Page 98 of The Flowers of Bay C
Cal leans through the door, grinning, but there’s an edge of worry in the lines that crease his eyes. ‘Right. Let’s get your friend here in first.’ He lifts Barbara tenderly, gathering up her oxygen cylinder and tubing, sliding her into the first wheelchair. ‘And you.’ He points to Violet.
‘Oh, I can walk,’ she says. ‘I have my frame. Let Jodie go in the chair.’
Amina looks at Violet with something like admiration written across her face.
Kat takes my arm and Amina takes Violet’s as we clamber down from the bus and follow the two wheelchairs into the building.Jodie is slouched low, her Santa hat all askew, her face paler still under the stark criss-crossed tile lighting of the hallway, her bare feet sticking out from beneath the picnic rug. We bring the snow in with us, trailing it from our various footwear. I smile at Violet, incongruous in Jodie’s Ugg boots under her garish dressing gown and her silver coat, clinging tightly to her walking frame, her make-up smeared all around her face.
The corridor is a confusion of echoing footsteps and polished floors sliding into infinity. The respiratory ward is at the far end, past the lifts, past the stairs, past x-ray and outpatients, past Wards 1-8, past the Peace Garden where through the windows the snow cloaks the battered bench and sparkles through the late afternoon gloom.
The ward is busy with visitors and staff rushing to and fro. There’s an electric kind of energy in the air, an urgency of dread as tangible as the institutional aroma of dinner, a catering supervisor standing dead ahead of us with the food trolley as we turn into the ward.
A sharp intake of breath, a muffle of shouts, a scramble of legs. ‘They’re here. They’re safe. It’s okay. Tell the police.’
A shiver flutters through my belly. The police?
Then faces. Angry faces, scared faces, relieved faces, confused faces. And in the middle of all the faces is Jake, and his face is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.
‘Jake.’
He stands and stares at me and runs his hand through his hair. ‘Where the hell have you been?’
I put my arms around him and fall into him. He’s rigid for seconds then he softens and folds me in and it feels like home.
‘Just let me sit down.’ I stagger through to our bay and slump onto my bed. Cal lifts Barbara onto her bed and the porter helps Jodie to hers, and then Sister Joy is in the bay and her presence isstiff and foreboding, like Sister Harris on a grumpy day, like a headteacher in a room full of miscreants at detention.
Amina hovers in the doorway. ‘I will go to find Bilal. He will be worried. I… thank you. I will come and see you all, before I go.’
As she turns and leaves in a stream of tumbling turquoise, Violet gazes after her. I think her eyes are a little bit wet and wonder if she will mind that her tears will smudge her make-up even more.
‘Well, I hope there’s a good explanation for this,’ Sister Joy says.
None of us seem to be able to form the words we need. We collapse into our pillows, in our coats, sleeping bags, gloves, hats, blankets and all. I feel the warmth of the ward begin to sneak its way through to my skin, and hope it will find its way into my bones before they shatter to pieces.
Nicki is here, standing by Sister Joy, with a grim expression on her face and the vital signs trolley by her side. ‘I said you’d probably gone to the cinema. They do that, you know, patients, sometimes. Down to that multiplex. But they usually let us know.’
Brian stands next to Violet’s bed, wringing his hands and gazing down at her as if she is a priceless piece of art. He takes her all in, his eyes light with relief, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. ‘What are those monstrosities on your feet?’ he says.
‘Where have you been, Mum?’ Jake says, sitting down on my bed and glaring at me. ‘We’ve been here, like, nearly an hour or something.’
My mouth won’t form words.
He shakes his head at me, as if suddenly he is the parent and I am the child who needs to go on the naughty step and think about my behaviour. ‘They said they expected you back well over an hour ago. They’ve been looking for you, all round the hospital, like round the grounds and everything, they said you’d said you’d just gone for a walk.’
‘You won’t believe it,’ I rasp out, and then exhale slowly, gazing around the room. The new woman in Amina’s bed, Alice, lies cut off from the world, a mask clamped over her face, the machine’s roaring vibration cutting through our uneasy silence. Kat is on her bed with Nate on the chair beside her. She is bent right over, her head in her hands. Jodie curls into her sheets, a blanket draped over her cold bare feet.
‘What’s this thing doing on you?’ Sister Joy says, bustling over to Barbara and unzipping the sleeping bag. ‘Let’s get you out of it, get you settled back into bed, my darling. Are you okay? Are you cold?’
Barbara shakes her head. ‘Warm as toast, my lover.’
‘Wait… what is this? What on earth… Nicki! Get this animal off my ward!’ Sister Joy steps back away from Barbara, who grasps Snowy closely to her, a look of grim determination on her face.
‘You’re not taking him.’
Sister Joy frowns so deeply the lines merge into one great big fissure. ‘No pets on this ward. Hospital policy.’ Her voice softens. ‘Barbara. Give the cat to Nicki. Where on earth did it come from?’
‘The caravan,’ Barbara says.
‘What?’
