22. Hilda’s Secret

22

Hilda’s Secret

‘Excuse me, what’s going on?’ Josie said, leaning through the ambulance’s open rear doors. It was empty, but just as she was wondering whether to go into the house, voices came from the garden. Two paramedics appeared, carrying a stretcher, another jogging alongside. Josie let out another gasp at the sight of Hilda lying on the stretcher.

‘What happened?’ she gasped.

‘Madam, please stand back,’ said one paramedic, waving her aside as they made for the ambulance’s rear doors.

‘It’s nothing,’ Hilda said, turning her head and trying to sit up as the two carrying the stretcher lifted her into the back of the ambulance. ‘Just a turn, that’s all.’

‘Can I come with you?’

‘I’m sorry, madam,’ said the first paramedic. ‘Are you a next of kin?’

‘I’m her best friend.’

The paramedics looked at each other. ‘We’re taking Ms. Lewisham to Derriford in Plymouth,’ one said, as another shut the rear doors.

‘Thank you.’

‘Perhaps you could bring an overnight bag?’

Josie just nodded, face roaring with heat, as they climbed into the ambulance. Then, lights blaring and siren wailing, it sped away up the road.

Josie, hands shaking, pulled her phone out of her pocket. She tried Tiffany, but it directed immediately to voicemail. Starting to panic, she nearly dropped the phone, before remembering the landline Tiffany had installed in the reception. Her daughter had called Josie’s phone to test whether it worked.

She searched her received calls list. There it was: an unfamiliar number. She quickly dialled it back.

‘Good morning, Porth Melynos Caravan and Camping Park,’ came a spritely voice. ‘This is Tiffany speaking. How may I help you on this wonderful sunny day?’

It was just starting to rain. Josie gulped, her mouth dry. ‘Tiff, it’s me,’ she rasped. ‘I need a vehicle right away.’

‘Mum, you sound terrible. Did you just rob a bank?’

Josie swallowed again. ‘It’s Hilda,’ she said. ‘She’s gone into hospital.’

Tiffany let out a little scream. ‘Where are you now?’

‘Up on the main road. Do you think it would be okay to steal Hilda’s van?’

‘You’re not insured, so give me five minutes to sort something out. Stay right there.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Cathy Ubbers said, hammering the launderette van into another blind corner. ‘I know these roads like the back of me hand.’

Josie grabbed Tiffany’s knees in horror as Cathy suddenly let go of the wheel completely. The van swerved across the road with a squeal of the tires. The baseball cap Tiffany had been wearing bounced down into the footwell, Tiffany just managing to swipe it before it got in the way of the brake pedal.

‘What’s these? Oh, the backs of me hands!’

With a wild chortle, Cathy grabbed the wheel again and swung them sharply back into the hedgerow, narrowly missing an oncoming minibus. Josie caught a glimpse of the words Saltash Canoeing Club on the side and a half dozen or so terrified teenage faces pressed against the windows, then they were dipping down a meandering lane beneath overhanging trees.

‘Are you sure this is the way?’ Josie gasped.

‘Shortcut, innit?’ Cathy said. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll be there, soon as.’ She slapped Tiffany, sitting between them, on the thigh. ‘So glad you called me, love. Always like to make meself useful. Hil, she’s such an old dear.’

‘Is it much further?’

Cathy grinned. ‘Not if you know all the shortcuts.’

‘I’m guessing you do?’

‘Made half of them up myself, didn’t I? Last time me and Gav were timing, we’d shaved six minutes off the usual route. You know what that means, don’t you? Extra twelve minutes in Primark per shopping trip.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Well, Gav wanted to go up Virgin Megastores, but I said, who buys CDs these days?’

‘It’s a good point,’ Tiffany muttered.

‘A good point,’ Josie echoed.

‘I mean, it’s all streaming, innit? Like that song at number one. It’s all just playlists and stuff, no one’s actually buying it, are they? I mean, a song like that, some guy moaning about his wife, who’d pay money for that? What a plonker—woah, almost missed that tractor, didn’t I?’

Josie found herself pressed against the window, Tiffany leaning against her shoulder. The tractor passed, a blur of green and red, so close that clods of mud sprayed in through Cathy’s open driver’s side window.

‘Watch where you’re going!’ Cathy shouted, picking a sod of muddy grass off the dashboard and tossing it onto the road. ‘Can’t you see we’re ladies?’

Much to Josie’s pleasant surprise, they reached Derriford Hospital some twenty-minutes later without any of them being sick or the car being involved in a head-on collision. Josie told them she wanted to see Hilda alone, so Cathy offered to take Tiffany on a Starbucks run.

‘We’ll get you a Frappuccino,’ she called out of the window as the van pulled away, taking a wide-eyed Tiffany with it. ‘Extra cream. You’ll need it for the shock.’

Josie went into the reception and told the staff Hilda’s name.

‘I’m her best friend,’ she said. ‘I had just arrived at her house when I saw the ambulance. I don’t know what happened.’

The receptionist asked her to wait while she made a phone call. A minute later she put down the phone and looked up at Josie.

‘She’s just having some tests done, but she’ll be in the ward soon so if you want to, you can go over to the department and wait.’

‘Yes, please.’

‘Okay. The receptionist set a hospital map down on the counter and indicated the route Josie needed to take.

‘Here, on the second floor.’

Josie looked up. ‘Cancer … what do you mean? Why’s she on the cancer ward?’

‘I think you and your friend will need to talk about that.’

Josie hurried through the hospital to the cancer treatment department. Asking at a departmental reception desk, she was shown to a seat and told to wait. An hour and three cups of overly sweet machine coffee ticked by. She messaged Tiffany to say she’d be a while, and a reply came to say Cathy had taken her to Primark. Finally, a nurse came over and tapped her on the shoulder.

‘Ms. Roberts? Ms. Lewisham is on the ward now if you would like to see her.’

Hilda, wearing hospital pyjamas, was sitting up in bed with a gardening magazine open on her lap. She looked less than happy, but smiled when she noticed Josie standing at the foot of her bed.

‘I’ve already read this one cover to cover,’ she said, giving the magazine a dismissive tap. ‘Can you believe it’s the most recent issue they have?’

Josie came over to the bed and put a hand over Hilda’s, noticing to her shock the tube coming out of her friend’s forearm.

‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ Hilda said. ‘It’s just a few vitamins and things. The same stuff I give to plants.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

Hilda visibly sagged. ‘Not the best conversation opener, is it? I meant to, I just … couldn’t. I can’t even admit it to myself. I’ve been a warrior my whole life. I’ve rarely even had a cold. And now … this.’

‘How bad is it?’

Hilda sighed. ‘Stage two lung cancer.’

‘Stage … what does that mean?’

‘It could get worse; it could get better. I might live; I might die. That’s about what it means.’

‘Lung cancer? How? You don’t smoke; you spent most of your life around plants … it doesn’t make sense.’

‘There’s one battle none of us can win,’ Hilda said. ‘The battle against time. I’m an old woman; that’s about the be all and end all.’

‘An old woman who rides a motorbike, climbs hills to look at sunsets—’

‘Goes parachuting, don’t forget that. Incredible experience.’

‘It just doesn’t seem possible.’

‘I’m bucket-listing, aren’t I? Just in case I’m no longer here this time next year.’

‘Don’t say that.’

Hilda sighed again. ‘I was perfectly happy with my old Ford Mondeo. The motorbike was an impulse buy.’

‘You should have told me.’

‘I tried to, but you were going through your divorce and I didn’t want you worrying about me on top of everything else. Then when you told me how you’d ended up, about selling the house and everything, I saw a chance to spend a bit of time with you. I knew your pride would stop you taking an extended holiday, but I remembered Nat’s family’s campsite and thought it would give you a project to keep you nearby for a while if I could talk him into letting you have a go.’

‘Oh, Hilda. You should have just told me.’

‘I know, I know, but I didn’t want you fussing around me and worrying all the time. I’m perfectly all right. Well, apart from the Big C, but otherwise. I just had a turn, that’s all. It was too hot in the greenhouse. Nothing to do with the cancer.’

‘I don’t believe you. Have you started treatment yet?’

‘They said they have some more tests to do, but it probably won’t be long.’ She sighed. ‘Can you have a word with Tiffany? I might need to borrow a couple of hats.’