Page 20 of The Flowers of Bay C
Used to do? Used to want to do a million things, to travel, to write, to run, but mostly to paint and draw, to craft worlds apart from my own, to lose myself in great wide skies and jewelled depths. I’m good at it, I know that. I almost managed it, for such a short time, in a job I was too sick to keep. My tutor at art college said that I was talented, that if I was prepared to put in the hard graft I could go far. You just have to believe in yourself, she said, because only you can make the decision to succeed in life, and you’ve been given a gift. It’s all about attitude, you see, if your attitude is right then you’ll nail it, but if you give in to weakness then life will pass you by. I lapped up her words, crossing my fingers behind my back, knowing she was right, I could do this if I really tried. That word, echoing back through so many years of school reports;try.Just try harder, Penny.
I worked at an advertising agency after college, all fresh and new and full of resolve, ready to take on a world that hadn’t been so kind to me so far and so surely owed me something now. Maybe I would, in the end, be a children’s book illustrator, as I had once hoped, back when I was small and my paintings made people gasp. Perhaps now my parents might be proud of me, at last.
It was during my first sickness absence review meeting, just six months after joining the company, that reality crashed the party. We expect your attendance to improve from now on, the HR lady told me. I took my union rep to the next meeting, but I’d just not worked there long enough, HR lady said. Sorry, Penny. Dismissed, I was alone and adrift in the world, my shattered dreams lying in shards at my feet.
That’s when Marcus saved me. Exercise, my doctors said, that’s what will help you with all this, just try it. So I did. I tried, and joined a gym where, it turned out, a man named Marcus worked, a man who wanted to collude in the bettering of me.
‘I’ve been ill all my life,’ I say to Dan.
He nods and smiles at me as if he gets it.
But he doesn’t, really. ‘You should pursue your dreams,’ he says gently, his voice all empathy. ‘You can do anything you want to.’
No I can’t.
‘He’s well fit,’ Jodie says as Dan strolls out of the bay, leaving me lying there failing to catch my breath. She hunches on the edge of the chair by my bed. ‘Wouldn’t mind him doing a bit of pummelling on me.’
My laughcomes out like a strange gurgle.
She doesn’t seem to notice. ‘I had that woman do mine. You know, the one who looks about six.’
They all look about six.
‘She’s good though. So how you feeling?’
‘Better,’ I say. ‘You?’
She shrugs. ‘Just waiting to get sent home. Doctor said it might not be too long. Been in nearly two weeks now.’
I sit myself up a bit, gather myself together. ‘What were you in for?’
A line carves into the smoothness of her forehead. ‘Just the usual.’
‘Usual?’
‘Like you, I guess. Chronic lungs. COPD and all that.’
She’s young to have Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. ‘Oh. Yeah.’
‘I know, I’m only young. Well, thirty, anyway. Been chesty most my life, though.’
‘Me too.’
We sit quietly, allowing the unspoken understanding to pass between us, the magic of solidarity.
‘That must’ve been really hard.’ It’s Kat, propped up in her bed, leaning over at us, a little less pale than yesterday. ‘Suffering like that, even as a kid.’
Jodie doesn’t seem to care that Kat was listening in. She’s up on her feet again, wandering over to sit on the chair between Kat and me. She’s like a pinball machine; back and forth, back and forth. ‘What about you? What you in for?’
‘Pneumonia,’ Kat says. ‘Never had it before, it was a complete shock. Can’t imagine living with that kind of thing.’
I look at my bitten-down fingernails and say nothing. It’s strange, hearing the kindness in her voice. Not something I’m much used to.
Jodie says, ‘But you’re getting better now?’
‘Bit. Doctor says I’ll be in another week or so.’
‘Me too,’ I say.
