Page 104 of The Flowers of Bay C
Sarah furrows her brow at her. ‘Yes. Are you okay?’
‘I’m grand.’
‘She’s stoned,’ Kat whispers to me. ‘We should get that reporter away from her.’
‘I heard that,’ Jodie says. ‘An’ I want to talk to her. Tell her the happy story. I like the happy story.’
Kat shakes her head, massaging her temple. ‘We like it too, Jodie, but you’re a bit out of it.’
Nicki is in the ward with the vitals trolley. ‘Everything all right in here?’ She raises her eyebrows at Sarah. ‘Who are you?’
Sarah shows Nicki her lanyard. ‘The other nurse, she said I could come in.’
Nicki shakes her head. ‘No reporters. These ladies need rest.’
Sarah says, ‘TheHeraldwould like to give the respiratory ward a little something. Just in recognition of the good work that you do.’
Nicki pauses.
‘What are you raising money for right now?’
‘You can’t bribe us,’ Nicki says.
‘I want to talk to the nice lady. Let me talk to the nice lady.’ Jodie pouts at Nicki and sits herself up, arranging her pillows behind her.
I say to Kat, ‘I think we’d better help Jodie talk to the nicelady, don’t you?’
Nicki says, ‘Up to you.’
So we do. We talk to Sarah Lawley from theHeraldand we tell her a story about six foolish but courageous women who went to see the sea. We tell her about how a tatty candy-striped picnic rug and a hideous orange sleeping bag probably saved our lives (and Jodie says that a very disturbing wolf fleece saved hers). I tell her that I’d never dreamed I would have the courage to stand up to a drug dealer or shriek at a bus that was bearing down upon me in the snow.
???
Sister Joy brings our lunchtime IVs around. ‘You’re off home tomorrow, aren’t you Penny?’ she says, turning to me as she hooks Jodie’s clipboard back onto her bed and rubs alcohol gel into her hands. ‘You too, Kat, and Violet? Tuesday for you, is it? It’ll be all change here. It’s a shame really, we’ve all got used to you lot and your crazy adventures.’
‘I think so, yes. The doctor will tell me for sure in the morning. But I feel so much better, despite what we did.’ I glance over at Jodie and she gives me a slow, exaggerated wink.
Sister Joy gives Jodie a sidelong look. ‘You are a bad girl.’
Jodie bows slightly. ‘I know.’
‘But look at this woman.’ Sister Joy gestures over to Barbara, who is bolt upright in her chair, listening keenly. ‘She is like a new woman. She will be running up and down those stairs now and dashing all over the place before we can stop her.’
‘They buried my feet in the sand,’ Barbara says.
Sister Joy holds the edges of her smile in a sort of half-frown. ‘I know.’ Tones of disapproval mixed with something like admiration. ‘And look at you now! You’re like a young lady again, all ready for the dance, with your sparkly eyes and your big grin.’
‘I sat in the snow in an orange sleeping bag and had a whole lot of brandy to keep me warm.’
Jodie glances at me and I can’t help laughing, and before we know it a great rise of uproar sweeps through the ward, Violet, Kat, Jodie and I carried away over the sea on a wave of mirth. We hack and we gasp and we cough and it’s like a great light floods the room. Sister Joy stands in the middle of us, shaking her head and waggling her finger again. ‘Like I said, we will all miss you lot.’
I will miss them too.
Amina comes into the bay. She’s come to say goodbye, she says, she’s been set free and she’s off home. Bilal hovers at her side and regards us with a slightly suspicious air of uncertainty, as if he can’t make up his mind whether we put his wife in danger or made her dizzy with happiness.
Probably both.
She stands by Violet’s bed and twists her hands together. She is wearing her turquoise hijab, and it reminds me of the sea in summer, in its liquid flowing incandescence. She swallows, and then opens her mouth, and then closes it again.
