Page 25 of The Flowers of Bay C
I show her my battered arm and the discarded cannula detritus on my tray.
‘Oh dear. That looks nasty. I’ll ask the specialist nurse to come and do one for you on your other arm, okay darling?’ She looks closer at me, her eyes filmy pools of empathy. ‘Are you okay?’
I hadn’t realised it, but now I feel it. My cheeks are wet. And I never cry.
‘Are you in pain?’
‘Yes,’ I say.
???
I didn’t only make them come back from Kenya. I tied them to a life of doctors and hospitals and disappointments. I failed to strive for a brilliant career like Karen the golden child, the high-achieving solicitor who worked hard for everything she got and so deserves it. If only I could have put more work in, my mother said. If only I’d shown some spark about me, some motivation, some passion for something useful, like Karen who excelled at everything, who was captain of the netball team, who brought home the trophies that took pride of place on our mantelpiece.
Thinking of my sister, I drag myself to a sitting position and dig my phone out of the drawer in the cupboard by my bed. I haven’t picked it up since I was admitted; I couldn’t take the brightness of the screen or of everyone’s lives going on as usual outside. There’s not much charge, but enough to see I have a pile of messages on WhatsApp and Messenger. Karen’s name is at the top of them, several messages, let me know how you are, would love to visit but yada yada, Jake keeps us filled in, love you sis, you’ll be out of there before you know it. I tap out a short response. Thanks, Karen. I’m getting better. Miss you xxx
She messages back immediately. Miss you too. Xxx
And it’s true. I do miss her. Since I left the toxic environment of home we grew closer. There’s still a wall between us, though, neither of us ever quite strong enough to scramble over the top. She’s not the one I run to when things are tough. She breezes through life with a can-do attitude and doesn’t understand why I don’t. But I wish she would come and visit me, despite her high-powered job and her million-pound home in central London with the full time nanny for her two equally high-attaining daughters. My parents adore them; they are everything they want ingrandchildren, and Jake, like me, knows he somehow doesn’t quite make the grade.
I scroll through all the messages, feeling increasingly guilty about my lack of response. Heard you were in hospital! You ok hun? When you getting out? Can I visit? Hope you’re feeling better xxxx
I don’t have the energy to reply to them all. My head thuds harder, a woodpecker attacking me with its long sharp beak. I go to my Facebook page and update my status: Thank you so much to everyone who has sent me messages. Sorry I’m being rubbish at replying.
Always sorry.
Chapter 8
‘Let’s get you out of bed today, flower,’ Nicki says to me after the ward rounds. ‘The doctor says you’re doing better, and you’re off the oxygen, aren’t you, so let’s get you to the bathroom.’
‘Okay.’
‘Don’t look so mournful! It’s a good thing.’ She flings back my blanket and takes my arm. ‘Here you go, just lean on me.’
I place my stockinged feet on the floor and drag myself off the bed. I weigh a thousand tons, my feet are made of concrete, my lungs of bricks, weighing down in my chest until I’m afraid they will shatter my ribcage and fall out of me.
Nicki steadies me. ‘Okay, now, take it slowly. I’m going to just get you a walker to make it easier for you.’
When she returns with the walking frame I’m flopped back on the bed, my breathing thick and laboured. Jodie sits on the edge of her bed, cheering me on. ‘You’re gonna do this! Just breathe slowly.’
Nicki helps me up and I lean on the walker. ‘Deep breaths now,’ she says. ‘No rush.’
Each step seems like a mile, the toilet door a hundred miles, stretching out into a whitewashed, bleach-stinking expanse in front of me. Impossible.
‘One step at a time.’
When I make it there Nicki gives a great big whoop and high fives me. ‘You did it!’ Jodie echoes her whoop from the corner.
I did it. I walked to the toilet. I laugh at the tininess of the achievement, thinking about my parents’ Christmas letter:Karen became a QC. Penny walked to the toilet.
Inside it smells faintly of cigarette smoke, and I wonder if Violet was having a crafty one during the night, avoiding the rain. I try to avoid the mirror, but it drags my eyes, and I reel back at the sight of myself. Greasy, ratty hair lying in lank strands on my shoulders. My cheeks are white and hollowed out, my eyes haunted and darkened with pain. My collarbones stand out more than they did, sawing through sallow skin. ‘Looking good, girl,’ I say to the mocking mirror, which snorts back at me. I wonder if I will ever have the energy for a shower again.
‘Let me brush your hair,’ Nicki says when I’m back in my bed, shaking with the effort of it all. She brushes gently, in long soft strokes, then deftly gathers it into a bobble on my neck. It’s still lank and dark with sweat and filth, but I feel better, like I might be human again, sometime soon.
‘Harold was smoking in that toilet earlier,’ Amina says to Nicki as she goes to leave the bay.
Nicki blows her cheeks out. ‘That man thinks the world owes him everything.’
‘He should use his own toilet.’ It’s a real issue for Amina, I can see, that her dignity might be compromised by a man. ‘He might walk in on us. That lock doesn’t work very well.’
