Leanne was awake, despite looking as though she shouldn’t be. With sallow skin stretched taut across her face, her eyes were flat and bleak, hair stringy, colourless tangles. She managed a two-second smile when Joan walked up to the bed, before being drained from the effort. When Joan fell onto Leanne’s chest, it was all she could do to lift one bony hand and rest it on her daughter’s head, leaving her silent tears to trickle freely down her cheeks.
‘Hey. I’d ask how you’re feeling, but you look even worse than me,’ I said, offering the warmest smile I could muster.
‘Thank you,’ Leanne croaked, her eyes telling me that she wasn’t referring to the greeting.
‘You’re welcome.’
After a few minutes of muted, laborious chat, a doctor arrived for her afternoon rounds. Leanne asked if I could stay while she provided an update.
After doing a full screen of blood and other tests, they had a diagnosis. Leanne had hepatitis C. Her liver was a wreck. They would need to do more tests to establish to what extent. The social worker appeared and took Joan to find something to eat and a ‘treat for Mummy’ while the doctor checked whether Leanne was sure she wanted me present for the next part of the conversation.
‘I’ve got nothing to hide from Ollie,’ she said, fumbling across the bed for my hand. ‘If anything happens to me, someone’s got to explain it to Diamanté Butterfly one day.’
The doctor glanced at me, puzzled.
‘Joan.’
‘I named her that because I wanted her to be different to me. To shine. To fly.’ Leanne sniffed, wiping her hand across her face.
The conversation that followed was gut-wrenching. I knew that Leanne didn’t want my pity, but boy she had my sympathy.
She’d been lured away from home at sixteen, in a process that today would be recognised as grooming, but fifteen years ago was put down to a wild, uncontrollable teenager with no morals or self-respect. The thirty-four-year-old monster who stole her heart along with her innocence introduced her to heroin, as a reward for being passed around strange men like a joint of weed.
For the next two years she stumbled through a living hell, lost in a haze of drugs and abuse.
‘I was nothing. Worthless trash. That’s how they treated me, so that’s what I became,’ she said, her accent thickening as she voyaged deeper into the memories.
And then, when she realised she was pregnant, everything changed.
‘I’d made a sort of friend. Betty. She lived in the flat downstairs. She looked at me different. Like, she saw me as a person, not a thing to be used. She was a bit doddery on her feet, so I started helping with her shopping, stuff like that. And then, one day, she offered to cut my hair.’ Leanne stopped to catch her breath.
‘I’d forgotten what it was like to be touched like that. Gentle. With kindness. So, when I found out about the baby, I told Betty. She helped me make a plan to get away. We found this house for women like me, out in the countryside.’
Another pause. Leanne’s face had set like concrete, although her hands twisted and plucked at the bed sheet. ‘But then… I wasn’t pregnant any more. Back to business as usual.’
It was all I could do not to turn away, close my eyes. But I was not going to be yet another person who dismissed her story or backed away from her pain.
‘I decided, though. That was never going to happen again. So, I left. I spent nearly a year in the house, getting clean, and getting strong. Well, stronger than before, which isn’t saying much. I got pregnant with Joan a few months later.’
‘And have you taken anything since?’
‘Drugs, you mean?’ She lifted her chin. ‘I’ve not injected. See, no fresh tracks, here, Doctor.’ She held out her arms as evidence. ‘Some weed. A lot of booze. But I’ve been sober for three years. Still have a ciggie now and then, to chase away the nightmares.’
‘Well, Leanne, it sounds like you’ve done astonishingly well. You are one brave warrior of a woman. We’ve also completed a full tox screen, which with your permission I’ll pass to social services once the results come back. Now, if you’re ready we can talk about what happens next. Alternatively, I’m happy to wait until another day. Today’s been a lot.’
‘You think my girl is going to wait another day to find out what’s going on here?’ Leanne twitched the corner of her cracked lips.
The news was a mixture of terrible, then maybe not so bad, then potentially even worse. Leanne had been incubating the virus inside her for a long time. While hepatitis C was generally treatable with medication, over a decade of the virus combined with years of heavy alcohol use was more complicated. Livers were wonderful things, with a freakish capacity to regenerate, but they had their limits. The unanswered question was, had Leanne’s reached hers?
If so, then the best she could hope for was treatment to prevent things from deteriorating any further.
The worst? Cirrhosis, liver failure, cancer.
The moment that Leanne broke was when the doctor told her that they would have to test Joan.
Once the doctor had moved on to the next patient, Joan returned, and we explained what we could, as gently as possible. I went to find a coffee and some comfort food, leaving an eleven-year-old girl curled up in the arms of her brave mother.
20
We arrived home from hospital in the early evening. I went to let Nesbit out into the back and found a bouquet of wild flowers on my doorstep. The giant daisies, yarrow and purple teasels that were sprinkled throughout the forest and meadows beyond our hedge, tied with gardening twine.
Please pass on my good wishes to Ms Brown. Being without one’s mother can be difficult. Having something pretty to look at may in some small way help.
Right. This ridiculousness had gone on long enough. I took the ten steps over to Middle Cottage and rapped on the door, transferring some of my sadness and anger into the forcefulness of the knock.
I waited for the customary two minutes, then knocked again. And again.
Eventually, after cupping my hands against the door and yelling that I wasn’t going away until he opened it, the back door creaked open and Ebenezer stood there, glowering.
Today, his T-shirt said, Does my head look bald in this?
‘I came to say thank you for the flowers, but if I’m going to pass on your good wishes, I need to know your name.’
He stood there, his eyebrows so long that I could barely see if there were any eyes hiding beneath.
‘Like I said two months ago, I’m Ollie.’
Just as I was about to crack and stomp back home, he replied.
‘Ebenezer.’
‘Um… what?’ I felt a flush rise up my neck, before spotting the definite crease of a smirk hiding in the depths of his beard.
Both caterpillar eyebrows rose, clear body language for yes, I do know what you call me behind my back.
‘It probably suits me. You can stick with that.’
I cleared my throat. ‘I would really like to do you the courtesy of calling you by your actual name.’
‘Really?’ Ebenezer gave a comically slow, stiff shrug. How he managed to prune hedges and construct wooden shelters was beyond me. ‘I’ve always considered a nickname to be a gesture of affection between friends.’
He ducked his chin. ‘Ebenezer is fine.’
Then, conversation over, he closed the door.