Free The Not So Secret Emails Of Coco Pinchard by Robert Bryndza

been emptied. Three drab suitcases and a Hatbox sat waiting in reception. There was no note, or message. The teenager on the desk informed us that Mrs. Braun had gone to visit her Sister in Berlin. Mrs. Burbridge hasn’t been evicted. We saw her through the window of the Resident’s Lounge surrounded by pensioners. There was laughter and music playing loudly and the sun was glinting off her smooth bald head.
    Thursday 27th February  21:34
    TO: [email protected]
    Rosencrantz came along to Whitechapel for evening visiting. I was shocked how Ethel’s condition had deteriorated. They have moved her into a stinking ward full of old women moaning in the gloom. The lone Nurse on duty was engrossed in a book about alternative medicine. When we reached Ethel’s bed, she was waxy and delirious. We tried to give her some water but her body tensed up and she began to shake. I shouted for the Nurse, and seeing Ethel, she pressed an alarm. Within seconds, a team of Doctors sped in and swished the curtains around her bed. We were asked to wait outside in the corridor. After a long hour, a Consultant came and told us Ethel had had a cardiac arrest. They managed to revive her but she is unconscious and on a ventilator. I had to play twenty questions but he finally admitted that it might be the MRSA superbug, brought on by her wound not healing.
    “So nothing to do with that filthy ward?” I said. The Consultant said Ethel was being moved to intensive care and then had to go.
    Meryl and Tony are coming down early tomorrow morning and Daniel is on standby for a flight home.
    Friday 28th February  03:30
    TO: [email protected]
    I can hear music coming from your room, can’t you sleep either? You fancy a hot chocolate?
    Friday 28th February  10:06
    TO: [email protected]
    I phoned the hospital at 7am. Ethel is still unconscious, but stable. At 8.30am, Meryl and Tony were on the doorstep in cycling gear with windswept hair. They had biked down in the freezing rain.
    They were acting with forced gaiety. Meryl was barely through the door when the bicycle clips came off, the rubber gloves went on, and she was cleaning my oven. Tony pulled a brick out of his bum bag saying he’d brought it to drop into my cistern to save water. As he disappeared up the stairs, I lit a cigarette and watched Meryl.
    “You okay?” I said.
    “Yes, thank you,” she said, scrubbing furiously. “Just a little saddle sore but apart from that…” She burst into tears. I went over and gave her a hug.
    “What will I do if…?” she sobbed. Tony came downstairs. I signalled him to come and hug her but he went very red saying,
    “Ah, I’ll just um…” before scuttling into the garden. I poured us each a large Brandy, and for the first time ever, she’s not cooking or cleaning. We’re sat watching an episode of Sex And The City. I think it’s cheered her up a bit, although she’s had to keep asking me what a lot of things mean.
    Daniel lands at nine tonight.

March
    Sunday 1st March  09:45
    TO: [email protected]
    Daniel knocked on the door at 10pm. He was surprised I hadn’t picked him up from Heathrow. He had a tan, a small ponytail and was sporting some woven cloth bracelets around his wrist. Everything about him screamed mid-life crisis, including the faux American accent. I managed to be civil for about fifteen minutes, until he thanked me for saving him some cold Fish Fingers under ‘ah-loo-min-um’ foil.
    “You’re a Londoner, Daniel, from Catford.”
    “But in America I can be whaddever I want,” he said.
    “Can you stop being a dickhead then?” I snapped. He slept downstairs on the Sofa. Meryl tried to instigate a big jolly cooked breakfast with Daniel this morning. I stayed upstairs with a couple of Pop-Tarts and Rosencrantz stomped off to college with a cold hello and a Fruit Corner. M + T have gone on ahead to Whitechapel on the Tandem. Daniel and me are waiting for a taxi. I feel like I