Bob let out a long groan from under the table, accompanied by a noxious smell, and Libby had to turn to the fridge to hide her grimace of disbelief.

  Bob – or Broadpaws Bobby Dazzler, according to the five-generation pedigree hanging in the downstairs loo – ruled the Swan Hotel with the sort of charming autocracy that reminded Libby of Charles II after success had really gone to his head. He’d been Bob when he’d arrived as a wrinkly puppy, but his imperious manner and ermine-speckled throat beneath a thick cloak of glossy black fur and expressive ginger eyebrows had led to Jason ennobling him to Sir Bob, then Lord Bob within a matter of months. Now King Bob was only a step away. Despite ignoring most house rules, sleeping anywhere he shouldn’t and being very unreliable around butter, he had Margaret wrapped round his massive paw, as well as most of the guests, who wrote delighted compliments about their ‘canine host’ in the guestbook.

  However, like quite a few self-willed, stinky people, what redeemed Lord Bob was his tireless work for charity. His visits to the local hospice and children’s ward as Longhampton’s most popular Pets As Therapy dog were lovingly documented in Margaret and Donald’s Christmas cards, which often featured Lord Bob in his doggy Father Christmas costume. No matter what he got up to at home, in public Bob was a model of charm and obedience, and would put up with any amount of patting, petting and fussing, while looking tragic in a way only a basset hound could.

  Libby took the milk out of the fridge and eyed him under the table. His rippling head wrinkles suggested he was eating something. Probably a rasher of bacon, since Margaret was also looking guilty.

  ‘Where’s he performing today?’ she enquired.

  ‘The old people’s day centre.’ Margaret’s expression was almost as melancholy as Bob’s. ‘For some of them, it’s the only affection they get, a cuddle with Bob. I would go myself, but that car park is so tight. I don’t trust myself.’

  ‘Oh, Margaret, don’t say that – you’re a great driver!’ Libby put down the milk and went to give her a hug. It was Margaret’s sudden lack of confidence that she found hardest to bear; it had been one of the things she’d most loved about coming home with Jason, the fizz of activity that had surrounded his mother. Phones ringing, lists being ticked off, people dropping in, orders being issued. Even Margaret’s famous flower arrangements were a riot of colour and energy, her perky signature neck scarves knotted just so. She was so unlike Libby’s own mother, Diane (anxious, germphobic, now living with her second husband in Jersey), that Libby often told Jason the only reason she’d married him was for the in-laws. But now Margaret had even stopped driving, and instead got Jason to run her around.

  Libby knew it wasn’t just about the parking, and she didn’t begrudge Margaret some time with her son, but this wasn’t a good morning for Jason to disappear for hours. Apart from making a start on room six, he was also supposed to be finalising the accounts, which had been left in a worrying state; the accountants kept asking for missing receipts and Jason had been putting them off for weeks while he tried to find them.

  Margaret submitted to the hug with a sigh, while over her curly head Libby kept a tentative eye on the egg, now with a lacy, golden-brown crisp edge. At least her fried eggs were almost at the approved standard.

  ‘Tell you what,’ she said, with a final squeeze, ‘why don’t I take you up to the hospital? I’ve been thinking about that poor woman who was knocked down on Friday – if she’s still in, I’d like to visit her, make sure she’s on the mend.’

  The police officer in charge had phoned over the weekend to ask if anything had been handed in that might help them identify the woman; it seemed she was still unconscious, and not matching any missing person report. The idea of her lying there, nameless and disorientated, had haunted Libby ever since.

  ‘Oh, that would be kind of you, Elizabeth.’ Margaret brightened. ‘But maybe Jason should come and—’

  ‘My parking is great, even Jason says so. I learned to drive in Central London. And it’s his turn to look after the front desk,’ said Libby. ‘Let’s just hope nothing dramatic happens while he’s here on his own.’

  When Margaret and Libby arrived at the hospital reception desk with Bob, Libby had a glimpse into what life must be like for one of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting. Or possibly what it felt like to wear an invisibility cloak.

  ‘Good morning, Bob, you handsome chap!’ cooed Sonia, the ward sister, then said, as an afterthought, ‘And you too, of course, Margaret! Thank you so much for bringing him in. I shouldn’t have favourites but he’s our favourite PAT dog. Aren’t you?’ she added, as Bob let out a groan, sat down, then lay down, the picture of regal tranquillity, his long, speckled nose between his paws.

  ‘Bob!’ Two more nurses had appeared from nowhere. ‘We’ve been waiting for you! He’s adorable,’ one added to Margaret. ‘We’re always saying he’s like a dog from an advert!’

  ‘Yes, one of his relations is the dog on the Bonio box!’ Margaret beamed. Bob was sporting his official Pets As Therapy jacket and wagged his tail affably as his public approached. He hadn’t looked so affable, Libby thought, when she’d tried to remove the last slice of toast from him before they left. ‘Ladies, this is my daughter-in-law, Elizabeth.’

  Libby smiled and shook hands with everyone as the sister got their security passes ready.

  ‘There you go – you’re on Team Bob!’ said Margaret, slipping a lanyard over her head; it had a photo of Bob on one side, and ‘Official Visitor’ on the other.

  ‘Shall I take you through now?’ the ward sister asked. ‘Come on into the lounge. He’s got a great turnout!’

  And like a PA shadowing a very important rock star, Libby followed Lord Bob as he got up and waddled down the corridor, sticking closely to Margaret’s side without any need for a cheese bribe. As if that were how he always went for a walk.

  After ten minutes of reflected glory, Libby managed to excuse herself from the Bob love-in and went off in search of someone who could direct her to the mystery stranger. She’d walked down two corridors with no success, when she caught sight of the famous Tree of Kindness, its green leaves spreading over the wall between two snack machines.

  She studied it with interest.

  The Tree of Kindness was something she’d heard a lot about from Margaret, who described it as ‘absolutely Longhampton’; it was a wall-high painted tree, covered in green handprints for leaves, and Post-it notes in the shape of flying birds, on which people wrote their thanks to strangers for the little things they’d done to help them. It was intended to celebrate the small acts of thoughtfulness that made life better for everyone and to inspire others – sending the ‘birds’ of kindness out into the community. Margaret said it summed up the spirit of the town in the nicest way. ‘People care here,’ she told Libby, at least four times a week. ‘They look out for each other.’

  It made for touching reading, Libby had to admit, angling her head to make out some of the messages.

  Thanks to the teenage boys who carried my buggy up two flig
hts of stairs when the station lift broke – you’re a credit to Longhampton High School!

  Thank you to the nurses who looked after my dad during his heart op, especially Nurse Karen, who did his lottery numbers for him.

  Thanks to the knitting group for taking it in turns to bring me to the church hall when I broke my leg.

  There was surprisingly little stealth boasting on it, too. Libby looked in vain for any references to generous loans of holiday homes, or showing off about charity work, but it was mainly the snags of everyday life, smoothed over by a stranger’s helpful action. It was nice, she thought. Nice in its fundamental decency. And nice to be reminded that giving a stranger twenty pence to put in a no-change parking meter could actually improve their whole day.

  ‘Can I help you?’ asked a voice behind her.

  Libby turned. There were two receptionists on the information desk. One was on the phone, and the other wore a badge reading, ‘Be patient. I’m training!’

  ‘Yes!’ she said. ‘I’m looking for someone, but I don’t know what ward she’s in.’

  The receptionist wriggled her fingers over the keyboard. ‘That’s not a problem. Have you got a name?’

  ‘No. She was involved in a road accident outside my house, and the police have been in touch with me about trying to identify her.’

  The receptionist’s eyes lit up. ‘Oh, you mean the mystery RTI woman in A&E?’

  ‘Paula!’ muttered her colleague, swivelling her eyes. ‘No, sorry – I wasn’t talking to you,’ she added to whoever she was dealing with on the phone.

  Libby glanced down and realised she still had on her security pass. She moved it so it half showed across the desk and as if by magic, Paula’s fingers started clicking across the keyboard.

  ‘If you go down into the Loughborough Wing, I think she’s in a single room off Dean Ward. Ask at the desk when you get down there.’ She peered at Libby more closely, but Libby decided it would be better to quit while she was ahead, and before Paula’s colleague could get off the phone to start asking questions, she was heading down the white corridors.

  The ‘mystery RTI woman’ was in a room opposite the unmanned Dean Ward reception desk, and the door had been left open, wide enough for Libby to see the figure sitting up in bed.

  Her face was almost as white as it had been when she’d been lying unconscious on the road, and the bandages on her head made Libby shiver at what might be underneath. The arms under the grey T-shirt had deep purple bruises, and her crossed legs were making a doughnut shape under the blankets, as she leaned forward, her pointed chin resting on her hands.

  Libby wondered what she was looking at with such intense concentration. The woman was frowning as if she was thinking hard. Then suddenly she rubbed her face and blinked, and a look of intense sadness came over her, tilting the corners of her brown eyes downward.

  Libby hesitated. Was she intruding? But there was nothing in the bare room – no flowers, no cards, no familiar things brought by the family to cheer her up. When Libby had had her gall bladder out, her room had looked like a florist’s, with bouquets from Jason, her friends, Margaret and Donald, her sister, her old boss. She’d only been in three days, and it had been almost embarrassing in the end, endless lavish flowers arriving like she was at death’s door, not recovering from a minor operation. Two bouquets had arrived after she’d been discharged.

  Was this even visiting time? Was the woman up to receiving visitors?

  Libby took another step back to see if there was anyone around to ask, but from the racket coming from another room, it seemed the entire nursing staff was occupied in dealing with someone who seemed very keen to discharge themselves. Two nurses were hurrying in that direction from another end of the ward and they didn’t give her a second look.

  When she glanced back, she realised her movement had attracted the woman’s attention; she’d turned her head to see who was by her door and was now looking straight at Libby with a guarded curiosity.

  ‘Hello!’ said Libby. She thought of the thanks on the Tree of Kindness; there’d been at least one thank-you for hospital visits. ‘Sorry, I hope I’m not intruding. I’m Libby. Libby Corcoran. I work at the Swan Hotel. I was a witness at your accident. I would have come with you, but there wasn’t any room . . .’

  The woman’s forehead wrinkled. ‘Thank you. Sorry – I can’t actually remember a thing about the accident. I’ve got retrograde amnesia. And a lot of bruises.’ She moved, then winced. ‘Plus three cracked ribs.’

  ‘Oh no! Sounds nasty. But there wasn’t any . . . ?’ Libby paused, making a vague gesture around her head, suddenly unsure whether it was appropriate to ask whether someone had brain injuries or not.

  ‘No, no neurological damage. Well, apart from the amnesia. I was lucky, apparently. The bandages are because of some grazing. They had to shave my head to clean it out. I’ll look a bit edgy when the bandages come off.’ She pulled a face.

  She was pretty, Libby thought, despite the hospital paleness – a firm nose, long dark lashes, small mouth, the freckles that’d reminded her of Sarah. Porcelain skin that bruised and blushed in a second.

  She noticed Libby trying not to notice her black eye, and touched it self-consciously. ‘It looks more dramatic than it is. I gave myself a shock the first time I went to the loo.’

  Libby hadn’t expected her to be so chatty. Maybe she was on painkillers. She hovered by the door, unsure what to do. ‘Sorry – I didn’t ask if you were up to having visitors. You must be tired. Should I . . . ?’

  ‘No, please. Come in. I’d quite like to hear more about the accident, if you don’t mind.’ She gestured towards the chair by the bed and Libby noticed that there was something on top of the blankets: a notepad and a pen. The woman started to write, and she saw her name, Libby Corcoran, appear in neat black handwriting. Then, Witness accident Swan Hotel.

  ‘Sorry,’ the woman said, still scribbling. ‘I’m writing everything down. Apparently this type of amnesia doesn’t affect your basic skills, just recent memories. And in my case, randomly important details like my own name. I can’t even introduce myself.’ She glanced up and there was a painful vulnerability in her eyes that made Libby blink.

  ‘Oh . . . So what should I call you?’ She tried to process how that would feel, not to know what your own name was; she couldn’t.

  ‘The nurses are calling me Jo. Short for Joanne Bloggs, Joe Bloggs’s anonymous sister.’

  She said it in such a deadpan way that Libby laughed. ‘Better than Ann O’Nymous, I suppose. The Irish amnesiac.’

  The woman managed a half-smile, which suddenly dissolved into a scared frown. ‘It’s so weird, not knowing who I am. Or where I live. Or what my phone number is so someone can come and get me. Not even the police know anything. No one’s reported me missing.’

  ‘Really?’ Libby struggled to imagine it. ‘Can’t you remember anything? At all?’

  She pressed her lips together. ‘I know my parents are dead. I know I’m at least thirty – that must have been a memorable party, but I don’t know why. I grew up in London. But the rest . . . it’s just blank. The consultant reckons that one familiar thing will trip it all back before too long – smells often do the trick, he says. Or music. Random things. This sort of amnesia doesn’t normally last more than a few days.’ She managed a smile that didn’t quite reach her sad eyes. ‘So, you know, fingers crossed.’

  Libby raised her own crossed fingers. ‘Well, maybe I can try to jog your memory while I’m here . . . Should I call you Jo? Joanne?’

  The woman wrinkled her freckled nose. ‘To be honest, it doesn’t feel like me.’

  ‘So you’re not a Jo,’ said Libby. ‘What about Jenny? Catherine? Louise?’

  ‘None of those.’

  ‘Charlie? Jessica? Erin? Becky?’ She paused. These were all the names of her old friends in London; she was mentally runn
ing through her Facebook list. It gave her a strange pang that she didn’t want to examine right now.

  ‘Is that what I look like? A Becky?’ The woman raised her eyebrows in wry acknowledgement of how weird the conversation was. ‘I always think of Beckys as being blonde. You could be a Becky.’

  ‘Ha! Thanks,’ said Libby. ‘I wouldn’t mind swapping my name for something more interesting. There were four Elizabeths in my class. I spent about a year when I was nine insisting everyone called me Philomena.’

  ‘Really? Why? You don’t look like a Philomena.’

  ‘I think that’s the whole point.’ Libby ran a hand through her blonde bob, now grown out of its swingy precision cut into shaggier waves. She hadn’t been to the hairdresser since they’d moved. Jason had promised her he’d treat her to a cut in her old salon for her birthday; it seemed crazy now to spend what she had been spending on a haircut – to be honest, it had seemed crazy then, to Libby – but there was something embarrassingly addictive about walking out of the salon, all glossy and on a par with the ‘village’ wives in their Mongolian gilets and skinny jeans. Funny how you always wanted to be different as a child, then exactly the same as everyone else once you grew up. ‘Back then I wanted to be a dark-haired, green-eyed Irish temptress. Not a nice girl from Petersfield.’

  ‘If it’s any consolation, you do look like an Elizabeth.’

  ‘And what does one of those look like?’

  ‘Trustworthy. Sensible. Utterly English.’ The brown eyes squinted and Libby felt herself being assessed. ‘But you’re a Libby too. Libby wears interesting sandals and 1970s prints. Did your parents give you an unusual middle name?’

  Libby laughed. ‘Ha! No, I wish. My middle name’s Clair. No “e”. My parents thought they were being pretty crazy dropping the “e” off the end.’

  The woman looked up from her notebook and gave her a cautious smile, the echo of what might be a wicked grin, Libby thought, when she was well. When she was herself again, and knew what sort of sense of humour she had. Somehow, that thought made her seem even more in need of protection than when Libby had found her lying unconscious on the road.