Nanna’s clearly feeling better the next afternoon, because she’s asked me to bring in her favourite red lipstick and a comb.
She puts on a crochet bedjacket, neatens her hair and puts lipstick on, so she looks much more like herself. We’re talking about the other patients on her ward when I hear Mum. She’s out in the corridor talking to the good-looking male nurse – she gives the tinkling laugh I recognise as her in flirt mode.
‘Well this is a surprise,’ she says, as she re-enters the little ward, pausing for a moment in the doorway as if she’s waiting for applause. She gives a little flourish of her hands as James – looking slightly uncomfortable – steps into the room behind her.
‘So I found this young man in the corridor, looking for you.’ She raises an approving eyebrow and gives a wide smile. ‘Jess, you didn’t tell me how handsome he was. James, this is my mother, Beth.’
I stand up, and Mum – apparently oblivious to the fact that we’re in a hospital ward and not the foyer of a theatre after curtain fall – gives the whole room the benefit of her widest smile. She always perks up when there’s a good-looking man around.
‘Hi,’ says James, leaning over to give me a kiss, which lands on my temple. He looks slightly wide-eyed, as if he hadn’t quite been expecting the full Mum treatment. Nobody usually is. She gestures to the chair on the other side of Nanna Beth’s bed, her armful of bangles jingling. ‘James, do have a sit-down. You must be tired after working this morning and then driving down all this way. Was the traffic awful?’
‘Not too bad.’
‘Hello, James,’ says Nanna Beth. She smooths down the white cotton sheet over her lap and looks at me for a moment. It’s a look that says well, you kept this one quiet.
‘I thought I’d better come and see if there was anything I could do,’ says James. He’s still in a suit, the top button of his shirt undone and his tie off. He looks pretty good, actually. I notice the granddaughter of the woman opposite eyeing him up and I feel a little surge of pride that I have a handsome boyfriend in a suit and a whole life in London and all that stuff. I catch his eye and he gives me a quick smile, before turning to Nanna Beth.
‘So how are you feeling? I’m sorry we’re meeting in these circumstances.’
‘Not too bad,’ she says. She definitely looks brighter. Mum’s looking perky, as well. I – on the other hand – haven’t had a second to brush my hair, am wearing no make-up, and the same top I’ve had on for the last three days because I forgot to pack anything besides pyjamas, knickers, and a toothbrush.
Half an hour later, when James has left the ward to go and get some bits and pieces from the shop (on a mission that was clearly made up by Mum, just so she could pass verdict), I sit on the side of Nanna’s bed biting my thumbnail and listening to the two of them talking.
‘He’s very nice,’ Mum says, looking as pleased with herself as if she’d selected James herself. She takes a little compact mirror out of her bag and applies some more fuchsia lipstick, then fluffs up her hair.
‘Charming,’ agrees Nanna. ‘And so kind and helpful. Nice of him to go to the shop, wasn’t it, Jess, darling?’
I bite the inside of my cheek, not quite sure why their praise of James makes me feel uncomfortable. In the end, I wander out into the corridor to go to the loo, and to see if I can catch him when he returns. But someone’s using the bathroom, and I have to wait, standing reading NHS posters about hand washing and patient care policies, until I eventually get in.
When I look at myself in the mirror I realise I look even worse than I thought. I run water over my hands and comb them through my hair, turning my head upside down and shaking it to try and make it look less lank. The trouble with the new Dyson hand driers is you can’t exactly stick your head under one and wake your hair up. I settle for washing my face and drying it with a green hospital-issue paper towel, and rubbing my teeth – which feel grotty – with another one. When I come back out I can hear Mum laughing before I see her, so it’s no surprise to discover that James is in there, standing at the end of Nanna’s bed, holding a bottle of lemon barley water and some sandwiches from the hospital shop.
‘Oh, and I brought you these,’ James says. He hands Mum a box of chocolates, and Nanna a crossword book. How on earth has he worked out that she loves them in that short space of time? It must be a lucky guess. Mum is over-the-top delighted and Nanna claps her hands.
‘Thank goodness. I’m bored out of my mind already, stuck in here.’ She chuckles and he pulls a pen out of his jacket pocket.
‘He’s thought of everything, Jess.’ Nanna Beth beams at me. ‘You’ve chosen well there.’
He’s nice to my mother; he’s charming to my grandmother. Even the grumpy nurse in charge has found him an extra chair so nobody has to perch on the end of the bed. He’s a massive hit with both generations. He’s basically the perfect boyfriend. So why, I ask myself, as I surreptitiously turn my phone over to check for messages, am I looking to see if Alex has been in touch?