Deborah Crombie - Necessary as Blood

When he woke once more, he was moving, propelled by an arm round his shoulder, his unwilling feet tangling with each other. It was dark, truly dark. Rough things caught and scraped at his face, and when he lifted a hand to his cheek it was wet. Then he was falling, falling, and the scent of warm earth rose up to meet him.

At certain times, it was so quiet that I could hear the call to prayer from the East End mosque on Whitechapel Road, and the clatter of trains as they passed along the underground line from Shoreditch station. Sunday mornings brought the distant sounds of pealing church bells and music-box tunes played by roaming ice-cream vans. From the backs of the curry houses came the smell of Indian cooking and, when the wind was in the right direction, the sweet aroma of fresh bagels from the bakeries.

– Tarquin Hall, Salaam Brick Lane

Gemma woke on Sunday morning tired and headachy from having tossed and turned during the night. She’d gone to bed cross with Duncan, something she hated even when the cause was a mere domestic argument. But this, this had been much worse than a squabble over chores or work. When he’d told her about Cyn’s call, she’d lashed out at him in a burst of fury that left her shaking.

He’d said, with irritating reasonableness, that there would have been nothing she could do if he had told her earlier. She’d been in Spitalfields with no car, and even if she’d taken the tube from Liverpool Street to Leyton, then what? Her mum would have been in bed, her dad exhausted, and neither glad to see her.

The fact that she knew he was right made her no less peeved. When he asked her what had happened in Brick Lane, she’d merely snapped, “Long story,” and gone off to check on the children-Toby asleep, Kit texting on the phone that had been his birthday present, which she now swore was biologically attached to his thumbs.

But upstairs on her own, the anger started to drain away. Feeling sweaty and dusty, she’d shed her clothes in a heap on the mat and slipped into a hot bath. The bathroom window was open, and night sounds from the garden drifted in with the occasional breeze. It amazed her that London could be so quiet off the main thoroughfares-but when she listened very carefully she could hear an underlying faint hum of the city, and occasionally the distant squeal of brakes or slamming of car doors.

By the time the water had cooled, she’d realized that she’d merely focused on Duncan as the nearest target for her own worry and her irritation with her sister. As she patted herself dry and slipped into pajamas, she resolved to apologize, but when she went out into the bedroom, he was asleep. All she could do was curl up against his back and listen to his quiet breathing.

She was up and dressed early, before Duncan and the children were awake. As soon as she deemed it even remotely civilized, she rang her sister from the quiet confines of the kitchen.

“Cyn, why the hell didn’t you ring me? ” she hissed when her sister answered, trying to keep her voice down.

“Gemma!” Cyn sounded cheerfully surprised, artificially so, and Gemma’s heart plummeted into her stomach. “I was just going to call you,” her sister added. There was a murmur of voices in the background, but not, Gemma thought, Cyn’s husband, Gerry, and her children, Tiffani and Brendan.

“Where are you?”

“Hospital. The London.” Gemma heard rustling and the background noise faded, replaced by her sister whispering, “I can’t talk. You know it’s against regulations to use phones on the ward.”

“Ward? Why are you on a ward? What’s happened?”

“Mum’s weak. Her white cell count is down. They’re going to do a transfusion.”

“A transfusion? But-”

“Look, you’d better just get here, all right?” Cyn’s phone went dead.

Having left a note for Duncan, Gemma thought furiously as she drove across the city. The Royal London Hospital was in Whitechapel, near where she had been last night. Why was her mum there, and not at Barts in the City, where she’d been treated before? The two hospitals were part of the same system, administratively linked; perhaps it had been a matter of the availability of beds on the wards, rather than the need for a more advanced treatment.

Her route took her past Marylebone and Euston, St. Pancras and Kings Cross, then into City Road and down Commercial Street. Hawksmoor’s church seemed more forbidding in the harsh morning light, offering no comfort.

Her quick glimpse of Fournier Street, however, had been reassuring. It looked as quiet and ordinary as any street should on a Sunday morning. She thought of ringing Tim, but decided it was still too early. Nor could she cope with speaking to anyone until she had learned what was going on with her mum.

The congestion increased as she traveled east down Whitechapel Road, which was clogged by the Sunday market. Any other time the array of Asian foods and spices would have tempted her, but by the time she reached the ugly warren of buildings that formed the London, she was fidgeting with impatience. The parking gods were with her, however, and she managed to slip into a metered space on a side street.

An inquiry at the main desk sent her to a ward in one of the outbuildings. God, she hated hospitals-hated feeling helpless and inadequate-hated not being able to do something, anything, that would help her mother.

A nurse buzzed her into the ward and directed her to her mother’s curtained cubicle. The energy that had driven Gemma since waking that morning suddenly evaporated, and her hand shook as she pulled aside the drape.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes, love,” said her mum. Vi Walters was propped up in a hospital bed, IV lines taped to her arm. She looked pale but alert, and there was no one else in the cubicle.

With an inward sigh of relief, Gemma kissed her mum’s cheek. It felt warm to the touch. “How are you?” Gemma asked, pulling up a chair. “Why are you here? And where are Dad and Cyn?”

“You sound just like your son.” Her mother shook an admonishing finger at her.

“I know, I know,” Gemma admitted, smiling in spite of her worry. “One question at a time,” she and her mother repeated in unison. Gemma laughed, then sobered. “Seriously, Mum, how are you?” She couldn’t help glancing at the IV. “Cyn said a transfusion…”

“I’m just a bit run down,” said Vi. “They say it’s the effects of the chemo on my immune system, so I need a little boost. And my veins have gone a bit wonky, so they’re going to put in a port to make the chemo easier.”

Gemma put together the bright spots of color in her mother’s cheeks with the warmth of her skin. “You’ve got a temperature.”

“Well, just a bit.” Vi didn’t meet her eyes. “They say it’s not unusual. Low white cell count.”

“Where are Cyn and Dad, then?” Gemma asked, not wanting to address what she suspected was evasion quite yet.

“You sister has taken your father home, thank goodness, so that he can get some rest and I can have a little peace.” Vi closed her eyes. “That’s the worst thing, you know, his worrying. I try so hard not to…but yesterday I just couldn’t go on with things…”

“Mum.” Gemma took her mother’s hand as she thought about the complexities of her parents’ relationship. Her view had changed since her mother’s diagnosis. She’d always thought her father the dominant partner, and her mother’s mission in life as catering to his needs at the cost of her own.

But that had only been the surface, she’d realized, something she would have seen much more easily if her perceptions hadn’t been clouded by her own place in the family dynamic.