Page 105 of The Flowers of Bay C
Violet takes her hands. ‘I am going to miss you, little Amina.’
Amina gazes up at the ceiling, her eyes brimming with tears. ‘I do not know what to say. This is not usual for me, what has happened here.’
Violet says, ‘You don’t have to say anything.’
Amina gazes around at each one of us. ‘I just want to say thank you. Before, I always have felt… invisible, when I am in here. It is like they do not see me, the other patients, because of this—’ she touches her head, ‘—because of the colour of my skin, because of my religion. It is as if they think that they cannot talk with me, laugh with me. I am left alone and I feel alone. But with you… you did not do that to me. You made me feel like I belong, like I exist, maybe like I matter. I had to tell you this before I left.’
Violet picks at her nails, her mouth trembling.
‘You, too,’ Amina says to her.
Violet scuffs her feet into her slippers – new, equally hideous ones Brian has dropped in for her – and then she heaves herself off her bed and folds Amina into her arms.
Amina’s tears spill over.
‘You taught me some things,’ Violet says.
Jodie, too, drags to her feet, steadying herself on my bed as she makes her way over to Amina and slings her arms around both her and Violet. ‘Me too.’
‘I would like to stay in touch,’ Amina says.
Kat says, ‘Here, write down your number, I’ll share it with the others when I get my phone back. I think we’d all like that.’
‘Yes please,’ I say.
???
At visiting time, the little Friends man trundles into the bay pushing his newspaper trolley. He stops in the centre and looks around at each of us in turn, an enigmatic little grin spreading over his face. ‘I have a surprise for you.’
‘What?’ Kat says. Nate is with her, leaning in closely and tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
The Friends man plucks a paper from the rack and brandishes it at us, holding it up high. It’s aHerald.‘You are celebrities,’ he says.
‘Oh my word,’ Violet says.
Jodie smiles lethargically. ‘Go on, then, what’s it say?’
Kat says, ‘A couple of sentences somewhere towards the back?’
‘You’re on the front page,’ the Friends man says.
What?
‘No way,’ Jake says.
Friendsman spreads the newspaper out on Violet’s bed, and Kat and Nate and Jake and I crowd over to see it. Jodie hoists herself up and limps over. ‘What’s it say, then?’
The first thing I see is a photo of Barbara smiling so widely all the lines on her face are vivid with life and motion. Sarah Lawley from theHeraldmust have snapped it on her phone.
‘They’ve caught him!’ Kat says. ‘Look!’
I lean over to read the article.
‘Read it out to me,’ Barbara shouts over.
‘“Six hospital patients catch wanted criminal in seaside escapade.” That’s the headline,’ I say.
‘Read it all!’
