(a/n) I just wanted a chance to say that this story line is very true to my heart and my own experiences and so I hope I have done it justice and I hope you enjoy it, Please get better Delia!
It was the third night Trixie had woken to the sound, the sound of agonising screams ripping through the night air.
Ever since the accident Patsy had been consumed by nightmares, horrible night terrors that left her barely able to scream the pain was so much.
Patsy would rouse early in the morning, before the light had started to rise and appear in the dark room. She would start to toss around, tangling her feet in the blanket and feather duvet until she began a thrashing caterpillar. Her arms then started flailing around wildly and finally the pain would cross her face and she'd begin to scream.
It wasn't a high pitched, girly scream but one of total, unbelievable terror. Patsy would scream and scream, tears rolling down her cheeks and dampening the pillow. Her eyes would become aged, as old as she looked in the morning after a night of the terrors.
She was in a sort of physical pain over Delia's accident, a strange pain compared to anything Trixie had ever seen. She quite wondered whether the pain that Patsy felt over the loss of a friend was divisible by the amount of death she had seen as a child. She knew Delia was alive, her seizures loosening their hold on her body each day but her memories, her secrets, they were all lost in a head that no longer functioned.
The night Delia was being transferred to a hospital in her native Pembrokeshire was the night Trixie eventually gave up. The day Trixie decided she was the person to do this, yes she was dealing with a lot herself. Trixie's attempts to stay away from the drink she delighted in so much, had been hard and relapses had happened as well as a shaking of the hands- which wasn't an easy thing to hide.
Trixie sighed and launched herself onto her side to reach for the bedside lamp and switch it on The light slowly illuminated the room. Patsy didn't stop tossing but her screaming stopped as her body became conscious of the light surrounding it. It was quarter to five in the morning according to the small alarm clock beside Trixie's bed. Only two hours and they would be getting up anyway. It was time to try and sort this. Then there would be a slight chance of at least one of them getting a good night's sleep throughout their respective agonies.
"Patsy!" Trixie called her name, swinging her own feet from her bed and going to give her roommate a thorough shake back into the real world.
Patsy snapped awake, struggling with her arms and legs stuck under the duvet. She sat up as soon as she was able and instantly began to sob.
"Oh, come now patsy!" Trixie didn't know where to start, this was so unlike the Patsy she knew, the Patsy who was strong and resilient and brave. Patsy had taken her first ever stillbirth in her stride and kept the family settled and under control while she did so. But this? This accident had floored her completely. She had become someone none of us had ever seen before, a ghost of the real Patience Mount. Even in her work the essence of her name had been lost to the world.
"I'm sorry," she choked," I just-," she was unable to finish the sentence, curling up over herself and beginning to sob into her hands for a moment.
This wasn't the way someone reacted when a friend became ill, nor the way one reacted when one moved. Delia was going back home to help her brain recuperate, she would perhaps get better once in wales but that was not something that Patsy's mind was able to comprehend. Trixie got up from her own bed and moved across onto its twin, wrapping an arm across Patsy's shoulders to try and give some form of comfort. She snatched up the hanky from Patsy's bedside. It was soft cotton, white with her initials P.M. embroidered on the bottom left corner; it was damp.
Patsy took the offered hanky gratefully and blew her nose with gusto on the cotton, scrunching it up in her hand before finally looking up at Trixie.
"Sorry old thing," she said, her voice no more than a whisper that she had to force from her mouth out into the open air. Trixie felt her heart squeeze with compassion for her friend. Patsy's face was white from the lack of sleep but her eyes were red and their surrounding big and swollen from all the tears they had been battered with. Her cheeks were red from the tear stains and a single tears was running down her jaw.
"Oh Patsy, its not to be worried about, your grieving your friendship." It wasntnt until after her next works that everything changed for Trixie.
"It hurts."
Then she knew, it all made sense, the pain made sense and 'oh, why didn't I think' thought Trixie as she finally understood. That year when the young man, the frauline, had been arrested, Patsy had been on his side from the very beginning, she seemed to know more than any of the others about what the poor man as going through. She had called people small minded for not seeing that homosexuals were also people and doing nothing wrong and now this, with Delia. Patsy was a homosexual and her love interest had been in Delia.
No wonder the pain was so great. Trixie thought about the reverend then shook the thought from her mind. This was about Patsy.
"It's in your chest isn't it? Deep down where you can't really feel it."
Patsy turned to her friend, startled and slowly nodded.
"Oh Patsy, I didn't know girls could be that way- you could have just told me you know!"
Patsy felt her mouth go dry. How did she know, Trixie couldn't know, no one should know - it was illegal if nothing else, and in a convent of all places. Was Trixie trying to gain something from her by getting the information somehow? Was she one of those involved in one of the Honeytraps.
Delia had warned her that in Windsor some police officers had come across a brothel where men could watch two women getting busy together and learned of the female world of, what was known as lesbianism. It was scary and the giving of lavender was being recognised to the point that women in some places wouldn't have it in their home. But Trixie, thought Patsy, had been so understanding and accepting of the case so local to them so surely she would understand, wouldn't she.
"I couldn't, its dangerous and I could get locked away for telling anyone, we mustn't let anyone see."
To Patsy's surprise her friend nodded,
"I know its illegal but to me it isn't right- it doesn't matter that you want to do we should live and let live, like I've said before."
Patsy nodded, slowly, looking up from under her eyelids like a wounded puppy.
"So you don't mind?"
"Mind, oh Patsy don't be so daft. Of course I don't mind! I believe that love is love, before you joined us I saw an Incest case- a brother and sister- and yes it was illegal and if they had ever had children there would have been some problems but they didn't and there weren't. They loved each other so much and I learned a lot from them even though I never treated them myself. " Patsy began a slow smile and relaxed her shoulders a little, still waiting for the catch but it never came.
"I saw it in your eyes before, I knew there was something different about the way you were with Delia and I didn't quite know what it was then but now I can so clearly see it was love and you deserve it."
"But," Patsy muttered, her smile vanishing, "Now Delia's gone and I have to make do without her." Trixie shook her head causing confusion to flourish on Patsy's forehead.
"She's not gone, she's still alive and if you really love her and she really loves you then you will find each other again- and if I can believe that after Tom then you can certainly believe it with me. Agreed?" Trixie held out her hand for Patsy and Patsy hesitated, thinking for a moment. She took a deep breath, in and out, painted on a smile and slapped her hand down into Trixie's.
"Agreed. It's not any easier to wait though." She paused for a second then caught a glimpse of the bedside alarm clock.
"Oh goodness Trixie! You should get back to bed, look how early it is, I am terribly sorry."
"Don't be, I've learned myself a secret and besides I want you to answer my questions."
"what questions?"
"Like how do you perform in the bedroom without a penis!"
Patsy laughed, her cheeks flushing red at the thought,
"Oh Trixie, you have a lot to learn."