up about half past ten. Darren had picked up the children as arranged and Neil had jumped in the car the minute they’d gone. He was just in time to see Barbara’s third session of dry-heaving. Just the smell of the toast had set her off and she’d not had much peace from it since.
‘Oh, love,’ he said, bending down to hold her shoulders as she shuddered over the paper bowl. ‘That’s it, that’s it, there you go.’
When it was done, she fell back on his arm and let him lower her down to the propped-up pillows. A thread of spit trailed from the corner of her mouth, and she was too exhausted this time to even take a sip of water.
‘It’s the anaesthetic,’ Helen told him. ‘The nurse says it should pass in twenty-four hours.’
Neil grilled her for more information that she didn’t have. The consultants hadn’t done their rounds yet and it was pretty obvious that Barbara wasn’t really in a state to take anything on board anyway. Helen really wanted to ask him about Darren and the kids, but he brushed off her first attempt, telling her they’d both slept like troopers and gone off happily this morning – Darren was taking them to some soft play centre apparently. She didn’t want to seem uncaring, focusing on her own children rather than on Barbara, so she bit her tongue.
It was a shock for Neil to see his wife looking so fragile, Helen could tell. Having been there since Barbara woke up, she’d had more of a chance to get used to it. If anything, Helen felt there was perhaps a little bit of colour coming back to her cheeks – when she wasn’t throwing up, obviously. But Neil looked dismayed, and even as Helen filled him in on what time Barbara had woken up and what the nurse had said, she could see his wide eyes darting back to the bed, taking in every detail.
Eventually, Barbara opened her eyes, smiled at him, and gestured for the water.
‘You never could keep away,’ she whispered.
‘Of course not. Oh, Barbara …’ he bent to kiss her cheek, ‘… you’re looking wonderful, love. You’re going to be out of here in no time.’ He said it fiercely, as if he could wish it hard enough to make it true. Helen couldn’t meet his eye, but she saw that Barbara did. She wanted to be happy for her mother – for them both – but all she could think of was that Darren wouldn’t be there to say that if it was her.
They made some desultory conversation about the weather and then about the two new families in Neil and Barbara’s street and the building work they were planning. Barbara could nod, or make the occasional comment, and Helen and Neil felt like they were entertaining her. After a while, the trolley came round with some pasta and tomato sauce – nominally this was lunchtime – and Barbara managed not to be sick, although she asked them to swap it for toast. A little later, she even ate a few mouthfuls.
‘We could bring you something in,’ offered Neil. ‘Some nice biscuits, or a jam sandwich? Those cheesy crackers? What would tickle your fancy?’
Barbara looked a little green.
‘I think she just needs a day or so to recover her appetite,’ Helen said. ‘We’ll have plenty of time to bring stuff in.
‘Shouldn’t you be getting back to the children?’ Barbara asked, probably just to try to change the subject away from food.
‘Darren’s taking them out for the day. To be honest, though,’ Helen said, taking her opportunity, ‘I could really do with a shower. Do you both mind if I—’
‘No, no, no,’ her parents flustered in unison. ‘You get home, love,’ continued Neil. ‘Get a bit of kip if you can – it’ll do you good.’
*
In the bathroom, she saw Barbara’s cake of Chanel No. 5 soap sitting on the windowsill. It was carefully placed on a folded flannel, drying in the sunshine so that she could rewrap it in its embossed tissue paper and slip it back inside the plastic soapbox and then its cardboard box; but she must never have gotten round to completing the task. The sight of it caught Helen off-guard; she’d forgotten all about that little ritual of her mother’s.
She didn’t have to pick up the soap to smell it; the perfume still hung heavy in the warm, close air. Gulping it down as her breathing turned ragged and the tears came, somehow the scent had thawed the numbness that had consumed her in the hospital.
There was no point in trying to stop it – Helen let her crying keen out unchecked through the empty house. The ugly, screeching noises seemed to scratch at the walls like trapped wild beasts. In some distant, unmoved part of her mind, she registered mild surprise that she could sound like that. Then she carried on anyway.
The shame of it was that the crying wasn’t for Barbara, or even for Neil, though that was part of it. She was crying for herself; for the loss of her mother, for the sort of mother she’d never had in the first place, for the family that was slipping away from her. She’d never bargained for this. She didn’t deserve it. She wailed, like Alys might, simply because it wasn’t fair.
The shower helped, though, and once she was calmer, there was some small comfort to be had in being able to take time to dry her hair properly, to smooth on some body lotion and file her nails, but she was constantly remembering that the time was hers only because Barney and Alys were with Darren. She tormented herself with the thought of what a wonderful time they would be having, of them not wanting to come back, and, worst of all, of the inevitable moment in the future when Darren would insist on them meeting her. Whilst she could just about stomach the thought of the kids being happy in the company of their father, she felt very different when she pictured a perfect, nuclear family unit that she wasn’t part of.
Gradually, the thoughts took on a relentless, tinnitus-like quality, thrumming incessantly through her over-weary mind. She tried to take a nap but was too strung out to sleep; then she picked up her novel, but put it down again after reading the same paragraph three times.
Barbara and Neil still had a VHS player. Eventually, Helen put on a second pair of socks, retrieved a pack of custard creams from the kitchen and looked on the shelf for her old copy of Dirty Dancing. She had to blow the dust off the case before she opened it. It felt surreal, putting on a film (and not a cartoon) in the middle of the day, with the sunlight streaming in the window, but she just prayed that her teenage favourite would give her racing mind a break.
The custard creams were finished before Johnny and Baby even got to the watermelons. It worked as well as Helen could have hoped, suppressing the thrumming of worries in her mind.
Then the call came from Neil.
‘Helen?’
‘Yes?’
‘It’s your mum – you’ve got to come quickly.’ The panic was clear in his voice.
‘What is it?’
‘She’s being sick—’
She felt her shoulders relax a fraction and jumped to reassure him.
‘They said it was the anaesthetic, Dad. I think it’s normal, for some people anyway. Have you spoken to a nurse?’
‘It’s not normal, Helen, she’s bringing up blood. They’re talking about intensive care. You need to just get here.’
‘I’m coming.’
It was a fifteen-minute drive to the hospital, but
