‘It’s Krystal. ’Oo’s 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. ‘I’m yer mum’s sister.’
‘Oh, yeah,’ said Krystal, disappointed.
‘It’s abou’ your Great Gran.’
‘’Oo?’
‘
‘Wha’s wrong with ’er?’ said Krystal. It felt as though her stomach was flipping over, the way it had done as a little girl, 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.
‘She’s in South West General. She’s been there a week. She’s had a stroke.’
‘She’s bin there a week?’ said Krystal, her stomach still swooping. ‘Nobody told us.’
‘Yeah, well, she can’t speak prop’ly, but she’s said your name twice.’
‘Mine?’ asked Krystal, clutching the mobile tightly.
‘Yeah. I think she’d like to see yeh. It’s serious. They’re sayin’ she migh’ not recover.’
‘Wha’ ward is it?’ asked Krystal, her mind buzzing.
‘Twelve. High-dependency. Visiting hours are twelve till four, six till eight. All righ’?’
‘Is it—?’
‘I gotta go. I only wanted 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. ‘Yeh’ll ge’ there fer two. Ge’ the bus.’
‘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.
‘’Ave yeh gor enough cash?’ said Leanne, rummaging in her pockets as the three of them walked up the road towards the bus stop.
‘Yeah,’ said Krystal, checking. ‘It’s on’y 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 moment, Krystal felt scared and wanted to shout ‘Come with me!’ But then 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 Krystal’s belly like a foetus. She had known 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 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 Cath’s chest, and the innumerable wrinkles criss-crossing her face, as honourable scars sustained during her successful battle to survive. Nobody close to Krystal had ever died of old age.
(Death came to the young in her mother’s 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, much later, she had said, ‘Don’ be so silly. Yer dad’s not dead, ’e’s in Bristol, innee?’ So Krystal had had to try and reattach herself to the idea 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 Pagford, 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.
