a/n: One last amnesia fic before the Christmas special. This'll be in three parts, I think.
Patsy's taller than she expected, prettier too, more elegant. For a moment Mrs Busby thinks that the thing she fears most about her daughter can't be true after all, because Patsy looks so normal, and surely, someone who looks so normal wouldn't be that way and if she's not that way, this woman whose presence in Delia's letters has been a source of anxiety to her for so long, if she's not that way, then her daughter might not be either.
But then 'I'm Patsy', Patsy says, as if she somehow expects Mrs Busby to know who she is, what that means, and that brief hope is crushed, because of course Mrs Busby knows who she is and what that means. It means everything she fears about her daughter and this woman is true.
Mrs Busby takes a moment. 'Oh, of course,' she says. 'You're the lady she helps at cubs,' she says.
'You're the lady she helps at cubs,' she says, because she can't say what she wants to say. She can't say, 'Oh, so you're Patsy, the one my daughter's infatuated with. You're the reason my daughter hardly ever comes home to Wales, where she'd be safe. You're the reason she stays here in this city so far from her family and where there are dangers round every corner. You're the reason why she's lying in that bed, why she's fitting, why she doesn't know who her own mother is.'
'You're the lady she helps at cubs,' she says, putting Patsy in her place. 'You're the lady she helps at cubs,' she says, in the hope that if she says it, if she believes it, it will become true. That this woman will be just someone her daughter helped, now and again, with a group of small boys.
Saying it doesn't make it true. What it does do, though, is hurt this woman. She can see it her eyes.
It doesn't make Mrs Busby feel any better either. And despite herself, within moments she finds she's spilling out details of Delia's condition: about the seizures, about the memory loss, about her battered and bruised body.
As they stand there in the corridor and she sees her own devastation reflected back to her by Patsy, a nurse comes out of the ward. Eager, anxious, Mrs Busby catches her eye. The nurse is on her way somewhere, but she pauses as Mrs Busby asks, urgently, 'How is she?'
'She's quiet now,' the nurse says. 'She's sleeping.'
Patsy's hand is on Mrs Busby's arm. 'Do you think - can I sit with her?' she asks.
'She's very poorly,' Mrs Busby shakes her head.
'Just for five minutes?'
'No, I don't - ' Mrs Busby is saying, but the words are barely out before the familiar tones of her husband's sonorous voice are echoing down the corridor.
'There you are,' Mr Busby says as he approaches, side by side with a young man in some kind of hospital uniform. Not a doctor. A porter, maybe? 'This young man has promised to to direct us to the canteen.'
Mrs Busby shakes her head.
'Come on old girl,' her husband murmurs. 'You have to eat.'
'David, I can't leave her,' she protests.
(Out of the corner of her eye she sees a sombre greeting between Patsy and the porter fellow.
'Hello, Eric,' Patsy says.
'Nurse Mount,' the man nods in reply.
Of course, Mrs Busby remembers. She used to work here too.)
'Now then,' David is saying. 'We haven't eaten since breakfast. You need to keep your strength up for - ' He gestures towards the door, behind which their daughter lies.
'I can sit with her,' Patsy, hovering nearby, takes her chance, desperately. 'If you're worried about her being on her own, I can sit with her.'
Mrs Busby is forced to make introductions she had been half-hoping to avoid. 'David, this is Patsy. Delia's friend. From the cubs,' she manages to say. 'My husband - Delia's father,' she turns to Patsy.
'Nice to meet you,' David says, holding out a hand. 'Although such a shame that it's under these circumstances.' There's no reason for him not to be pleasant to someone introduced to him as Delia's friend. Mrs Busby's kept him ignorant of her fears; there are things a mother might be privy to that a father should never know. And this is one of them.
'But we couldn't impose,' Mrs Busby says to Patsy, as if she is only a woman Delia knows from the cubs. As if sitting with Delia would be a gross inconvenience to Patsy, rather than the thing she wants most to do in the entire world.
'It'd be no imposition,' Patsy insists. 'I can - I can send for you, if anything happens.' She gestures towards the porter, who nods amiably.
'You're a nurse, are you, Miss Mount, is it?' David is saying. 'See - she's in good hands. We'll be half an hour. Less, probably.'
He's tired, exhausted with the long drive on unfamiliar, busy roads. And it has been a long time since they last ate. Reluctantly she agrees.
With a small smile, a quiet 'Thank you', Patsy's away and through the swing door into the ward.
Mrs Busby can't help but follow her, as far as the door at least.
Delia's dozing peacefully now, the violent spasms of a short while ago subsided under the miracle of sedation. Patsy approaches the bed, approaches Delia. Stands silently at her side for a moment, and then, seemingly without a thought of who might be watching, gently reaches down to brush wayward hair from Delia's face. She moves to pick up the hand that's lying nearest to her on top of the bedspread and holds it not with one hand but with two, completely enveloping it in her own. Her posture is still, otherwise, like she's trying to hold herself together.
Mrs Busby turns away, feeling like an intruder. She's not happy about letting Patsy in to see Delia but she's not sure what more she could have done about it. What can she say? How can she protest about it without condemning her daughter too?
'Come on, old girl,' David says, and leads her away.
When she returns, half an hour later, she can hear voices as she pushes the ward door. Delia must have woken. Mrs Busby's filled with a sudden fear. What if she remembers that woman and yet doesn't remember her own mother?
Delia looks at her as she approaches, blinks, confused. Mrs Busby's heart, not yet steeled against it, breaks again at the sight of the frail girl where her strong daughter should be. The resilient kid she mothered though chicken pox and mumps and a broken arm, who took a fall and bounced back stronger is now a poor broken child, a ghost, a stranger.
'Are you a nurse?' the child asks, in a voice that's a distant relative of Delia's own.
She knows what to expect. But it's one thing knowing it and another experiencing it. 'I'm your mam,' she says, but Delia barely registers it.
'Can you help this girl?' she asks instead.
'This is Patsy, cariad,' Mrs Busby says, and for a moment, as the tears well up, she wills her daughter, silently, to remember this woman: remember her, even if you don't remember me, she begs; you might not have seen me for much of the last five years, but you've certainly seen her.
But Delia recognizes neither of them.
When her father arrives a few moments later, she doesn't recognize him either.
From across the room, the ward sister coughs: points to a sign. Only two visitors at a time, and family take precedence. Mrs Busby's glad for the rules. Patsy stands, makes way for Mr Busby.
'Good bye, Delia,' she says sadly.
'Good bye,' Delia automatically replies, but stumbles when she tries to remember the name of the woman she's speaking to.
'Patsy,' her father, taking the seat Patsy's just got up from, supplies. Delia looks at him, bewildered.
Another half an hour, and Delia's dozing again. Mrs Busby stands to stretch her legs. Through the glass of the swing door, she sees a figure on a bench outside. Mrs Busby frowns. She thought she'd left.
'She's still here.'
'Who?' David asks.
'Patsy,' she says. 'Delia's friend.'
'Poor girl,' David says. 'Must have been a shock to her too. Perhaps - maybe you should talk to her?'
Mr Busby has an unwavering faith in his wife's good nature, in her ability to offer comfort to those in need. Mrs Busby isn't always sure his faith in her is warranted. She dismisses the idea at first, but then reconsiders. Perhaps there are things she can say. Perhaps there are things she ought to say.
As she pushes the door open, Patsy's on her feet.
'Is Delia -' Patsy says, fear in her eyes.
'No change,' Mrs Busby says, sitting on the chair that Patsy's just vacated. She pats the seat next to her. 'Sit with me.'
She finds herself trying to comfort Patsy. Patsy evidently cares for her daughter: that's something, even if Mrs Busby doesn't like it one bit.
'We're having to settle for hope,' she says, though she's not sure she's willing to include Patsy in that 'we'. When she tells her she's taking her home, when she discourages Patsy from hoping that she might visit, she's not doing it to be cruel, or at least, she doesn't think she is. She's doing it for both of them, for both girls: to give each of them the chance to move on from this hold they seem to have - or have had? - over each other. If Delia can't remember Patsy, then how could she explain her visits? It would be better for this woman, this Patsy, to forget about Delia, as Delia's forgotten about Patsy. It would be a fresh start for the pair of them. The chance of a normal life.
It'll hurt for a while, no doubt: this Patsy seems genuine in her affection for Delia, and it'll be harder for her, since she won't have forgotten what they've been to each other like Delia has. But it'll be better for her, for the both of them, in the long run.
She doesn't say this, of course. But, when she says she's taking her daughter home, when she discourages Patsy from visiting, it's what she means.
Patsy stands, erratically and leaves without looking back. Mrs Busby wonders if she's done enough to put her off. She's not sure that she has.
