First Aid by Janet Davey Read Free Book Online Page A

fret about you again?
    Ella picked up a pebble and threw it out to sea. It was a good throw. She couldn’t even hear or see where it fell.

5
    â€˜HAVE ANOTHER POTATO,’ Dilys said.
    â€˜No, Gran, I couldn’t,’ Jo said.
    â€˜You don’t seem to have eaten much, dear. You’ll have another, won’t you, Rob?’
    Rob’s hesitation was taken for agreement and his plate was revived with extra potatoes. He made the face of one overwhelmed.
    â€˜You don’t have to eat them, Rob,’ Jo said.
    â€˜Leave him alone, Jo, he’s growing,’ Dilys said. ‘You could do with eating more, filling out a bit. You needn’t worry about getting fat. You’re not the type. It’s ageing, losing weight. The skin stops fitting without a bit of flesh.’
    â€˜I’m not worried,’ Jo said.
    â€˜You need to keep an eye on your mother. Get her to look after herself a bit,’ Dilys said to her great grandson.
    Rob kept his head down and focused on the side of his plate, which was reassuringly empty.
    â€˜He does look after me,’ Jo said.
    â€˜All this eating out of the fridge they go in for now, it doesn’t do any good. Families should sit round the table,’ Dilys said.
    Her position at the table allowed her to look square on at Jo’s face. Jo knew what her grandmother was looking at.
    â€˜Did you go and see the doctor?’
    Jo didn’t reply.
    â€˜Did she, Rob?’
    Rob shrugged his shoulders. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so. There wasn’t time. But we put some stuff on it.’
    â€˜You should have had it seen to properly and taken something for it,’ Dilys said.
    â€˜Taken what?’ Jo asked.
    â€˜Painkiller. Something to stop infection. Something for shock. You never did like taking things. How deep is it?’
    â€˜Not very.’
    â€˜Tripping over like that and catching your face on the corner of the stove. I still can’t see how you came to do it. What time of day was it?’
    Jo said nothing. Underneath the table she gripped her left hand with her right till it hurt.
    â€˜How’s the seaside?’ asked Geoff, putting his knife and fork together and laying his hands on his knees. He had left a potato and there was still some meat on his lamb chop. He never cleared his plate when life was difficult. He and Rob had had the chops, Dilys and Jo the fishcakes, meant for their Saturday supper. The family had, after all, arrived unexpectedly. Dilys never ate fish on a Friday in deference to her chapel-going ancestors. Her mother and father, her grandfather with his watch chain and white whiskers, the minister of the Congregational chapel she had been taken to as a child. She carried on taking notice of them although they were dead.
    â€˜You know, it’s funny your ending up at the seaside, Jo, and your gran and I retired and still in the smoke. It’s us retired ones who’re supposed to be by the sea,’ Geoff said.
    â€˜Yes, you’ve said that before,’ Jo said.
    â€˜Seen anything of Peter?’ he said.
    â€˜Not really. The kids see him,’ Jo said. She wished she’d let him dawdle on.
    â€˜Never could make any sense of that,’ he said.
    â€˜Someone should have got a heavy object and knocked some sense into him,’ Dilys said.
    Jo flinched and looked across at Rob, who was still cheerlessly tackling his potatoes. The time she most felt a bond with Peter was when her grandparents started on about him.
    Dilys seemed to gather her thoughts to say something more conciliatory. A look of unaccustomed sophistication crossed her face.
    â€˜We can’t all choose right the first time,’ she said.
    â€˜I’ll clear away,’ Jo said.
    â€˜No, you stay there. You’re on holiday. You’re to have a good rest. Besides, we’re not finished. I’ve got the pie to bring in.’
    Jo sat there. The apparent reasonableness of