Page 24 of The Flowers of Bay C
‘We have no money, Martin. And she’s not getting better. She has an incurable disease. Stop living in denial. We have to go home, so that we can get doctors for her. Unless you want to leave her to get worse? Is that it?’
‘Of course not. Of course not, Chrissie. Who do you think I am? I want her to get better.’
‘Well, that’s that then.’
There’s a sudden silence and then the sound of a door slamming. My sister has come into the kitchen, I know it’s her because she always slams doors. She is a teenager and teenagers always slam doors, Daddy says, they are always noisy.
‘What’s what then?’ Karen says. ‘What are you two plotting in here?’
‘Shh,’ Daddy says. ‘Keep your voice down, Karen. We’re just talking about Penny’s health.’
‘Oh.’ Karen sounds disappointed, as if my health is a very boring thing to talk about. Which it is, really.
There’s the sound of a chair scraping on the linoleum. ‘Karen,’ my mummy whispers, and I can hear her voice even clearer now because she is closer to the wall, just on the other side of me. ‘We might have to go back. To the UK.’
‘Really?’ My sister sounds eager. Happy, even, maybe. ‘Why?’
‘Because of your sister’s health issues.’
Karen laughs, and it’s that laugh she always uses when I get poorly, it’s a laugh that says she thinks I am being silly and making it all up and pretending I am hurting. It’s like the laugh thatMummy does when Daddy says he has tidied up the kitchen or made the tea.
‘Because of money, really, love,’ Daddy says. His voice is all soft, like it always is for Karen.
‘Can we go soon?’ Karen says.
‘You…wantto go?’
‘There’s nothing to do round here. And in England they have discos. And I can get records and tapes easier. And make-up. And, oh, just everything. Can we go soon?’ Karen’s voice is all high, like a buzzy bee all excited as it flies round in the air.
My mummy tells her that yes, we can go soon, and that if she is a good girl they will buy her a new tape at the airport. Karen says can she have a new Walkman please because hers is old, and Daddy says yes of course she can because she is being so good and understanding and patient and they are so proud of her.
I don’t think I will get a new Walkman, because it is my fault that we have to go to England and be able to take me to the doctor to get my medicine. And because I am not a good girl like Karen. I am a naughty girl who keeps on disobeying my parents and also keeps on being poorly which makes life hard work for them.
But I so wish I could have a new Walkman and a new tape to go with it.
???
Somebody is stabbing my arm. Stop it, I want to say, stop it. My mind is shouting but my mouth is pinned closed. Then a wetness, a burning, and I cry out.
‘Shush.’
It’s not a kind shush. It’s a hassled shush, a shush loaded with frustration. I open my eyes and blink at the nurse ramming a syringe into my port. ‘It’ll take one more,’ she mutters.
The pee-stinking liquid is leaking all over my skin and soaking my sheet. Blistering through my vein, collapsing it down until it explodes into a bruise, strewing my forearm with purple blossom. I cry out.
She tuts. ‘Just another minute.’
No. I have to say no. To tell her to stop. It’s my body.
I’ve got nothing. She keeps pushing and I bite down on my lip. She disconnects the syringe and slams it into the cardboard tray, huffs some more. ‘The day staff’ll have to sort it,’ she says, storming off. No sorry, no ouch that looks bad, no kind words. I whip the cannula out myself, ripping off the plaster and grimacing. It was half out already, the stinging medication congealing in with the fresh blood running from the wound.
I close my eyes and wish I could collapse into nothing, just like my vein. Wish my bruise would blossom so large it would swallow me up, suck me into purple depths.
Something is touching my arm. Pulling me back from clenching blackness. A light touch, a feather of gentleness and warmth. ‘Penny? Penny? Wake up, lovely. Good morning, darling. My name is Patience. I’m your nurse today.’ Patience speaks in a gentle, musical lilt and in my semi-comatose daze I’m lulled back to the wide open skies of my early childhood, running free through our village in rural Kenya, where my parents had met as engineers on a water project, and stayed on when Karen came along. An idyllic childhood, my mother always said, that’s what they wanted for her, that’s why they stayed. Several years later, I arrived unexpectedly. I ran in and out of low roofed homes where warm women who called themselves aunties fed me with fresh mangos and avocados, and sat under the great cedar tree in the centre of the village watching the world go by. My father took me on safari once. I don’t remember many of the animals, but do remember an elephant with her newborn, her trunk wrappedaround him, her face a picture of protection and patience. What I remember most is nights under the sweeping African skies with multitudes of stars like diamonds studding the velvet canvas, the beauty and grandeur of it taking my breath away. I still have dreams where I am lying out flat, gazing at the sweep of the heavens, the colours of sunset painting the skies in glorious hues. I want to fall into the colours and stay there forever. In my dreams the majesty of it all invades my pain and eases it, and I wake up yearning for more.
When we returned to the UK I was lost in a world that was alien to me, that still is alien in a million ways. My mother became sad and depressed, like the grey skies of England, and my father made bitter comments about how my disease ruined their lives. My sister was happy, though, in a world she could escape our parents’ expectations and go and have some fun. She rebelled, sneaking off with unsuitable boys and smoking weed, and that, apparently, was my fault too. It would never have happened if we’d stayed in Kenya, if I hadn’t been ill, if I hadn’t been born.
‘Penny, wake up,’ Patience says again, touching my shoulder softly. I open my eyes and focus on her. She’s small and round, dressed in a light blue tunic and flat black hush puppies. ‘I’ll be round with your medication in a while. I understand you need a new cannula? Your other one is hurting, yes?’
