CHAPTER 83
It was quite a bright Thursday, and I wasn’t on shift. Charlie and Tiff had some excuse or other for skiving, something about having finished and passed their A-levels, so we were all at a loose end. What to do? Decision made, two girls on the bench seat of the Transit, one on a seat in the back, and round to Diane’s. She would definitely have biscuits, because I made sure I put a couple of packs into my rucksack.

I managed to park on her drive, and when I rang the doorbell, she just shouted out from inside.

“Who is it?”

“Deb!”

“Come round the back! Door’s open!”

Three girls giggling, I went up the side of the house and through the unlatched gate. Back door; make sure it is theirs, Petrie! As I opened the door, the cheeky cow called out, “I think you know how to work a kettle!”

More giggles from my girls, so I just pushed my specialist sarcy sniffer into what was obviously the living room as I started to prepare a pot of tea. Once that was done, the rest of us went in, as I carried a tray of mugs and necessaries. I knew Paula was still craving sugar, so I found a packet and a teaspoon, before adding the biscuits to the load. Not Gemma’s standards, but it would do.

Tiff was laughing out loud as she saw Diane sprawled in an easy chair, feet up, and a venerable ginger cat wrapped across the back of her neck like a furry scarf.

“Hiya, you lot. As I said, I am pinned beneath this ferocious and merciless apex predator, oh dear. What’s the gossip?”

We actually had a reason for the trip, but I left Paula to explain, her face so much more animated as her life took flight once more.

“Been following the book, Di?”

“Bloody hell, yeah! It’s great, if you see what I mean. Horrible to read, but, well, you know what I mean”

“Thanks, Di. Means a lot, that. Anyway, some news: caught the eye of someone at ITV. They are having me on their breakfast show”

There was a little twitch to Diane’s eye that I had come to recognise as her filter going on, the sign that there were things being edited as she spoke.

“Oh! Is that the one with that colossal bell-end on? Moron?”

Charlie’s jaw dropped, and Paula laughed out loud.

“That comes across as a prepared phrase”

Di’s answer confirmed what I was thinking.

“It is. Got it from Elaine, friend of mine. She got it from Annie, who says it’s a sort of obligatory thing. Every time they mention his name, they have to say ‘colossal etc’. Makes sense to me”

‘Annie’. That friend she had mentioned, the one she had described as being one of ‘mine’. I remembered watching the news report again, once Di had opened up, and seeing the wreckage from the car bomb. Footprints, in dried blood. Di was definitely editing, then; Paula picked up on that as well.

“Yeah, Di. Supposed to be funny, isn’t it? But you aren’t smiling. Wossup?”

“Ah, love. Just tired. Sleepless with the kicking, and there’s people I am worried about, and, and, and. Suppose I’m just a bit stir crazy at the moment, not getting out much. Getting flushes and things, always feel like I’m pissing myself, even when I’m not. Just wish it was all over and done”

I caught a sound, like a drip, and Paula was sitting bolt upright, and as Tiff nodded sharply to her, she leant forward.

“That cat OK to pick up?”

“Fritz? Yes. He’ll go as limp as a sack of limp things, but he’s not nasty”

“Then while Tiff picks him up, you tell us where your grab bag is”

“Eh?”

Paula’s mouth was twisting from stress to amusement and back again. I could see the puddle forming now, under her chair. Paula was surprisingly calm, though.

“I think your waters have broken, love. Blake at work?”

“Shit! Yeah, he is. Bag’s by the front door, Tiff”

Paula nodded, waving Tiff away, then turned to me.

“You drive us all, Deb? Room for a fat one who’s about to get thinner? One of you girls want to look after the house and cat until we get sorted? Di, give Charlie Blake’s number”

I was asking myself where her confidence had come from, but I knew the answer to that question was called Welby.

Di took the seat in the back, as it was easier to get in and out, and Paula kept up a running commentary through the little hatch as I drove us all to the hospital. We booked her in, I drove off to find somewhere less financially destructive than the hospital car park fees, and a few minutes after I had hiked across half the city to get back to the hospital, Blake arrived with Charlie. All three of them disappeared into the little curtained area that the medics had shoved Di into, before said medics started getting serious about needing space to do their job. It was quite a while before they took her away, her mother arriving as she left.

I suddenly felt out of it, and I was looking around for something to do when a nurse walked up to me.

“Are you here for the Suttons, love?”

Di’s mother looked round at that, and as soon as I said “Yes”, she was over to me, hand held out for a shake. The nurse smiled at all of us.

“One thing we can’t forecast here is timescale, ladies. It will take as long as it takes, so, if I can make a suggestion?”

Paula, once more, took the lead.

“Would it involve a place with tea and cake?”

The nurse nodded.

“Aye. Friends’ café, I’ll show you the way, and give you a shout as and when. Which of you is the grandmother?”

Di’s Mam looked puzzled.

“I’m her mother, if that’s what you mean”

The nurse was grinning now.

“Give it a couple of hours, and it’ll be grandmother! Down that corridor, okay, and one of us will come and get you when baby’s here”

We filed out the way she had indicated, and there were enough seats for us, and proper cake, and once again it was Paula organising everything as Di’s mother held out her hand to each of us in turn.

“I’m Dot, and when her Dad arrives, he’s Mark. I assume one of you two is Debbie, but which one is Charlotte?”

Tiff looked surprised, and Dot grimaced.

“Have I got it wrong, then?”

I shook my head, and made the introductions, before Dot turned to Charlie with a more settled smile.

“Thank you, love. Put him away tidy, you did, and you, Paula. Public service, but for my family as well, wasn’t it?”

Charlie’s voice was very soft, her sniff put away for a few minutes.

“Yeah, but it was Di who did it first, Dot. Without her, none of us, not me, not Paula”

Dot smiled at each of us in turn once more.

“Mutual assistance, then, as they say. Now, what do you know about her friend? Annie?”

I saw puzzlement on three faces, so I took the lead back from Paula.

“She’s been worried stupid, hasn’t she?”

Dot nodded, looking around the café for eavesdroppers.

“Aye, she has. That car bomb, that was almost more than she could take… Look, breaking confidence. My darling has ended up with the best of men, a real diamond, and we all, me, Mark, Diane, we love him to distraction, but there was another boy, a long time ago, and she was always talking to him, and then, well, I think you understand about that sort of thing”

I raised a hand to forestall any questions from my three.

“Trans woman, she was. Now called Annie. There was a car bomb planted at her mate’s house; you might have seen it on the news. Dot?”

“Yes, Debbie. Been on a right knife-edge, she has. Having friends like you is what’s kept her sane. I thank you again. Now, who wants to be mother, as I have now been put in my place?”

Blake joined us then, pushed out of the maternity wing, unit, whatever, as they did various things to his wife, and he made a point of hugging every single one of, starting with Dot, before turning back to the rest of us.

“Thanks, you lot. Thanks for being there”

That finally brought Charlie’s trademark snort out.

“And where else would we be for our big sister, eh? We girls know our place! And I fed the cat”

In the end, of course, our place had to be elsewhere, as the hours stretched, and our friends fretted. As is the way with waiting and then giving up that anything will actually happen, it was only forty minutes after our return home when Blake rang with the news that he was now the father to Rhodri Adam Sutton. Ten fingers, ten toes, and both healthy lungs and appetite. We all went up the road to Harry’s, and soft drinks were not involved for most of us.

Life as it should be lived!