Anika can’t help contrasting the light Sierra Leonean accent her mother gives the word with the posh inflection of Wendy’s. Bending down to hold Anika’s shoulders gently, Nella pecks the air above her daughter’s face, eliciting a short, wry laugh from Anika.
‘Hi, Mum. You can hug me properly – it’s cool.’
‘How are you? Feeling OK?’ Nella asks, moving to perch on the edge of the chair beside Anika’s bed.
‘Yeah. Bit sore, bit tired.’ She gestures around. ‘Thanks so muchfor all this, though,’ she tells her mother sincerely. ‘I don’t know if I properly said.’
Nella waves one elegant hand dismissively, her nails matching the lipstick. ‘Of course, darling. I was worried they would cause problem, but it was easy; they said they had a space so it was fine. I am glad you can be comfortable.’ Her eyes sweep over Anika with the same controlled concern that she used to have when her daughter had a serious scrape or nasty flu, but magnified.
‘Meant to be, eh?’ Anika says gratefully, remembering the diary entry. After repeatedly assuring her mother she’s eaten something and that the nurses are looking after her well, Nella finally sits back and hoists her chic mustard-yellow leather Mulberry handbag into her lap, saying, ‘I have something for you.’ She reaches into the bag and pulls out a folded piece of paper, handing it over. Anika takes it, knowing straight away that it’s a cheque. Her mum still hasn’t embraced digital banking and she never was great at gift-giving. Anika doesn’t unfurl the cheque yet. ‘Na jus’ small small,’ Nella tells her in Krio with a little smile, though Anika is certain the amount will be generous. ‘I was intending to get something for you in New York, but then—’
‘Thanks, Mum,’ Anika says quickly. ‘I appreciate it, really.’
‘Money is always useful, ehn?’ her mother says softly, looking away to the TV then down at her hands awkwardly.
‘It is.’ Anika is glad when her mother looks up again so that she can convey the gratitude with her eyes.Or I could just say .. . Anika takes a breath. ‘Thank you, Mum … Love you.’ She smiles. The words sit clumsily between them, but she’s glad she said it.
‘Love you, too,’ Nella says after a moment, zipping up her bag and placing her hands on top like a full stop. But then she coughs, opening her bag again quickly. ‘Ah … I have something else for you.’ A small velvet jewellery box is nestled in her mum’shand, which she passes over. ‘This is for you as well. I was looking through some of my pieces and found it. I thought I had lost it somewhere.’
Cracking the box open, Anika sees a beautiful gold ring set with a large dark-red stone.
‘Is that a ruby?’ Anika asks, amazed.
Nella nods. ‘Your father.’ She pauses, lips pursed. ‘He gave that to me when I told him I was pregnant. For some reason he knew all the birthstones, you know. When the doctor said you would be born in July, Nelson said that this one was the one for your birth, so he said I must have it to … commemorate.’ She shakes her head and gives a wry chuckle, the complexity of their relationship swirling in her eyes. ‘I was exactly five years younger than you are now when he gave that to me.’ Nella sighs, shaking her head again. Perhaps her mother thought the ring was a promise of some sort, but, instead, by the time she was Anika’s age, Nella had a five-year-old girl and no diamond or wedding band from the father of that child. ‘Anyway,’ her mother continues. ‘The ring never fit me. It was always a bit too small.’ She picks up Anika’s hand as it nestles on top of the sheets, gently lifting her daughter’s fingers and smiling down at them. ‘But on yours? Yes. It will be perfect.’
‘It’s stunning. Thank you, Mum,’ Anika says, and she really means it. Anika begins to put it on, but Nella stops her.
‘He told me thelefthand was good luck.’ She rolls her eyes, then laughs as she adds, ‘He also said it would go pale near poison. Full of superstition.’ She tuts, smiling.
Anika tries it on her left ring finger – after all, it’s not occupied by anything else. They turn to look up as they hear someone knock on the open door to her suite.
‘How is the patient?’ Dr Elachy says by way of greeting. Flunkies follow him and this time one of them is rolling the computer-on-a-trolley that they’ve been using to monitor herpost-operative state.
Anika straightens up a bit. ‘Yeah, not too bad.’ It’s true, she realises, despite everything. Perhaps the drugs and the presents are helping to lift her mood.
‘Good. And Happy Birthday again for yesterday!’ he adds warmly, taking in the ‘30’ balloons.
‘Thank you. Oh, this is my mother,’ Anika says, and Dr Elachy and his entourage nod their hellos. A younger doctor with floppy, matinee-idol hair who introduced himself as Dr Gupta echoes the birthday greetings before returning to the computer, typing rapidly on the attached keyboard. He doesn’t look much older than Anika and yet, she marvels self-consciously, he’s a whole medical doctor. She can sense her mother nodding approvingly from beside her, but Anika isn’t exactly in the market for a new man right now.
‘I have come to give you a nice birthday gift today,’ Dr Elachy continues, glancing at the computer screen.
‘Wow, OK. I’m on the edge of my seat. Or … bed or whatever.’ Anika raises a quizzical eyebrow, but her heart is beginning to pound. ‘What is it?’
The doctor claps his hands together. ‘So, we did a biopsy on the mass and we have the results. Surprisingly quick, they do not usually process this fast, but we do not question it, eh?’ He emits a soft laugh. Anika’s mouth is dry.
‘The mass – it was what we call a hamartoma. This is benign and these often have no symptoms. This is why you were not aware of what began to trouble you for so long. The size of it was a surprise and this is why it was threatening to perforate … Well, no matter. It is now safely removed.’ He looks over the rim of his glasses at her. ‘Now, there are certain risks of other diseases that this can indicate …’ He notices Anika glance towards her mother, who looks back warily, and holds up his hands. ‘But for now there is no need to worry. What you must focus on is simplyrecovery from the surgery.’ He looks from Anika to her mother, nodding. ‘It was a lucky escape. What we will need is to continue to monitor you closely once you have had more time to heal. But we see this as good news.’
‘Right. Wow. OK, great.’ Anika wants to feel more elation, but the notion of this having been an ‘escape’ – that something is still chasing her – lingers.
Beside her, Anika’s mother gasps at the news and her voice is audibly emotional. ‘We tell God tenki, oh!’ and clasps her hands together. It must be good news if her mother has slipped into Krio again.
‘Yes,’ Dr Elachy says. ‘And as I explained, we were able to do the laparoscopic procedure for minimal messing with your insides.’ He grins again. ‘So I am hoping that you will be feeling much better soon.’
Dr Gupta smiles too. ‘Good stuff, eh?’
‘Yeah. Yes. Thank you.’ Anika is trembling now; she can’t tell if it’s the weirdness of having written something very close to this in the diary, or more just the relief of everyone repeating the word ‘good’ so much. The doctor and his attendants lift her dressings to check on her incision sites (what would a medical professional’s visit to her bedside be without a bit of a prod), then file out, leaving the news to sink in. Nella virtually springs out of her chair to hold her daughter’s face between her soft hands. They both have tears in their eyes. Nella pats her cheeks a moment longer and kisses Anika between the eyebrows, then her phone beeps with a text that her mother checks before sighing.
‘I had ordered a cab for four o’clock. The time has gone very quickly,’ Nella says regretfully. Philip is due home from New York that evening.
