Bron-55

Continued from Chapter 54: Bron-54 | ABCtales

Lorraine Sanderson twisted round to grasp the glass of water on the bedside table, then slumped back, grunting with the effort. “Shit! Even getting a drink’s past me these days.”

“Here, let me.” Grace jumped up from her chair and put the glass to Lorraine’s dried, cracked lips. They’d taken on a brownish tinge since their last visit, a week ago. She’d had her hair done – bleached blonde – but her long thin body made only the slightest of bulges underneath the pale blue hospital blanket. She skin of her hands and arms was like pale crepe paper.

“Thank you, dearie,” breathed Lorraine. “You’re a kind person. Be good for Tommy to have nice people around him. You too, Bron…”

“They gave you a nice room. On your own, like.”

“Yeah, well, didn’t want me doing all that dyin’ stuff in front of the other patients. Upsets them.”

“Yeah, guess so.”

“Don’t think I’m a pretty sight now. Pretty scary.”

“You’re not scary! Not to us,” said Grace.

“Well, thank you for saying it. Even if it’s not true. Been a bad girl; smoking when I was ten, gave it up for about a year when I had Tommy, started again, never stopped since. Marlboros.”

“Coffin nails, they call them…”

“Bron!” said Grace.

“No, she’s right. Of course, if I had my time again, I’d have listened to my teachers, parents. Too late now. God’s punishing me...”

“No, he’s not. It’s just…fate, chance…”

“Stacked the odds against myself. All those years in Felixstowe, painting the town red, rolling in at three in the morning…Did I tell you, I lived there for fifteen years?”

“No, but it’s tattooed on your left arm. Well, Flexistowe.”

“I was pissed and the guy was illiterate. Got it done in Colchester. No tattoo parlour in Felixstowe.”

“How much paint would it take? To paint Felixstowe red? Half a pot?” said Bron.

“Yeah, right. Didn’t stop me putting it away, though. But I’m paying for it now. Rather, Tommy’ll be paying for it.”

“Don’t say that, Lorraine! Sometimes these things just…happen.”

“Well, it’s nice of you to say so, Gracie. But anyway, what’s done is done. Anyway…this is what I’ve decided. Day after tomorrow, I want you to bring Tommy in to see me. I’ll ask them to unhook me from the drips; don’t want his last memories to be of me with all these tubes sticking out of me. And you’ll tell him…you’ll tell him what happened to me, won’t you?”

“Yes, sure, we will. Won’t we Bron?”

“Yeah. We will.”

“You know, Tommy really likes you. And he’s always talking about…Tally Ho, is it?”

“Tan y Bryn.”

“Pretty much all he talks about, when he’s her. The cows, the pigs, Bronco, your Mam.”

“We’ll make sure he spends as much time as he wants there.”

“I know you will. You’re good people, good people…”

To be continued in Chapter 56