Chapter 21
I ended up sleeping most of the day yesterday so I didn’t get back to the hospital to visit, but I had a telephone call with Dot and she confirmed she’d seen the doctor and he was content it was nothing more serious than the flu.
I’m up with the lark after sleeping so much of the previous day, and Erin fusses over me until Tasha arrives.
‘Give Dot my love,’ Erin calls as I’m on my way out of the door.
Tasha gives me a bright smile and I get into her little car, which is full of empty bottles and crisp packets and a couple of magazines.
‘Sorry, I’m so messy, and I can’t stop eating. I didn’t have a chance to clear it out.’ She throws a few things onto the back seat.
I notice that her pregnancy is starting to show. ‘How are you feeling?’ I ask, gesturing to her tummy.
‘No complaints. Other than needing to go to the loo all the time.’
‘Oh, do you want to go here?’ I ask.
‘No, I stopped at a services literally ten minutes ago and I’ll go again at the hospital.
Right, shall we get on the road?’ She indicates and pulls out and I go to tell her which way to turn but then see she has her mobile telephone sitting in some sort of case attached to the windscreen and it’s calling out directions.
‘Is she okay? Nanna, I mean. Was she, when you last saw her?’
I don’t know what to say. Because Dot wasn’t okay, she wasn’t herself, but this young woman beside me is so full of joy and expecting her first baby, and I don’t want to be the one to tell her that she might be about to lose her grandmother.
‘The doctor thinks it’s flu. She might have seen her again this morning. She might know a bit more.’
We lapse into silence, and Tasha must find it uncomfortable because she leans over and puts the radio on.
The news headlines are doom and gloom, like always, and then the weather person comes on and says there’s a heatwave coming, and Tasha groans.
‘I’m bloody boiling already. I don’t know what this baby’s doing to me, Mabel, but I feel like it’s got a little fire going in there. What about you? Do you have children?’
‘No,’ I say.
‘Oh.’
It’s always a conversation stopper, that. But what can I say other than the truth? What can I add? ‘My friend Kirsty is pregnant,’ I settle for, in the end, and then I’m not sure why I’ve said it.
‘That’s nice. How do you know her?’
I know what she’s asking. Why do I have a friend who’s the age of a granddaughter?
‘Last year, I met this group of women and we became good friends. Best friends, really. We’re all ages. I’m the oldest, of course, and Erin, who lives with me, is the youngest. She’s eighteen, in the middle of her A levels.’
Tasha nods but doesn’t say anything. It is unusual, I know that. When people see me with Julie or Erin out and about, I suspect they think we’re related. Julie could be my daughter, Kirsty my granddaughter, Erin my great-granddaughter. Patty could be my younger sister, just about.
‘Do you know whether you’re having a girl or a boy?’
Tasha shakes her head, her curls flying wildly, and I feel like she might lose control of the car with all the movements her body makes. ‘It’s too early, but I don’t want to know anyway.’
I understand that, the not wanting to know.
Because it’s not the be all and end all, is it?
People act like it is, sometimes, but it’s just one aspect of who a person is.
Surely, if you had made a person, you would just want them to come out healthy and you could learn all sorts of things about who they were as time passed.
Over the years, I’ve heard people talk about how they had to know so they could choose a name and buy the right sort of clothes, but that all seems like a lot of nonsense to me.
You could have two names ready, or wait until the baby is born and decide what to call it then.
And you don’t have to dress it in pink or blue, do you? ‘I think you’ve got it right,’ I say.
‘Thank you, Mabel. Everyone else thinks I should find out. I’m glad you’re on my side.’ She reaches a hand across and touches my arm and I expect it to feel a bit intrusive, but it doesn’t.
They are people who touch one another, Dot’s family.
Who hug on arrival and departure, and gently push when they’re teasing, and put hands here and there for reassurance.
That was always Dot’s way, when we were younger, so it’s probably come from her.
She probably raised her boys like that, and now it’s filtered down to this next generation.
I think about Tasha’s baby, how he or she will probably be the same.
We reach the hospital and Tasha pulls neatly into a parking space but doesn’t take her seatbelt off. ‘I wanted to thank you for something else, too. When I told everyone I was pregnant, at Mum and Dad’s, it was only you and Dot who didn’t seem to be judging me about it. I appreciate that.’
I speak before I can talk myself out of it. ‘And I appreciate you accepting me into your nanna’s life. Not everyone would.’
Tasha shrugs. ‘It’s just love, isn’t it? Who the hell cares who it’s with?’
There’s a jovial feeling between us but it disappears as soon as we get to Dot’s bedside. The curtains have been pulled round and when Tasha opens them there’s a little crowd of what looks like doctors and nurses gathered around the bed and I can’t see Dot at all.
‘Hello?’ I say. ‘Hello, is everything all right?’
Someone turns to me, a young man who I think is a nurse. He takes my arm and leads me a few steps away, and Tasha follows.
‘What’s going on?’ she asks. ‘That’s my nanna. This is Mabel, her partner.’
‘I’m afraid she’s just had a seizure,’ the nurse says, his face unreadable.
‘A seizure? She’s not epileptic.’ Tasha rakes a hand through her curls.
‘No, we think it was brought on by her fever. She’s all right now but it will probably have taken it out of her. She might be very sleepy for a while.’
I swallow. There’s something lodged in my throat. All the love I haven’t yet given her, I suppose. ‘Will it happen again?’
He gives me a sympathetic smile. ‘We don’t know. We hope not, but there’s always a risk, with a high fever.’
He’s about to turn and walk away when Tasha puts a hand on his arm to stop him. ‘How serious is this, please? We were told she had the flu and now it feels like it’s something bigger.’
The nurse nods and plants his feet a little wider apart. ‘It is the flu,’ he says. ‘But at your grandmother’s age, everything carries more of a risk.’
‘Is she going to die?’ Tasha asks.
I wouldn’t have been brave enough to. And I’m torn between being grateful that she has and wanting to rush away before this man can answer.
‘That’s not something I can tell you. She’s not in immediate danger, we don’t think. But situations can change, things could get worse, or better, of course. We’ll keep you updated. We’ll tell you everything we know. I’m sorry.’
He does go then, and Tasha and I are left standing in the corridor, quite bereft. She puts her hands to her face and her shoulders start to shake, and it takes me a minute to realise that she’s crying, because there’s no sound.
‘It’s all right,’ I say. ‘It’ll be all right.’
‘Oh Mabel,’ she says. ‘I can’t believe the two of you only just found each other, and now this.’ I’m stunned. She isn’t crying for herself, at the thought of losing her beloved nanna, but for me. For me and Dot.
‘Let’s go to see her, give her some love. She’s probably scared out of her wits.’
Tasha nods and swipes at her tear-stained face. ‘Is it obvious that I’ve been crying?’
I look at her and consider lying. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘But it doesn’t matter. It’s a hospital. People are always crying.’
Dot has her eyes closed and the little group of people has dispersed. I say her name softly, and she makes a noise in response but she doesn’t open her eyes.
‘It’s Mabel and Tasha,’ I say. ‘You gave us a scare, Dot. Anyway, if you’re tired, we don’t want to disturb you, but we’ll just sit here by your bed and you can talk to us if you want to, okay?’
She moves her head and I take it as a nod. There’s a comfy chair beside her bed and Tasha indicates for me to take it, then disappears and comes back with a plastic chair for herself.
‘How are you feeling, Nanna?’
I’m not convinced that Dot will answer, but she does. ‘Done in.’ And then she must go to sleep because she doesn’t speak again.
Tasha and I sit and chat in lowered voices, passing a magazine and the biscuits Tasha brought back and forth. ‘Oops,’ she says at one point, ‘I’ll have to get Nanna some more. I’m so hungry all the time. I’ve taken to having emergency biscuits in my bag, but I’ve already eaten them today.’
After about an hour, Tasha asks if I’m ready to go.
It seems a shame that we’ve hardly seen Dot awake, but she might be asleep for hours given the seizure.
I stand up and take Dot’s hand, and it’s a good temperature.
Not too hot, not too cold. ‘See you soon, Dot.’ I lean down and kiss her cheek, and then I stand back so Tasha can say her goodbyes.
We walk back to Tasha’s car in silence but she starts talking as soon as she’s driving.
‘Poor Nanna, she’ll hate being in hospital.
Apparently she almost broke out when she was in having her babies.
Nowadays I think they try to get you out as soon as possible – I’ve heard of people going home the same day – but back then Nanna said you were supposed to stay for a week and she couldn’t bear it.
She had to take Dad back in, because she’d left too early and he was jaundiced. ’
I soak all this up. I love hearing things about Dot from other people. It’s so different from asking her about the same things. When we pull up outside my house, Tasha furrows her brow.
‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Yes.’
‘You not having children. Is that because of being a lesbian? I don’t mean in a literal way.
I just mean that you couldn’t live your life the way you wanted to live it, or should have lived it, I suppose, and I wonder whether that made you not want to bring children into such a world.
I think Nanna went the other way, trying to forget about you and do all the normal things, like marriage and kids.
But I think I’d be more like you. I worry, sometimes, about the world I’m bringing this baby into.
It’s all wars and knife crime and climate emergencies.
It’s so hard to know what the right thing to do is. ’
I let her words sit between us while I think about how to answer.
‘I was married to my husband for a long time,’ I say. ‘More than sixty years.’
Tasha mouths the word ‘wow’. It must be an unthinkable length of time for someone of her age.
‘But I loved your nanna all that time. And, don’t get me wrong, I loved him too, but not in the same way.
Our marriage wasn’t very… physical, if you see what I mean.
That’s not to say we couldn’t have had children.
We could have, and Arthur wanted to, but I just never felt like I did, and it seemed like the kind of thing you shouldn’t do just because everyone else was doing it.
It always seemed to me like the kind of thing you should be very sure about. And I never was.’
Tasha nods, her face serious. ‘Thanks, for answering. I know it was a really personal question.’
‘That’s all right,’ I say, going to open my door again. I think about how I would have reacted to that question a few months ago, how I wouldn’t have known where to look or what to say. But I feel comfortable, here with this warm young woman who loves Dot.
I step out of the car and I’m about to close the door when I think of something else I want to say, so I lean back in. Tasha looks at me as if anything I have to tell her might be important. Her hands are on the steering wheel and the engine is idling.
‘I think I might have got it wrong,’ I say.
‘I never thought it before, but my friend Erin is like a granddaughter to me, and now I’m spending this time with you and Dot’s other close relatives, and it makes me ache for what I didn’t have.
It’s such a beautiful thing, family. It’s everything, really. ’
‘For me it is,’ she says. ‘Thanks for coming with me, Mabel. I’m looking forward to spending more time with you both when Nanna’s better.’
I wave her off and go inside. Erin’s left a note to say she’s working until late and the house feels a bit cold, despite the sunny day outside. I sit in my armchair, think about Dot and the seizure and everything the nurse said, and I cry over the possibility of losing her.