The Scrapbook by Carly Holmes Page B

mothers. Finally I was asked to wear my gown whenever I left my bed.
    Little interest was taken in my play-acted pregnancy at the time. Nobody on my own ward seemed to see my straining stomach and nobody on the maternity ward seemed to see beyond it. I was accepted at face value, without questions being asked, and I’d so needed questions to be asked. If my stay in the hospital had been any longer how many more puddings a day would I have had to eat to maintain the illusion? And what was I hoping to achieve? I don’t like to dwell on all that too much, but I think it was a phantom pregnancy in every sense; my dead baby morphed into my granny’s escaped soul, and my sense that it was all somehow my own fault. Maybe. Either way, I haven’t been able to eat stewed apple since.
    Visitors came every day after lunch for two hours and three times a week in the early evening. I’d wait at the ward doors as soon as I’d finished the last of my puddings and stay there until every single visitor had come and then gone again. I pestered the nurses for messages and was told that my mum had definitely been at the hospital that first night, had waited while my injuries were investigated and my left ankle pinned.
    White as a sheet she was. Someone fetched her in and she sat right there for hours, drinking from her flask. She had a real go at the man who hit you, shouting the odds and waking everyone up. She’s rung in a few times since, to check on you. Shame you haven’t got a phone at home, you could give her a ring.
    They described her; the dark hair, the bitten finger nails. It certainly sounded like mum. Of course it was her, who else could it have been? And she’d been scared for me, had come to the hospital, had stayed all night to see if I was okay. I continued to wait by the door at visiting time.
    A policeman came to interview me. He had the longest head I’d ever seen, his crown teetering above strands of grey like a mountain peak wreathed in cloud. He looked at me intently when he asked questions, tapped his pen against his notebook. I sweated and hid my belly beneath the bedclothes.
    He told me that if the man who’d hit me with his car had to go on trial then he could get into a lot of trouble, so it was really important that I described the accident exactly as I remembered it. He told me that the man insisted that I’d stepped out into the road without looking, that he didn’t have a chance to stop. I said that I didn’t remember anything.
    He told me that three members of the public had come forward and reported that I’d seemed agitated, distressed, was following a woman with a pram, had rushed into the road to pass a group of people who’d blocked my way. Was this true? Again I said that I didn’t remember anything.
    The policeman went away at lunchtime, promising to return with more questions. I bolted my lunch, followed by two puddings, and spent the afternoon on the toilet.
    When I was discharged mum came to collect me. She pulled me close and started to cry. Her hair was un-brushed, her breath sour.
    Oh, Fern, I was so scared. I was out of my mind with worry, I really was.
    I held myself against her stiffly, stepped away and limped ahead to the taxi. Tommy helped me slide inside, his huge hands soft against my back. He rested his fingertips on the top of my head for a second, cupping my skull.
    It’s good to be bringing you home safe and sound, kid.
    I refused to speak to mum in the car but I let her hold my hand and stroke my wrist. At home she tried to bustle around me, lead me to the sofa and thrust old magazines at me, but I stood in the middle of the room and shouted at her, swaying on my crutches, throwing the glossy peace offerings onto the floor.
    You didn’t visit me once! Not once, mum!
    She started to cry again.
    Try to be reasonable, love, how could I come? I had to wait at home in case your father came back, didn’t I? Someone