CHAPTER 47
Sunday morning’s light told me I had got outside far too much alcohol the previous evening, and with that thought I realised that the evening had actually become morning before I had managed to deliver a very unsteady Mam to our corner of the site.

Hangovers are funny things, because they mirror the preceding state of drunkenness. When plastered, your mind comes up with all sorts of insights and mystical revelations, which will change the course of your life and deliver immeasurable benefits, if you could only recall them the following morning. Instead, the hangover arrives, which allows a detailed examination of the damage you are doing to your health.

Hangover revelations at bike rallies usually arrive first thing Saturday morning, and evaporate by early evening the same day. This time, my enlightenment was entirely related to Mam. I couldn’t help remembering Carol’s words. Stroke? Tumour? Either way, simply getting pissed wasn’t helping. I dressed quickly, crawling out of my tent and heading for the little kitchen area we always set up. There was more than enough water for two kettles, so I settled them both on the gas rings and set out a couple of pans for our breakfast. Whatever state Mam was in, the smell of bacon would always get her up and moving. That Sunday was no exception.

We sat in the tent for our breakfast, as it was a little damp outside, a low mist clinging to the area around the little stream where I had played Pooh Sticks for the first time, an age ago. Mam was in a pensive mood, as Dad handled a last few sales from the departing rallygoers.

“You happy with this surgeon bloke, love? He come across as straight up? Those posh bastards, they’re sometimes the worst of the Straights”

“I don’t think they are, really. I think it’s the ones who’d like to be posh, like that bitch with the horse face I told to fuck off that time”

She turned to look at me, a genuine grin creasing her face, bringing the lines out around her eyes.

“Whatever happened to that little wild thing I found in a horse box?”

“She grew up, Mam, and all thanks to you two. Anyway, that surgeon? I think he’s fine. There’s a bit of history about him, I think. Said something about things he had seen in the War. Meant to say about that. He looked me over, and he says he can do some work on my arse, clear up some of the problems there. I said I don’t have that much money, and he goes away for a while, not out of the room, just in his head, yeah? Says something about things he saw back then, and tells me ‘no charge’ for that bit”

“How was he dressed?”

“Blazer and tie with stripes on”

“Diagonal stripes?”

“Yeah. Three colours”

“He’ll be ex-RAMC, then. Royal Army Medical Corps. I think I can guess what he meant. We weren’t far from Hanover, me and Ken, when we were out there. Big military hospital. There was a famous place not far from us, where they had the Pied Piper, if you’ve heard that story. Hamelin. Took all the children away from the town, never brought them back. Other side of Hanover, though, was a place that was no fucking fairy story, and it took loads of people away, thousands and thousands. We went there, me and Ken. Just the once. That was once too much. I am wondering if that was where he was”

She sat in silence for a few seconds.

“Deb?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you remember asking me, all those years ago, why we were looking after you?”

“Every second of it”

“Well, it wasn’t just because of my Christine. I didn’t need to have known any of those folk who were in Belsen, I just needed to know that I needed to do my best to make things better, any way I could. I think your surgeon’s like that”

Another, longer pause.

“She never had a chance at getting fixed, love. Not like you have. But whoever it was that did for her, they showed her that they were real men before they smacked her head into the pavement and left her to die. I was still in Krautland when it happened, and the local coppers, they didn’t give a shit. One more bender out of the way. So… So let’s just make sure we get it right with you. Chris never had a chance. That work for you?”

All I could do was move over so I could hold her.

“I did some research while I was in Cannock, Mam. I’d like you to make me a promise, and see your own doctor, any doctor. You’re still not feeling the music, are you?”

“No…”

“Any headaches?”

“Volume of ale we had, of course!”

“Don’t fuck me about, Mam. This is me, not Dad”

Her eyes told me all I needed to know. I took both of her hands.

“Mini stroke, Mam. Or maybe a growth. Or maybe nothing at all, but I want you to see a doctor and get looked at properly. If I am your Christine, I am making you mine. OK?”

“Yeah, but we’ve got a living to earn”

“And I’ve come into money, yeah? WE’VE come into money. I want that promise, Mam!”

She was in my arms, and her tears were hot.

“I’m scared, love! Scared!”

My turn to love, my turn to care, but then I would never stop doing either. How could I?

“Mam?”

“Yes, love?”

“Fester is still open. I can get him to do us a hot chocolate each, if you’d like”

“I’d like that, love”

“Then we sit down and do some planning, aye? Find somewhere to do some checks, X-rays, scans, whatever the system is. And Mam?”

The decision came to me fully-formed and absolutely clear in its logic.

“If they need to do something, if they can’t do it on the NHS, then I speak to that man in Harley Street and see what he says. I’ve got the money, if we need it, and what’s mine is always ours. I can wait. I don’t know if you can”

I shot out of the door before she could answer, taking Dad’s order of a cuppa as I passed, his eyes missing neither the tear stains on my top, nor those on my face. That was the end of our discussion for then, but it didn’t bring a halt to events. Two weeks later, on a Friday evening, Carol was waiting by the door as I arrived home from Mossman’s. She was holding a letter.

“You talked to Loz, then? She’s asked me to set up an appointment for her, given a long list of symptoms, and they are terrifying me. Could you please stop over at ours tonight? Pete’s away for a couple of days for a gig, and I don’t want to be alone with this stuff. Please? I’ll cook, if you like”

The bottom was dropping out of my guts as I changed from my overalls and safety boots, and when I knocked on the door, Carol was so clearly unable to settle down, bustling around me with drinks and plates of food that I stood up and pushed her into her chair. Whatever Mam had told her was clearly far more detailed information than I had been given.

“Carol. Speak. Just tell me, instead of scaring me shitless. Please”

She picked up the letter, tried to read it a couple of times, then dropped it into her lap. A few deep, slow breaths.

“Did Loz tell you she isn’t driving anymore, Deb?”

“What? No!”

“Headaches, as well, and they are postural, positional. Depend on where she’s holding her head, whether she’s leaning over, that sort of thing. She’s losing words as well, in her reading. Looks at a page, and there’s odd words that just sit there, that she can’t get a focus on. And she was on the psych ward; she bloody well knows what all that means!”

I don’t know what my expression told her, but Carol was as sharp as ever, leaping from her chair to embrace me.

“No, love. She didn’t tell you all that because she didn’t want you scared, that’s all. This is for the doctors, and they need the lot. Ken’s bringing her home in ten days, and they’ve got one of those new scanner things down in Brum. I’ve sorted an appointment through my bosses. That’s why she’s given me the details”

Fucking tears again, just when I needed strength, tears from someone supposed to be a hard case, biker bitch, whatever.

“What do we do, Carol?”

“What we can, love. We pray, or whatever works for you. We make messy stuff in the kitchen, and we get stoned, or pissed, or both, and then we pick ourselves up and start doing our best for a woman we both love. Dharma and karma, Debbie. She’s done the right thing all her life, made the hard choices between the easy way out and being excellent to others, so how can we fail? Eat up, and then I’ll skin up while you pour. Both of us off tomorrow, yeah?”

“Yeah”

“Wasted it is, then”

Wasted we both were, and once again it was only one bed needed for the pair of us. Safety and warmth, love and deep concern for Mam, and a small bowl of whisky left outside the back door as an offering to whichever of the other types of spirit that might be open to persuasion. Just under a fortnight later, five of us were in Birmingham.