It makes me sad to think of Andrew hanging around with that crowd, because it’s only a matter of time before he becomes one of them. I like Andrew. He’s an intelligent and sweet boy. I see that Jack has noticed too, because he is scowling as he hits the elevator button.
“Is your house in this block too?’ Jack asks as we wait for the elevator.
“Number sixty-four,” he calls as the elevator doors open.
Jack nods and we hurry inside. Inside it smells of piss. We get off at the fourth floor. Lori leads the way to a green door down the corridor. She puts her key in and opens it. The stench that comes out is vomit inducing.
“This way,” she says, and we are led to a cold bedroom with the curtains pulled shut. A pale woman is under the covers.
“Mama. I’ve brought some people to help you.” Lori sobs.
Her mother is so weak she is barely able to open her eyes. She breathes with difficulty. “Lori,” she groans feebly, then begins speaking to her in a foreign language.
“Mama, they’re not going to tell Papa. I know them. They’re good people,” Lori says.
Jack moves forward. “Can your mother speak English?” he asks Lori.
“A little bit.”
“Tell me her symptoms. What’s wrong with her?”
“She has a fever and a stomach ache and she is tired all the time. And she cannot eat.”
“For how long?”
“Two weeks, but she is getting worse.”
Jack moves the bedclothes. Instead of trying to unzip her he pulls her dress up over her legs to expose her stomach. He touches her lower abdomen close to her belly button and she groans. He touches another area to the right and she screams in agony.
He looks up at Lori. “Lori, go and call the elevator. Then ask Robert to bring the car as close to the front door as possible.”
“What’s wrong with Mama?” she asks in a small, frightened voice.
“We don’t have time to talk now. Hurry up and do what I asked you to. We can talk later.”
With a sob Lori turns around and runs out of the room.
He wraps Lori’s mother up in the blankets and slips his arms under her head and her knees.
“Leave the front door wedged open and go and hold the elevator doors open for me, Sofia,” he says, heaving her up.
I quickly do his bidding. The elevator comes quickly so I have to keep on jamming it open. He kicks away the chair I left to keep the doors open and walks towards me.
Lori’s mother is mumbling incoherently.
I get in and press the ground floor button.
“What’s wrong with her?” I ask once we’re inside the lift.
“I think she has a ruptured appendix.”
I stare at him in shock. I have heard of people who die from burst appendixes. The doors groan open and I walk on ahead and hold the entrance door open. Andrew is still hanging around and comes running up to us.
“Want some help, Jack?” he asks.
“Thanks, Andrew. I got this one.”
Carefully, Jack lays the woman in the backseat. Then he asks Robert to get out of the car and instructs Lori to hold her mother’s head and comfort her because it will be a difficult journey for her. Then he tells me to get into the front passenger seat.
He slides into the driver’s seat and starts the car.
Thirty-three
Sofia
“What’s wrong with my mother?” Lori asks in a frightened little voice.
“It looks like your mother’s appendix might have ruptured, but the good news is I think we got to her in time. She just needs to have it removed so that she will feel better.”
As Jack had predicted, the journey was very difficult for Lori’s mother. The vibration of the car causes her to grimace, and every tiny bump makes her cry out in agony. There is not a thing I can do.
Once at the hospital, Lori’s mother is immediately wheeled away. While Lori and I are in the Waiting Room, Jack goes off to see what help he can give. He comes back to tell us that she has to have emergency surgery.
Later he pulls me aside and tells me that her burst appendix went gangrenous. “The appendix and all evidence of gangrene were removed, and the area irrigated and inspected. Luckily, scans indicate no other organs, especially her intestines, were effected. She will be on heavy administration of antibiotics to help clear the infection.”
“Will she make it?” I whisper, horrified.
He nods. “I think so.”
Lori’s mother is in the theater for ages. Finally, she is wheeled out. The operation is a success, but she will have to stay at the hospital for some time.
That night Lori stays with us. I put her in the nanny’s room. When I go to tuck her into bed she looks at me sadly.
“She will be all right, won’t she?”
“Yes. The worst is over now. In a few weeks she should be ready to come home.”
She looks worried. “A few weeks?”
“I’m afraid so, sweetie.”
“After tonight I could go back and stay at my house, couldn’t I?”
I stare at her. “What? Alone?”
She nods bravely.
“What about your dad? Wouldn’t you like to stay with him?”
She shrinks from me. Fear flashes into her eyes. “You won’t tell my father will you?”
“No, no, not if you don’t want us to,” I assure her hurriedly.
She shakes her head. “You mustn’t. Please.”
“Okay. I won’t.”
She nods.
“Are you and your mother running away from him?” I ask softly.
“Yes. He used to beat us. We ran away from Romania. We’ve been hiding here for the last year, but he went to my Nan’s house and said he knew we are in England and that he would find us.”
“Is that why you don’t talk to anybody?”
“Yes. Mama says the more people who know where we are the easier it will be for him to find us.”
“You and your mother are very brave,” I tell her.
“My mother is,” she says simply. I think of my own mother. If only she had had the courage to do what Lori’s mother had done. Run away with all of us. How different life would have been for all of us. But that is the past and cannot be changed.
“Shouldn’t we tell your grandmother? Wouldn’t she want to know?”
“Yes, we should tell her.”
“Do you know how to contact her?”
“I have her phone number.”
“Good. We can call her tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
“Does she live alone?”
“Yes.”
“I see. Perhaps we can invite her to come over.”
“She won’t be able to afford it,” she says sadly.
“I will pay for her. She will come as my guest. You can stay with us until she comes. Then if you want, you can even go up to the castle and stay the night in the tower with your grandmother. Would you like that?”
Her eyes light up. “Really?”
“Tomorrow we’ll send someone to clean your house so that when your grandmother comes it will be sparkling clean.”
She looks shamefaced. “I did try to clean it.”
“Hey, you did amazing.”
“Thank you, Sofia.”
“Oh, little sweetheart. I did nothing. Like you I wouldn’t have known what to do. It was all Jack.”
She shakes her head, making her hair tumble about on the pillow. “No, it was you. I would not have been brave enough to go to anyone else.”
“Well, thankfully, it’s all in the past. How about we say that Jack, you and me together saved the day?”
She nods.
I smile at her. “Now, time to close these cute little eyes and go to sleep now, don’t you think?”
“Can Mika stay with me tonight?”
I touch her little button nose. “Of course she can.”
“Thank you.”
“Up ,Mika,” I say, and she immedia
tely jumps on the bed.
“Stay and guard little Lori tonight, okay,” I say stroking her silky head. She licks my hand and I kiss the top of her head.
“Goodnight both of you,” I say, leaving the door slightly ajar.