Page 67 of The Flowers of Bay C
‘We will,’ Kat whispers.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘Nothing,’ Jodie says. ‘Just helping Barbara.’
‘Well, will you hurry up? You asked me to do this, so show some gratitude and get on with it.’
We settle Barbara onto her seat and cross the tattered belt over her body gently, then tuck the blankets around her. She looks as lost in her seat as she does in her wheelchair and her hospital bed, a tiny white-haired bird, all of her pale and white against a sea of 1980s bus-seat cover, all violent geometric reds and blues and oranges fighting with one another for space.
Jodie clicks the belt into the buckle and draws back. ‘Right.’
‘You ready, then?’ Kane’s voice is all irritation barely smothered, like a pressure cooker about to burst its lid open.
‘Just need to get us belted in, now,’ Kat says. ‘Give us a minute.’
He drums his fingers on the steering wheel, blowing out his cheeks.
We draw our seatbelts across with meticulous languidness. Kat’s seatbelt seems to stick repeatedly. ‘Oh dear,’ she says, winking at me as she pulls the belt across her over and over again and then yanks it hard. ‘I think this one’s broken. Give me a minute while I try that one.’
I laugh under my breath as Kane slams his fist on the window.
In the end we can’t procrastinate any longer.
‘Finally,’ Kane hisses, turning over the engine. It sounds like a tractor and I wonder if it moves like one. He pulls out towards the entrance, and curses again as a taxi pulls in front of him. He leanson the horn and lifts his hands as the taxi driver leans out of his window and scowls at him. ‘Will you get out my way?’ Kane shouts, but the taxi driver doesn’t get out of his way. He sits there with engine idling, ignoring Kane’s increasingly frenzied yells.
Jodie looks at Kat, who is grinning away to herself in the corner. ‘What? You been praying or something? To slow us down?’
Kat smiles wider.
‘They’re taking ages,’ I say.
Kane slams the wheel.
‘Look!’ Jodie says, pointing to the entrance, where Amina is rushing through the doors, her bright clothing glinting in the daylight. Behind her is Violet, stumbling along with her walking frame, dressed in a huge puffy silver jacket zipped up over the Dressing Gown of Doom. Jodie’s face lights with glee. ‘Wonder if Brian has one of those, an’ all.’
Kat gives me a sideways glance and I laugh out loud at the hideous incongruousness of Violet’s get-up. Her full-length dressing gown, poking out of the silver coat like a bad onesie that forgot its legs, garish lace details at the cuffs and a zip from top to bottom. A toilet tent, that’s what Jodie had called it.
Jodie drags the door open and screeches over at them. ‘Over here! Violet! Amina!’
Kane slams the dashboard.
They bring a violent wind in with them, with Amina’s rippling hijab and the hideous gown, and they bring more laughter too. Violet is bright and glowing and has a face full of garish make-up, all smudged bright blue eyeshadow and a slash of scarlet lipstick, blusher that looks like a clown got a bit wasted; one hand grasping her walking frame, one arm threaded through Amina’s, the mouth that is usually turned down drawn back in a wide grin, showing wonky, yellowing teeth.
Jodie says, ‘You look like the love-child of an astronaut and a pair of seventies curtains.’
Violet doesn’t stop grinning.
Jodie helps Violet up and lifts the walker in, stowing it next to the wheelchair.
‘She came back for me.’ Violet hacks and pants, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she sinks down into one of the seats. ‘There she was, in that funny headscarf thing, running into the bay. Thought I was hallucinating, but it was her.’
Amina squeezes in next to her and I wonder if she is offended by Violet’s careless use of language. But she leans into Violet’s shoulder and grins. ‘Sorry we took a while. Madam here had to prepare herself to be the belle of the ball.’
I think that Violet has tears in her eyes. ‘She came back for me.’
‘Well, I was not going to leave you, was I?’
Violet swallows. ‘She said I had to come. So I did.’
