The doctor makes us all feel better. I hadn’t realised that I was basically holding my breath, but as she explains that Nanna’s blood pressure has been up and they’re giving her pills to keep it under control, but they’re going to monitor her for a few days, I feel my shoulders dropping in relief. It’s going to be a few days though, before they let her go back to the sheltered accommodation. She’s not that happy about that.

‘I bet that Maureen steals my favourite chair by the window in the lounge,’ she says, crossly.

‘There must be other seats, Mum,’ says my mother, opening some get-well cards and placing them on the bedside table. I notice she doesn’t read them. Later, I’ll take each one and read the messages out to Nanna, who likes to keep tabs on stuff like that.

I go down to the WRVS café with Mum to have some lunch. The visiting hours are fairly relaxed, but we’re expected to make ourselves scarce at lunchtime. The hospital’s too far out of town to make it worth going in, so instead we sit and eat pale ham sandwiches and drink dark tannin-infused tea, and watch the other relatives as they do the same.

You’d love it here, I write to Alex. It’s people-watching heaven.

Exactly why I love this job, he replies, five minutes later. Hope it’s going okay. Did she have a good night?

Really good, I reply. In fact, she’s already started flirting with the male nurse, I joke, thinking of the nurse from the night before.

Oh yeah, that happens to me all the time.

I bet it does, I type without thinking. Then I blush slightly, because the thought of Alex in his work clothes and the idea of him turning up at my bedside pops into my head and even though nobody else knows what I’m thinking, I feel like – God, what am I doing?

‘Is that James you’re texting?’ Mum asks, looking at me with interest.

I’m caught between trying to explain the situation with Alex, and having her not believe for one second we’re just friends, or telling a small white lie. I decide to settle for the easy option, and say it’s James.

Chapter Thirty-Five: Jess

Chapter Thirty-Five

Jess

4th October, Bournemouth

Nanna’s clearly feeling better the next afternoon, because she’s asked me to bring in her favourite red lipstick and a comb.

She puts on a crochet bedjacket, neatens her hair and puts lipstick on, so she looks much more like herself. We’re talking about the other patients on her ward when I hear Mum. She’s out in the corridor talking to the good-looking male nurse – she gives the tinkling laugh I recognise as her in flirt mode.