Tigerlily's Orchids by Ruth Rendell Page B

when they came home, as they occasionally did, they behaved to her as if they had always had a pleasant and equable relationship. But Olwen had had enough. At the age of fifty-eight she asked for a divorce and got her decree absolute on the day she became sixty.
    All those years, for the sake of her marriage and for the children, she had severely controlled her drinking, having nomore than a couple of glasses of wine a day. But when Bill went away, as he occasionally did on his own to visit his sister and her husband in Lancashire, she binge-drank for the whole weekend. The term wasn’t current at the time and she didn’t call it that. She had no name for it. It was just the time when she drank all day until she passed out and, coming to next day, drank again until nightfall. As far as she knew, Bill never suspected.
    But when she was alone again, living on her own and with her two pensions, with a sigh of relief that was very nearly happiness, she had settled into a permanent binge drinking and thus ending up here, in this hospital. Margaret knew nothing about her alcoholism, none of them ever had. Like hundreds of people, she had slipped in the snow and injured herself. But she never had any sort of accident before and probably never would again – or not until another bad winter. Margaret thought herself exceptionally unselfish and caring to have come to visit her at all.
    â€˜Well, I expect you’ll be all right on your own, won’t you?’
    â€˜I’ll be OK,’ said Olwen. ‘I’m going to have a sleep now.’
    It was only by composing herself for sleep and closing her eyes that she could handle this terrible deprivation, because in the past it was only while she was asleep that she wasn’t drinking. She thought about Mr Ali’s shop. That girl had bought wine from him. Did he also sell spirits? Olwen thought of all the corner shops she had ever been in in various parts of London. The ones that sold wine had also sold spirits. She held on to that, trying to sleep. A different ambulance from the one which had brought her took her home on Saturday morning. It wasn’t really an ambulance at all but something called a people carrier which, appropriately enough, was full of people all being dropped off at various locations in north London. Olwen asked the driver if he would drop her at Mr Ali’s shop.
    â€˜Can’t do that, darling,’ said the driver. ‘My job is to take you home, right?’
    â€˜I’ll only be a minute.’
    In not at all a ‘darling’ kind of voice, he said, ‘Sorry, darling, but it’s no.’
    The other people in the bus made fidgeting grumbling noises in fear of his changing his mind. He got down at Lichfield House and helped Olwen up the still-unswept front path, on to which more snow, rain, hail and sleet had fallen since she was last there. He took her as far as the lift, summoned it, checked she still had her key and saw her off up to Flat 6. The lift door opened and there stood Molly Flint with a longhaired boy who had a ring in his nose and a stud in one eyebrow, waiting to get into it.
    â€˜Not really’ was useless for this urgent request. ‘If you’re going out would you go to Mr Ali’s and see if he’s got any vodka? Gin will do if he hasn’t got vodka.’
    The boy was shaking his head furiously and Molly said, ‘Sorry, I can’t,’ thinking of Sophie who had never got her five pounds. ‘I can’t. I’m late.’
    C arrying two boxes, each containing six wine glasses from John Lewis, Stuart was on his way to meet Claudia in a Starbucks. He had responded to her latest message, cravenly denied that any of the others had reached him, and faced up to this meeting which had been arranged for a long time. His only stipulation was that it shouldn’t be at his flat.
    None of this was enough to save him from the wrath of Freddy Livorno. Doubting that Stuart