Page 42 of The Flowers of Bay C
Jodie is back on her bed, scrolling through her phone. No sign of Kane this afternoon, thankfully. ‘You seen Violet?’ she says.
I look over at Violet’s bed. Except there’s no bed, just a gaping space where her bed should be.
I look at Jodie.
‘Don’t ask me. I was out for a fag and when I got back she’d gone.’
I swallow. ‘You don’t think…?’
‘Nah. Made of stern stuff, that one. She’d bite Death on the arse if he came visiting, tell him he was common as muck and to shove orf.’
Kat wanders over. ‘She’s just gone for an x-ray. She’s too poorly to sit up so they took her down in her bed.’
I exhale.
It’s funny. I don’t like Violet. Or at least I didn’t like Violet. But I want her to be okay. I need her to be okay.
‘I’ve been asking that nurse all afternoon for some morphine,’ Jodie says, flinching. ‘It’s like pulling teeth today, trying to get anyone to take any notice. I could be dying here, for all they know.’
‘Moan moan, whinge whinge,’ Jake says.
Jodie gives him a look.
Violet’s husband Brian walks into the ward, all rigid and stiff and drowning in his frown. ‘Where is she?’ he says to no one in particular.
Kat goes to him, whispers softly. He nods, his brow furrowing further, and sits on the edge of the chair in Violet’s bedspace, all abandoned and lost. His body is tense, wired as if he is going to snap any moment, his hands clasped together in his lap so tightly the whites of his knuckles are showing. Kat drags a bucket chair up and sits with him, but they don’t talk. She just sits, and he sits, and they wait together.
‘I hope she’s okay,’ I say to Jodie.
‘She will be. She has to be, because she’s got to come on this little trip.’
‘What trip?’ I say without thinking, then watch as Jodie’s face falls. ‘Oh. That trip.’
‘What trip?’ Jake says.
I shake my head at Jodie. ‘Nothing.’
Jake plugs his earphones in. I can hear the tinny music from here, and wonder how it doesn’t blast his skull apart.
‘You’re as bad as Kat.’ Jodie’s voice has a whiny tinge to it.
‘Kat?’
Jodie bends forward towards me, keeping an eye on Kat. ‘I told her about our plan.’
Ourplan?
‘And she said it wasn’t a good idea.’
Well, it’s not, really.
‘But then I said, what if it’s Barbara’s only chance? What if we are the only ones who can help a lonely old lady see the sea one last time? And then she goes, well, maybe, but only if it’s all planned. And I go yeah, it will be, and she says we should clear it with Sister Harris, and I go we’re not at school or in prison, we can do what we like.’
I try to avoid her gaze.
‘You promised,’ Jodie says, all young and petulant.
Jake pokes his head between us. ‘What you two on about?’
