I’m woken by the phone the next morning at seven-thirty. I must’ve fallen asleep on the spare-room bed in my clothes – I’m still covered over by the blanket, my head awkwardly positioned on a velvet cushion. I grab my mobile, answering before I’ve even had time to register who’s calling.
‘Jess,’ says Sophie, sounding breathless. ‘Sorry to ring you so early but I’m in back-to-back meetings all day and I wanted to know what was happening with Nanna B.’
Sophie’s known Nanna almost all her life, too.
‘I’ll know more once I’ve been into hospital.’
‘Message me,’ she says, urgently. ‘I’ll keep James updated. Is he coming down?’
I feel my face gathering in a frown. ‘Coming down where?’
‘Bournemouth. Don’t you think it might be an idea to have him there for moral support?’
‘I dunno.’ I lift the covers and swing my legs out of bed, feeling the soft rug that used to be in my childhood bedroom beneath my bare feet. ‘He said something last night about coming down, but I feel like it’s just another thing to have to deal with. Plus – you know – family stuff, is complicated,’ I say, lamely.
‘And James is your boyfriend. If something like this happened, Rich would be there for me.’
‘Yeah but you and Rich live together. You’re like a proper couple.
Sophie speaks very slowly and clearly, as if she’s talking to someone who finds it difficult to understand basic concepts. ‘Yes, and stuff like this is what brings you together. I bet James would want to come down and keep you company.’
‘And meet Mum?’
Sophie makes a noise between a groan and a snort. ‘Mmm, yeah, well, there is that – that’s the downside.’
‘Tell me about it.’ I rub sleep out of my eyes, and my jaw cracks as a huge yawn escapes my mouth.
‘Well, he’s going to have to meet her sometime,’ Sophie says, reasonably. ‘No time like the present, and all that.’
‘I’ll see,’ I say, non-committally, and we say goodbye and hang up.
Later that morning, sitting by Nanna’s bed waiting for the doctor to do her rounds I get a message from James.
Spoke to Soph at work. I’m going to come down tomorrow. No arguments.
I type No, please don’t then look at it for a moment. Am I being unfair? He wants to be there for support. That’s what relationships are supposed to be about, aren’t they? I delete the words and look at the blinking cursor.
Bloody Sophie. I know she thinks she’s doing the right thing, but – I give an exasperated sigh. It’s just – it’s not the right time. I can hear her saying brightly, ‘There’s never a right time, Jess,’ and I feel slightly murderous. I’m still looking at the phone, contemplating my reply to James when the doctor appears.
The doctor makes us all feel better. I hadn’t realised that I was basically holding my breath, but as she explains that Nanna’s blood pressure has been up and they’re giving her pills to keep it under control, but they’re going to monitor her for a few days, I feel my shoulders dropping in relief. It’s going to be a few days though, before they let her go back to the sheltered accommodation. She’s not that happy about that.
‘I bet that Maureen steals my favourite chair by the window in the lounge,’ she says, crossly.
‘There must be other seats, Mum,’ says my mother, opening some get-well cards and placing them on the bedside table. I notice she doesn’t read them. Later, I’ll take each one and read the messages out to Nanna, who likes to keep tabs on stuff like that.
I go down to the WRVS café with Mum to have some lunch. The visiting hours are fairly relaxed, but we’re expected to make ourselves scarce at lunchtime. The hospital’s too far out of town to make it worth going in, so instead we sit and eat pale ham sandwiches and drink dark tannin-infused tea, and watch the other relatives as they do the same.
You’d love it here, I write to Alex. It’s people-watching heaven.
Exactly why I love this job, he replies, five minutes later. Hope it’s going okay. Did she have a good night?
Really good, I reply. In fact, she’s already started flirting with the male nurse, I joke, thinking of the nurse from the night before.
Oh yeah, that happens to me all the time.
I bet it does, I type without thinking. Then I blush slightly, because the thought of Alex in his work clothes and the idea of him turning up at my bedside pops into my head and even though nobody else knows what I’m thinking, I feel like – God, what am I doing?
‘Is that James you’re texting?’ Mum asks, looking at me with interest.
I’m caught between trying to explain the situation with Alex, and having her not believe for one second we’re just friends, or telling a small white lie. I decide to settle for the easy option, and say it’s James.