Chapter 23

When Cal said she had something to tell me before we talked, my thoughts immediately sprang to what she might have done that she hadn’t already confessed to.

“What is it?” I asked, my voice almost trembling with worry.

“I got the STI report from the doctors, they did another test, and I’m clear on everything but one.”

“They didn’t manage to get rid of the Gonorrhoea?” I asked.

“No, that’s cleared up fine. No, David, they did a pregnancy test. It’s positive.”

As she said it, her face collapsed into floods of tears and she flung herself across my chest, lying there sobbing uncontrollably. That’s how her mother found us when she came back. Me in the bed with Cal half laid across me and my arms round her, or at least the one of them that wasn’t stiff with bandages, with her sobbing her heart out, and me doing my best to soothe her.

“What’s wrong?” Mary asked, “why is Cal crying?”

“Not anything I’ve done or said,” I replied, defensively, “listen, Aunt Mary, I think at the moment, it’s more important that you and Cal talk, rather than her and me.”

“What about?” she asked.

“Something she needs to tell you, then you two need to decide what you’re going to do about it.”

“And you don’t want to be part of that?” she asked, “David, I’m going to ask this straight out. Do you hate Cal for what she did?”

“No,” I replied, “I’ve loved her too long to hate her. I don’t like her much at the moment, but I suspect that she doesn’t like herself much either. But you two need to talk, and it’s something that doesn’t concern me. No, concern is the wrong word, I am concerned about Cal, I think she’s very fragile at the moment. But she needs something that I can’t give her.”

“What’s that?”

“Her mother’s love and support.”

Cal started to stir from on my chest.

“I don’t want to go home, I want to stay here,” she said.

“I don’t think the hospital allow overnight visitors,” I replied softly.

“We don’t have to tell them,” she said.

“Cal,” I said, “I have a hairline fracture of the skull. They check on me every half hour or so.”

“Can I come back tomorrow then?” she asked.

“I’ll probably be home tomorrow,” I replied, “why don’t you come round after school?”

“Can I?” she asked.

“I wouldn’t have said it if you couldn’t,” I replied.

Her mother came over and kissed me on the cheek, and wished me good night, Cal tried for something a lot more meaningful. What she got was a soft, friendly kiss, lip to lip, but there was no hint of tongue.

“Good night,” she said as they reached the door, “sleep well.”

As they left I picked up my school bag and fished around in it for a book. It was just my luck, Calculus. I opened it at our current section and started to read. I’d been reading for an hour when the nurse came in, a different one this time, and older woman, very plump and business-like.

“Come along,” she said, “time you were going to sleep.”

“I need to go to the toilet first,” I objected.

“I’ll fetch you a bed bottle,” she replied.

“I’d rather go to the toilet,” I said.

“Not until the doctor clears you to get out of bed and walk,” she replied, “I’ll be back in a minute.”

She was back a couple of minutes later with a strange looking contraption which, she informed me, was to enable me to pee in the bed. Despite my disbelief, I actually managed it, and left the bottle on the bedside cabinet. Still tired, I used the electric control to lay my bed flat and settled down to sleep.

I awoke late the next morning, eight thirty. Breakfast was just being served, and I discovered the difference between NHS and private care. The food was almost edible.

The doctor came on his rounds and proclaimed me fit to be let back out into the world, which complicated matters. My mobile phone was in pieces somewhere on the streets of Castleford, the phones in the hospital were card only, and Mum had taken my wallet home with her the previous night, I had no way to ring home to arrange to be picked up. That problem was solved by Nurse Diane, who volunteered to ring Mum for me, which she did, and a little over an hour later I was in the passenger seat of Mum’s car on my way home.

Once we arrived, Mum insisted on installing me on the sofa in the living room, with a blanket round my legs, and my book bag close at hand, together with the house phone’s portable handset and a large bottle of diet Pepsi.

“Right”, she said, once she had me settled, “Rules. Number one, there are sandwiches in the fridge for you, you may get off the sofa to get them, so long as you come straight back. Number two, the only other reason you get off the sofa is to go to the downstairs loo.”

She handed me the TV remote.

“Now is there anything else you need before I go back to work?”

“No thanks Mum,” I replied, “I can manage.”

“See that you do,” she replied, before bending over and kissing the top of my head, “I’ll see you at teatime.”

I tried the television, there was nothing on that wouldn’t kill off half my remaining brain cells, so I opted instead to do some catching up with what I assumed I’d missed at school. The geography book I picked out must have been fascinating, because the next thing I knew was the front door slamming shut and my sister walking in from school.

“Hi big brother,” she said, as she sat on the edge of the sofa beside me, “feeling better?”

“The headache’s gone,” I answered, “but I’m not sure I could say, honestly, that I feel any better.”

“Why, what’s the problem?” she asked.

“What has the problem ever been in my life?” I asked.

“Cal?” she queried.

I didn’t answer her, just nodded, yes.

“Then it’s simple, you have to solve that problem,” she said as if that were the simplest thing in the world.

“But It’s complicated,” I moaned.

“Why?” she asked, “because she’s pregnant?”

“She told you?” I asked.

“No, but I suspected it,” she replied, “and you just confirmed it for me. But that’s the thing about you David, you’re so easy to manipulate. You have to learn to do what is right for you, instead of trying to please everyone.”

“Funny,” I replied, “I think I remember Kathy saying something similar to me last week.”

“Do what’s best for you, is what she advised?” she asked

“Right, that was it.”

“It’s good advice David, take it,” she insisted.

“Hang on? How come you knew?”

“Because I talk to Kathy at school, she’s a nice girl.”

“So you discuss my love life with all parties do you?” I asked

“Of course I do, somebody has to look after your interests.”

“Talking of Kathy, she asked if it was all right to come round and see you this evening, I said yes, I hope that’s all right.”

“Yes, it’s fine,” I replied, “I was getting worried when she didn’t come to see me in hospital.”

“She did, every day, she just sat for an hour, held your hand and talked to you.”

“What about Cal?” I asked.

“The same, they seemed to avoid each other pretty neatly though,” she replied.

“So my wise beyond her years sister, what the hell do I do?”

“You’re the sophisticated older brother David, you’re supposed to be the one who knows these things,” she replied.

“But I don’t Pip, I just don’t,” I told her, “I like Kathy, and I don’t want to hurt her by finishing things with her to let Cal back into my heart, and Cal’s very fragile right now, and needs her best friend, but I just can’t get over the trust thing. What do I do?”

“So stick with Kathy and be Cal’s friend, and nothing more,” she suggested.

“But then Cal is going to want to be more, and I don’t think I can give her that right now. And what happens if Kathy decides that it’s more than just a safe way to get into dating,” I said, “I’m completely torn; I don’t know what to do for the best.”

“What’s best for you. That’s what you should do,” she reiterated.

“Maybe the best thing for me is just not to have a girlfriend. For a while at least.”

“It could be big bro. It just could be.”

We were interrupted by the front door opening and Andy arriving from College.

“Hi,” he greeted us brightly, then his face became more serious, “David, I’m sorry.”

“What for?” I asked.

“Sunday, Cal and I thought that it might jog you into realising that you and she belong together. We miscalculated, sorry, little brother.”

“Forget it Andy,” I said, “you’re not responsible for my reaction, but do me a favour will you?”

“Sure, what is it?”

“Let me deal with my life from now on, please?”

“Ok,” he said, “I’ll keep my large proboscis out in future.”

“Do that,” Alison told him.

“No,” I interjected, “what you did was for good motives, it just didn’t turn out the way you thought it would. But I do need your advice.”

“On what?” he asked.

“Girls,” I replied.

“I’m not the one to give advice on that subject,” he answered, “you only have to look at my track record.”

“Actually you are, I have experience with going out with precisely two girls, you’ve been out with lots more than that, I’m conflicted over what to do. My instinct is not to hurt either of them, but it looks like I have to hurt one.”

“How so?”

“Cal wants me to forgive and forget, as you know from Sunday, but I can’t get past the trust thing,” I told him, “and Kathy, well just between you and me Kathy and I are going out together for two reasons, hers and mine.”

“What are hers?”

“George, her Dad, won’t let her go out on dates, but he did say a while ago that he’d be willing to consider it if the boy was like me, well, I suppose you could say that I qualify on that count, but she’s really only using it to get herself into a position where he can see she’s not going to go overboard, and he can trust her.”

“I’m not sure it’s her he doesn’t trust,” Andy commented, “so what’s your motive?”

“Actually she’s the one who suggested it,” I replied, “once it became known that Cal and I were split up, girls started showing an interest. Going out with Kathy keeps them at bay.”

“So she wouldn’t be too upset if it were to finish?” he asked.

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“You don’t think so?” he said, “so she might be?”

“Well, obviously I don’t know what’s going on in her head, but from what she said to me, I assume she wouldn’t.”

“Well if that’s right, then you could finish things with her, and still stay friends, right?”

“Yes, that’s right,” I replied.

“Now what about Cal. At the moment you are still finished with her, yes?”

“Yes.”

“But are you still friends?” he asked.

“I think so, we’re friendly enough, but that could just be because she wants to get back together.”

“Then I think,” he said, “that you need first of all to find out what each of them is willing to accept from you,” he said, “then you need to work out what you want from them, and see if you can fit the two together.”

“Maybe I should just give up on having a girlfriend at all,” I suggested, “life would be an awful lot simpler.”

“That it would,” my sister agreed, “but a lot less interesting.”

We stopped talking then since Mum had just arrived home.

“I need some help carrying stuff in from the car,” she called from the door.

My brother and sister went off to help her, just as the phone rang. The caller ID told me it was Kathy.

“Hi Kathy,” I said as I answered.

“Hi,” she replied, “how are you feeling?”

“I still hurt all over, but the headache has almost gone, I just haven’t to make any sudden movements, and I’m pretty much confined to the sofa, but apart from that I’m getting better, I should be back at school on Monday,” I told her.

“That sounds good,” she said, “so you’re not going out anywhere tonight?”

“No, I don’t think so, why?”

“I just wondered if it would be all right if I came round for an hour or so, and keep you company.”

“Of course it would, we should be finished tea by seven, why don’t you come round then?”

“Okay, I will, see you then, love you,” she said and then she was gone.

There was a quiet bell ringing in my head, Kathy had just uttered the dreaded phrase. If that meant what it sounded like, my life was about to get even more complicated.

Dinner was what Mum called pot pie with potatoes and peas. Pot pie is made in individual small pots about six inches by four, and filled with the pie filling, then that is topped off with crust, or mashed potato. That day we had shortcrust pastry on top of a ready cooked chicken from Morrisons. Afterwards Andy and Alison saw to the cleaning up, while Mum and Dad saw to putting the invalid to bed.