Page 45 of Meet me at the Seaside Cottages

‘Hey, you!’

At first Lish isn’t saying very much. But gradually, her choked voice starts.

‘Janey? It’s Lish.’

Janey knows immediately. ‘What is it? What is it? Not the girls?’

‘No, no . . . it’s Johnson.’

Lish’s sweet, rotund, gentle husband, their postie. Everyone knows Johnson; he is beloved in the town. It’s rare the week he doesn’t come home with a dozen fresh eggs, or the joys of some overflowing plum trees, or, on one memorable occasion, a brace of skinned rabbits hanging in the larder that made Lish scream her head off.

‘What? What?’ The worst things ran through Janey’s head: his red van, upside down in a ditch. A stray shotgun across a field.

‘He’s had a stroke.’

‘Oh, myGod! Are you at the T&C?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘On my way.’

*

Janey gets there in super-quick time and pulls her hospital pass to charge past the reception desk in the stroke unit, who know her, thankfully – she was often there, assessing hearing damage in stroke patients. She glares at her phone en route. This is midlife, in a nutshell. The phone ringing only means something awful has happened. To children, to elderly parents, to dear friends. Ask not for whom the default ring tone tolls.

Johnson thankfully isn’t on life support but a drip, staring ahead, vacant, but conscious, Janey is pleased to see. Lish has him by the wrist, as if she is feeling for a pulse and has simplyforgotten to stop. Their assorted grandchildren are causing mild chaos under the beds, but the staff are turning a blind eye. Everyone knows Lish, has been the recipient of a cake or a kind word, even on the craziest shifts, her way with the NRNs directly responsible for the hospital’s having a far better retention rate than most others.

After the first long, tear-mingled hug, and a quick squeeze from Milton, who is there, and a tender stroke of Johnson’s unreacting cheek, Janey assesses the situation. Lish is staring straight ahead, nodding her head, clearly in shock.

‘We got him here,’ she says, her voice quiet. ‘We got him here in time for the drugs.’

‘Thank God,’ says Janey, wholeheartedly.

‘But if he hadn’t been at home . . . if he’d been at the other side of Luff Fen . . . ’

‘I know.’

‘Or up in Larbh.’ She names the next island up on the archipelago. He would have needed to be Medi-vacced out.

‘You can’t think like that,’ says Janey, looking around. ‘Emma, could you get your mum some tea, my love?’

‘Actually,’ says Lish, looking up, ‘sorry, my darling girls – can I have five minutes just to chat medic stuff with Janey and Milton?’

Amsan charges through the curtains. ‘I’m on my tea break. They’re going to have to wait for their poo samples.’

‘Did you wash your hands?’ says Janey.

‘This isnotthe time for jokes,’ says Amsan.

‘It is very much the time for clean hands,’ says Janey, but Amsan still isn’t smiling.

The rest of the family departs, leaving Lish with her friends, and Johnson’s hand in hers.

*

‘They got to him in time,’ says Janey, in her most reassuring tone of voice. ‘It’ll be rehab, physio . . . we’ll know a lot more in a couple of days, right? But it’s still great news that he’s here and in time. Yeah?’

‘It really is,’ says Amsan. She squeezes Johnson’s free hand, and gets a reassuring tiny pressure back.

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