Oh Dear Silvia (17 page)

Look at Silvia’s hands. Beautiful hands, everyone always says, and also Cassie’s hands. Same-shaped fingers, same nails, same ivory skin, freckled and pale. Now, though, there is bruising on Silvia’s skin, where needles have been for blood tests and so on, but Cassie can still see the traces of the hands she knows so well. She has held those hands in hers. She has put her small hand in her mother’s identical but much bigger hand, to cross a road, or to grasp when getting her BCG injection. Those hands have smoothed her hair when her brother hid her favourite blankie, and she sobbed for three hours.

Cassie even relishes that those hands have whipped her pants down and slapped her bare bottom on a park bench in front of everyone when she was particularly obnoxious. A resounding, cupped smack which left a red welt for a day. Those hands did that. They were instrumental in Cassie learning right from wrong.

They are also the hands that waved her away dismissively four years ago, just when she wanted to hold them so badly,
but Cassie tries to reject that memory. She looks at those hands lying so still by her side on the bed. They appear to be sculpted, so elegant and shapely are they. Cassie can see the dent where her mother’s wedding ring used to be. A dent that may never disappear. Silvia cannot ever deny her family totally whilst she is marked thus. The groove in her skin is the evidence and the history. Maybe Silvia feels exactly that, dented, by having a family.

Cassie wonders if that was the problem? Did having a husband and two kids slow her up or cramp her freestyle somehow? Did she feel that she had consigned her youth to an ugly, slow death? Or did she feel that her exuberance was being extinguished? Or something like that?

Cassie’s head hurts from mulling over the many machinations of her mother’s possible thinking. She is exhausted from years of investigating what
might
be going on. Just one solid reason, however upsetting or personal, would help to end the tortuous conjecture. She has even, in massively insecure moments, imagined that her mother’s rejection is due to the colour of Cassie’s hair.

Yes, really.

Red, like Mum. Maybe Mum doesn’t like the red, despite her endless claims that it makes her ‘individual’ and ‘exotic’. Maybe all that is a sham and Silvia caved in, somewhere along the line, under all the teasing and criticism and shamelessly cruel jibes she must have experienced along the way. Cassie is sure
Silvia would have had all that, because
she
certainly has, and she is much younger and her generation should surely know better. They don’t. They think it’s OK to make hair a reason to dislike someone. How is that acceptable in any way? Cassie has found a way to fake joining in or even to initiate the scourge herself so as to seem at home with all the taunting. She is a modern-day Cyrano de Bergerac when it comes to insults about red hair. She knows them
all
. She has even made up some herself to add to her painful repertoire, a favourite being ‘I’m as red as a sore fanny’. That seems to shut folk up.

Willow is red too. She is a small bristling burning bush with bright flamey hair. She is more like Silvia than even Cassie is. All of them are connected but Willow is denied the belonging, just as Cassie is now. Looking at Silvia so lumpen in the bed, Cassie realizes that, unless she can find a way through her hurt quickly, Willow may never meet her grandmother. Cassie knows that this is an acknowledgement to herself of just how critical the situation is.

Silvia might just die. This could be it.

Is she, the spurned daughter, strong enough to build a bridge, on her own, at this very moment? It could be a bridge that doesn’t go anywhere. Is it still a bridge if you start building one end but the other end doesn’t join on to anything? How unstable would that be? Cassie isn’t sure she is strong enough to withstand the familiar toppling effect of no reciprocation, but at least this time it would be for a concrete, tangible
reason. Silvia is wholly incapable of participating. It’s not, for once, that she won’t. It’s that she can’t.

Cassie leans in close to her mother’s face. She can see the open pores of the pasty skin on her nose and forehead. Cassie is thinking so loudly, she feels sure her mother can hear.

She thinks, ‘Are you, in effect, dead? And if you were, would I miss you? Not really, I don’t think. You don’t love me, do you? No. Haven’t for years. I’ve learned how to unlove you back. First of all, you feel the cold then you actually get cold, then you freeze, that’s how it works. So there, you dead … woman.’

Cassie’s mobile strikes up the
Mission: Impossible
ringtone. This means Ben’s phone is calling hers. Which means it is probably Willow, who loves to pretend to be grown-up by using her dad’s phone to call her mum.

‘Hello? Oh, hello darling. Yes, of course it’s Mummy. Why? Oh, it’s just because I haven’t been talking much today, so my voice is probably a bit growly, that’s all … what, sorry? Oh, well, I’m … in a room with a silly old lady who’s just being … silly. Yes, I’m coming home now sweetheart. I’ll be there in time for lunch, yes. Cupcakes for lunch? Oh, OK. Yes. We’ll make them as soon as I get there. Banana ones. With noses. In about five hundred and thirty-two counts, OK? Start now. One Mr Octopus, two Mr Octopus, three Mr Octopus …’

And Cassie, who loves her daughter, and wants to be with her more than being anywhere else, leaves the room without a backward glance.

Tuesday 2pm

‘… and then the big fat sisters come on and she says hi, my name is this name, and her name is that name, and we got bad nylon hoodie tops, and now we singin the big Robin Williams song about the angel with all high bits and low bits so wrong, that Simon Cowhead put his hand up beggin for stop. Why not? It his show. He can stop anytime it hurtin his earlobes. Then he says please go home and do another different job for hell’s sake please. Then the big yellow hair one punches the other no teeth one in the face, givin her all blame for it bein soundin bad. Just bang like that, right in her nose face to make all blood come out like a river. My two boys laughin and laughin ’til they nearly do a wee, fall on the carpet, then stand up and one acts like the yellow hair, and one acts like the no teeth, and they do it all again! Then, I am laughing all the time
till tiny wee comes out. But husband man, he not laughin now at nothing. Nothin. He just stare at telly, and eat curry.

‘Two weeks ago he is laughin sometimes usually at wrong stuff, but least he is laughin a small bit. Now he gone all quiet, no speakin, no lookin in your eyes, just telly watchin and has a face what seen a sad ghost on it. My boys stayin out a lot. They don’t like him to see like that. Not like their dad. Like dad who they knew him before, long days ago, but now gone, like they dreamed him. And they stop the friends comin back home now. They stop that. Don’t like for friends to see the daddy all sad and staring.

‘The doctor come over for see husband again last week. His name spell J-E-S-S but my boys says it say “JIZZ”. Dr Jizz. He very kind good man, and he say husband need talking medicine where a head doctor talk at him and tell him how to get happy. He say two ways to do it. First is get it at hospital, wait for six months, or get it at private, do it now. I take do it now, cos husband too sad to wait. And Tia too sad to watch him. But, Mrs Shit, listen up this. It costing Tia eighty pound for each go. Tia laughin when head doctor tellin this money. What?! For talking?! Tia can do that, won’t cost even ten pound each time, but this head doctor got an exam at uni so she gets to be a lotta money.’

Tia shuffles in her seat. She has something to say. It’s not easy.

‘That a lotta money. Eighty pound for one hour of talkin. But the talkin gonna maybe fix husband’s head where he sad. Human health is biological and mental, Dr Jizz says. So it worth it. But Mrs Shit, eighty pound. So. OK. Here the deal, OK? Mrs Shit is still owin Tia for this mornin workin at your house. About thirty-six pounds is stolen by you from Tia. So. With that money comin from this week, should make nearly eighty pound. So. Tia look around Mrs Shit house to see what can sell on eBay about eighty pound.

‘That a good way to do it because Mrs Shit get rid of “clutter” as well. Clutter evil and get dust on, so good if it goes. So. Tia find a little box under Miss Cat side of bed. Just a little nothin box of wood with metal bits on. I seen some like it in a shop called The Pier in town. Got lots of stuff, all come from near me in Jakarta. One wood box at home, maybe about fifteen pee. Here, seventy pound. Crazy. I can get you better one when I go home. Bigger. The box have all little plastic bags with flour in. Miss Cat forgot it there. Maybe long time. So Tia chuck away the flour and can sell box on eBay, waitin to see who buys. Maybe some nice bitch or good-lookin ballsack might see and like for present? Or for keep rings in? Or pins? Or keys? Would be nice. Very nice. I tell you when it sell good.

‘Anyway, hey, some good news for you to put in ears, Katy Perry and Russell Grant split at last! Not good news for
marrieds, but good for Katy because Russell Grant a dirty randy wanker my boys say, so she better goin home to the parents who is Christian good people. And David Beckham get voted number one for sexiest man on planet. Hmm. OK, but for me it would be John Nettles. Who would you have? Probably Pat Butcher I think … ?’

Wednesday 10am

Jo is in full voice, and horrifically off-key.

‘… Birthday, dear Silvia, Happy Birthday to yooooo!’

She is holding a bright pink shop-bought Miss Piggy cake with a single candle sticking straight up out of the very pink snout. There is a number crudely scrawled over Miss Piggy’s forehead. ‘60!’ Jo has very obviously added this herself with a blue icing pen.

‘Make a wish darling. I know what mine would be. But it’s not my birthday. Come on, Sissy, summon everything you’ve got. And … blow!’

Jo forms a blowing mouth as if she is expecting Silvia to imitate her, like you do for a small child. Whilst Silvia has been captive and incapacitated, Jo has thought of her as she did when they were kids, as very definitely her younger sister. The baby sister. Something about Silvia being sick and in bed has
further confirmed this historic sibling dynamic, and Jo has demonstrated her need to infantilize Silvia over and over again. Jo’s needs are many. The overriding one is the desperate longing to be looked up to. Whilst Silvia is out for the count, Jo can freely fantasize about being the capable elder sister. She blows the candle out.

‘There! All gone!’

Winnie and some of the other nurses on duty are watching this charade through the internal window. Winnie sucks her teeth in ongoing disbelief at Jo’s loud and inappropriate choices.

But worse is to come, as Jo takes a deep cigarette-husky breath and launches into a rousing chorus of, ‘For she’s a jolly good fellow,’ for far too long, ending with an eardrum-wrecking final line of, ‘And sooo say aaall of uuss …’

The noise is beyond horrible. Jo has never been, and will never be, able to sing. She was the kid who was asked to mime at the school speech-day church service. Not only does she lack any tuning as such, she also has no idea about volume control, so all her glaring mistakes are delivered at full throttle. There is no danger of missing them.

The nurses can hear it all through the thick walls of Suite 5, unfortunately for them, and when it is over, they are tangibly relieved and glad to busy themselves with anything other than Silvia for a moment.

Although Jo didn’t organize it this way, it works perfectly
for her that they are all so distracted, for Jo has a plan. Today, on her sister’s sixtieth birthday, Jo is going to present her pièce de résistance, her biggest shot yet at waking her poorly sister up. Jo has brought Sgt Craig Lawrence to the hospital.

Craig is sitting next to the nurses’ station, on a plastic chair, in a row of four empty chairs where many many anxious people have perched on the edge, waiting for news of beloveds. Plastic chairs infused with raw dread. Craig is twenty-six and his new uniform is chafing him somewhat. Although he knows he must appear composed, he is anything but. All of this is new to him, in fact, and he is desperate to impress. He is of average height and quite stocky, a man who pays attention to his personal grooming, a metrosexual man, no stranger to a five-blade razor and an expensive moisturizer. His face is tight with squeaky-cleanliness and his dark blond with subtle highlights hair is combed neatly and gelled. His sergeant’s hat is nestled in the crook of his arm. He has been told on many occasions that he is handsome, and he can’t resist believing it. He has pleasing symmetrical features and large blue eyes, a tribute to both his Scottish and Scandinavian parents.

This is his first visit to a hospital as part of his job and he is sweating profusely. He repeatedly wipes his brow and upper lip. He hopes it is discreet. Policemen aren’t supposed to appear nervous. Policemen are in charge. Apparently.

The trolley lady stops on her way past him, and offers him a cup of tea. She doesn’t do this typically, and he is acutely
aware of that. It’s the uniform. It elicits respect and a strange form of gratitude. Perhaps a passing policeman has helped the trolley lady in the past, or delivered her drunken grandson home in the back of his police car from a city-centre brawl, or winked at her when she broke ranks and crossed the street during the May Day carnival? Perhaps. Or maybe she simply remembers the old days when she was young and the mere sight of a bobby patrolling the street made you feel safe.

Whatever it is, she has stopped and given him a cuppa with a shop-brand rich tea biscuit on the side to boot, and as a result he feels a tiny bit important. He likes feeling important. It doesn’t happen often. Actually, it doesn’t happen ever …

Craig has heard the caterwauling from Jo inside Suite 5 and knows that in a moment she will pop out to collect him. He swallows his tepid tea in one gulp and tugs his jacket down to prepare.

Jo is busy scoffing a slice of the Miss Piggy cake and licking her fingers. She is using one of the thick grey paper bowls that are stacked on the shelf above Silvia’s monitor, as a plate. Why they are there, she doesn’t know. Is it to do with weeing or puking? she wonders. In which case, they are superfluous since Silvia can do neither unassisted. She describes the cake taste so that Silvia might derive a vicarious pleasure from it.