was still a crowd around the smoking area. I wondered if it was the same people. My phone had just enough battery left for me to leave a message for Bill and another one for Kate. Then I went back upstairs to Mum’s room. Nothing had changed.
At about nine o’clock I went for a walk through the hospital. It was bustling now, people walking up and down corridors with a purpose. Trolleys, people pulling relatives backwards in those rear-wheel-drive wheelchairs, kids in pushchairs. I went to the café near the front entrance but the smell of food made me feel queasy, so I went into the shop and bought a bottle of water and a bag of boiled sweets. That would do.
I walked all the way down one corridor, past the clinics, past X-Ray, down to Oncology and the double doors at the end. Then I turned around and walked all the way back. After that I gave up and went back upstairs to the Stroke Unit.
At half-past ten a woman from Palliative Care finally came to see me. She was a nurse but dressed in smart trousers and a green jumper, a chunky necklace. By that time I think the news had sunk in that Mum was going to die. The sound of her breathing had changed too. The snoring got louder and then gradually it seemed to quieten for a while, before changing to a regular, short gasp.
‘The morphine drip will make her more comfortable,’ the nurse said. ‘She’s just in a very deep sleep right now.’
‘How long will she be like this?’ I asked.
‘It’s difficult to say,’ she said. ‘It might be a day or two, maybe less. But not long. Is there anyone you need to call?’
I’d forgotten about my cousin, but what would be the point of telling her now? I hadn’t spoken to her in years.
‘No,’ I said.
Eventually she went. Another hour and a half went past. It was technically lunchtime, so I opened the bag of sweets and had one. I was contemplating a fourth sweet when there was a brief, sharp knock at the door and two nurses came in, wearing aprons and gloves.
‘We’re just going to change your mum,’ one of them said, ‘make her comfortable.’
‘Oh, shall I go?’
‘Might be best. We won’t be long.’
I went into the waiting room where I’d been in the middle of the night. The television was on in the corner, some lunchtime chat show I’d never seen. I sat down and watched without paying any attention at all. I was thinking about work, and the cat.
Half an hour later I went back to Mum’s room, and the nurses were gone. I went out to the nurses’ station again. This time three of them were sitting there with cups of tea.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ I said.
‘That’s alright, don’t worry,’ said the nearest. She was the one who’d come in to sort Mum out.
‘I wondered if it’s OK if I go home for a while,’ I said. ‘I need to feed the cat…’
‘Of course!’ the nurse said. ‘And why don’t you have a shower, get something to eat, too? I can ring you if anything happens.’
On my way out, I walked past the smokers, my head down, hoping that nobody would notice my distress. I needn’t have worried. Even though there were clearly some seriously ill people in the group, the general atmosphere among them seemed to be one of hilarity.
I was concentrating so hard on the pavement that I didn’t notice the man ahead of me until I walked into the back of him. He turned and caught me by the elbow as I went over on my ankle and half-fell into the ambulance bay at the front entrance. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I was – ’
‘Annabel?’
I looked up in surprise. For a moment I was lost and looked at him in confusion.
‘Sam,’ he said. ‘We met yesterday?’
Yesterday? It felt like years ago. ‘Oh, yes,’ I said. ‘Of course. I’m sorry. It’s been – a long day.’
‘Is everything OK?’ he asked, nodding towards the hospital’s main entrance.
‘My mum – she had a fall.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ he said. ‘Is she alright?’
She’s dying, I thought. I tasted the words, like bile, couldn’t say them. ‘She’s unconscious,’ I said. ‘I was just going home.’ I started to turn back in the direction of the car park, ignoring the sharp pain in my ankle. It was fine, I told myself; it wasn’t a bad twist, I just