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2 July 2000

Dear Ann,

I tried to get in touch with you, but Amy said you and Simon were off travelling and she wasn’t sure when you’d be back.

It’s Frank. He been really unwell. I stopped by the Hermitage Thursday morning because I hadn’t seen him for a few days. Shirley said she hadn’t seen him either, and that he wasn’t answering the door. He was in bed with all the curtains drawn. I don’t think there’s much physically wrong with him, except that he hadn’t eaten, but I couldn’t get any sense out of him. He kept talking to his damned voices. I phoned Dr. Waterfall and he came out and suggested we take him to hospital. You know how much Frank hates to be away, but he seemed really ill, so Martin and I took him in.

Anyway, he’s a bit better now. They’ve fed him and injected him with some drug that’s made him more sensible. He’s really unhappy though, everything has upset him. You’ve gone, I’ve moved out, Martin and Shirley had a row (they’ve worked through it, but Frank is still troubled by it), and now Simon’s gone. He thinks he’s going to be left alone with no one to talk to but the dead voices in the house.

While I was visiting him, he started talking, and I thought I’d lost him again. Then I realised he was quoting passages from "Last Taxi to Kensington." It’s remarkable—he’s memorised virtually the whole book. I asked him why he knew it so well, and he told me that since he never heard his mother’s voice, he’d learned all the words she’d left behind. Ellen Hall is Helena O’Rall! It’s amazing. He knows it all—Adrift at Sea, Quiet Interlude, even passages about robins, sparrows and barn owls.

Apparently he’s inherited all of the royalties from her publications and the rights to all her works. Although on the surface Ellen seems to have been a quiet, tweedy, upper-class lady, she spent a good part of her life writing passionate, fantastical stories. It seems poor Frank has inherited the romantic part of her nature as well.

Dr. Waterfall thinks that he can come home in a few days, and will be all right provided he takes his medication. I'd like to move back into the house so that I can keep an eye on him. If that’s a problem for you or Simon, please let me know as soon as possible. I’ve made it clear to him that I am seeing John, and I won’t be moving back into the Hermitage, and he seems to understand.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Emma

PS. I have managed some work in the interim. Found this item on microfilm; thought it might be of some interest…