Bad Little Girl(25)

The policeman gave them a friendly wave goodbye.



* * *



Claire drove to the hospital, grim-faced, while Norma looked defiantly out of the window. The bruise on her face had grown, spreading blood-coloured tendrils over her nose, under her eyes, and seeping below the uncharacteristically dishevelled hair at her temples.

‘Don’t be severe, Claire,’ she muttered.

‘I’m not. I’m just worried.’

‘And it’s because you were worried that I made the appointment and went down there. God knows why. It’s only a cough.’

‘You couldn’t catch your breath and ended up wrecking the car!’

‘Oh. The car. It’s insured.’

‘Mother, I don’t care about the car! I care about you! You couldn’t breathe.’

‘I coughed and some air went down the wrong way, that’s all.’

Claire tightened her hands on the steering wheel. ‘When we get to the hospital, I want you to tell them about your cough. About how bad it’s got. If you don’t tell them, I will.’

‘Oh don’t be so melodramatic. I’ll tell you what they’ll say: “Mrs Penny, you’re of a certain age”,’ Norma’s voice cranked itself up into an exaggerated imitation of the local accent. ‘“Ladies your age should expect to have to slow down.” And they’ll say, “Wake up call” and “Pace yourself” and various other Americanisms.’

‘Mother—’

‘Oh all right, Claire. Yes. Enough.’

Norma was frightened, Claire could see that. She was frightened herself.



* * *



A and E was mercifully quiet, and they were seen within the hour. A young doctor with tired eyes and cold hands probed Norma’s cheek, asked about headaches, dizziness and nausea, and eventually gave her a cold compress and a couple of paracetamol. Norma looked over his head at Claire and smirked. She was about to get up and put her coat on when he said:

‘I’ve noticed your breathing is a little laboured.’

Norma reddened. ‘Yes, I have a cold.’

‘How long for?’

Norma hesitated; looked at Claire. ‘Not too long.’

‘She’s had a cough on and off for ages. The doctor gave her an aspirator.’ Claire avoided looking at Norma.

‘Do you use it? The aspirator?’

‘When I need to.’ Norma was all dignity. ‘Which is very, very rarely.’

Claire took a deep breath. ‘She was coughing and that’s how she lost control of the car.’

Norma shot her a look of betrayal.

‘I want to listen to your chest,’ murmured the doctor.

‘Why?’ Norma’s voice sounded strangled, and Claire knew she was trying not to cough.

‘Just to see if it’s in your lungs yet. We might be able to give you antibiotics. Clear it up.’

‘My doctor said it was viral.’

‘And he’s probably right. But let me listen anyway.’

Norma pursed her lips and swallowed, but couldn’t choke down the cough, which spluttered out over her clasped hands. She gasped, and coughed again, open-mouthed this time. Red-flecked mucus stained her hanky. She kept coughing, and the stains spread, grew darker. Claire stared at Norma, looked at the doctor, who gave a small, sorrowful smile.

‘I’ll get you down to x-ray.’



* * *



Later that night, when she couldn’t sleep, Claire’s mind returned to the day. Norma, bewildered and angry. At herself. At Claire. The fresh, livid bruise, the blood-stained hanky; the old, tired eyes of the very young doctor. And what she tried hardest to forget was what stayed with her all the time. The inevitable result of the chest x-ray; Norma’s gasp as the biopsy needle slid into her flesh. The soft words in incongruous settings. The shocked cup of tea in the hospital café – The Spice of Life, it was called. She remembered the journey back home, wordless, putting Norma to bed and later that night, checking on her and seeing that she’d been crying.



* * *



Claire compliantly took the leaflets on cancer, and the web address of a carers’ support group. She negotiated working part-time ‘for the present’, and James nodded sagely.

‘We’ll-do-all-we-can-to-support-you-in-this-difficult-time,’ he said.

She was about to ask him to keep an eye on Lorna, but stopped herself. Instead she told him she’d pop in tomorrow to meet the cover teacher and brief her on the class.

‘Is that really necessary, Claire?’ James was amused. ‘We can get on without you for a while, you know.’

She spent the next few days arranging to let her own flat, and moving in some things to Norma’s house, taking her childhood bedroom, the shelves still holding souvenirs from long-ago seaside holidays. Every year they’d gone to Cornwall, to stay with cantankerous Aunt Tess, and Claire would spend happy hours on the scrubby little beach collecting stones, filling her pockets with seashells.

On days when Norma could sleep easily, Claire curled under her eiderdown, reading Famous Five books, sometimes two a day. These frolicsome, adventurous children, safe in their cocoon of perpetual summer bike-rides, lulling rivers and loyal pets . . . And she thought about Lorna, how brave and sweet she was and the terrible things that might be happening to her, even right now. It wasn’t fair. Nothing was fair. She thought about calling social services, or calling nice PC Jones and asking, casually, about Pete Marshall: had he shown up on their radar recently? But it was a silly idea and she knew it. As if they’d take her seriously enough to give her information – private information – when she hadn’t made a formal complaint. Her mind meandered around in messy circles, and the thoughts became knots, spiked burrs, that tormented her.