Page 64 of The Flowers of Bay C
Kane says, ‘Don’t expect to be seen with me in that thing.’
Nicki wanders into the bay. ‘What you lot up to now then? All in your gladrags like that? Bit dressed up for your little garden jaunt, aren’t you?’
‘Just going for a little walk. Maybe a little bit longer than usual,’ Jodie says, gazing back at Nicki without guile. ‘Bit chilly out there, is all.’
Nicki looks Kat up and down. ‘Nice onesie.’
‘I know, right?’ Kat says, smiling. ‘My daft other half decided I needed it in here, bless him. Thought I’d pop it on for a little bit of air.’
‘Hmm,’ Nicki says, giving her a sidelong look so dripping with suspicion it’s almost written on her face in sharpie pen. ‘Right. See you have the chair for Barbara. She’s doing well, isn’t she? Much better than in the night. Be careful with her, though, won’t you? Don’t keep her outside too long.’
‘We won’t,’ Jodie says.
‘I’ll just hook up her oxygen, then,’ Nicki says, fiddling with Barbara’s tube and connecting it to the cylinder by her bed. ‘Right. Let’s get you into your chair, flower.’
Barbara claps her hands together. ‘We’re going to the sea!’
Nicki looks at Jodie, eyebrows pinched together in a point.
‘Ah, you know how she is,’ Jodie says, rolling her eyes around. ‘She’ll be on about her mouse next.’
‘Is my mouse there?’ Barbara says, right on cue.
‘See?’ Jodie says, weaving her arms into the jacket, which is a little too small and far too thin. Her T-shirt is a little short, revealing an expanse of belly and a tattoo I’d never noticed before.Kane4eva,it says, in matching style and slightly dodgy quality to Kane’s larger more visible one on his bicep. It looks sore.
Nicki helps Barbara into the chair and wraps her up, in her dressing-gown and socks and slippers and two blankets tucked in under her legs and a third around her shoulders. She looks snug and warm and happy.
Violet stares at her, a dark shadow crossing her eyes, but she doesn’t shift from her bed.
Nicki smiles tentatively. ‘Hmm. Well, off you go then, ladies, I wouldn’t want to keep you from your fresh air.’ She forms her fingers into quotation marks around the last two words, and I glance at Kat. Does Nicki know? And does Barbara know, really, after all our attempts to keep it from her, or is it her usual wishful thinking?
It doesn’t really matter now, I suppose. I look at Barbara, installed in her blue hospital wheelchair, all wrapped in blankets, drip stand inserted into the slot on the chair, oxygen cylinder stowed in the holder attached to the back. I see the great anticipation written on her, her eyes alive with hope like a child on Christmas morning.
‘Did you bring a scarf or anything?’ Kat says to me.
‘Oh, nearly forgot!’ Did Jake take that bag away last night? I peer under the bed and find it there, abandoned on the floor with a scarf spilling out. I rifle through the bag but can’t see my favourite black bobble hat.
‘Get a move on,’ Kane growls.
What the heck. I’ll look later. I hitch my handbag further up my shoulder, hook the Aldi bag over my arm and catch up with Kat, waiting behind Barbara’s chair at the entrance. We wave to Violet, who turns away and doesn’t wave back, and Kane leads us out of the bay, pushing Barbara through the double doors and then weaving through the ward to the main doors into the corridor.
‘Slow down, babe,’ Jodie says, grabbing hold of Kane’s arm. ‘We can’t keep up. Penny can’t walk very fast.’
Kane powers ahead, like he’s in some kind of race, and I don’t have a chance. Kat and Jodie might have a little more fitness than me, but they’re huffing and puffing, faces paler than ever in the harsh overhead lights of the long hallway. I stop for a moment and bend over, gasping.
Kane skids the chair to a stop and scowls around at us. ‘Look. Van’s on yellow lines,’ he says in tones stuffed with anger and tension. ‘Had to park somewhere close and those disabled bays were all full up.’
He sounds outraged at those disabled bays all being full up, as if those annoying disabled people have no right to fill them up when someone important like him needs the space.
Jodie’s shoulders stiffen and Kat lays a hand on her arm. ‘Look, Kane, okay. You go at your pace and we’ll catch you up, okay? You take Barbara to the van and get her in, you can do that, right?’
Kane looks at Barbara, tiny and bony and lost in her blankets, and flexes his muscles. ‘What d’you think?’
He takes off towards the main entrance. Barbara squeals and then shouts, ‘Faster!’
Kat takes my arm and Jodie comes round the other side of me and takes the other. ‘Slowly does it, Penny. Slow and steady.’
We’re near the entrance when I feel a cautious tap on my shoulder. I whirl around, catching a blurry glimpse of a woman ina turquoise hijab and a big blue puffy coat, standing behind me with her hands clasped together.
