Page 103 of The Flowers of Bay C
She shakes with mirth. ‘Like a great big dog.’
‘Umm… thanks?’
‘Come and sit down with me.’ She pats her bed and I perch on the edge, keeping an eye out for Sister Harris, who might be on shift today. Barbara leans into me and whispers into my ear, ‘I found my mouse.’
I draw back and look at her. Is she confused, or is she lucid?
She puts her hand over her mouth and giggles. ‘You know I did.’
‘I know you did, Barbara.’
‘Hey! Off that bed, young lady.’ It’s not Sister Harris, it’s Sister Joy again, bustling in with the meds cart, wagging a finger at me. ‘You get back into bed. I’ve got my eye on you today so you don’t go off on another one of your outings. You bad ladies, you.’ She says it all with a wide grin curving her mouth and ends it with a tinkling laugh like a mountain stream. ‘There’s a lady here wants to speak to you all, but I’ve told her to come back later, when we’ve got our morning jobs done. She’s very insistent.’
‘Who is it?’
Sister Joy shrugs. ‘She says that she cannot wait until visiting. So I say, I do not care that you cannot wait, this is a hospital. And then she says, she has something good for us, if I let her have half an hour with you.’
The ward settles into the slumber of Sunday morning, with the odd group of doctors consulting together and with their patients. No one seems interested in me or Kat, though Barbara and Violet both get a visit, and Jodie too. I can hear the doctor’s booming voice from Barbara’s cubicle: ‘You are much better, Barbara.’ Shesays it loudly and slowly, as if Barbara is both hard-of-hearing and stupid. ‘You can go back to your care home tomorrow.’
‘Oh,’ Barbara says, and I can hear the wavering in her voice.
‘We weren’t too happy with what you did,’ the doctor says, ‘but it seems there’s no harm done. You look very sprightly this morning.’
‘I went to the sea,’ Barbara says.
Sister Joy goes to speak with Jodie’s doctor and they hang round in her cubicle for longer than usual, but I can’t hear what they’re saying, their hushed tones smothered under the beepbeepbeep of Alice’s occluded IV drip. Something about morphine, and maybe tramadol, too.
‘Are you okay?’ I say to her when the doctor has left.
‘Never better.’
‘Are you going home tomorrow, too?’
‘I don’t think so.’ She seems slurred and dreamy.
A young woman with long, curly red hair and huge black framed glasses wanders into the bay, clutching an iPad and glancing around at each one of us. Her gaze alights on Jodie. ‘You’re Jodie Hancox?’
Jodie nods and smiles languidly. ‘I am she.’
‘Good. Good. I’m Sarah Lawley from theHerald.’
‘Hello, Sarah Lawley from theHerald.’
I wonder exactly how much morphine she has had.
‘I just wondered if you’d mind answering a few questions for me.’ She catches me staring. ‘You, too… Katrina?’
‘Penny.’
‘We probably shouldn’t talk to reporters,’ Kat says.
Sarah Lawley from theHeraldsmiles and nods. ‘I get that. I respect that. Only, we just want to tell a story with a happy ending for a change. See, we’ve heard about it on the grapevine. About thedrug guy and the cat, and about your friend—’ she gazes over at Barbara, ‘—Barbara?’
Jodie nods. ‘Beautiful Babs.’
‘It’s about giving people a little lift, see. We do a lot of bad news, and when something like this comes along – we thought it might be a nice little story, some nice local flavour.’
Jodie’s eyes are far away, lost in some land of blue skies and swirling colour. ‘Happy ending.’
