Part Two Chapter V

VAlison Jenkins, the journalist from the Yarvil and District Gazette, had at last established which of the many Weedon households in Yarvil housed Krystal. It had been difficult no physical structure was registered to vote at the address and no landline number was listed for the property. Alison visited Foley Road in person on Sunday, but Krystal was out, and Terri, suspicious and antagonistic, refused to say when she would be back or substantiate that she lived at that place.Krystal arrived home a mere twenty legal proceeding after the journalist had departed in her car, and she and her mother had a nonher row.Why dint ya tell her to wait? She was gonna question me abou the Fields an stuffInterview you? Fuck off. Wha the fuck for?The argument escalated and Krystal walked out again, off to Nikkis, with Terris liquid in her tracksuit bottoms. She frequently made off with this ph integrity many rows were triggered by her mother demanding it back and Krystal pret wipeouting that sh e didnt know where it was. Dimly, Krystal hoped that the journalist might know the number somehow and call her directly.She was in a displace, jangling coffee bar in the shopping warmness, telling Nikki and Leanne all about the journalist, when the mobile rang.Oo? Are you the journalist, like? os at erri?Its Krystal. Oos this? m your nt other ister.Oo? shouted Krystal. One finger in the ear not pressed against the phone, she wove her way between the densely packed tables to reach a quieter place.Danielle, said the woman, loud and clear on the other end of the telephone. Im yer mums sister.Oh, yeah, said Krystal, disappointed.Fuckin snobby bitch, Terri always said when Danielles name came up. Krystal was not sure that she had ever met Danielle.Its abou your Great Gran.Oo?Nana Cath, said Danielle impatiently. Krystal reached the balcony overlooking the shopping centre forecourt reception was unwavering here she stopped.Whas wrong with er? said Krystal. It felt as though her st omach was flipping over, the way it had done as a little girlfriend, turning somersaults on a railing like the one in front of her. Thirty feet below, the crowds surged, carrying plastic bags, pushing buggies and dragging toddlers.Shes in randomness West General. Shes been on that point a week. Shes had a stroke.Shes bin there a week? said Krystal, her stomach still swooping. Nobody told us.Yeah, well, she cant speak proply, but shes said your name twice.Mine? asked Krystal, clutching the mobile tightly.Yeah. I think shed like to see yeh. Its serious. Theyre sayin she migh not recover.Wha ward is it? asked Krystal, her mind buzzing.Twelve. High-dependency. Visiting hours are twelve till quadruplet, six till eight. All righ?Is it ?I gotta go. I only cherished to let you know, in case you want to see her. Bye.The line went dead. Krystal lowered the mobile from her ear, staring at the screen. She pressed a button repeatedly with her thumb, until she saw the word blocked. Her aunt had withheld her number.Krystal walked back to Nikki and Leanne. They knew at once that something was wrong.Go an see er, said Nikki, checking the time on her own mobile. Yehll ge there fer dickens. Ge the plenty.Yeah, said Krystal blankly.She thought of fetching her mother, of taking her and Robbie to go and see Nana Cath too, but there had been a huge row a year before, and her mother and Nana Cath had had no contact since. Krystal was sure that Terri would take an immense amount of persuading to go to the hospital, and was not sure that Nana Cath would be happy to see her.Its serious. Theyre saying she might not recover.Ave yeh gor plenteous cash? said Leanne, rummaging in her pockets as the three of them walked up the road towards the bus stop.Yeah, said Krystal, checking. Its ony a quid up the hospital, innit?They had time to share a cigarette before the number twenty-seven arrived. Nikki and Leanne waved her off as though she were going somewhere nice. At the very last mom ent, Krystal felt s bearingd and wanted to shout Come with me But wherefore the bus pulled away from the kerb, and Nikki and Leanne were already turning away, gossiping.The seat was prickly, covered in some old smelly fabric. The bus trundled onto the road that ran by the precinct and turned right into one of the main thoroughfares that led through all the big-name shops.Fear fluttered inside Krystals belly like a foetus. She had cognise that Nana Cath was getting older and frailer, but somehow, vaguely, she had expected her to regenerate, to return to the heyday that had seemed to last so long for her hair to turn black again, her spine to straighten and her memory board to sharpen like her caustic tongue. She had never thought about Nana Cath dying, always associating her with toughness and invulnerability. If she had considered them at all, Krystal would have thought of the deformity to Nana Caths chest, and the innumerable wrinkles criss-crossing her face, as good scars sust ained during her successful battle to survive. Nobody close to Krystal had ever died of old age.(Death came to the young in her mothers circle, sometimes even before their faces and bodies had become emaciated and ravaged. The body that Krystal had found in the bathroom when she was six had been of a handsome young man, as white and lovely as a statue, or that was how she remembered him. But sometimes she found that memory confusing and doubted it. It was hard to know what to believe. She had often heard things as a child that adults later contradicted and denied. She could have sworn that Terri had said, It was yer dad. But then, lots later, she had said, Don be so silly. Yer dads not dead, es in Bristol, innee? So Krystal had had to try and reattach herself to the supposition of Banger, which was what everybody called the man they said was her father.But always, in the background, there had been Nana Cath. She had escaped foster care because of Nana Cath, ready and waiting in Pag ford, a strong if uncomfortable safety net. Swearing and furious, she had swooped, equally aggressive to Terri and to the social workers, and taken her equally angry great-granddaughter home.Krystal did not know whether she had loved or hated that little house in Hope Street. It was dingy and it smelt of bleach it gave you a hemmed-in feeling. At the same time, it was safe, in all safe. Nana Cath would only let approved individuals in through the door. There were old-fashioned bath cubes in a glass jar on the end of the bath.)What if there were other people at Nana Caths bedside, when she got there? She would not recognize half her own family, and the idea that she might come across strangers tied to her by tear scared her. Terri had several half-sisters, products of her fathers multiple liaisons, whom even Terri had never met but Nana Cath tried to move up with them all, doggedly maintaining contact with the large disconnected family her sons had produced. Occasionally, over the years, relatives Krystal did not recognize had turned up at Nana Caths while she was there. Krystal thought that they eyed her askance and said things about her under their voices to Nana Cath she pretended not to notice and waited for them to leave, so that she could have Nana Cath to herself again. She especially disliked the idea that there were any other children in Nana Caths life.(Oo are they? Krystal had asked Nana Cath when she was nine, pointing jealously at a framed photograph of two boys in Paxton High uniforms on Nana Caths sideboard.Thems two o my great-grandsons, said Nana Cath. Thas Dan and thas Ricky. Theyre your cousins.Krystal did not want them as cousins, and she did not want them on Nana Caths sideboard.An whos tha? she demanded, pointing at a little girl with curly golden hair.Thas my Michaels little girl, Rhiannon, when she were five. Beauiful, werent she? Bu she wen an married some wog, said Nana Cath.There had never been a photograph of Robbie on Nana Caths sideboard.Yeh dont even know who the father is, do yeh, yer whore? Im washin my ands of yeh. Ive ad enough, Terri, Ive ad it you can look after it yourself.)The bus trundled on through town, past all the Sunday afternoon shoppers. When Krystal had been small, Terri had taken her into the centre of Yarvil nearly every weekend, forcing her into a pushchair long past the age when Krystal needed it, because it was so much easier to hide nicked stuff with a pushchair, push it heap under the kids legs, hide it under the bags in the basket under the seat. Sometimes Terri would go on tandem shoplifting trips with the sister she spoke to, Cheryl, who was married to Shane Tully. Cheryl and Terri lived four streets away from each other in the Fields, and petrified the air with their language when they argued, which was frequently. Krystal never knew whether she and her Tully cousins were supposed to be on speaking terms or not, and no long-life bothered keeping track, but she spoke to Dane w henever she ran across him. They had shagged, once, after splitting a bottle of cider out on the rec when they were fourteen. Neither of them had ever mentioned it afterwards. Krystal was woolly- perioded on whether or not it was legal, doing your cousin. Something Nikki had said had made her think that maybe it wasnt.The bus rolled up the road that led to the main entrance of South West General, and stopped twenty yards from an enormous long rectangular grey and glass building. There were patches of neat grass, a few small trees and a set of signposts.Krystal followed two old ladies out of the bus and stood with her hands in her tracksuit pockets, looking around. She had already forgotten what kind of ward Danielle had told her Nana Cath was on she recalled only the number twelve. She approached the nearest signpost with a casual air, squinting at it almost incidentally it bore line upon line of impenetrable print, with words as long as Krystals arm and arrows pointing left, righ t, diagonally. Krystal did not read well being confronted with large quantities of words made her feel intimidated and aggressive. After several surreptitious glances at the arrows, she fixed that there were no numbers there at all, so she followed the two old ladies towards the double glass doors at the front of the main building.The foyer was crowded and more confusing than the signposts. There was a bustling shop, which was separated from the main hall by floor to ceiling windows there were rows of plastic chairs, which seemed to be climb of people eating sandwiches there was a packed cafe in the corner and a kind of hexagonal counter in the middle of the floor, where women were say enquiries as they checked their computers. Krystal headed there, her hands still in her pockets.Wheres ward twelve? Krystal asked one of the women in a surly voice.Third floor, said the woman, matching her tone.Krystal did not want to ask anything else out of pride, so she turned and walked away, u ntil she spotted lifts at the far end of the foyer and entered one going up.It took her nearly fifteen minutes to find the ward. Why didnt they put up numbers and arrows, not these stupid long words? But then, walking along a pale commonalty corridor with her trainers squeaking on the linoleum floor, someone called her name.Krystal?It was her aunt Cheryl, big and broad in a denim skirt and tight white vest, with banana-yellow black-rooted hair. She was tattooed from her knuckles to the exceed of her thick arms, and wore multiple gold hoops like curtain rings in each ear. There was a can of Coke in her hand.She ain bothered, then? said Cheryl. Her bare legs were planted firmly apart, like a sentry guard.Oo?Terri. She din wanna come?She don know ye. I ony jus eard. Danielle called an tole me.Cheryl ripped off the ring-pull and slurped Coke, her tiny eyes sunken in a wide, flat face that was mottled like corned beef, scrutinizing Krystal over the top of the can.I tole Danielle ter cal l yeh when it appened. Three days she were lyin in the ouse, and no one fuckin found er. The state of er. Fuckin ell.Krystal did not ask Cheryl why she herself had not walked the short distance to Foley Road to tell Terri the news. Evidently the sisters had fallen out again. It was impossible to keep up.Where is she? asked Krystal.Cheryl led the way, her flip-flops fashioning a slapping noise on the floor.Hey, she said, as they walked. I ad a call frm a journalist about you.Didja?She give me a number.Krystal would have asked more questions, but they had entered a very quiet ward, and she was suddenly frightened. She did not like the smell.Nana Cath was almost unrecognizable. One side of her face was terribly twisted, as though the muscles had been pulled with a wire. Her mouth dragged to one side even her eye seemed to droop. There were tubes taped to her, a needle in her arm. Lying down, the deformity in her chest was much more obvious. The sheet rose and fell in odd places, as if the grotesque head on its scrawny neck protruded from a barrel.When Krystal sat down beside her, Nana Cath made no movement. She simply gazed. One little hand trembled slightly.She ain talkin, bu she said yer name, twice, las nigh, Cheryl told her, staring gloomily over the rim of her can.There was a tightness in Krystals chest. She did not know whether it would hurt Nana Cath to hold her hand. She edged her own fingers to within a few inches of Nana Caths, but let them rest on the bedspread.Rhiannons bin in, said Cheryl. An John an Sue. Sues tryin ter get hold of Anne-Marie.Krystals spirits leapt.Where is she? she asked Cheryl.Somewhere out Frenchay way. Yknow shes got a baby now?Yeah, I eard, said Krystal. Wha was it?Dunno, said Cheryl, swigging Coke. psyche at school had told her Hey, Krystal, your sisters up the duff She had been excited by the news. She was going to be an auntie, even if she never saw the baby. All her life, she had been in love with the idea of Anne-Marie, wh o had been taken away before Krystal was born spirited into another dimension, like a fairy-tale character, as beautiful and mysterious as the dead man in Terris bathroom.Nana Caths lips moved.Wha? said Krystal, bending low, half scared, half elated.Dyeh wan somethin, Nana Cath? asked Cheryl, so loudly that whispering guests at other beds stared over.Krystal could hear a wheezing, rattling noise, but Nana Cath seemed to be making a definite attempt to form a word. Cheryl was leaning over the other side, one hand gripping the metal bars at the head of the bed. Oh mm, said Nana Cath.Wha? said Krystal and Cheryl together.The eyes had moved millimetres rheumy, filmy eyes, looking at Krystals smooth young face, her open mouth, as she leaned over her great-grandmother, puzzled, eager and fearful. owin said the gaga old voice.She dunno wha shes sayin, Cheryl shouted over her shoulder at the timid couple visiting at the next bed. Three days lef on the fuckin floor, snot surprisin, is it? But tears had blurred Krystals eyes. The ward with its high windows dissolved into white light and shadow she seemed to see a flash of bright sunlight on dark special K water, fragmented into brilliant shards by the splashing rise and fall of oars.Yeah, she whispered to Nana Cath. Yeah, I goes rowin, Nana.But it was no longer true, because Mr Fairbrother was dead.