Oh Dear Silvia (4 page)

‘There. No dry left now. Thank you Tia. You’re welcome Mrs Shit, have a nice day. Now, what I got next? Oh, cock tosser –’

She takes off her coat and rummages around in the bags. She flits between them like a colourful busy hummingbird, singing Indonesian ditties under her breath, swearing and laughing at little incidental personal jokes. Tia has been taught to swear by her two sons who were born and grew up in England, and who amuse themselves by cajoling her into using utterly inappropriate language. She’s not stupid, she knows they are having a laugh at her expense, but she can’t be bothered to deduce exactly why, and frankly, she doesn’t care.

She’s a busy woman. She has two sons at expensive English
public schools, and an injured English husband at home. When he persuaded her to come and live with him in England fifteen years ago, he promised her father he would always look after her, in the manner to which she was accustomed. She was from a good family, her father was a textile merchant and sold beautiful cloth all around the world. The most prized silks in Jakarta. That’s what she wore. She still has some, but many of her more valuable possessions, including beautiful cloth and impressive jewellery, have been sold. When her husband injured his head, racing old bangers, he couldn’t return to work ever again. If he’d hurt himself at work, they might at least have earned some compensation but no, he was driving round and round at breakneck speed in highly dangerous cars. Nobody pays out if you do that. He’s been at home ever since.

Tia didn’t mind to begin with, she was determined to nurse him back to health. She felt sure she could do it by dint of food-love alone. Surely her hearty spicy broths would revive him, nourish him, and make him strong? Very quickly she realized that ‘husband’ wasn’t really ‘husband’ any more. He looked the same, but he definitely
wasn’t
the same person. He was like a tracing-paper drawing of the original husband. Fainter, wobblier, much more distant. His spirit was gone and many many heavy depressions set in. She watched him retreat into his leather lounger in front of afternoon telly, until he was indistinguishable from the chair. They were one item. He wasn’t unkind or ungrateful, he just wasn’t really there at all.

She is married to a living ghost.

That’s why the onus to earn fell on her so severely. That’s why ten years ago Silvia Shute and her family became very important. That’s why Silvia
must
stay alive. Silvia is almost single-handedly putting Tia’s boys through school. They are good, clever boys. They both have scholarships. But Tia still has to find the money for expensive uniforms and sports equipment.

Tia has to perform many duties for Mrs Shute that she doesn’t want to. She is a house-proud woman, it’s not that she is shy of hard work, it’s just that some of what Mrs Shute requires her to do is extremely personal. It’s hard to respect a person when you clean their toilet and wash their pants and see their sex toys in their bedroom drawers. Are you supposed to wash those? Tia doesn’t. One of them buzzed once. It scared her. In Indonesia other people would be doing chores for Tia, but she swallows her pride and gets on with it.

Not only does she push on, she does it with massively good cheer, believing that each new day brings a new chance of happiness, new hope. That’s how she gets through.

Every morning she sits at her dressing table and makes sure she looks glamorous. She wears a lot of make-up, using bright colours on her eyelids especially. She doesn’t understand why British women look so dour so much of the time. They don’t know they’re born, why don’t they try to bring a bit of cheer into their lives? Why choose to wear black and grey when
there is fuchsia and turquoise in the world? These are the vivid colours of living nature. Why choose the colours of decay and death? It doesn’t make any sense at all to Tia.

From her bright plastic bags, Tia brings out a clutch of magazines. She bought them at the garage, and although they have many different titles, they all seem to be the same, basically.

‘I bring you plenty news. I not sure where you gone, but I bet they got no news there. I’m thinking, if
I
was doin the dead sleeping, I would sure be thinking hey, what’s still goin on out where the world is? Someone, quick tell me! We love news, don’t we Mrs Shit? So here is …’

Tia settles down in the chair with a lapful of magazines. She is going to be here some time. She hums as she riffles through them, stopping every time she comes across a story she thinks Mrs Shute would be interested in.

‘Ah, OK, here first big one. “Jordon buying LA pad for eleven million!” Woo! She’s givin Peter Andre something to sock in the eye. But who will have kids? No one is telling us. Why not? They all lazy quim-suckers. Next big one is “I married my 28 stone stalker”. He he! Look at him! How he do the stalkin? How he follow anyone? He can’t hide in her bush, she see him pokin out there! And why she marry him anyway? Should just go out – have a drink, have a talk, have a movie. Not marry. Wanko.

‘Ah, this next one
very
big news. RichardanJudy. We love
RichardanJudy, don’t we Mrs Shit? She say no more TV for them, but now please, they just read books. That nice. Judy sit in her big bra readin the books, and Richard makin the coffee. Aw. She say “Oh Richard, I like this book … about a man … who does a thing” and he say “Yes Judy, and I like this other book about a girl who … does a thing … another thing then the end for everyone to be happy and learn a thing.” They very clever up here in the head Mrs Shit. Very clever, cos I read a book, but no one pay me.

‘Now, next story is … oh,
big
one Mrs Shit, big one, Cheryl Cole is got a tattoo what look like a spider … I love Cheryl Cole, she a proper nice bollockhead …’

Friday 2.30pm

‘Eh eh, yu haffi check wid de desk before you come in please. It just de rules. Nuttin personal. Syame for everyone.’

Winnie is ever so slightly barring the entrance to Silvia’s room. She wouldn’t be acting in such a brazenly obstructive manner if this visitor wasn’t quite so spiky.

‘I am a doctor, you are a nurse. Let me through please,’ says the visitor, her Irish brogue doing nothing to soften her tone.

‘Of course, soon as you sign de book, no problem.’

‘Please listen now, whilst I say it again. I am a doctor.’

‘Yes ma’am, mi know dat, but not at dis hospital.’

‘Oh, for feck’s sake …’

The visitor retreats and hurriedly, begrudgingly, signs the book at the nurses’ station, then bristles into the room, breathing heavily with frustration.

Catherine Mary Bernadette O’Brien is fighting feelings of
massive inadequacy in Suite 5. Why, she wonders, do hospitals always represent such a threat to her? This should be where she is at her keenest, completely en pointe. When she was a medical student, this is exactly what she imagined for herself. The cut and thrust of the hospital front line. The white-coated, hugely respected, stethoscope-round-neck, godlike authority of the hospital doctor. It is a much more special role than hers, she knows this, but it is only during visits to hospitals that she is reminded.

Somewhere along the line, and she now can’t remember exactly when, she made the less glamorous choice to be a GP. Perhaps the choice made her. Maybe she didn’t have the medical X-factor ingredient to make the hospital doctor mark. She mentally kicks herself for thinking that, and for assuming even for one moment that she is somehow insufficient. She is quite the opposite. She is ‘The Mighty Cat’, as Silvia often calls her.

Right now, she must be the strongest she can possibly be for Silvia. This is when she is needed most, yet ironically, her professional, doctoring skills are redundant in this very specialized situation. She isn’t a coma doctor. Until three days ago, she knew very little about this area of medicine. She has internetted and blogged and googled and called informed colleagues non-stop since Silvia’s accident, and now she knows a lot more, but of course her voice is a very tiny one in this hospital.

Inaudible.

Not that ‘they’ are doing anything overtly wrong, it’s just that Cat doesn’t want to be spoken to as if she’s a mere friend of the patient. That is what she is, essentially. A friend of the patient. The patient’s best friend, actually. Best best ever friend. Which, in real terms, makes you the most important person in their life. Chosen by them. Not their bloody family, who they don’t really speak to, even, who hardly know Silvia any more. Only Cat knows Silvia, the real Silvia. She wishes she could shoo them all out of this room with their ruddy visitors’ rota, all these useless hangers-on like Ed and Jo.

Poor Silvia, having to lie there in their dreadful company, unable to resist. They all think they are exactly what she needs to wake her up! How egotistical.
Cat
is what Silvia needs. Didn’t she and Silvia have a special connection from the very first moment Silvia walked into her consulting room twelve years ago to get help with bouts of serious sadness? Cat is the most connected person to Silvia in the entire world – what place do these other fools think they have?

Cat is Blu-tacking to the wall a large printed photograph of the stunning rugged Connemara landscape. This is where she was born and raised, and where she and Silvia have had several remarkable holidays. Wouldn’t it be fantastic if this was the first image Silvia saw on waking? Something so evocative and so reminiscent of utter joy?

‘Remember Kylemore Abbey, Silly? Sure, I’ve never seen
you openly weep like that just because of the sheer beauty of a place. And what beauty. Bloody colossus of a mountain with the perky gothic Abbey nestling in its lap. Got a lovely picture of you at the front door. Hat on. And the nuns. Benedictine bats, you said. They frightened you, Silly, I know, God love you, but you haven’t grown up with them. I love a bit of a nun, forever flitting about on the periphery of your life vision, providing the moral measure. Personally, I never did come across an evil one, although I always expected to. You hear so many stories, doncha? But no one could verify them. Evil nuns and ghosts – do they truly exist?’

The picture is up. Cat turns from her task and looks at Silvia.

Why is half of Silvia’s face covered in Vaseline? she wonders. She unzips a small cosmetic bag she has brought from Silvia’s flat. She has keys, and she knows Silvia would use these products if she could choose. She applies plenty of the Clinique toner to a cotton pad and slowly, tenderly wipes all the grease from Silvia’s face, mumbling and comforting her all the while.

‘Hey there, darlin’ one, just get this mess off you. Off your lovely face. Wipe it all off. What’re they thinking? There. Gone. Now, some proper moisturizer …’

She squirts Silvia’s expensive lotion into her hands, rubs them together and positions herself as close as she can get to her. She places them, creamy palms down, on to Silvia’s face
and starts to rub it in, carefully avoiding her eyes, mouth and so on. She is especially cautious around Silvia’s nose, where the nasogastric tube is taped in. Then she smooths out all the remaining cream. Her fingers follow the contours of Silvia’s face. It’s a face she knows so well and this very intimate touching gives her an unexpected chance to explore it even more closely. Cat relishes this rare opportunity to let her hands echo and confirm what her eyes see. She can’t remember when she last touched Silvia’s face. And until you touch, you can’t know how it really feels.

Now, and only now, she knows that Silvia’s prominent but pleasing nose has very fine skin on it. Skin you wouldn’t want to be too rough with, lest it split like wet crêpe paper. A fine, large defiant nose, with such a delicate covering. And Silvia’s intrepid forehead which has dared a wrinkle to blemish it. Very few wrinkles have thus far had the courage. Freckles, however, are not so lily-livered, they operate in squadrons and are unafraid to muster in such public open spaces as Silvia’s exceptionally wide and high forehead. Alongside her phenomenally red colouring, Silvia has had to accept that freckles will forever be her constant companions. Cat knows that in her capacity as an extreme control freak, Silvia wishes she could properly designate the precise locations of the freckles. For instance, she would prefer a cute spattering of them across her nose, rather than the unsightly enclave that have herded together just above her eyebrows.

Ah. Her eyebrows. Cat strokes them with great tenderness. Or rather, she strokes the place where Silvia’s distinctive eyebrows ordinarily are. Only now is it apparent that the unique symmetry and shape of Silvia’s notoriously perfect eyebrows is entirely fabricated by Silvia and her handy eyebrow pencil. She has always used a very particular shade of reddish-brown that is completely believable, expertly applying it with tiny hair-like flicks that go to make a very authentic effect. Silvia copied the shape from the glamorous old Hollywood starlets, Marlene Dietrich, Jean Harlow, Bette Davis, Elizabeth Taylor. A small square box above the nose, with an elegant high arch bowing outwards. Silvia is expert at this and somehow a daily glamour is achieved with this simple but effective trick. Not now though. Now she has two blondey-red wisps, two crummy excuses for eyebrows.

Silvia’s eyes are closed. That’s the most difficult part. How Cat would love it if they would suddenly open, big and grey and blue and blousey like they are. Cat would know
so
much if only they would open. She could read Silvia then. Lying there, eyes shut, Silvia is closed, and Cat can’t bear the consequent rejection she feels, however ludicrous that is. A slumbering torment.

Her fingers are at Silvia’s mouth, where the venom is stored, a dangerous place, a wide, expressive powerful mouth. So many have wanted to kiss it, because those full lips would surely be so well equipped to do a proper job of the kissing.
You would be folded into those accomplished lips, they’d surely wrap around your measly mouth, around your resistance and your willpower. You’d be helpless if those lips were kissing you. They are especially impressive when outlined in Silvia’s trademark strong coral red and filled in with a gloss version of the same. Silvia
ALWAYS
wears lipstick. In colours that argue loudly with her hair. Colours that confound your notion of taste, that dare you to be as loud and brashly confident as her. Now, though, her lips are natural, and even more pink than any lipstick.