Cheryl kept checking the time, her nerves about to snap. Had they forgotten her? She couldn’t stay still any longer; she fetched Milo and went outside to the smoking shelter. She lit a cigarette, the first drag making her dizzy, the second a buzz of relief. The rest tasted foul, her mouth was dry and chalky. She had some of Milo’s juice. Milo walked along the yellow lines of the ambulance bay, humming to himself.
‘You a car, Milo?’
‘Car,’ he agreed, then ‘Tacta.’
‘Tractor.’
She’d have to stop smoking. But not yet. Not today. Not with everything going on. She heard a siren woo-wooing and called Milo closer. Finished her cigarette and took him in as the ambulance pulled up. She didn’t want him to see anything scary. Didn’t want to see it herself.
Another half-hour. Milo was getting bored and Cheryl was about to ring Joe, and tell him she was stuck at the hospital, when they called her name. The doctor checked out who she was and asked her a few questions about Nana and how she had been over the last couple of weeks.
‘Not sleeping well, tired, she thought it was the anaemia,’ Cheryl said. ‘And feeling a bit sick.’
‘And her appetite?’
‘She isn’t eating much. What’s wrong with her?’ Cheryl should have seen it, got help. Nana was sick and Cheryl had just let her carry on instead of asking her to go back to the doctor.
‘Those symptoms may have been side effects.’
‘Side effects?’ Cheryl couldn’t keep up. Milo wriggled off her lap and climbed into his buggy. She should’ve brought some toys for him, some books.
‘She was on new medication.’ Cheryl didn’t even know that, Nana never talked much about these things.
‘We’ve admitted your grandmother for assessment; we think this episode may have been a cerebral haemorrhage, a bleed in the brain. There are a number of tests we’re doing now to best assess her treatment, starting with a scan.’ Cheryl nodded, bleed, brain echoing in her head. She felt panic beating against her ribs.
‘Can I see her?’
‘I’ll check for you. I’m not sure whether she’s on the ward yet.’
Cheryl waited while the doctor rang someone up. Milo had taken his shoes and socks off. Cheryl put them in his change bag – she couldn’t face wrestling with him now.
‘They’ll ring back down,’ the doctor said. ‘Shouldn’t be long.’
Cheryl sat, the minutes scraping by. She gave Milo his raisins. Then, ‘You can go up now,’ the doctor said. ‘Medical Assessment Unit in the orange zone. Head left out of here and follow the signs.’ He made it sound easy but Cheryl took a wrong turn somewhere and had to retrace her steps. She thought of the lie she’d told Vinia – saying she was here when she’d been to the police station. Was this punishment for that lie? Nana sick, blood in her brain. But people got better, didn’t they? It was like a stroke: they did rehab and had to learn how to walk and talk again.
She had to use a buzzer to get on the ward. There were signs everywhere about germs and gel dispensers every few feet. Cheryl did her hands but Milo refused. At the desk Cheryl waited for the nurse, who was typing away. When she was done she stared at Cheryl, no smile. ‘Yes?’
‘Theodora Williamson,’ said Cheryl. She could see Nana’s name up on the whiteboard behind the desk.
‘Are you a relation?’
‘Yes, her granddaughter.’
The nurse nodded. ‘Room C, just there,’ she said. ‘And if you can keep the little boy quiet.’ Milo was singing softly to himself. Cheryl turned away, a flame of anger in her throat, her hands shaking.
There were four beds, curtains drawn round two, one empty and Nana by the window. She looked the same, eyes closed, but there was a mask over her nose, a tube leading from it to behind the bed. Cheryl guessed it was oxygen. She wheeled the buggy to the foot of the bed. Left Milo there and edged round to the chair at the bedside.
‘Night night,’ said Milo.
Cheryl took Nana’s hand. It was cool and light, the bones frail as a bird’s. Did you talk to people who’d had a brain haemorrhage? Was it like a coma where they could still hear you? Cheryl wanted Nana to wake up and smile. Or to snap at her, ‘I ain’t need no audience, child.’ And sort out getting herself home.
‘Nana?’ said Cheryl.
Milo giggled.
Cheryl’s phone rang, the ring tone – a sample from one of Jeri’s remixes – startlingly loud and punchy in the room. Cheryl jumped and pressed the screen. It was Joe Kitson.
‘Cheryl, where are you?’ The signal was poor, his voice breaking up.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
The nurse appeared in the doorway. ‘No mobiles,’ she snapped.
‘It’s just-’ Cheryl began.
‘They interfere with the equipment. You need to switch it off now.’
‘Well, where?’
‘You’ll have to take it outside.’
She’d lost the connection anyway. It was quarter past nine. She should be on her way to the crèche. Tears pressed at the back of her eyes.
‘Nana, I have to go now. I’ll be back later.’ It wasn’t enough. ‘I’ll pray for you, Nana, shall we pray?’ Cheryl closed her eyes, bent closer. ‘Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…’
When she had finished the prayer she kissed Nana on the forehead, smelt a trace of bay and rosemary from her hair oil. Nana mixed it up every few weeks, had her own recipe. Cheryl preferred hers over the counter.
‘Cheryl, where are you?’ Joe sounded worried.
‘At the hospital. My nana – she collapsed. Could be her brain.’
‘God, I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘How is she?’
‘She’s unconscious. They have to do a scan.’ She didn’t know what else to say. She watched three lads leave the building. One had a fresh white plaster cast on his leg; another had his arm strapped up. She wondered what had happened, a car crash? A fight? ‘I should be here,’ she said.
‘When’s the scan?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Cheryl, I’m sorry but I have to ask you to do this. We only get one chance.’
‘But how long-’ Her chest felt crushed, her breath thick.
‘I don’t know. It won’t be all day, I’m pretty sure of that.’
‘When she wakes up-’
‘Please. I can come and get you now.’
A pigeon landed close by and pecked at the floor. Milo clapped at it and yelled with delight when it flew off.
Nana in the bed, still and small and her face all wrinkled. Every line a story. That’s what she used to say when Cheryl tried to tempt her with anti-age creams and that. Nana in the bed. And Danny laughing with Cheryl about church, flushing at her interest when he talked about the gig at Night and Day. Danny on the screen, singing like a dream, trying to moonwalk, laughing. The life in him!
‘Cheryl, are you there?’
Nana furious at people for not speaking out: like a new set of chains, slaves to fear. ‘Yes,’ said Cheryl, ‘I’m here.’
Unlike the first time that she’d left him at the crèche, Milo was clingy, wailing when she tried to put him down then grabbing her leg and burying his face in it and sobbing.
‘You go,’ the crèche worker said, smiling: she must have seen it all before.
Cheryl stalled.
‘He’ll be fine,’ the woman said. Cheryl nodded, biting her lip, her nose tingling. The worker picked Milo up and turned away with him, ignoring his outstretched arms. ‘Mummy’s coming back soon; we’ll have a look at the toys over here.’
‘He loves dogs,’ Cheryl called after her, sniffing.
Joe smiled and thanked her again as she got back into the car. But the way his fingers tapped at the wheel as they waited for the lights to change showed he was stressed too. It was almost quarter past ten.