Page 102 of The Flowers of Bay C
Jake gapes up at me, and I shrug at him.
He shakes his head and goes back to his phone, and there is a tiny smile skipping on the edges of his lips.
Nicki and Sister Joy stand stock still, staring at me and then at Lady Caroline as she hands the cheque over. They look at it and then they look at one another.
And then they smile.
‘We have so much need,’ Sister Joy says. ‘We need new equipment.’
Nicki is crying.
‘There’s one condition,’ I say. ‘Could you get a new bench, please, for the Peace Garden?’
Nicki laughs out loud. ‘We will, flower.’
‘That reminds me,’ Kat says. ‘There’s a hospital wheelchair in a bus stop somewhere out on the coast road.’
TheDC, standing in the doorway clasping her iPad, sighs. ‘We’ll have a look for it.’
Nicki shakes her head at Kat. ‘Dare I ask how… why…?’
‘I’ll fill you in,’ Kat says.
‘Wait,’ I say to the DC. ‘Kane – the guy who took us to the beach – took off with my bag in his minibus. It’s got my phone, my purse. I don’t know if you can—’
‘I’ll get it,’ Jodie says. ‘Don’t worry. I need my phone too.’
‘But you’re not going to…’
She shakes her head. ‘Never.’
Lady Caroline turns back to Barbara and smiles gently at her. The lines on Barbara’s face seem to relax, as if smoothed over with an airbrush on Photoshop. She presses her face into Snowy’s and then she nods. ‘He’s ready.’
‘Thank you,’ Lady Caroline says. ‘I’d like to bring him to visit you, if that would be permitted?’
Nicki looks dubious. ‘She’ll be in the care home from tomorrow, or Monday, more likely. But they might let you in there, I suppose. They let those dogs in, don’t they, to comfort the patients and everything.’
Snowy nudges his nose into Barbara’s cheek one last time and then allows himself to be picked up and hugged tight to his mistress’ chest. He snuggles into her and his body relaxes, but as Lady Caroline walks away from the bed he is gazing at Barbara, pinning her down with exquisite blue eyes until she fades from his vision.
Chapter 29
In the night I am all switched off. My mind is a blank haze of blissful nothingness, carrying me through hours of the best sleep I’ve had in two weeks, barely waking for my IVs and my observations. In the morning it is quiet in the bay. Alice is propped up against her pillows, and I see her face properly for the first time, free of its CPAP constraint. The indent of the mask still imprints her flesh, leaving angry red streaks that make her look even more vulnerable, even more frail.
Jodie is sleeping, all curled up in a quivering ball, and Violet isn’t here. I glance out of the window to the white world outside, the snow still falling, heaped against the walls in great drifts; a good day for a snowball fight, Jake would say. Kat is drinking a cup of tea, pinches of colour in her cheeks I’m sure weren’t there before. ‘How are you feeling?’ she says.
‘I’m actually okay,’ I say.
‘Me, too. I can’t quite believe it, to be honest.’
‘Pretty sure Sister Joy thought we’d all drop dead of pneumonia last night.’
‘What about Barbara?’
I look over to where she is sitting, feet snug in her maroon slippers, dressing gown pulled tight over her hospital gown. Herhair is stark white against the blue of the chair, her face is flushed with marbled pink. I wave at her.
She beckons me over. ‘Here. You were snoring, you were.’
‘Was I?’
