Chapter 17
‘It’s not going to happen.’
Jodie, Amina and Kat stare at me.
‘What?’ Jodie says. She blinks and then gawps at me as I share Barbara’s news.
It might not be such a bad thing, I’m thinking.
It really was a daft idea all along, after all.
I mean, what were we thinking? Playing with the idea of taking a sick old woman to the beach in the middle of winter?
We’ve been like schoolchildren gleefully planning to wag off lessons, but possibly never really intending to go through with it.
I am bathed in a strange mixture of disappointment and relief. But mostly disappointment.
‘Well, we just have to delay her transport,’ Jodie says. ‘And anyway, everyone knows that when hospital transport is arranged for the morning it doesn’t come until late afternoon.’
True.
‘But that’s no good,’ I say. ‘What if they come when we’re out? We’ll be wasting their time and that’s unfair.’
Jodie’s shoulders sag.
Amina takes a deep breath in. ‘I know this might seem an out-there idea, but what about if we actually ask the nurses? Tell them of our plan?’
Jodie shakes her head. ‘Sister Harris’ll never have it. You know that.’
‘But I do not see another way. Maybe they will say it is a good idea, if we tell them we have it all planned out.’
‘They’re not going to say yes,’ I say.
Amina rubs her chin, staring at the ceiling, and we stare up at it too, gazing at the discoloured tiles, patches of damp crawling over the edges, one of the recessed tile lights flickering and sputtering. We sag together in defeated silence.
‘But what about if we just tell one?’ Amina says.
Jodie perks up. ‘What about Nicki?’
I shake my head. ‘She could lose her job. She’d want to help, wouldn’t she? She’d see this is what Barbara wants, but then she’d get in trouble for allowing it to happen and not letting any of the other staff know.’
Jodie puffs out her cheeks. ‘But we’re not doing anything wrong! We’re only going for a bit of fresh air.’
‘But it’s where we are going that’s the issue,’ I say. ‘You know that. Taking a vulnerable person off site. It’s not on, really.’
Kat has been sitting silently, her hands busy with a crochet hook and a half-finished blanket, wave after wave in all the colours of the sea and sky.
Blues and greens, turquoise and purple. I gaze at it and wish I could swallow myself up in its liquid depths.
She looks up at us, her hands stilled for seconds, crochet hook paused in mid-air.
‘We could at least ask Nicki or someone else what time the transport’s coming for her. ’
‘They won’t know,’ I say.
‘They’ll know vaguely, won’t they?’
‘And then maybe we could say to them, could we just take her to the Peace Garden one more time?’ Jodie says.
‘It feels wrong,’ I say.
Kane struts into the bay wearing a white Adidas tracksuit, working away at some chewing gum. ‘All right?’ he says to us, slumping down on Jodie’s bed and digging out his phone.
Jodie simpers apologetically at us and turns towards him, sitting down on her bed next to him. He shoves her over. ‘Can’t you go on the chair? You’re always hogging the bed.’
Kat raises her eyebrows at me.
Jodie does as she is commanded, obediently settling herself on her chair. ‘Sorry. Just a bit knackered. Wanted to put my feet up.’
‘Well, what else do you do all day in here? I’ve been out working, unlike some. Putting food on the table.’
Seriously, why does she take this?
Why did I take it?
Jodie looks down at her bunny slipper-clad feet.
‘Well, I am in hospital, to be fair.’ Her voice is small, the words hushed, almost like she doesn’t want him to hear but still can’t help saying them.
She’s a faded version of herself around him, like someone’s been in and turned down her dimmer switch until her usual glow is so dulled it can barely be seen.
But the glow hasn’t gone out altogether.
Kat can’t be doing with it, it turns out. ‘Who do you think you are?’ she says to Kane. ‘Your girlfriend is ill. She’s in hospital, you absolute loser. Get off the bed and let her lie down.’
Kane is speechless for seconds, then his face contorts into an ugly leer.
‘Who the hell do you think you are, Mrs Vicar, telling me what to do? Oh so holier-than-thou, you are, just like all your types, think they are better than the rest of us, think they can tell us what to do. Well, you sour-faced bitch, I will do what I like, and at the moment I like sitting here.’
Jodie shakes her head at Kat, eyes big and wild and pleading. Kat flushes deep purple and grips her crochet hook so tightly the bones of her knuckles strain through her skin as she raises it slightly as if to position it to stab hard into Kane’s leg.
Jodie takes hold of Kane’s hand. ‘Listen, babe, we was just sorting out the trip tomorrow. There’s a bit of a set-back but I’m sure it’ll be sorted.’
‘It better bloody had, I’m taking time off work to ferry you lot round the countryside.’
Jodie nods furiously. ‘It will, don’t worry. We’re just sorting it out, aren’t we ladies?’ She gazes round at each of us in turn, imploring us with her pale, beseeching eyes, posing a question that doesn’t need to be asked.
Kat recovers herself first. ‘It’s fine. We’ll be ready.’
I nod, too, smiling away as if Kane is my best friend and I can’t wait to make him happy.
Amina flattens her lips, but doesn’t say anything.
Brian shuffles in grasping a bulging Waitrose bag and sits down by Violet’s bed.
He is wearing brown cord trousers that barely graze his ankles and a dirty checked shirt missing some of its buttons.
‘Look at the state of you,’ she says, sitting up and brushing him down.
‘Look like the cat dragged you in. Honestly, you men, you fall apart without a woman to sort you out.’ She clicks her tongue loudly, sneaking a glance at me.
‘What’s eating you?’ Brian says, unexpectedly.
Violet scowls at him and her scowl is so loaded with scorn I wonder if he will melt in the heat of it. ‘Doctor says I have to wait another few days to go home.’
‘Oh dear,’ says Brian, but he doesn’t sound too disappointed.
‘Take that smirk off your face. Just because you can watch what you like on the telly and go and get fish and chips every night. Don’t you miss me?’
Brian nods hastily. ‘Yes, of course, dear.’
Violet huffs. ‘Yes dear this, yes dear that.’ She looks at his bag. ‘That my coat?’
He nods.
Her face sags. ‘You needn’t’ve bothered. I’ll not be needing it.’
Brian shrugs. ‘Might as well leave it here for when you come home.’
She shrugs.
‘You’re grumpier than usual tonight,’ he mutters.
Jodie speaks up, ignoring Kane who is immersed in his phone, spreading himself out until he takes up every last inch of her bed, like Henry VIII on his throne. ‘It’s ’cause she says she’s not coming with us tomorrow, but she wants to really.’
‘I don’t want to go, not with them lot. They laugh at me.’
Brian looks bemused.
‘Oh get a grip, Violet,’ Jodie says. ‘We’re all just joshing, got to get through the day somehow. Stop sulking like a stroppy toddler just ’cause you can’t go home today and watch Eastenders.’
Kane looks up with a sly little smile, and then looks down at his phone again. It seems he’s fine with Jodie dishing out home truths to other people, then.
Violet puckers up her mouth. ‘Well, I never.’
Brian exhales slowly. ‘She’s right, though, dear. I mean, I mean…’ he stops, stumbling over his words, as Violet stares daggers at him.
‘What, dear?’
‘I just mean, it’s just, you cut off your nose to spite your face, sometimes. I just want you to be happy.’
‘Happy?’ she says, wrapping splashes of great derision around the word as if it is foreign to her, as if she cannot imagine what it even means.
‘Yes. Happy. And there’s been times this last two weeks, in here, with these women… there’s been times I’ve seen you smiling, like your old self, like the Violet I once knew.’
‘Oh, what, so you want your young model Violet back? The one before COPD? The one before Covid?’
He strokes her arm. ‘That’s not what I mean, and you know it. I’ve just seen some kind of, I don’t know, spark or something, in you, like you’ve been recharged somehow. I reckon this little outing would do you the world of good.’
Violet looks away, pouting.
‘You should go,’ he says softly.
‘You tell her, Brian,’ Kat says.
I sit amazed at this Brian I haven’t seen or guessed at, out of the old shell of seriously henpecked husband, out of the old cliché of husband who is useless without wife. This Brian has something about him, something Violet may have tried to clobber out of him over the years.
Maybe the Violet he is talking about is in there somewhere, too.
I think again about Marcus and how he used to talk me down instead of up. Brian is patently not perfect, but he is on her side, he is for her, he wants her good. Of course, Marcus always told me he wanted my good, but it turned out my good was not good enough.
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