‘I don’t think you mattered very much to her,’ I said.
It did not console Ella, but it was the most I could say. I was unhappy about Sophia, and it made me angry with the people who had been unkind.
Sophia got better, and when she was better I was allowed to sit with her, and I asked her one day if she had been frightened when she was so ill.
She looked at me a long time without speaking, and her eyes looked enormous.
‘Not frightened of dying,’ she said. ‘I heard them talking once, and they said, “Not much hope now—just a chance,” and I was glad.’
I thought:
‘ “Not much more to face.” I can’t face life when I am tired.’
It gave me a shiver to hear her.
‘Are you really so unhappy, Sophia?’ I asked.
And she said: