Page 4 of The Flowers of Bay C
I shake my head.
‘Toast?’
No.
‘You sure? Anything? What about some yoghurt? Need to keep your strength up.’
I shake my head.
‘Okay, lovely. Just shout if you want something later, won’t you?’
My oxygen mask bites into my face and I move it away for blessed seconds until the air is sucked out of the room. The ward sister looms up out of the choking haze. ‘Got to keep that on, Penny. You know that.’
I know her. Sister Harris. She’s been here for years. Abrupt but kind.
‘Come on, love. Put it back.’
‘Can I have a nasal cannula?’
She sighs, shaking her head at me as if she is a teacher scolding a difficult child. ‘You’re on the high flow, dear. You know that. Don’t want CPAP, do you?’
I know that. And no, I don’t want the positive air pressure machine. I know it’s essential to fill my lungs, but it makes me feel like my face is trapped in a wind tunnel.
I roll onto my side to reach for the bed remote to sit myself up a bit. The healthcare assistants will be round in a minute to get the beds made before the doctors come on their ward rounds, but I’m not sure I can make it out of bed. I hope Jake’s up, getting ready for school, not skiving off like he did last time I was in. I close my eyes, sink back down against the thin pillow.
‘You just get in yesterday?’
Open them again. It’s the girl in the bed to the left of me, the one with theFrozennightshirt in the night. The one I woke up.
I nod. ‘Was in the acute unit.’
She grimaces. ‘Like a nightclub in there, just as noisy. Not as fun, though.’
‘Mmm.’
‘What you in for?’ Her accent is heavy west country, her skin shockingly pale. Her blue eyes are almost translucent, stark with her tale of sickness. ‘I been in a week already.’
I try to form the word. ‘Pneumonia.’
‘What?’
Daggers are stabbing me. Piercing my side.
She shakes her head. ‘Don’t worry, my lovely. You’re in no state, are you? Get to sleep. I’m Jodie, by the way.’ She sticks her hand out, as if to shake mine, then pulls it back and does a little wave. ‘I’ll leave you alone now.’
Looks like she’s forgiven me for the early wake-up call.
I glance over into the far corner where an elderly lady lies still, a huge mask the size of a dinner plate pressed to her face, screwed on at the sides. The Mask, the staff call it, and patients always dread it; much worse than a mere oxygen mask. She is like a bundle of sticks, so diminutive the pillows almost swallow her whole, her eyes skittering wildly below the mask.Rescue me, they are shouting.Get me out of this thing.
Jodie catches me looking. ‘That’s our Barbara. Been in longer than me. Not so good today, but she has better times.’
The one other occupant of the ward is in the bed in the far-right corner. A middle-aged woman with a purple scarf draped over her head. Jodie follows my gaze. ‘That’s Amina, I think she’s called. Don’t say much, though. Only came in yesterday.’
The lines on Amina’s face cut deep with exhaustion. She’s picking at a bowl of porridge, an oxygen mask lying by her side. She sees me staring and smiles gently.
I close my eyes and drift back into the fog.
???
