Page 38 of Barging In
Clem nodded to herself, happy to follow.
Her brain was racing with thoughts of her mum.
Had she had a stroke, or a heart attack?
She’d heard the word ‘X-ray’, so surely that meant she was alive, right?
They wouldn’t X- ray a dead person. And weren’t X-rays mainly for broken bones?
More serious things needed MRIs and CT scans.
She clung to that thought and that canal-related injuries weren’t uncommon.
As she reached the car, Victoria was already holding the door open for her. Clem didn’t even remember walking there.
“Get in,” Victoria gently urged her, hand on her back.
On autopilot, Clem slid into the passenger seat and clicked her seat belt into place.
“I’m sure she’ll be fine, Clem,” Victoria said, getting into the driver’s seat. Her hand settled briefly on Clem’s knee.
Clem took a deep breath. Victoria’s reassuring voice and touch brought a flicker of solace. She decided to send a text to her dad. Maybe she could get something — anything — out of him to quell the storm raging in her chest.
As Victoria started the engine, Queen’s “Somebody to Love” blared out loudly. She quickly reached for a knob on the RetroSound unit and turned it down. The sudden silence was somehow even louder than the music.
“Hey,” Clem protested. “You can’t turn Freddie off.”
“Sorry. I thought you might want some peace.”
“No — a distraction would be great actually.”
Victoria turned the music back on, and they made their way down the road, listening to the sounds of Queen.
As it was, it couldn’t distract her from her looping thoughts.
What had happened to her mum? Crushed finger?
Broken arm? Something worse? Surely Dad wouldn’t call from the A&E for something minor.
She tried not to imagine the worst-case scenarios, but they found their way in anyway.
When Victoria finally pulled the car up outside the Accident and Emergency department, Clem was out in a flash. She leaned down through the open window. “Thank you. I really appreciate it.”
“Anytime,” Victoria replied, with a wink.
Clem dashed through the automatic doors and into the reception area.
Glancing back, she noticed Victoria drive away.
Spotting the long queue, she approached a passing nurse, giving her mum’s full name and asking where she might be.
She led her through the waiting room, along a corridor, and into a clinical bay.
Clem followed closely behind the nurse as she negotiated uniformed staff rushing among curtained nooks.
She discovered her mum sitting a few nooks in, with two fingers bandaged together.
Her dad was sitting in an uncomfortable-looking chair to one side of the hospital bed.
“There you are,” Clem said, letting out a long, heavy breath. “What happened?”
“It’s just a broken finger,” her dad called from the other side of the bed.
“ Just !” her mum protested.
“Oh! Is that all?” Clem said, exhaling with relief.
“What do you mean ‘Is that all’?”
“I thought it was serious! That you’d had a heart attack or a stroke or something.”
“Well, I wish I had now,” she uttered. “At least I might get a bit of sympathy.”
“Sorry, Mum.” Clem raked a hand through her hair. “I was just really worried, and I couldn’t get through to Dad.”
“Sorry, love.” He sounded sheepish. “The mobile was working fine outside by the ambulance, but I must’ve lost you when I came in.”
“It was never working fine. All I heard was Mum was in A&E. At least I caught which one. Why the ambulance? ”
“Well, how else would we have gotten to the hospital?” Her mum sniffed.
“They are emergency vehicles, not glorified taxis. How did you even do it?” Clem asked.
“I was cleaning the windows from the towpath. A boat sped past and upset The Kingfisher . My hand was leaning on the rub rail.”
Clem sucked in a noisy breath through her teeth. She could imagine the rest.
“You didn’t need to come.” She turned to her husband, exasperated. “I thought you were going to send a text, Tom.”
“ I thought it would be easier to call her. A text message might have worried her.”
Clem shook her head at them both.
“How did you get here so quickly?” her dad asked.
“Victoria gave me a lift.”
“From next door?” Her mum glared at her. “Friends now, are we?”
“You could say that,” Clem said, clenching her jaw to stop herself smiling at the fact.
“I saw those bad reviews.”
“You would have seen her reply then, too, Mum,” Clem replied, a little too sharply. “It wasn’t her — and she wasn’t trying to get me moved either.”
“What about that mishap that had you both in the canal?”
“A misunderstanding. She’s really nice, Mum. I’ve been helping her out a bit. I’m baking for the wharf, too.”
“Is she a lesbian?” her mum whispered, suddenly seeming mindful that they were having this conversation in a semi-public space.
“Seriously?” Clem turned to her dad. “Are you sure she didn’t hit her head as well? ”
“Not recently.” He chuckled.
“Why would you even ask that, Mum?”
“I was only wondering. Are we not allowed to ask that sort of thing anymore?”
“I don’t think it’s ever been appropriate to ask someone that, Mum. It’s no one’s business,” Clem replied, finding the knot that had been forming in her stomach since her dad’s call tighten.
Her mum gave a nonchalant shrug.
“Didn’t Maud say she had a husband,” Clem’s dad put in, “though she never saw him around much?”
“Oh, yes, she did.”
“She’s offered me a job on top of the baking,” Clem said, quickly changing the subject.
“Doing what?” her mum demanded.
“Marketing. The wharf needs a little — well, a lot of help to increase footfall, or it might close.”
“Oh! Well, it sounds like an exciting opportunity and some guaranteed income, but how would you manage that with your café and baking for the wharf?”
“It’s part-time or whatever hours I want, so I can work around it.”
Her mum looked ready to respond, but a nurse appeared at the end of the bed.
“You’re all good to go, Mrs Wentworth,” she said brightly. “The bruising will take a few days to go down. Take some painkillers if you need to, and keep it strapped like this until you see us again. The fracture clinic will send you an appointment for about four weeks from now.”
“Great. Come on, Tom,” her mum said, pushing herself up with one hand, the other held aloft with a dramatic point. “We’re expecting four guests in a couple of hours. ”
“I hope they enjoy the view out of the clean windows,” the nurse called after them with a chuckle.
As they made their way into the waiting area, Clem’s heart gave a little leap.
Victoria was sat calmly between a single, tired-looking man and a family with rather shouty young children, a magazine perched on her lap.
That feeling of joy swiftly twisted into nerves as Clem realised her parents would have to meet her. Properly.
“What’s she still doing here?” her mum asked.
“I don’t know,” Clem said, “but please try to be nice to her. For me.” Without waiting for a reply, she strode ahead. “Victoria. Thanks for waiting.”
“I wasn’t sure if you would need a lift,” Victoria said, standing up and putting the magazine on a nearby table.
“Yes, that would be great, thanks,” Clem replied with a smile. She hadn’t even thought about how she’d get home.
Her parents caught up with them then. Clem took a deep breath.
“Victoria, these are my parents, Tom and Barbara. Mum, Dad, Victoria.”
All parties smiled and nodded politely, much to Clem’s relief.
“I hope you are okay, Barbara?” Victoria asked.
Clem was surprised to hear a hint of nervousness in her voice.
“I am, thank you,” Clem’s mum accepted her well wishes. “It’s a clean break, so I’m told it should heal quickly.”
“Oh. Good,” Victoria pronounced.
“I’ll go outside and call a taxi,” Clem’s dad said.
“I could give you a lift,” Victoria countered. “Save you the trouble.”
“That would be super, thanks,” he replied.
Five minutes later, the four of them stood in the car park, staring at the Jaguar.
Clem’s dad scratched his head. “Erm.”
“Yes, sorry. It will be a bit of a squeeze,” Victoria admitted sheepishly. Leaning into Clem, she whispered, “How far is it to the marina?”
“About fifteen minutes.” Turning to her dad, Clem said, “Dad, you and I can squeeze in the back. You get in behind the passenger seat, and then I’ll help Mum in.”
“Does this thing even have seat belts?”
“Yes, Mum, of course it does.”
“Oh, err, not in the back, it doesn’t,” Victoria corrected her. “They weren’t legally required in cars of this age.”
“Well, we’re not going far, are we?” Clem said quickly, itching to have her parents as far away from Victoria as possible.
She let the seat fall gently against her dad’s knees and pulled the seat forward to give him some room.
“There you go, Mum. Mind your hand.”
With everyone squeezed in, they finally set off. Clem wished she’d bundled them into a taxi instead, but as the gentle scent of Victoria’s fragrance filled her nose it also soothed the tension inside her.
“I believe I have you to thank for reviving my jumper, Barbara,” Victoria said.
“Oh. No need,” she replied, ever so politely.
Clem eyed her dad and smirked. He shot a grin her way. It was typical of her mum to be rude behind someone’s back and oh so polite to their face.
Much to Clem’s relief, the rest of the journey passed in blissful silence aside from her dad giving the odd direction to Victoria.
On the way, she checked the weather report to see what she needed to bake for the morning.
A large sun greeted her in the app, and she bit back a sigh.
The last thing she wanted to do when she returned to Florence was work.
Evenings once spent watching TV, bingeing a series, or getting lost in a book felt like a distant memory, sacrificed the moment she started working for herself.
“Here is good,” her dad said as they finally pulled into the marina car park.