Page 5 of The Day Shelley Woodhouse Woke Up
Mum met Mick in the pub. It’s the only place she goes, really, so it’s not surprising. I can picture it, Mum looking glamorous, standing there behind the bar. Powerful, somehow, and beautiful. Mick going in for a quick drink after work and chatting to her while he drank down that first pint, then asking for a second and giving her a smile. Is she so easily won over that it could have been any man who smiled and showed her a bit of attention? But no, that isn’t fair. It’s been years since she was with my dad and she hasn’t had a boyfriend in all that time. If she is happy, then she deserves that. It’s just, there’s this feeling I can’t shake. Like Mick is going to pick everything up and move it around, and nothing will ever be quite the same again.
It is Mum’s night off and she doesn’t have many of those. When she does, we always do something together, the three of us, me and Mum and Granny Rose. Sometimes we watch a film; sometimes we have a Snakes and Ladders tournament. I wonder what we’ll do tonight. When Mick will leave. Mum clears the plates. She doesn’t say anything about my uneaten broccoli but she gives me a look. Then she brings out a tub of ice cream and a stack of bowls and spoons, and stands at the head of the table serving us.
We’ve got that chocolate sauce that sets solid on your ice cream and I am chipping away at it with my spoon when Mum speaks.
‘Thanks for offering to put Shelley to bed, Mum. We’ll get off as soon as I’ve cleared the table, if that’s all right.’
The disappointment pierces my chest, pins me to the back of the wooden dining room chair. Granny Rose puts me to bed practically every night. And much as I love lying next to her and having stories, and the fact that Granny Rose can always be persuaded to read one more, I long for Mum to be there. Iunderstand that Mum has to work, of course she does, but this is something different. This is her choosing not to spend her evening off with us, choosing to spend it with this man instead, and it makes me hate him. I drop my spoon into my bowl and it clatters, making them all turn to look at me, but I am gone, away from the table and up to my room where I can cry without them seeing. Withouthimseeing.
I know that one of them will knock on my door. Will it be Mum, or Granny Rose? I take a deep, gulping breath and go to open the door and am half relieved and half disappointed when I see Mum standing on the other side. She looks cross.
‘What’s going on, Shelley?’ she asks, pushing into my bedroom without asking first. ‘Why are you being so rude?’
I don’t think I’m being rude, so I don’t know how to answer that. All I know is that I already don’t get enough of Mum, and now I’m going to get even less. Will Mum understand that, if I try to explain?
‘Mick’s eyes are too close together,’ I say, knowing even as I speak that it’s the wrong thing. That it will make Mum even more cross and won’t help me to be understood.
‘That’s ridiculous,’ Mum says. She has her hands on her hips and I notice that she’s wearing lipstick and her hair is down. She’s a cross between the mum who I get to see here, at home, and the mum who goes to work at the pub. I want to tell her that she looks pretty, but how can I when we’re in the middle of an argument? ‘Look, you’ve been acting like a spoilt brat all night. Mick brought you that teddy and you barely said thank you.’
‘I don’t want it,’ I say.
It’s true; I don’t. I have seen those same bears on the market and they are three pounds each or two for five pounds and it crosses my mind to ask, cruelly, whether there’s another girlfriend somewhere with another kid who has one just the same.
‘I don’t understand you,’ Mum says. ‘It’s not as if I’m asking him to move in. He’s just a nice man who wants to spend time with me. Why don’t you want me to have that?’
But you have me, I want to scream.Me and Granny Rose.Why do you need him?I say nothing, though. Throw myself down on the bed dramatically and wait, my face in the duvet, until I hear Mum sigh loudly and leave the room. When the door closes, I flip over and enjoy being able to breathe freely again. I go over something Mum said.It’s not as if I’m asking him to move in. I didn’t even know that was an option, but now I do, it’s all I can think about. Is that the future? Mick in Mum’s bed and sitting at the breakfast table like a pretend dad? That can’t happen. I’ll do anything to make sure it doesn’t.
5
NOW
At lunchtime, a young man with frizzy hair who can’t quite meet my eye tells me that I was unconscious when they took orders so I’ve got cottage pie and that’s that, but I’ll be able to choose my dinner. He puts the tray onto my table with a clatter and leaves. I lift the lid and see exactly what I expected. A clump of pale mashed potato with greasy mince oozing out at the sides, and carrots and peas that look like they’ve been cooking for days. I use the remote control to change my position slightly so I’m more upright, and I take a few half-hearted mouthfuls before giving up.
I look down at myself, notice for the first time that I’m wearing pyjamas rather than a hospital gown. But they’re not pyjamas I recognise. Not my pyjamas. They are soft cotton, pink and green stripes. Someone must have bought these and brought them in for me. David? I feel a bit anxious at the thought of him being here while I was in a coma, but if not David, then who? For a minute or two, I feel totally alone, and I remember losing sight of my mum in the supermarket when I was five or six. Everyone was so big, so busy. How could I let them know that I was there and that I needed help?
To stop myself from thinking for a while, I start testing the limits of my movement the way Fern showed me. I’ve clearly got a catheter in, but no other tubes. I move my head, then my shoulders, then my arms, going down my body to test for pain and limitation. It hurts to stretch either of my arms. What do I look like? I could ask for a mirror, but I’m not sure I want to. If I’m horrific, scarred for life, I’ll need a bit of time to come to terms with that.
I must have fallen asleep, because when I open my eyes again, Angela’s here, wheeling the blood pressure monitor. She looks at the meal I’ve discarded and grimaces, as if to say that she understands. That she would do the same. But I’m not ready for camaraderie. I look away.
‘Who brought me these pyjamas?’ I ask.
She looks at the pyjamas in question, and it’s like she’s playing for time.
‘Has my husband been here? David?’
‘No,’ she says, quickly. ‘No, he hasn’t.’
‘Why wasn’t anyone here when I woke up? Has no one been in to see me? And if they haven’t, where did these pyjamas come from?’
Angela pulls the curtain around my bed, puts a hand up to tell me to stop. To calm down.
‘Look,’ she says. ‘I know you must have a lot of questions, but I only know the answers to some of them. You have had visitors, but I couldn’t tell you who. I’m sure they’ll be back as soon as they can. Your next of kin will have been informed that you’re awake.’
‘But that’s David,’ I say, my voice little more than a whisper.
‘Your friend has been in several times,’ she says. ‘Dee, is it?’
Dee. The relief of hearing her name. ‘Yes, Dee. When will she come in again?’
