It was Kyle’s loss but, maybe, it was hers too. Yet, she couldn’t consider being with Kyle – even if that was an option, and he seemed to have very firmly indicated that it wasn’t – knowing that he’d brushed off such a seismic event in her family history with a kind ofoh-well-it’s-in-the-pastshrug. Family trauma was never just in the past. Deb could feel that loss resounding down the years from the 1930s to her life now, like an echo. That loss had affected Janice’s life, and in turn, hers.
Okay, Kyle didn’t know everything about her life. He didn’t know what Janice was like. He didn’t remember Grandma Elise. But he could have shown more compassion – especially if he cared about her, like he said he did.
She sighed and got into the driver’s seat. Maybe after the party was over, she’d let herself think about that.
Maybe.
TWENTY-TWO
‘Mum?’ Deb had answered the phone when Janice had called, but instead of her usual cheery hello, there was the sound of panicked breathing at the other end of the line. ‘Mum?’ she repeated, frowning.
She was standing in the middle of Loch Cameron’s bi-weekly food market, which was bustling with people wandering in all directions. At Anna’s suggestion, she’d been checking out some of the local food producers with an eye to enlisting some of their products for the May Day party: so far, she’d talked to a lovely couple who ran a bakery stall, which was practically heaving with delicious cinnamon buns, hot cross buns, lemon Danish, chocolate pastry twists and all manner of other mouth-watering sweet treats. Deb had also sampled olive bread, crusty sourdough loaves and classic farmhouse granaries, as well as a moist and utterly delicious cherry madeira cake, a carrot cake which was frankly to die for, and a wonderfully moist pistachio and lavender sponge which she thought would be perfect for the party.
Janice was of the generation that found tech a little counter-intuitive, to say the least, so Deb waited for a second, assuming that her mother had done something like dropped her phone.She walked to the side of the street, by the iron railings that ran alongside a pathway alongside the loch edge, where it was a little less busy.
‘Mum?’ she repeated.
‘Darling, I’m not too well.’ Janice’s voice was weak at the end of the line, and Deb felt a blooming panic tug at her middle. ‘Can you come over? I wouldn’t normally ask… it’s just that I’ve… had a fall.’
Deb knew her mother well enough to know that if there had been any other option open to her instead of calling her daughter, then she would have done it.
‘Where are you, Mum?’ Deb turned away from the market stalls, and put her fingers in the ear that didn’t have a phone next to it.
‘I’m at home, darling.’ Janice’s voice wavered; Deb was shocked to hear that Janice was trying not to cry. Janice never cried. ‘I… I can’t get up. I think I might have broken my ankle.’
Oh, no.
‘Mum!’ Deb cried out, her heart pounding. ‘You’re… on the floor?’
‘Yes.’ Janice’s voice was reedy. ‘Can you come? I know it’s a way. But I’m in a lot of pain.’
‘Oh, god. Okay. I mean, it’ll take me a few hours.’ Deb looked at the time on her phone: it was midday, and to get to Glasgow, where Janice’s flat was, would take at least three hours.
Three hours was too long to leave her mum lying in agony on the floor.
‘All right. What I’m going to do is call an ambulance and then Beatrice, next door. I’ll drive over, but you need help before I can get there.’ Deb’s crisis management skills kicked in, and she was grateful for them. ‘Okay? I’m going to call Beatrice now.’
Beatrice had a spare key for emergencies.
‘Uh, no. Don’t bother her.’ Janice was breathing heavily. Deb could only imagine how much pain she must be in. ‘Please, I just want you. I don’t want anyone to see me like this.’
‘Mum. I literally can’t get there for hours. You cannot lie on the floor with a broken ankle. No one could, not least a woman with ongoing kidney failure. Oh! You’re supposed to go to dialysis today too.’
‘Yes,’ Janice said, weakly. ‘I was just getting ready to go and I fell in the hallway.’
Deb swore under her breath.
‘All right, Mum. I have to get off the phone so I can call an ambulance. If you’re not there by the time I get home, then I’ll follow you to the hospital. Okay?’
‘Deborah. Please don’t make a fuss,’ Janice said.
‘Mum. That is completely unreasonable,’ Deb sighed. ‘You’ve broken your ankle. You need your dialysis. An ambulance is not something you can refuse. Just keep your phone near to you.’
She ended the call, choking back tears. Deb had hardly ever witnessed Janice being vulnerable at all, even though she had been ill for a long time. Janice was impermeable, like a rock. That meant that if she was asking Deb for help now, then things were very bad. Deb tried not to think about her poor mum, lying with her ankle twisted under her, or the bone shattered and sticking through the skin, or in a pool of blood… there were so many possible scenarios.
Deb called the emergency services and gave them her mum’s address, explaining what had happened and saying that she hoped a neighbour would be there to let them in. Next, she called Beatrice.
The phone rang several times before Beatrice’s voice appeared at the other end of the line. Deb felt relief wash over her: for a moment, she had wondered what the ambulance would do if they hadn’t been able to get in. Break the door down?Deb supposed that might be something they did, from time to time.
