The Poison Thread

by Laura Purcell

I knew, as all children do, that when an adult cries all hope is lost.

‘Do you know, she told me that she killed her sister with the strangling angel?’ He blinks. ‘You mean diphtheria?’

wearing a weeping veil that brushed her hips as she walked.

It’s a frightening sensation, watching your mother regress to a girl. I’d never seen her so meek.

Our relationship was a bolt of cloth spread out wide, full of endless possibilities. The pattern hadn’t been chalked. I could have loved her. I could have taken the scissors and cut panels of friendship, sisterhood. But she made the first snip.

My body knew something about that place that my mind didn’t – not yet.

I was pleased to see the housemaids had displayed all of our china to advantage on the sideboard. My careful directions for the food had reaped dividends. Although we called the meal ‘supper’, it was heartier than most dinners: jellies, pyramids of fruit, mixed nuts, pigs’ trotters and marzipan all took their place. The only oversight was Mrs Pearce’s Cabinet Pudding – it was nowhere to be found. What a terrible shame.

‘I see you have a pineapple,’ observed Sir Thomas. ‘Capital.’

Your mother was wonderfully fond of this dish. She must have been, for I could often smell the almonds on her breath.’

HINT

‘There was no cough,’ I muttered, casting my mind back. ‘It was more like acute gastritis.’

But without her I would be . . . I’d be like the threads left behind once a bead falls from a dress.