As the taxi drew up at the hospital, I was dreading what I would find...

‘Well Tannie?

by

Susan Brown

Previously from Chapter 7…

‘Mummy, I’m home.’ I called out happily.

There was no answer. Going into the kitchen, I grabbed a glass and went straight to the fridge, taking out a bottle of milk, I poured myself some and took a sip.

I went to sit at the kitchen table. There was a note on it. Picking it up I read:

Tried to get you on your mobile, but I couldn’t get through. Your nan has had another stroke. I’m going the hospital now. Order a taxi and come as soon as possible.

Love Mum

And now the story continues…

As the taxi drew up at the hospital, I was dreading what I would find. Mummy had told me in no uncertain terms that Nan was very frail and that she wasn’t all there, if you know what I mean. Now she had yet another stroke and things didn’t look good.

It was all so different from my other time-line where my nan was healthy and full of life. In that other reality, I had always been so close to Nan and she had been a mother figure to me ever since Mum had died.

It was all so confusing and contradictory. I wondered if schizophrenics felt like I did at that moment, having two different lives that were all so real.

The taxi stopped and I paid the man and thanked him. I was so preoccupied, I wouldn’t have recognised the driver if I saw him again.

After enquiring, I made my way up to intensive care and found Mummy in the waiting room, off to the side of the ward.

I rushed over and hugged her tightly. She looked as if she hadn’t slept in days, her hair was in a mess and she had no makeup on.

‘H…how is she?’ I asked, my voice quavering.

‘Hanging on…just.’

‘What happened?’

‘She was having lunch in the nursing home and then just collapsed without warning. The ambulance got there quickly and she was rushed here and immediately put into intensive care.’

‘What do the doctors say?’

She looked at me and brushed some stray hairs away from my face.

‘It’s not good. She’s in a coma and they don’t think that she will pull through.’

We both cried then and it took a while before we could hold a coherent conversation.

And then we just waited, and waited.

I got really fed up with the cream and green walls and that horrible smell that all hospitals seem to have.

We tried a few of the drinks out of the dispenser thingie, but they all tasted the same — dish water.

Every time someone passed us, we looked up. Several nurses went by, they were all laughing. I didn’t think that there could be anything to laugh about in a hospital where people were fighting for their lives.

Eventually after what seemed like many hours, but was only about two, a doctor came in. He looked tired, as if he had been on duty for a long time.

He sat down opposite us on one of the chairs.

‘I am so sorry, we did all we could.’

The doctor left us to our grief and my mother and I clung to each other as we let all our emotions out. We cried until there were no tears left. Then Mummy told me about how Nan used to be and the fact that up to the time of her first stroke, she was the life and soul of the party, full of beans and up for anything. Much like the Nan I knew and loved.

Mummy explained that since her illness, Nan had been a shadow of her former self and on reflection; her leaving us was a blessing in disguise, as she would never have got better.

We saw her before we left the hospital. She looked so peaceful on the bed, just asleep really, and her face looked a lot younger. It was the first and only time that I saw this version of my Nan and I could not get out of my head, the other Nan who I had seen just a few days before and how alive and happy she had been.

We said little as Mummy drove us home. We were mentally washed out and when we arrived at the cottage, we just sat in the small sitting room and hugged each other for a while.

Eventually, I had to go upstairs to do some homework — I thought that it might take my mind off things - whilst Mummy started ringing around to people who needed to know about Nan’s death. She also had to make arrangements about the funeral and to be honest, it was something that I didn’t want to get too involved with. I would obviously go to the funeral, but I wanted to remember my Nan as she was and not as the person in the hospital that looked like my Nan, but wasn’t, if you know what I mean.

My mobile phone went off and I dug it out of my bag. One strange thing among many others in this world was that it was exactly the same mobile as I had had in my other existence, except the pink cover — mine was blue.

It was Sophie.

‘Hi Sophie,’ I said rather wearily.

‘What’s wrong Tanya?’ she asked, ‘you sound sad.’

‘My Nan just died.’

‘Oh, I am so sorry. I know that you were close.’

‘Yea, she had another stroke and they couldn’t save her.’

We spoke for a few minutes and then she let me go. I still don’t know why she rang me, but I doubt that it was all that important.

I felt like the walls were closing in on me and I couldn’t concentrate on my homework, so I just went downstairs to see how Mummy was getting on.

She was on the phone and crying. I think that she was talking to her best friend, Amanda.

I was all cried out by now and I just felt the need to go for a walk. Going back upstairs, I changed into white crops and a pink strappy top. Then I put on my white trainers with pink laces, as I was walking probably over rough ground. Then I went down to where Mummy was still on the phone, but laughing through her tears as she recounted a funny moment involving my Nan when she was fit as a flea.

I waved at Mummy and mouthed ‘going for a walk,’ to which she nodded and then continued her conversation.

I picked up my ruckie, in which were a few bits that I might need like a bottle of juice and my waterproof nylon anorak, and then I opened the door and went down the path.

Soon I found myself going through the village and then onto the common. My mind was on my Nan and what she meant to me. In my other existence, I wondered if all was well with her. I knew that there was some sort of link between this world and the other one that I had come from. Treusva Common was smack bang on the St Michael Ley Line and I strongly believed that this was the link between this world and the other frighteningly similar world where I had spent most of my life.

Before, I would have thought that all this ley line business was just nonsense, but not now. I had experienced things that were far from normal and defied any rational explanation.

Once again, not for the first time, I wondered what was going on ‘over there’. Was there still an ‘over there and was I right in assuming that the person who passed me in the doorway was the other me, who should have been born a boy and not a girl?

Maybe s(he) ceased to exist when I fell into this dimension and there was only one true world and this was the one I was in now?

Those thoughts made me feel even worse than I felt before, if that was possible. I had clung to the hope that my dad was alive somewhere out of sight and that my Nan was with him and perfectly well; now I wondered if that was true.

I followed the well-worn path leading up to one of the many hills that made up the common. Sheep were dotted about and paid little attention to me as I continued on my way, not really knowing where I was going, so deep was I in my gloomy thoughts.

Why couldn’t I have just been born a girl? Why did I have to have such drastic changes in my life to become the person that I truly was? Was this a punishment for wanting something so badly?

So many questions and no answers. I believed in God in a sort of relaxed way. I wasn’t particularly devout and rarely went to church, but that was from personal choice. Our local church was one of those happy clappy places and did little for me. I wasn’t into exhibitionism and the type of evangelicalism preached there. As far as I was concerned, you didn’t need to visit a church to believe. As long as you led your life the way you should, God would let you get on with things. But I vaguely wondered whether I had not been as good as I thought I had been and this was some sort of punishment for wanting to be a girl.

Had what had happened to me been a God thing? if so, I didn’t think much of it!

I felt an itch in my head, right inside. It was an itch that I couldn’t scratch. Shaking my head, it went away, but I felt the urge to make my way towards the sea, glittering in the distance.

I went along the well-worn path. It was quiet apart from the birds twittering, the lambs baaing, the gentle sounds of the warm breeze and the distant crashing of waves against the cliffs of Trellow Head.

It was a lovely day, but my thoughts were more on my Nan than the beauties of nature around me. The only memories I had of Nan were happy ones, I had never seen her in this version of the world and I had no idea if, before she had her original stroke, whether she was the same as the Nan I knew and loved or was she different. I wondered about my Mother over here too: did she have the same personality as my long dead Mother on the other side or was she also somewhat different?

It was all so confusing and not helped by the constant itch inside my head that wouldn’t go away.

Without realising it, I turned away from the sea and made my way along a path that I had last taken with Mummy when we went for our last walk on the common.

It led to the cottage where all this strangeness started to happen to me. I still wondered whether I was in the middle of a dream and that I might wake up at any moment, in my bedroom, still physically a boy but aching to be the girl I always knew I was. Downstairs my Dad would still be there and Nan would be alive and well and making plans to climb Mount Everest (without oxygen).

But this was no dream. I knew it.

Up ahead, in the distance stood the cottage. I should have walked on and ignored it. After all it was owned by somebody and I shouldn’t really go anywhere near it. Mind you, it looked like one of the many cottages that was occupied for only a few weeks of the year by owners who lived miles away and only used it for holidays.

Before I realised it, I was standing by the gate. It looked empty of people and there were no cars around. I shook my head, to rid it of that strange itching feeling…

It went quiet, very quiet and I could no longer hear things around me, it was as if I had earplugs and they were deadening the sound. I wasn’t concerned about this for some reason. Maybe it was because so many strange things had happened to me lately and I had had an overload of weirdness.

Without conscious thought, I opened the gate and walked down the short gravel path to the door. The itch disappeared suddenly, to be replaced by a strong urge to enter the cottage. As I arrived at the door, my eyes were drawn to the brightly polished brass door handle. It was almost pulsing bright then dull, bright, then dull.

‘It must be a trick of the light, with the clouds crossing the sun,’ I thought distractedly.

I put my hand out towards the handle, almost mesmerised by the pulsing light of the polished brass.

Suddenly, I knew that I would have to open the door and I grabbed the handle firmly.

The handle was hot and I almost took my hand away, but I could not let go. Suddenly, I pushed the handle down and the door opened. I screamed as I was sucked through the doorway and everything went black.

To save confusion -‘what confusion?’- I hear you ask, the story will continue in the third person narrative.

Tommy didn’t black out, but came close to it. He felt that being sucked through the entrance had been a lot more violent than last time that happened and this time, he had no sensation of someone passing him, going out the other way — but there was something, almost as if another person had been sucked in too...

He found himself on the floor of the cottage and was apparently alone. Instead of the bright sunlight streaming through the windows as he expected, the windows were wet and it was bucketing down with rain outside.

Tommy felt more than a bit disoriented and he shook his head to clear it. Looking around, he recalled that the last time he had been in this cottage, it had been a bit of a wreck and looked abandoned. Now, he could see in the gloom that it had changed. He saw that it was now nicely furnished, and had the look of somewhere that had been recently decorated.

Tommy turned as he heard a groan, looking over to where a settee was, he could see behind it, a foot sticking out.

The foot was moving.

The foot was wearing white trainers with pink laces.

Tommy recognised those trainers, they looked very similar to ones he had when he was still, physically a girl.

He reluctantly walked over to the settee, but before he arrived, a head popped up.

They both saw each other.

As one, their eyes opened wide and their jaws dropped.

He gasped.

She gasped.

They both said together, ‘It’s you!’

Then, as one they both turned at the sound of a gentle cough.

‘Hello Tommy and Tanya, I wondered when you would arrive.’

Please leave comments and kudo thingies...thanks! ~Sue