The Gin O'Clock Club by Rosie Blake

Author:Rosie Blake [Blake, Rosie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780751575897
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2020-05-31T18:30:00+00:00

Darling Cora,

I loathe hospitals. The sounds of them; the incessant buzz of noise that doesn’t rest even at night: beeps, wheels turning, low voices, coughing. The unsettling feeling that the next drama is only seconds away at any given moment. Then there’s the cloying smell: cabbage, tea, sweat and urine, overlaid by a pervasive bleach that makes the orderlies’ hands red. The looks from strangers, everyone wondering who is in for what reason, visitor or patient, the strained glances as they wait to be seen, wait for news they don’t want to hear, the feeling they would rather be anywhere else than in the hospital.

Arjun seemed impossibly small in the grey metal bed, propped up on flat white cushions, a blanket tucked up under his chin.

We had waited a while for his hip to be X-rayed and I’d offered to stay the night. You can pay for a room in the hospital. It’s normally used for first-time fathers, I think, but it was late and one was spare and I think they felt sorry for me. That can happen a lot now. I gave them my most pathetic, widowed look: it has to be good for something.

Despite the place I was glad to be there with Arjun the next morning. There was muttering: they wanted the radiologist to see him, and the radiologist then requested a consultation with the oncologist. We shared a look then, we both know what that department meant. I felt bile rise up in my throat and swallowed it down. The oncologist was a young woman with large brown eyes and a soft voice.

The moment she looked at the X-ray her mouth moved into a thin line and I recognised the expression from all the appointments we had attended together. It wasn’t going to be good news.

‘There does seem to be a shadow.’ She indicated an area on the X ray that to my eye looked like a grey cloud in the shape of a tulip. She kept talking. Arjun was doing his pretend nod, the one he did when you used to talk him through the plot of Poldark. His eyes had misted over as she spoke, using big words and promising further tests.

I felt a stone lodge in my stomach and throat, a dead weight as I watched her leave. Arjun met my eye and gave me a weak smile, shoulders lifting in a small shrug.

‘I had wondered, recently—’

Cutting him off I stood. ‘It’s good they’ve caught it now,’ I blurted, already feeling awkward and wrong-footed. You would have known what to say, Cora, you would have made him feel comforted. Instead I found myself standing up, offering to get him a coffee he didn’t want and wouldn’t drink. I miss you so much at times like this. Why, Arjun? He’s so utterly full of life. Why does this dreadful illness go after the best of people?

I left the room and went into the corridor, walked across to the coffee machine and then walked

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.