The Pharmacist

Alice was quite taken with Sarah Priestly; being treated like a grown woman instead of a child or an imbecile was gratifying and the volunteer made time to stop for a chat. Most of the staff were continually dashing away to attend to something else. She hoped to see more of Sarah; her company was quite refreshing.

As the days went by, Alice increasingly spent the time alone in her room, declining to join the other residents in the day room, where they sat around the walls as if in a queue, waiting to enter the Pearly Gates.

On fine days there was pleasure to be found in gazing from the window, not that the view was great, a courtyard housing the dustbins, but a Rowan tree reached up to the window, a mountain ash, incongruous amid the drab, concrete square. A female blackbird nested nearby and often sat in the branches, her little chest puffed out as she sang for all she was worth. It reminded Alice of summers gone by when she too was young and happy with a life of promise stretching out before her. But happiness was fleeting, a transitory emotion that couldn’t be relied upon.

Alice. Summer 1996

Matlock Coffee & Cake became a reality for Karen and me when we rented a property on the main street, with a spectacular view of the river Derwent from the upstairs seating area. Our excitement was off the scale. We could hardly believe it was really happening.

The property was a dream of a place and needed only superficial work in the seating areas and the kitchen fitting out to Karen’s exacting standards to allow us to open. We managed to do this in just a few weeks after the completion of the sale. Its bargain price was the icing on the cake.

Opening in spring afforded us sufficient time to learn our trade before the busy summer period was upon us, when hopefully we’d be rushed off our feet. With Karen’s talent for baking, there was never any doubt that the coffee shop would be a success, and during that first summer, we needed to employ three seasonal workers to cope with the growing number of customers.

Part of the downstairs area was set aside as a gallery for artists to display their work, another of Karen’s brilliant ideas. The walls swiftly filled up with stunning local scenes in oils and watercolours. The shelves groaned with pottery, jewellery and all manner of artefacts, attractively displayed to entice customers and enhance the downstairs space. As well as tourists, we gathered a loyal band of regulars, whatever the weather, some meeting friends, others out to enjoy the atmosphere and get away from the loneliness of their own homes.

My mother was only too keen to help out with the care of our three girls. She swore that having them all together was easier than one at a time, which I suppose was true, but we were careful not to put on her too much. As the business became successful, Karen and I took regular days off to spend time with our girls.

Life was full and exciting, but Rachel was still a concern to us, and sadly I never felt close to her, no matter how hard I tried. The only time she was anything near animated was when she was with Jenny, a reality I found hard to accept. Perhaps I was even a little envious of their closeness, the way they could communicate with a single look, the way Jenny could so easily elicit a smile from her sister when my efforts were fruitless. But I pushed those thoughts down inside of me. I had no right to feel that way. I was the adult here, wasn’t I?

At school, Rachel became Jenny’s self-appointed protector and although they were in different classes, she would seek her out at every play-time and stay with Jenny to the exclusion of any friends of her own. This in itself was a concern, but then came an incident in which Rachel intervened during a simple playground tussle. A boy in Jenny’s class was teasing her. It amounted to nothing more serious than the usual pigtail pulling rather than out and out bullying, but our elder daughter took it upon herself to put the boy in his place, verbally at first. His response was to call her ‘carrot top’, a name to which she took exception and promptly punched him on the nose. The poor child wasn’t seriously hurt. It was no more than a storm in a tea cup, with the only repercussion being a visit to the headteacher for Rachel and a letter home to us. Naturally, when we were made aware of the incident, we had stern words with our daughter about unacceptable behaviour, but secretly, in a perverse way, I was pleased. It seemed to prove that she wasn’t entirely dispassionate.

When Rachel was nine, she contracted chickenpox during the school summer holidays. No great surprise as it had been going around the girls’ school, but for my eldest daughter, it couldn’t have come at a worse time. A day trip to one of our favourite places, Manor Park in Glossop, was planned by Karen and James, who invited my two girls to go with them and Beth. It was only an hour’s drive through the beautiful Peak District, an area we adored and a place we visited often. Rachel was devastated when I decided she couldn’t go and pleaded with me to relent, but it was impossible. She was covered in sore, weeping spots and running a temperature.

Jenny and Beth were upset for her, although not so much that they wanted to forgo the trip themselves, and so the outing went ahead without poor Rachel. Naturally, I tried to make it up to her, suggesting activities to capture her interest at home, but she was inconsolable for most of the day. It so obviously wasn’t my company our daughter craved. All that morning, she stood with her nose pressed against the windowpane, waiting for Jenny’s return, her eyes wide with sadness and anticipation, stubbornly refusing to end her self-imposed vigil. Tom was working at home that day, but even he couldn’t cheer our daughter up, nothing was right, and we knew it wouldn’t change until her sister returned home.

By midday, hot and fractious, with a temperature of 38C, Rachel finally succumbed to sleep and we were able to relax for a welcome hour until the doorbell unexpectedly rang.

I answered, unaware of the shock awaiting me and the devastating news that would change my life forever — two police officers stood on my doorstep. I felt sick. They introduced themselves, showing identification which I barely registered, and asked if they could come inside. I led them in on legs that could barely hold me up, instinctively aware that their presence heralded bad news. Tom was in the lounge working on some papers, and when he saw the police officers, his face mirrored my own shocked expression. All my instincts told me that something was seriously wrong, but the officers waited until I was seated beside my husband before imparting their unwelcome news.

There’d been an accident, we were informed, on the A57 Snake Pass. James’ car had veered off the road, down a steep incline. All four occupants were dead – my whole family wiped out in one moment! The young police officers offered their condolences and asked if they could contact anyone for us. I barely heard their words – inside my head, I was screaming that it wasn’t true, it couldn’t possibly be happening, my beautiful daughter, my sister, her husband and my niece – all dead. Surely it wasn’t possible. It was cruel, abhorrent. I couldn’t take it in!