A nurse poked her head around the curtain. ‘How’s it going in here?’
‘All good, thanks.’
At that moment Anita bustled in. ‘You’re here at last,’ she said to the nurse. ‘It’s disgusting the way you’d left him,’ she told the woman as though Theo was solely her responsibility.
In the ICU and then the high-dependency unit there had been a top standard of care. There had to be. Those patients were the most at risk and the ratio of nurses and doctors to patients was far better than this lower-categorised ward. Lydia had returned from her glamping investigations to find Anita strung out, not only as she tried to adjust to the reduced visiting hours on this ward compared to the other, but also because more than once Theo had been neglected and left dirty, smelly and unclean.
The nurse looked about to say something but changed her mind, apologised profusely and left them to it again.
Anita bent over and kissed Theo’s head, their faces so close you couldn’t miss the family resemblance.
‘They’re understaffed,’ Lydia said, if only to say something.
‘I don’t care. It’s undignified, that’s what it is.’ She fussed with the sheets around him and when there was nothing else for her to do, she reluctantly sat in a chair.
Lydia sat while Anita talked to Theo about what she’d been up to. She’d been to Bournemouth for the day yesterday with her friend Sabine who was over from Jersey visiting family, last week she’d slept the night at her own house in Walberswick that she missed more than she realised. She talked about the garden and how she hadn’t planted new bulbs this year but the peonies and the delphiniums were adding enough colour. She told Theo how she’d taken up cross-stitch of all things and was getting good at it, and she was learning French because she’d always wanted to go to one of those remote villages where they didn’t speak a word of English.
‘Oh I’ve been to Paris, I know,’ Anita rattled on. ‘But they all speak English there. I want to go where I can put my French into practice.’ She only stopped talking when she saw Lydia watching her.
‘I’d better be going.’ Lydia got to her feet and picked up her bag and thin-weave cardigan.
‘You don’t have to leave.’ Was it Lydia’s imagination or was Anita craving company? Her talk of taking up a craft, learning a language and visiting another town were all signs that she was getting as tired of this as Lydia was. Not that either of them resented it. It just wasn’t easy.
Lydia sat down again. ‘You’re right, you know.’
‘About what?’
‘Paris. It’s an amazing city, incredibly beautiful, but they are far too proficient at the English language.’
Anita smiled and it was nice to see. ‘You went with Theo last summer, I remember. He sent me a postcard he’d written halfway up the Eiffel Tower.’
‘We loved climbing it but I wouldn’t go all the way to the top. It was windy and we stopped midway for something to eat and he wrote to you. He sent a postcard to his dad too, and nagged me to write a few.’ She noticed Anita didn’t flinch at talk about his dad. Maybe when you’d loved someone deeply once upon a time, you weren’t pained when you spoke or thought about them. Perhaps you tried to remember the good times. He’d given her Theo after all. ‘Theo took me to an exquisite café, we ate macaroons, drank hot chocolate. He then made me walk miles and miles. He gets restless if he has to stay put for too long.’ Lydia’s smile disappeared with the stark reminder that because of decisions made by medical practitioners and by them, here he was doing what he would’ve hated most.
‘His name is down for rehabilitation,’ Anita explained, ‘to get him into a special centre.’
When Lydia thought of rehab she thought of people trying to walk, trying to move an arm, trying to perform physical functions at a more able level. She wasn’t sure how rehab was going to work when he was lying there not moving. ‘That’s great.’ What else could she say?
Anita stroked Theo’s forehead. His hair had grown back a bit and Lydia hoped next time someone cut it they’d take a bit more care so it would look more like Theo rather than a young boy who’d had a bowl placed on his head. The staff sometimes shaved him if Anita hadn’t already, and they washed his hair and body, they took care of his teeth. But it always felt rushed and Lydia knew Anita thought it should be done more often than it was. She wanted more, so much more for her son. And that’s why Anita’s next comment didn’t take Lydia by surprise at all.
‘I want to get him away from this place,’ said Anita. ‘I don’t think it’s making him any better.’
Hang on a minute. How was she going to do that? ‘You mean when he’s recovered more so he’s ready for rehabilitation?’
‘I want him near me. I want to be at home in my own house with him nearby. It’s been so long.’ Her voice was beginning to crescendo, wobble in uncertainty, either of Theo’s prognosis or Lydia’s reaction, Lydia didn’t know.
Lydia kept telling herself the waiting lists were long and he wasn’t ready to be moved but Anita carried on.
‘I’ve floated the idea with a senior consultant and they’ve said he’s stable and can be moved.’
Lydia suddenly felt hot all over, her hands clammy with panic. ‘But the rehabilitation lists are too long.’
‘There are other options.’ Finally she looked at Lydia. ‘And I’ve spoken to Graham, he’s left the decision up to me. He’ll come over in the next couple of months.’
‘What other options?’ she demanded.
‘A care home.’
Lydia stood up, eyes wild with rage. ‘You want to put him, like this, in a home for old biddies?’
