Wonder Women (34 page)

Once she had shoved Stinky Hardy and his pervy friend Laurel out of the door, she headed for the stairs again. Surely the church ladies must be on their way soon. But it seemed they were well in the groove, because the singing reached a new, almost gospel fervour, and she could hear someone proclaiming loudly as they sang and prayed. She tiptoed to the top of the stairs. Could she make a dash to her bedroom to grab some clothes without being seen? And what if the boys arrived when she was in the shower? Would the church ladies know to let them in, and would they terrify the living daylights out of them? She'd better skimp on the shower and just brush her teeth and tidy herself up … and put on a bra. She was going to be meeting with two hormonal teenage boys. For the love of God, definitely put on a bra.

She stepped on to the top step, remembering too late that it creaked. Naturally, it did so in a rare moment of silence in the prayer-and-song marathon in her mum's room. She'd have to make a run for it. She was in mid-scuttle when someone popped out of her mum's bedroom. Holly's heart
sank. It would have to be Angela, a large-boned Nigerian lady of formidable temperament. Angela would stare you down through her thick, Dame Edna spectacles and would tell you what you thought about anything. She was also very hands-on. ‘Oh, Holly,' she boomed, and grabbed both of Holly's hands firmly in her own, ‘you are suffering so much. You are crying for your mother day and night. I know. I know.'

‘Oh, I—' said Holly weakly, trying to claim back her hands and failing.

‘She is bad, your mother. What do the doctors say? It will not be long. I know this.'

‘They don't know—'

‘Of course they don't know. Doctors know nothing. Only God knows. And God is calling her. He told me.'

Holly didn't even attempt to answer this. She was quite sure that if anyone was being told what to do in Angela's relationship with the Lord, it was God doing the listening.

‘I will pray for you in your suffering,' Angela announced and, keeping an iron grip on Holly's right wrist, placed a heavy hand on Holly's forehead, closed her eyes and began to intone, ‘Oh Father, look upon this poor girl, so broken with grief that she is not even dressed at eleven in the morning, and be merciful …'

God was listening, it seemed, and He was merciful, because at that exact second, the doorbell rang. ‘I'm so sorry,' breathed Holly, and slipped out from under Angela's weighty hand. ‘I have to get that. Um … Amen.'

There was no time to go to her room and tidy up. She ran down the stairs, and took a moment to tidy her hair and rearrange her T-shirt so it was slightly less apparent that she
was hanging free, as it were. Daniel and Chris would have to come in and then excuse her for a moment or two. She opened the door, and was a little surprised to see only Daniel there. He noticed her glancing past him, and said, ‘Oh, it's just me. Chris is back at the workshop, printing T-shirts for a band. I hope that's okay.'

‘It's fine,' said Holly, smiling tightly, very conscious of her unbrushed teeth. ‘As you can see, I'm not really …'

‘You said your mum's ill …'

‘Yes. She's upstairs and some of her church friends are there. This morning things have all gone a bit mad …'

As if to confirm this, Angela boomed, ‘Hallelujah!' from the bedroom upstairs. It was so loud that Daniel jumped a little and a dog across the road barked. Holly couldn't help but giggle, and that made Daniel laugh too. ‘Look, come in,' she said. ‘I'm so sorry it's like this. Go through into the kitchen. The tea things are all out on the countertop – help yourself, and give me ten minutes upstairs to sort myself out, okay?'

‘Okay,' he smiled, and bent to pick up the box of T-shirts at his feet. She pointed him in the direction of the kitchen and then raced upstairs. Not even Angela could stop her now. She dashed into her bedroom and grabbed a pair of jeans, underwear and a top, then whisked into the bathroom and locked the door. She took two minutes in the shower, brushed her teeth, tidied her hair, put some clothes on and was back downstairs well within the ten-minute limit.

To her surprise, she found Daniel up to his elbows in the sink, washing up the dirty cups, plates and mugs that seemed to multiply alarmingly every day in the kitchen,
even though Holly herself hardly ever had time for a hot drink and her mum never wanted one. ‘You didn't have to …' she said.

‘It's no bother.' He smiled at her over his shoulder. ‘My grandpa was ill for about two years … emphysema. We spent a lot of time at his house. There was always something going on – carers, or someone helping him with oxygen, or deliveries – and the one thing I could do to help and stay out of the way was wash up. It always needed doing.'

‘Emphysema? I'm so sorry. That must have been very hard for you to see.'

Daniel nodded. ‘It's horrible, listening to someone gasp for breath, and eventually just run out of air. Awful.'

‘Was he a smoker?'

‘Two packs a day for forty years. I tell you what, I don't need warnings on the pack to tell me how bad it is.'

‘So I'm guessing you don't smoke.'

‘No way.' Daniel smiled. ‘Never have, never will. Well, except for the occasional …' He touched his thumb and forefinger to his lips and narrowed his eyes, and then grinned at Holly.

‘Ah,' said Holly, understanding.

From upstairs, Angela let rip with an echoing and extended ‘Aaaamen,' and the other women echoed it. Holly giggled. ‘Did you have the Amen Brigade coming to see your grandfather too?'

‘No, he was a socialist and an atheist. He wouldn't even let the parish priest through the door.'

Angela launched into a heartfelt rendition of ‘Kumbaya'.

‘He wouldn't have been able to say no to Angela,' said Holly, pointing to the ceiling. ‘Nobody does.'

Daniel rinsed the last cup and put it on the dish rack, dried his hands and came over to the table. ‘I made you a cup of tea,' he said. ‘I hope that's okay.'

He had wiped down the kitchen table too, and laid out the new T-shirt samples neatly in rows for her to see. Holly found herself looking at him closely. He was just nineteen, she thought, but he seemed older. He was quiet and considerate, not all over the place and self-obsessed like so many teenagers were. He was a lovely kid. His parents must be very proud.

She turned her attention to the T-shirts. She picked up each one and examined every seam and every detail of the design. The quality of the shirts themselves was better than the first batch Chris and Daniel had done. The designs were a mixed bag: some were too edgy for small children, but a few were great. Monkeyman seemed to have acquired a sidekick called Super Squirrel, and the Super Squirrel T-shirts, all printed in white on bright red, green and cyan backgrounds, were surefire winners. Holly rather fancied one for herself. ‘You should so do these in adult sizes,' she said, holding a crimson shirt against her front. She looked up and caught Daniel staring at her chest. He looked up and caught her eye and blushed a deep red. Bless him, Holly thought. Under the composed exterior, he was just another horny young guy.

She made sure to keep her distance and act in a quietly professional manner for the rest of their meeting. She didn't want to make him feel uncomfortable. She selected some
designs and sat down and wrote an order for the sizes and colours she wanted there and then. Holly knew that Daniel and Chris were still running their little business on a shoestring and that there was no way he could carry the cost of the order without payment upfront. She rang Jo and told her the value of the order, and Jo said she would transfer fifty per cent of the payment straight into Outtake's account. When she told Daniel, he looked extremely relieved. He packed up the samples, and Holly walked him to the door. ‘Oh wait!' she said suddenly. ‘I bet you and Chris could take care of something for me.' She dashed back into the kitchen and returned with the apple crumble. ‘There isn't room for this anywhere in the house. Please eat it, and get the dish back to me sometime, okay?'

‘Thanks so much, Holly,' he said, taking the apple crumble. ‘As always, it's a pleasure to do business with you.' She smiled at his formal tone. But then he dipped his head and looked at her with big serious eyes. ‘I know how hard it is, what you're going through,' he said hesitantly. ‘With my grandpa it was very difficult, and really long. So if you need anything, anything at all, even if it's just to get out for a little while, go for a drink, talk … I'm there, okay?' He managed to embarrass himself again with this little speech, so he blushed once more, gave her a sweet smile and sauntered off down the path. His visit had made Holly feel so much better she couldn't quite believe it – and not only because they had got the T-shirt order out of the way.

The next few days were gruelling. Judith's pain relief seemed to have stopped working, and very suddenly she seemed to have become weaker. Holly rang their GP, who
made a rare home visit. She spent a long time with Judith and then came to find Holly, who was sitting at her computer at the kitchen table trying to work. ‘The medication she's on isn't working as we'd hoped,' said the doctor. ‘And I don't want to up the dose because there will be side effects. I think it's best if you go and see the palliative-care experts at the hospice.'

‘The hospice?' said Holly, and she couldn't hide the wobble in her voice.

‘They're the experts at this. They can make her as comfortable as possible and work out a pain regime that works better and has fewer side effects.'

Holly nodded, shaken. She hadn't imagined they would need the hospice so soon.

‘It's not a bad place,' said the doctor soothingly. ‘Odd though it sounds, it's quite cheerful. You both might like it there.'

Holly thought that was unlikely, but she sat there while the doctor rang the hospice and made an appointment for them for the following day. She took down the details and agreed she'd get her mum there for ten. She remembered her talk with Fraser about the hospice. How was he? she wondered. There was no point in dwelling on it. He hadn't rung her, and she certainly didn't have time to ring him at the moment.

*

The hospice was at the hospital itself, and Holly drove them there in the morning. Just getting Judith into and out of the car and into the hospital made her realise how weak her mum had become in just a short time. Judith leaned
heavily on her arm, and walking from the car to the reception area seemed to wear her out completely. She was pale and shaking as they came through the door. ‘Can I just sit down for a moment, dear?' she said softly. Holly glanced at her watch nervously. Their appointment was in two minutes and she wasn't sure where in the hospital they needed to be. How was she going to get Judith there? She went to the reception desk, and waited to speak to the harassed-looking woman who was simultaneously talking on the phone, trying to enter details into a computer and arguing with a persistent man who wanted change for the parking and wouldn't take no for an answer. Holly touched the man on the arm.

‘Do you need change for a fiver? Here.' The doctor had warned her about the parking charges, so she had gone to the bank and got a ton of pound coins in preparation. The man grabbed the coins, thrust his crumpled five-pound note into her hand and thumped off without saying thank you. Holly stepped up to the counter. The woman was now typing at breakneck speed, with the phone wedged between her ear and her shoulder. It was clear from her side of the conversation that she was placing some kind of supplies order. She didn't look up or acknowledge Holly's presence. Holly stood there for about a minute, then glanced nervously over at Judith, who was sitting tipped slightly to one side, as if she didn't even have the energy to straighten up. ‘Excuse me …' Holly said hesitantly.

The woman looked up at her as if she had done something unmentionable on her desk. ‘Can you not see I'm busy?' she said sharply.

‘I can, but—'

‘Stand behind the line and wait,' the woman barked. Holly took a step back in surprise. Clearly courtesy was too much to ask. They were now several minutes past the appointment time, and Holly was afraid they wouldn't be seen. She would feel awful if she had dragged Judith all the way here and they had to go back home again without sorting out the pain regime. She took a step forward again. ‘Look, I'm sorry to disturb you,' she said firmly, ‘but my mother over there has cancer, and we're here to attend the palliative-care clinic at the hospice. Could you please just tell me where to go? Or would you like me to fill out one of these staff-assessment surveys?' There was a stack of cards with tick boxes on the counter, and she picked up the top one and showed it to the woman. The woman took the phone away from her ear and glared at Holly. She opened her mouth to speak, but Holly cut in. ‘And before you accuse me of being rude and abusive, I have been neither. I've just asked you to do your job, pleasantly and politely, and to help a sick person.'

The woman looked long and hard at Holly, obviously weighing up the chances that she would make an enormous fuss if she resisted further.

‘The hospice is outside, behind this building. You need to go to the end of that corridor, turn left, take the lift down to the basement, then go out of the exit doors, left at the end of the path and the hospice building will be in front of you.' Holly looked down the corridor. It looked long. Impossibly long if she had to get Judith to walk down it, and then there were lifts and paths and more to contend with. The woman saw her expression, looked over at Judith
and said abruptly, ‘You'd better put her in a wheelchair. They're over there.' And then to dispel any notion that she was showing an iota of compassion, she added, ‘Health and safety.'

A wheelchair. It made sense, but it made Holly's heart ache. Judith had always been so poised, so straight-backed, and putting her in a wheelchair would make her seem like a sick old woman. It was a realistic solution though. Holly went over to the row of chairs and fetched one, which she pushed over to where Judith was sitting and engaged the brakes.