‘She’s in a terrible state,’ says the caretaker of the flats, a man as square and brutally constructed as the building itself. ‘Absolutely terrible. No one had seen her for a couple of days, and I had a key, so…’
The lift springs to a halt and the doors slide back.
‘I expect you’re used to these things, but – er – it’s going to be one hell of a job for you.’
‘You’re not selling it, particularly’ says Frank.
We follow the caretaker over to a battered blue door that shows signs of having been kicked in a few times in the past. He knocks on it twice.
‘Vera? It’s Barry again, with the ambulance.’ Then to us: ‘Not that she’ll understand any of that, of course.’
He pushes open the door.
‘She’s under the table in the living room.’
As we stand in the doorway a dreadfully grey and foetid smell billows out around us and on into the pine fresh chamber of the hallway.
‘I told you it was bad,’ Barry says. ‘Poor thing. She’s been bad with the drink before now, but nothing like this.’
‘Hello? Ambulance!’ I say, and we step inside.
Three thousand years ago the early Northern Europeans, in an effort to buy off their gods and make the harvest work that year, would sometimes lead a person out onto the marshland and cut their throat. Then they would lay the body in a shallow grave, cover it with peat, walk away and evaporate into Time. But the body would be drenched in the aseptic waters of the sphagnum moss, would be drawn down into the deepening bog, that black and anaerobic world – until, shockingly, its tanned leather face is suddenly squinting back up into the sunlight again, another bog mummy for the museum, tucked up on its side, with a long dream of suffering playing across its flattened face for everyone to see.
But now - if instead of taking your bog mummy and carefully lying it in a presentation case, you dress it instead in a torn floral nightie, drop it down on some lino and slide it under a chipped white Formica table, and instead of respectfully placing its grave goods alongside it you scatter round the withered feet a half dozen empty bottles of cheap supermarket vodka, and instead of installing a clinical de-humidifier you take a bucket of cold urine and faeces and slop it generously all over your specimen – this is how you will come to see Vera as we see her now, groaning and wailing beneath the table on the other side of the room.
‘I told you,’ says Barry. ‘How on earth are you going to move her?’
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
miss claudine, in the hospital, with the hat
If I was an alien visiting the earth, on a mission to sample the prevailing emotional flux of humankind, this would be my favourite time to touch down - the evening rush hour, when the bright weight of the day’s business eases up, and the sky deepens and pulls away, and people mass in the streets, following their routes and thoughts, but somewhat changed by the day that’s gone, roughened by all the compensations and accommodations they have had to make in order to keep these routes and thoughts running clear and in the right direction. And as the light changes, the bridges of stone they strode across so confidently that morning seem to have been replaced by something less certain, bridges of sticks, or black glass; in any case, they make their way home, back to the places they have strengthened to dream in safety, and close their doors against the night until the next day comes rolling around.
Claudine is led out of her house by her husband, Ed. A social worker stands on the pavement, clutching a manila envelope, flanked by two policewomen. Claudine looks as if she had been expecting to be led out onto the lawns of some lovely country estate. She is wearing an elegant lilac dress tied at the waist with a broad ribbon, plaited white shoes, Onassis sunglasses and a floppy cartwheel hat. She could be a Duchess, slightly cut on Madeira wine, paying a little too much attention to her feet as she is led out to greet her guests.
‘I don’t need an ambulance,’ she says, pushing her sunglasses back up her nose and smiling indulgently, first at Frank, then at me. ‘I’m not ill.’
‘Now, Claudine,’ says Ed, releasing her arm and putting both his hands on her shoulders. ‘We spoke about this. Remember? It’s just the way these things are done. You’ll be more comfortable in the ambulance, and there’s lots of room for everyone.’
‘Why? Who’s coming? Where are we going?’
‘To the hospital, Claudine. And I think a policewoman and – Spence – here, in the back with us.’
Ed looks around at us all to check that this is right. The policewoman nods.
‘I’ll follow in the police car,’ says the social worker. ‘I’ve got the papers.’
She clutches the envelope to her with such a self-conscious grip on the authority of what it contains, it reminds me of the ‘murder cards’ envelope in Cluedo, the one that sits in the middle of the board holding the weapon, the place – and the murderer, Miss Claudine, her smiling head stuck on a plastic counter. Except in this version of the game there has been no murder. In this sullied, real world version of the game, Claudine gets to be sectioned.
‘I was born thirty eight years ago next Wednesday,’ she says pleasantly, as I offer my hand to help her into the ambulance. ‘Thirty eight years since I was tucked up inside my Mother. I wish I could go back there now.’
She sits on the chair, and as I show the policewoman to her seat, Claudine slides right down and pulls her hat over her face.
‘You can’t see me,’ she says. She is charming, like a ten year old showing off to a bunch of stuffy relatives. ‘I’m invisible.’
Ed sits next to her and encourages her to put a seatbelt on.
‘No,’ she says, then: ‘Where are we off to?’
‘To Southview, to the hospital, Claudine.’
Frank slams the door shut.
As we ride along, the policewoman asks me questions about my shift patterns. Claudine listens in, frowning.
‘Who are these people?’ she asks Ed.
He straightens her hat.
A darkly thin man in his early forties, Ed is exhausted, someone inexplicably split from the normal run of things, like a man who fell asleep by a mirror and woke up to find himself trapped on the other side.
‘I haven’t slept in five days,’ he says to me. ‘Because she hasn’t.’
He says his mother has taken their children.
At Southview, Frank parks up and comes to the side to the open the door. The social worker and the other policewoman stand to his side. Ed gets out first, then turns to offer up his hand to Claudine. She steps out and looks around her.
‘My goodness,’ she says. ‘It’s amazing.’
We all walk along the pavement and into the foyer. A patient is standing over by the security desk. She has roughly cut ginger hair and a congested face like a plumped up cushion. When she sees us come in the door she pulls out her iPod earplugs and hurries over.
‘How are you? I’m fine. I’m always fine. Traffic all right? Made it here, anyways. Could’ve been killed, mate. Bang. Squashed. The roads. The roads are so dangerous these days. It’s a wonder there’s anyone left alive. Anyways. People know you’re coming? People know you’re here? Shall I ring? I’m Katy but I ‘spect you knew that already. I know what your name is. I can read it on your shirt! They don’t let you have pets in here. I had a dog. His name was Rufus….’
Claudine politely steps to one side and then carries on over to the Coke machine. She takes off her hat and glasses, kneels down on the floor, and peers up into the hole where the cans roll down.
‘Amazing,’ she says.
‘We’ll take her from here,’ the social worker says. We watch as Ed helps Claudine to her feet again, and then they all walk off down the corridor towards the secure ward, Katy talking incessantly at their backs, the leads of the earphones in her back pocket trailing down left and right behind her, like a spindly white tail.
Claudine is led out of her house by her husband, Ed. A social worker stands on the pavement, clutching a manila envelope, flanked by two policewomen. Claudine looks as if she had been expecting to be led out onto the lawns of some lovely country estate. She is wearing an elegant lilac dress tied at the waist with a broad ribbon, plaited white shoes, Onassis sunglasses and a floppy cartwheel hat. She could be a Duchess, slightly cut on Madeira wine, paying a little too much attention to her feet as she is led out to greet her guests.
‘I don’t need an ambulance,’ she says, pushing her sunglasses back up her nose and smiling indulgently, first at Frank, then at me. ‘I’m not ill.’
‘Now, Claudine,’ says Ed, releasing her arm and putting both his hands on her shoulders. ‘We spoke about this. Remember? It’s just the way these things are done. You’ll be more comfortable in the ambulance, and there’s lots of room for everyone.’
‘Why? Who’s coming? Where are we going?’
‘To the hospital, Claudine. And I think a policewoman and – Spence – here, in the back with us.’
Ed looks around at us all to check that this is right. The policewoman nods.
‘I’ll follow in the police car,’ says the social worker. ‘I’ve got the papers.’
She clutches the envelope to her with such a self-conscious grip on the authority of what it contains, it reminds me of the ‘murder cards’ envelope in Cluedo, the one that sits in the middle of the board holding the weapon, the place – and the murderer, Miss Claudine, her smiling head stuck on a plastic counter. Except in this version of the game there has been no murder. In this sullied, real world version of the game, Claudine gets to be sectioned.
‘I was born thirty eight years ago next Wednesday,’ she says pleasantly, as I offer my hand to help her into the ambulance. ‘Thirty eight years since I was tucked up inside my Mother. I wish I could go back there now.’
She sits on the chair, and as I show the policewoman to her seat, Claudine slides right down and pulls her hat over her face.
‘You can’t see me,’ she says. She is charming, like a ten year old showing off to a bunch of stuffy relatives. ‘I’m invisible.’
Ed sits next to her and encourages her to put a seatbelt on.
‘No,’ she says, then: ‘Where are we off to?’
‘To Southview, to the hospital, Claudine.’
Frank slams the door shut.
As we ride along, the policewoman asks me questions about my shift patterns. Claudine listens in, frowning.
‘Who are these people?’ she asks Ed.
He straightens her hat.
A darkly thin man in his early forties, Ed is exhausted, someone inexplicably split from the normal run of things, like a man who fell asleep by a mirror and woke up to find himself trapped on the other side.
‘I haven’t slept in five days,’ he says to me. ‘Because she hasn’t.’
He says his mother has taken their children.
At Southview, Frank parks up and comes to the side to the open the door. The social worker and the other policewoman stand to his side. Ed gets out first, then turns to offer up his hand to Claudine. She steps out and looks around her.
‘My goodness,’ she says. ‘It’s amazing.’
We all walk along the pavement and into the foyer. A patient is standing over by the security desk. She has roughly cut ginger hair and a congested face like a plumped up cushion. When she sees us come in the door she pulls out her iPod earplugs and hurries over.
‘How are you? I’m fine. I’m always fine. Traffic all right? Made it here, anyways. Could’ve been killed, mate. Bang. Squashed. The roads. The roads are so dangerous these days. It’s a wonder there’s anyone left alive. Anyways. People know you’re coming? People know you’re here? Shall I ring? I’m Katy but I ‘spect you knew that already. I know what your name is. I can read it on your shirt! They don’t let you have pets in here. I had a dog. His name was Rufus….’
Claudine politely steps to one side and then carries on over to the Coke machine. She takes off her hat and glasses, kneels down on the floor, and peers up into the hole where the cans roll down.
‘Amazing,’ she says.
‘We’ll take her from here,’ the social worker says. We watch as Ed helps Claudine to her feet again, and then they all walk off down the corridor towards the secure ward, Katy talking incessantly at their backs, the leads of the earphones in her back pocket trailing down left and right behind her, like a spindly white tail.
Monday, June 15, 2009
dookey revisité
The paramedic car has its hazards flashing, but we know exactly which house we need.
‘I haven’t been to Stanley’s for a little while,’ I say to Rae.
‘No. Perhaps he hasn’t been well.’
As I park the ambulance behind the car I wonder whether this might be the one time I visit the man and find he actually needs some help.
Although there is already a paramedic on scene, when we ring the bell there is the usual schtick about who we are and what we’ve come for.
‘Who do you say you are? The ambulance?’ As if an ambulance was the last thing anyone could have expected, despite Stanley having made the call not ten minutes ago, and despite the fluorescent bulk of one of our colleagues right there on his sofa, surrounded by kit. But finally – heroically - he buzzes us through into the hall, where we wait another couple of minutes by his flat door.
‘I’m just getting my keys,’ he says finally, pressing his mouth to the gap. ‘Now where are my trousers. The keys must be in the trousers.’
CJ the paramedic lets us in.
‘All right?’ he says, wearily. We follow him back into the sitting room.
Dookey, Stanley’s springer spaniel, flies over the back of the sofa to frisk us for affection, driven to heights of ecstasy never before seen in a dog.
‘Dookey!’ growls Stanley like some grumpy old stage manager somewhere off in the gloom. ‘Decorum!’
CJ gives us an exhausted look.
‘Just this shift and I’m nine days clear,’ he says. ‘Count them.’
Dookey licks him clean in the chops.
‘Yeuch! Anyway, guys, listen. I know this is one you’ve maybe come across before. But the story is, he rung up with DIB. He’s sounding a little bit crackly and his SATS are a touch low. So that and his previous means it’s inevitably a trip down the old choky. Sorry and all that. I have done some paperwork for you, though.’
‘He won’t go,’ says Rae, making a blue glove ball and tossing it for the dog, who almost demolishes a sideboard of antique glass in his eagerness to retrieve. ‘Oops.’
‘Well, he assures me that this time he means business.’
‘I definitely do,’ says Stanley, dragging himself into the room by the buckle of his belt. ‘I’ve never felt so rough.’
He looks slack and grey, but then his smoking and his reclusive lifestyle means he would never make too many demands on a palette of healthy colours. He regards Rae and me with disappointment.
‘Haven’t I seen you before?’ he says.
‘Come on, Stanley. We’re taking you to the hospital, apparently.’
‘Yes. I need to go. I’ve never been so ill. I just can’t get my breath.’
‘Have you had a cigarette recently?’
‘I may have had a consolatory puff or two. Look – this is not easy, you know. You really shouldn’t make fun of me like this.’
‘We’re not making fun of you, Stanley. We’re just trying to get the full picture.’
‘Yes. Well. The full picture as you say is that I’m not breathing at all well, and I’m quite possibly dying. You know how I feel about my darling Dookey, but even she cannot keep me from my appointment with the doctors at the hospital tonight, because I’m afraid that if I stayed here I would expire and that would be that.’
‘So let’s go, then.’
‘Look. Don’t rush me. I’ve simply got to find my keys.’
‘Keys are in the door,’ says Rae, turning Dookey onto her back and scrunching her fingers around on her tummy.
Incredibly, they are, right there in the lock.
‘Oh. Fine. Well then. I just need my shoes. Dookey! Un peu de l'étiquette s'il vous plaît.’ Then he turns to me and says:
‘Where is your chair?’
‘I don’t think you need a chair, Stanley. You’re moving about like an antelope. Let’s try a walk out to the vehicle, shall we?’
‘I don’t care for your tone,’ he says, ominously. Then after giving Dookey a series of instructions in English and in French, he shuffles out with us into the hallway.
Stanley lives on a road with a crow’s view of the city. It lies spread out before us, a thousand points of light below an ink blue sky.
‘What a night!’ I say, offering my arm.
‘For you, perhaps,’ he says with a sniff. ‘For me, a vision of hell. I’m not enjoying this, you know. And I most certainly will not manage those steps.’
‘Let’s just have a go and see. If you can’t, we’ll have a rethink.’
Stanley pulls his arm out from mine.
‘Really. This is ridiculous. So you’re refusing to take me to hospital.’
‘Not at all. If you need to go, we’ll go. But I’m not carrying you in a chair, Stanley. You don’t need it.’
‘Then I’m not going.’
He turns round and marches back inside, slamming the door behind him.
The paramedic joins us over by the ambulance.
‘That went well, then.’
‘He’s just an arse.’
‘Why wouldn’t he come?’
‘He insisted on a chair.’
‘Oh well. No doubt he’ll call back in a second or two. I’d wait here if I were you.’
I talk to Control and they stand us down from the job. Just a minute later, though, we get it back again. Control ask us to give him a severe talking to.
‘Tell him it’s you or nothing,’ they say.
When Stanley answers the door and sees me standing there, his mournful expression drops a clear foot.
‘You!’ he says. ‘You’re the one who refused to take me to hospital.’ Then he notices Rae and says: ‘But you, my dear. You have been the epitome of helpfulness and humanity throughout this entire ordeal. You I don’t mind.’
‘Stanley. This is your last chance. Either you walk out to the ambulance with us now and we take you to hospital, or you find some other way to cope with your illness tonight. We’re not a taxi service. We’re not here to answer to your every beck and call.’
‘Don’t be cruel,’ he says. ‘I’ve never been so ill.’
But he seems to lose a measure of haughtiness, takes my arm, and allows himself to be led out of the flat and down to the vehicle.
Dookey watches us go from her lookout behind the window.
I half expect her to wave.
‘I haven’t been to Stanley’s for a little while,’ I say to Rae.
‘No. Perhaps he hasn’t been well.’
As I park the ambulance behind the car I wonder whether this might be the one time I visit the man and find he actually needs some help.
Although there is already a paramedic on scene, when we ring the bell there is the usual schtick about who we are and what we’ve come for.
‘Who do you say you are? The ambulance?’ As if an ambulance was the last thing anyone could have expected, despite Stanley having made the call not ten minutes ago, and despite the fluorescent bulk of one of our colleagues right there on his sofa, surrounded by kit. But finally – heroically - he buzzes us through into the hall, where we wait another couple of minutes by his flat door.
‘I’m just getting my keys,’ he says finally, pressing his mouth to the gap. ‘Now where are my trousers. The keys must be in the trousers.’
CJ the paramedic lets us in.
‘All right?’ he says, wearily. We follow him back into the sitting room.
Dookey, Stanley’s springer spaniel, flies over the back of the sofa to frisk us for affection, driven to heights of ecstasy never before seen in a dog.
‘Dookey!’ growls Stanley like some grumpy old stage manager somewhere off in the gloom. ‘Decorum!’
CJ gives us an exhausted look.
‘Just this shift and I’m nine days clear,’ he says. ‘Count them.’
Dookey licks him clean in the chops.
‘Yeuch! Anyway, guys, listen. I know this is one you’ve maybe come across before. But the story is, he rung up with DIB. He’s sounding a little bit crackly and his SATS are a touch low. So that and his previous means it’s inevitably a trip down the old choky. Sorry and all that. I have done some paperwork for you, though.’
‘He won’t go,’ says Rae, making a blue glove ball and tossing it for the dog, who almost demolishes a sideboard of antique glass in his eagerness to retrieve. ‘Oops.’
‘Well, he assures me that this time he means business.’
‘I definitely do,’ says Stanley, dragging himself into the room by the buckle of his belt. ‘I’ve never felt so rough.’
He looks slack and grey, but then his smoking and his reclusive lifestyle means he would never make too many demands on a palette of healthy colours. He regards Rae and me with disappointment.
‘Haven’t I seen you before?’ he says.
‘Come on, Stanley. We’re taking you to the hospital, apparently.’
‘Yes. I need to go. I’ve never been so ill. I just can’t get my breath.’
‘Have you had a cigarette recently?’
‘I may have had a consolatory puff or two. Look – this is not easy, you know. You really shouldn’t make fun of me like this.’
‘We’re not making fun of you, Stanley. We’re just trying to get the full picture.’
‘Yes. Well. The full picture as you say is that I’m not breathing at all well, and I’m quite possibly dying. You know how I feel about my darling Dookey, but even she cannot keep me from my appointment with the doctors at the hospital tonight, because I’m afraid that if I stayed here I would expire and that would be that.’
‘So let’s go, then.’
‘Look. Don’t rush me. I’ve simply got to find my keys.’
‘Keys are in the door,’ says Rae, turning Dookey onto her back and scrunching her fingers around on her tummy.
Incredibly, they are, right there in the lock.
‘Oh. Fine. Well then. I just need my shoes. Dookey! Un peu de l'étiquette s'il vous plaît.’ Then he turns to me and says:
‘Where is your chair?’
‘I don’t think you need a chair, Stanley. You’re moving about like an antelope. Let’s try a walk out to the vehicle, shall we?’
‘I don’t care for your tone,’ he says, ominously. Then after giving Dookey a series of instructions in English and in French, he shuffles out with us into the hallway.
Stanley lives on a road with a crow’s view of the city. It lies spread out before us, a thousand points of light below an ink blue sky.
‘What a night!’ I say, offering my arm.
‘For you, perhaps,’ he says with a sniff. ‘For me, a vision of hell. I’m not enjoying this, you know. And I most certainly will not manage those steps.’
‘Let’s just have a go and see. If you can’t, we’ll have a rethink.’
Stanley pulls his arm out from mine.
‘Really. This is ridiculous. So you’re refusing to take me to hospital.’
‘Not at all. If you need to go, we’ll go. But I’m not carrying you in a chair, Stanley. You don’t need it.’
‘Then I’m not going.’
He turns round and marches back inside, slamming the door behind him.
The paramedic joins us over by the ambulance.
‘That went well, then.’
‘He’s just an arse.’
‘Why wouldn’t he come?’
‘He insisted on a chair.’
‘Oh well. No doubt he’ll call back in a second or two. I’d wait here if I were you.’
I talk to Control and they stand us down from the job. Just a minute later, though, we get it back again. Control ask us to give him a severe talking to.
‘Tell him it’s you or nothing,’ they say.
When Stanley answers the door and sees me standing there, his mournful expression drops a clear foot.
‘You!’ he says. ‘You’re the one who refused to take me to hospital.’ Then he notices Rae and says: ‘But you, my dear. You have been the epitome of helpfulness and humanity throughout this entire ordeal. You I don’t mind.’
‘Stanley. This is your last chance. Either you walk out to the ambulance with us now and we take you to hospital, or you find some other way to cope with your illness tonight. We’re not a taxi service. We’re not here to answer to your every beck and call.’
‘Don’t be cruel,’ he says. ‘I’ve never been so ill.’
But he seems to lose a measure of haughtiness, takes my arm, and allows himself to be led out of the flat and down to the vehicle.
Dookey watches us go from her lookout behind the window.
I half expect her to wave.
Friday, June 12, 2009
underwater
The bungalow looks as if it has been dropped from a height. It sits back from the road at the bottom of a steeply sloping bank of earth, clustered around with massy black shrubs and plants, the steps leading down through them illuminated by the sickly glow from half a dozen solar mushrooms. The front door stands open, spilling a brighter light.
‘Hello? Ambulance?’
In through the front door and we find Jenny, clutching at the edge of a card table and bending forwards to catch her breath.
‘Let’s sit you down,’ I say to her, taking her hand. She shakes her head and waves me off. ‘Come on. Have a seat and then we can see what needs to be done.’
There’s something about the way she holds herself, something posed and practised, that does not seem right. But for now I carry on trying to persuade her she should take a seat and talk to us.
Suddenly she straightens and says: ‘I’m not going to hospital. My dog, you see.’ Then she turns and leads us down a stubby wooden staircase into a sunken lounge filled with the oppressive fug of cigarette smoke and long closed windows. A dog as ungainly as the house hauls itself up from its nest by the fire to check our trouser legs.
‘Maisy,’ says Jenny, turning and flopping down into the chair. ‘Maisy, Maisy, Maisy. What would I do without you?’
The TV is playing quietly in the far corner: Paul Giamatti swimming underwater, examining strange objects, looking for something.
Maisy prods me with her nose to elicit some fuss.
‘Tell us what’s been happening, Jenny.’
‘I’m an old crone,’ she says. ‘But I used to be a lifeguard. I saved fifty three people from drowning. Fifty three. I got a certificate.’
She has a strange way of talking, starting confidently but the power quickly draining from her words until she trails off into a dry mouthing. She is like an asthmatic tragedian, worn through by repetition, the banal horror of everything.
‘I have a part-time husband. He’s away most of the time. A consultant in computing. I’m here on my own. But I’ve got you, babe. Maisy, Maisy, Maisy. Look at you now. You dear and lovely little thing.’
She may have been little once, but food and lack of exercise have done for her. She has ballooned into a piece of furniture with only a touch more animation than the sofa we currently sit on.
‘Have you been drinking, Jenny?’
‘Drinking? No.’
She has. There are no bottles or glasses around, but it wouldn’t take long to find them.
‘I know I shouldn’t smoke. It’s killing me. Killing me.’
‘And when was the last time you had an ambulance?’
‘A long while. Ages ago.’
Paul Giamatti has broken the surface of the water now: a hotel swimming pool by the look of it. What’s he doing?
Maisy has moved on to Rae, who musses her ears and rubs noses with her.
There is a heavy oak mantelpiece that runs along the far wall. Ornaments and trinkets have been placed along it, a measured distance between them. A drunken, ceramic pig in a sailor suit, one trotter draped over the edge; a brass lizard with an S-shaped tail; an abstract leaping antelope in ivory; a wedding photo in a fussy gilt frame; a pottery hedgehog.
‘I’m an old crone,’ says Jenny, leaning forward in her chair, staring at me with her jade green eyes, absently turning her wedding band around and around. ‘I know I’m nothing to look at now. But I used to be quite a catch.’
‘Hello? Ambulance?’
In through the front door and we find Jenny, clutching at the edge of a card table and bending forwards to catch her breath.
‘Let’s sit you down,’ I say to her, taking her hand. She shakes her head and waves me off. ‘Come on. Have a seat and then we can see what needs to be done.’
There’s something about the way she holds herself, something posed and practised, that does not seem right. But for now I carry on trying to persuade her she should take a seat and talk to us.
Suddenly she straightens and says: ‘I’m not going to hospital. My dog, you see.’ Then she turns and leads us down a stubby wooden staircase into a sunken lounge filled with the oppressive fug of cigarette smoke and long closed windows. A dog as ungainly as the house hauls itself up from its nest by the fire to check our trouser legs.
‘Maisy,’ says Jenny, turning and flopping down into the chair. ‘Maisy, Maisy, Maisy. What would I do without you?’
The TV is playing quietly in the far corner: Paul Giamatti swimming underwater, examining strange objects, looking for something.
Maisy prods me with her nose to elicit some fuss.
‘Tell us what’s been happening, Jenny.’
‘I’m an old crone,’ she says. ‘But I used to be a lifeguard. I saved fifty three people from drowning. Fifty three. I got a certificate.’
She has a strange way of talking, starting confidently but the power quickly draining from her words until she trails off into a dry mouthing. She is like an asthmatic tragedian, worn through by repetition, the banal horror of everything.
‘I have a part-time husband. He’s away most of the time. A consultant in computing. I’m here on my own. But I’ve got you, babe. Maisy, Maisy, Maisy. Look at you now. You dear and lovely little thing.’
She may have been little once, but food and lack of exercise have done for her. She has ballooned into a piece of furniture with only a touch more animation than the sofa we currently sit on.
‘Have you been drinking, Jenny?’
‘Drinking? No.’
She has. There are no bottles or glasses around, but it wouldn’t take long to find them.
‘I know I shouldn’t smoke. It’s killing me. Killing me.’
‘And when was the last time you had an ambulance?’
‘A long while. Ages ago.’
Paul Giamatti has broken the surface of the water now: a hotel swimming pool by the look of it. What’s he doing?
Maisy has moved on to Rae, who musses her ears and rubs noses with her.
There is a heavy oak mantelpiece that runs along the far wall. Ornaments and trinkets have been placed along it, a measured distance between them. A drunken, ceramic pig in a sailor suit, one trotter draped over the edge; a brass lizard with an S-shaped tail; an abstract leaping antelope in ivory; a wedding photo in a fussy gilt frame; a pottery hedgehog.
‘I’m an old crone,’ says Jenny, leaning forward in her chair, staring at me with her jade green eyes, absently turning her wedding band around and around. ‘I know I’m nothing to look at now. But I used to be quite a catch.’
Thursday, June 11, 2009
released back
Two shadowy figures are standing on the cycle path that runs around the park. One of them waves, so Frank spins the ambulance round in a u-turn and we pull alongside the kerb. I lower the window.
‘Did you call the ambulance?’
‘You gotta do something about my ear, man.’
‘Okay. Let’s get you in the back.’
‘Come on.’
‘Just a second.’
He hardly waits for me to slide back the door and put on the light. He takes a big step into the ambulance and sits down on the trolley.
‘No. Don’t sit there. Sit on one of these chairs.’
‘Why? I just want you to sort my ear out.’
‘Do as the geezer says, Jay.’ And then to me. ‘He’s all right, really. It’s his birthday today.’
‘Really? Well, happy birthday Jay.’
‘Whatever. Just fix my ear.’
Now the lights are on I can see exactly who I’m dealing with. Jay and his friend are both still young, but their twenty years of life resonate around them like twenty strikes of a big black gong marked ‘Trouble’. The neatest thing about them is their insectivorous stubble. Neither of them look straight at me when I talk, but off to the side, as if they are used to covering all eventualities.
‘So what happened to you, Jay?’
‘My girlfriend smashed a glass on my head.’
‘Were you knocked out?’
‘What do you mean, was I knocked out?’
‘Well – just that. Did you lose consciousness?’
‘She’s a girl. Fix my ear.’
‘I need to know all the facts so I can treat you.’
Jay’s friend sits right on the edge of his chair like an excited child.
‘Don’t give him a hard time, Jay. He’s helping you, man. He’s here to help.’
‘Do you have any neck pain?’
‘No.’
‘Okay. Turn your head and I’ll see where all this blood is coming from.’
His only injury is a small cut just up from the root of the ear. It must have happened some time ago; the blood has congealed, lifting off his cheek like a papery, wine-coloured residue when I rub it.
‘It’s a minor cut,’ I tell him. ‘You don’t need to go to hospital. You just need to keep it clean so it doesn’t get infected.’
‘I haven’t got nowhere. How am I supposed to do that?’
‘I don’t know. How do you normally clean yourself up?’
He turns to his friend. ‘Listen to this.’ And then back to me. ‘I’m going to bounce you off the ceiling.’
‘Really?’ I toss the bloodied gauze pad into the bin.
Frank unfolds his arms. ‘Okay, mate. I think it’s high time you went on your way.’
The friend stands up.
‘Come on. Don’t listen to Jay. He’s just upset because his girl whacked him. He’s a good kid, not at all violent. He kept the bullies off me all through school.’
‘That’s nice. But I’ve done all I need to do here. Your part of the deal is to clean yourself up.’
‘How rude is that?’
‘It’s not rude, Jay. It’s just the way it is.’
‘Give me some more wipes.’
I want to say to him: What’s the magic word? But I give him some wipes in silence. He snatches them up, and then the two of them jump off the ambulance.
We watch them slouch away back into the shadows.
Once when I went fishing with Dad we unexpectedly hooked a pike. It thrashed furiously amongst the reeds until he cut the line and let it splash back into the water. It was only up for a second or two, but it seemed to hang there forever, snapping its body from side to side, fixing us dispassionately with the chill black button of its eye.
Dad shut and pocketed his knife, then sat back down on his fold-up chair.
‘I’m glad I’m not a fish in this particular stretch of water,’ he said. Then he drew his old canvas fishing bag to him, and slowly and methodically set about tying another hook to the line.
‘Did you call the ambulance?’
‘You gotta do something about my ear, man.’
‘Okay. Let’s get you in the back.’
‘Come on.’
‘Just a second.’
He hardly waits for me to slide back the door and put on the light. He takes a big step into the ambulance and sits down on the trolley.
‘No. Don’t sit there. Sit on one of these chairs.’
‘Why? I just want you to sort my ear out.’
‘Do as the geezer says, Jay.’ And then to me. ‘He’s all right, really. It’s his birthday today.’
‘Really? Well, happy birthday Jay.’
‘Whatever. Just fix my ear.’
Now the lights are on I can see exactly who I’m dealing with. Jay and his friend are both still young, but their twenty years of life resonate around them like twenty strikes of a big black gong marked ‘Trouble’. The neatest thing about them is their insectivorous stubble. Neither of them look straight at me when I talk, but off to the side, as if they are used to covering all eventualities.
‘So what happened to you, Jay?’
‘My girlfriend smashed a glass on my head.’
‘Were you knocked out?’
‘What do you mean, was I knocked out?’
‘Well – just that. Did you lose consciousness?’
‘She’s a girl. Fix my ear.’
‘I need to know all the facts so I can treat you.’
Jay’s friend sits right on the edge of his chair like an excited child.
‘Don’t give him a hard time, Jay. He’s helping you, man. He’s here to help.’
‘Do you have any neck pain?’
‘No.’
‘Okay. Turn your head and I’ll see where all this blood is coming from.’
His only injury is a small cut just up from the root of the ear. It must have happened some time ago; the blood has congealed, lifting off his cheek like a papery, wine-coloured residue when I rub it.
‘It’s a minor cut,’ I tell him. ‘You don’t need to go to hospital. You just need to keep it clean so it doesn’t get infected.’
‘I haven’t got nowhere. How am I supposed to do that?’
‘I don’t know. How do you normally clean yourself up?’
He turns to his friend. ‘Listen to this.’ And then back to me. ‘I’m going to bounce you off the ceiling.’
‘Really?’ I toss the bloodied gauze pad into the bin.
Frank unfolds his arms. ‘Okay, mate. I think it’s high time you went on your way.’
The friend stands up.
‘Come on. Don’t listen to Jay. He’s just upset because his girl whacked him. He’s a good kid, not at all violent. He kept the bullies off me all through school.’
‘That’s nice. But I’ve done all I need to do here. Your part of the deal is to clean yourself up.’
‘How rude is that?’
‘It’s not rude, Jay. It’s just the way it is.’
‘Give me some more wipes.’
I want to say to him: What’s the magic word? But I give him some wipes in silence. He snatches them up, and then the two of them jump off the ambulance.
We watch them slouch away back into the shadows.
Once when I went fishing with Dad we unexpectedly hooked a pike. It thrashed furiously amongst the reeds until he cut the line and let it splash back into the water. It was only up for a second or two, but it seemed to hang there forever, snapping its body from side to side, fixing us dispassionately with the chill black button of its eye.
Dad shut and pocketed his knife, then sat back down on his fold-up chair.
‘I’m glad I’m not a fish in this particular stretch of water,’ he said. Then he drew his old canvas fishing bag to him, and slowly and methodically set about tying another hook to the line.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
learning the language
‘We think she had got up in the early hours to use the commode, and then just collapsed backwards. We haven’t moved her. We thought it best we didn’t.’
Hilda is lying on her back across the bed, neatly lain out with her mottled red feet set shoulder-width apart on the floor, her knees crooked at the edge of the mattress, her arms along by her sides. With her hands bunched into fists, her mouth sagging open, and with her fine white hair spread around behind her head like a makeshift halo, Hilda looks like a spirit singing a loud and apocalyptic note in the wilderness. But the power has gone and the music has faded, along with the last images she played out above her on the blank white screen of the ceiling. There’s nothing in the room now except a body on the bed, a collection of family photos on the sideboard and walls, and the four of us – the Warden, the policeman, Frank and me.
Frank goes over to Hilda and makes the official confirmation of death. There is a polite exchange of paperwork.
‘I should’ve finished an hour ago,’ the policeman says. ‘Do you mind if I have a seat?’
The home warden plumps a cushion for him on a white wicker chair.
His radio squawks, so he silences it.
The Warden tells us a little more about Hilda, then adds: ‘Who wants a cup of tea?’
When she comes back a few minutes later we’re all talking about Hong Kong.
‘My eldest sister went out there for a few months and now ten years later she’s only just thinking about where to go next. She loves it.’
‘I have a friend who’s just gone to China. He’s married a Chinese girl and he’s looking for work but I think he’s finding it tough. Where do you start with the language? And the writing – it’s just a sequence of lines.’
‘I’ve still got a little bit of school French. At least with that the words and sounds are recognisable. But Chinese? Where do you start with Chinese?’
The tea the warden made us is strong and reviving.
Through the window just above the bed I watch a man come out of his house across the road, stretch his back and then pick his way carefully down the wet stone steps of his garden to the road. He doesn’t pay any attention to the ambulance.
‘I think property is expensive in Hong Kong.’
‘Well, it’s so crowded. It’s going to be pricey. But there’s absolutely no crime over there. They don’t tolerate crime. You can go out without any kind of worry at all.’
The policeman takes another sip from his mug.
‘The relatives are on their way. I think they should be here in a little while.’
‘Would you like us to make Hilda a little more presentable on the bed?’
‘If you could.’
Hilda is small and frail. With the policeman controlling her legs, Frank around her middle and me with her arms and head, it’s a simple move to put her back into bed with her head on the soft white pillows and the quilt tucked up to her chin. I smooth down her hair and manage to close her eyes, but although we experiment with different pillow combinations we don’t succeed in closing her mouth.
‘Don’t worry. That’s better,’ says the Warden.
She looks out of the window, and then at the little silver watch on her wrist.
‘I do hope the Coroner’s men don’t get here before the relatives.’
‘No,’ says the policeman, putting his mug on the sideboard, then thinking better of it and picking it up again. ‘They don’t like to hang around.’
Hilda is lying on her back across the bed, neatly lain out with her mottled red feet set shoulder-width apart on the floor, her knees crooked at the edge of the mattress, her arms along by her sides. With her hands bunched into fists, her mouth sagging open, and with her fine white hair spread around behind her head like a makeshift halo, Hilda looks like a spirit singing a loud and apocalyptic note in the wilderness. But the power has gone and the music has faded, along with the last images she played out above her on the blank white screen of the ceiling. There’s nothing in the room now except a body on the bed, a collection of family photos on the sideboard and walls, and the four of us – the Warden, the policeman, Frank and me.
Frank goes over to Hilda and makes the official confirmation of death. There is a polite exchange of paperwork.
‘I should’ve finished an hour ago,’ the policeman says. ‘Do you mind if I have a seat?’
The home warden plumps a cushion for him on a white wicker chair.
His radio squawks, so he silences it.
The Warden tells us a little more about Hilda, then adds: ‘Who wants a cup of tea?’
When she comes back a few minutes later we’re all talking about Hong Kong.
‘My eldest sister went out there for a few months and now ten years later she’s only just thinking about where to go next. She loves it.’
‘I have a friend who’s just gone to China. He’s married a Chinese girl and he’s looking for work but I think he’s finding it tough. Where do you start with the language? And the writing – it’s just a sequence of lines.’
‘I’ve still got a little bit of school French. At least with that the words and sounds are recognisable. But Chinese? Where do you start with Chinese?’
The tea the warden made us is strong and reviving.
Through the window just above the bed I watch a man come out of his house across the road, stretch his back and then pick his way carefully down the wet stone steps of his garden to the road. He doesn’t pay any attention to the ambulance.
‘I think property is expensive in Hong Kong.’
‘Well, it’s so crowded. It’s going to be pricey. But there’s absolutely no crime over there. They don’t tolerate crime. You can go out without any kind of worry at all.’
The policeman takes another sip from his mug.
‘The relatives are on their way. I think they should be here in a little while.’
‘Would you like us to make Hilda a little more presentable on the bed?’
‘If you could.’
Hilda is small and frail. With the policeman controlling her legs, Frank around her middle and me with her arms and head, it’s a simple move to put her back into bed with her head on the soft white pillows and the quilt tucked up to her chin. I smooth down her hair and manage to close her eyes, but although we experiment with different pillow combinations we don’t succeed in closing her mouth.
‘Don’t worry. That’s better,’ says the Warden.
She looks out of the window, and then at the little silver watch on her wrist.
‘I do hope the Coroner’s men don’t get here before the relatives.’
‘No,’ says the policeman, putting his mug on the sideboard, then thinking better of it and picking it up again. ‘They don’t like to hang around.’
Friday, June 05, 2009
angles
Tyra is lying on her back, half in and half out of the en-suite bathroom, a tastefully arranged study in suicide, her head turned to the left, her glossy hair spread around her on the black and white tiled floor, her left arm crooked up so the fingers of her left hand can brush against her cheek, her other hand curled delicately in the lap of her flower-patterned lycra trousers. Her knees are drawn up half way, balanced inwards, one against the other.
‘She took an overdose and cut her wrist. She wanted to kill herself.’
James, ‘not her partner, just a friend’, a pale and sharply anxious man, bristling with angles like a geometric theorem made human, adjusts his thick black glasses and paces about.
‘Help her. Please.’
I step into the bathroom and squat down beside her. Even this small disturbance makes her eyelids flutter.
‘Tyra? Open your eyes, Tyra. It’s the ambulance.’
She holds herself quite still.
‘Tyra. I know you’re not unconscious. Please open your eyes and tell me what’s happened this morning.’
Nothing.
There is a light swipe of blood on her trousers just visible beneath her hand. I lift it up and see that Tyra has scraped at her wrist with a safety razor, but the wound is ineffectual, nothing more than a graze.
‘Is this the only cut you made, Tyra? Please talk to me. It’s silly otherwise.’
Suddenly her eyes flip open and she looks at me.
‘I didn’t want anyone to find me,’ she says. ‘I didn’t want to wake up.’
‘Let’s sit you down on the bed and have a chat about what’s happened.’
James buzzes around behind us. As I offer my hand to Tyra to help her stand up, he squeezes his way in beside me and tries to take her under the shoulders.
‘Thank God I found you!’ he says.
His assistance actually makes it more difficult for Tyra to stand and leave the bathroom. Rae takes him aside.
‘What pills has Tyra taken?’ she says. ‘There are some empty packets here.’
‘No. Those are mine,’ James says. ‘She took some of these ibuprofen, and these – the amitriptyline.’
‘How many of each?’
Tyra is sitting on the bed, looking off into a corner of the room as if this is a socially awkward scene she would rather not have to endure.
‘As many as I could,’ she sighs. ‘I didn’t want to go on living.’
‘We need to know as accurately as possible how many you took of these pills, and when you took them.’
‘I don’t know. I wanted to kill myself. I wasn’t concerned about the time, was I?’
‘Roughly though.’
‘An hour and a half. Ten of the ibuprofen and one or two of the amitriptyline.’
‘Are the amitriptyline pills your own?’
‘No. My mum’s.’
The simple use of the mum word has a powerful effect on Tyra; her wide black pupils swivel four stops into focus.
‘Please don’t tell her. Oh my god! They won’t tell mum, will they, James?’
‘You’re twenty one,’ he says watchfully from the end of the bed. ‘You don’t have to tell anyone anything.’
Meanwhile Rae has fished another empty packet of pills out of the little wicker waste bin by the dresser.
‘What about these?’
And as unexpectedly as Tyra was energised by the thought of her mother, a simple mention of James’ wicker bin seems to sting him into a rage. He unfolds his arms and drops them down by his side.
‘I fucking hate ambulance people. How dare you go rooting around my personal stuff? Insinuating all kinds of shit. How dare you!’
He stomps around the room, leaves, comes back, leaves again. He reminds me of a furious house dog, conflicted by the need to protect and the need to run away.
‘James. Calm down for us, could you? It’s not helping. I don’t understand why you’re getting so worked up.’
‘No. You wouldn’t, would you? I can’t stand this fucking attitude. You come up here with your sniffy looks. You pry and you poke around. Who do you think you are? I won’t fucking stand for it. Sorry, Tyra, but it just makes me furious.’
‘Well you won’t be able to come with us to the hospital if you don’t moderate your language and behaviour, James.’
I sound like a school teacher. I feel like one.
‘Go and stand outside.’
He does. We hear him crashing about and swearing in another room. But after a moment he sidles back in to give Tyra her mobile, and help lead her down the stairs to the ambulance.
As we open the door to step outside, she puts her hand over her face.
‘I don’t want anyone to see me,’ she says.
But it’s half past four in the morning. There really isn’t anyone.
On the ambulance, Tyra sits in a seat, chewing a nail and staring through the slats of the window. James hugs himself in a seat just in front of her.
‘Who’s your doctor?’ I ask.
She smiles without looking at me. ‘I don’t go to doctors,’ she says. ‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘Is that your home address?’
James sighs.
‘Yes it’s her home address.’
‘Do you know the postcode?’
‘Yes, I know the postcode. I live there, don’t I?’
‘Could you tell me what it is then?’
He snips it out, then reaches over to stroke Tyra’s hand. ‘It’s okay,’ he says. And then to himself: ‘These fucking interrogations.’
‘James. Remember what I said about your language and attitude? These are simple questions I have to ask so Tyra gets the correct treatment. Okay? If you carry on like this you won’t be allowed in to the hospital.’
‘I’m sorry. I just don’t appreciate your tone.’
Tyra looks at me. She looks as if she is stifling a laugh.
‘But I want him there with me.’
‘Fine. But you must behave.’
The ambulance bumps along.
Once we have wheeled Tyra into a cubicle, we look for sanctuary and coffee in the reception office. As Zoe taps in the details, we cradle our drinks and mull over the job. Suddenly Rae clamps up, and I realise that James has come to the window.
‘How can I help?’ says Zoe.
James looks across at the two of us sitting on our swivel chairs. I nod at him, but he turns his attention back to Zoe without acknowledgement. After a pause, he adjusts his glasses, and says quietly:
‘The nurse says I need to book a blood test.’
‘She took an overdose and cut her wrist. She wanted to kill herself.’
James, ‘not her partner, just a friend’, a pale and sharply anxious man, bristling with angles like a geometric theorem made human, adjusts his thick black glasses and paces about.
‘Help her. Please.’
I step into the bathroom and squat down beside her. Even this small disturbance makes her eyelids flutter.
‘Tyra? Open your eyes, Tyra. It’s the ambulance.’
She holds herself quite still.
‘Tyra. I know you’re not unconscious. Please open your eyes and tell me what’s happened this morning.’
Nothing.
There is a light swipe of blood on her trousers just visible beneath her hand. I lift it up and see that Tyra has scraped at her wrist with a safety razor, but the wound is ineffectual, nothing more than a graze.
‘Is this the only cut you made, Tyra? Please talk to me. It’s silly otherwise.’
Suddenly her eyes flip open and she looks at me.
‘I didn’t want anyone to find me,’ she says. ‘I didn’t want to wake up.’
‘Let’s sit you down on the bed and have a chat about what’s happened.’
James buzzes around behind us. As I offer my hand to Tyra to help her stand up, he squeezes his way in beside me and tries to take her under the shoulders.
‘Thank God I found you!’ he says.
His assistance actually makes it more difficult for Tyra to stand and leave the bathroom. Rae takes him aside.
‘What pills has Tyra taken?’ she says. ‘There are some empty packets here.’
‘No. Those are mine,’ James says. ‘She took some of these ibuprofen, and these – the amitriptyline.’
‘How many of each?’
Tyra is sitting on the bed, looking off into a corner of the room as if this is a socially awkward scene she would rather not have to endure.
‘As many as I could,’ she sighs. ‘I didn’t want to go on living.’
‘We need to know as accurately as possible how many you took of these pills, and when you took them.’
‘I don’t know. I wanted to kill myself. I wasn’t concerned about the time, was I?’
‘Roughly though.’
‘An hour and a half. Ten of the ibuprofen and one or two of the amitriptyline.’
‘Are the amitriptyline pills your own?’
‘No. My mum’s.’
The simple use of the mum word has a powerful effect on Tyra; her wide black pupils swivel four stops into focus.
‘Please don’t tell her. Oh my god! They won’t tell mum, will they, James?’
‘You’re twenty one,’ he says watchfully from the end of the bed. ‘You don’t have to tell anyone anything.’
Meanwhile Rae has fished another empty packet of pills out of the little wicker waste bin by the dresser.
‘What about these?’
And as unexpectedly as Tyra was energised by the thought of her mother, a simple mention of James’ wicker bin seems to sting him into a rage. He unfolds his arms and drops them down by his side.
‘I fucking hate ambulance people. How dare you go rooting around my personal stuff? Insinuating all kinds of shit. How dare you!’
He stomps around the room, leaves, comes back, leaves again. He reminds me of a furious house dog, conflicted by the need to protect and the need to run away.
‘James. Calm down for us, could you? It’s not helping. I don’t understand why you’re getting so worked up.’
‘No. You wouldn’t, would you? I can’t stand this fucking attitude. You come up here with your sniffy looks. You pry and you poke around. Who do you think you are? I won’t fucking stand for it. Sorry, Tyra, but it just makes me furious.’
‘Well you won’t be able to come with us to the hospital if you don’t moderate your language and behaviour, James.’
I sound like a school teacher. I feel like one.
‘Go and stand outside.’
He does. We hear him crashing about and swearing in another room. But after a moment he sidles back in to give Tyra her mobile, and help lead her down the stairs to the ambulance.
As we open the door to step outside, she puts her hand over her face.
‘I don’t want anyone to see me,’ she says.
But it’s half past four in the morning. There really isn’t anyone.
On the ambulance, Tyra sits in a seat, chewing a nail and staring through the slats of the window. James hugs himself in a seat just in front of her.
‘Who’s your doctor?’ I ask.
She smiles without looking at me. ‘I don’t go to doctors,’ she says. ‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘Is that your home address?’
James sighs.
‘Yes it’s her home address.’
‘Do you know the postcode?’
‘Yes, I know the postcode. I live there, don’t I?’
‘Could you tell me what it is then?’
He snips it out, then reaches over to stroke Tyra’s hand. ‘It’s okay,’ he says. And then to himself: ‘These fucking interrogations.’
‘James. Remember what I said about your language and attitude? These are simple questions I have to ask so Tyra gets the correct treatment. Okay? If you carry on like this you won’t be allowed in to the hospital.’
‘I’m sorry. I just don’t appreciate your tone.’
Tyra looks at me. She looks as if she is stifling a laugh.
‘But I want him there with me.’
‘Fine. But you must behave.’
The ambulance bumps along.
Once we have wheeled Tyra into a cubicle, we look for sanctuary and coffee in the reception office. As Zoe taps in the details, we cradle our drinks and mull over the job. Suddenly Rae clamps up, and I realise that James has come to the window.
‘How can I help?’ says Zoe.
James looks across at the two of us sitting on our swivel chairs. I nod at him, but he turns his attention back to Zoe without acknowledgement. After a pause, he adjusts his glasses, and says quietly:
‘The nurse says I need to book a blood test.’
Thursday, June 04, 2009
venus
The old man has rotten rabbit’s teeth, two opposing clumps of greasy yellow-black fragments that bow outwards at a poisonous angle. And from here it seems that - more than drink, fags, diet, or any of the other depravations a person of seventy endures - the thing that really seems to have blasted these teeth to the root is the bad language that passes across them.
‘Bring me that bastard Tony Blair,’ he screams. ‘I’ll bite his balls off.’
It is two in the morning. The man is lying on his side on the broken up tarmac of an estate car park, his knees drawn up to his stomach against the cold, his right arm pillowing his grizzled head.
‘Fuck you! And fuck your fascist state! Tell that Tony Blair I want him here, now. I’ll bite his cock off and spit it in his face.’
Rae drapes a blanket over him.
‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘You’re a kind person.’
The man and woman who made the call are standing at a safe distance over by a wall.
‘He lives up in one of those flats over there. Is he going to be all right?’
‘Hm. Not sure. But thanks for calling.’
‘Yeah – I bet,’ she laughs. They walk off, and the old man seems to react to the change in his audience.
‘I’ll tear his eyes out and stuff ‘em up my arse!’ he screams. ‘Murderer! Murderer!’
Then he whimpers, and rests his head back down on his arm.
‘Just kill me, fellas. Just put a pillow over my head and smother me. I don’t want to live any more.’
‘First things first,’ says Rae.
We both squat down at angles and distances he’d find difficult to strike or kick. ‘What’s your name?’
His head bobs up again.
‘Fuck you! Cunt! That’s none of your business. Leave me alone. Or kill me, and then leave me alone.’
‘Come on. We’re only here to help. You’re lying on the floor, cold and wet. Tell us your name and then we can talk like civilised human beings.’
‘My name? You want to know my name? Well, fuck you. My name is Tony Fucking Blair.’
A police car turns up the ramp into the car park.
‘Who the fuck is that, now?’, the old man says, raising his head and sniffing blindly.
‘It’s the police – erm – Tony.’
‘They’re going to beat me up and kill me.’
‘No they’re not. They’re here to make sure you’re okay, just like we are.’
‘Fuck off.’
We stand up and when the two PCs come over we tell them what we’ve found so far. The police man takes a few steps away to talk on his radio; the police woman squats down beside the old man. The lights from our torches reflect brightly off her neatly tied blond hair and pressed white shirt. She could be an angel come down to see what life is like on Earth, persuaded to wear a stab vest and cuffs.
‘Hello sir,’ she says. ‘My name’s Ella. What’s yours?’
‘Simon Larkinson,’ he says, meekly.
‘Hello Simon. What seems to have happened to you tonight?’
There is a pause. Simon pants quickly and quietly, like an exhausted animal.
‘I’m cold,’ he says.
‘Well no wonder. Lying on the ground like this. Let’s get you somewhere warm where we can talk properly.’
‘Okay then.’
I fetch the trolley from the ambulance.
We all work together, stand him up and settle him onto it.
As I’m strapping him in he looks up at me.
‘Did you see that fillum?’, he says, with a delicious shudder that runs from his scalp to his boots. ‘”Venus”, I think it was. Peter O’Toole. A great actor, there. And not much older than me.’
And then satisfied with that, he seals his lips around those dreadful teeth, tugs the blankets up to his chin, closes his eyes, and suffers to be manoeuvred onto the vehicle with the graven resolve of a newly beatified priest.
It doesn’t last.
‘Bring me that bastard Tony Blair,’ he screams. ‘I’ll bite his balls off.’
It is two in the morning. The man is lying on his side on the broken up tarmac of an estate car park, his knees drawn up to his stomach against the cold, his right arm pillowing his grizzled head.
‘Fuck you! And fuck your fascist state! Tell that Tony Blair I want him here, now. I’ll bite his cock off and spit it in his face.’
Rae drapes a blanket over him.
‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘You’re a kind person.’
The man and woman who made the call are standing at a safe distance over by a wall.
‘He lives up in one of those flats over there. Is he going to be all right?’
‘Hm. Not sure. But thanks for calling.’
‘Yeah – I bet,’ she laughs. They walk off, and the old man seems to react to the change in his audience.
‘I’ll tear his eyes out and stuff ‘em up my arse!’ he screams. ‘Murderer! Murderer!’
Then he whimpers, and rests his head back down on his arm.
‘Just kill me, fellas. Just put a pillow over my head and smother me. I don’t want to live any more.’
‘First things first,’ says Rae.
We both squat down at angles and distances he’d find difficult to strike or kick. ‘What’s your name?’
His head bobs up again.
‘Fuck you! Cunt! That’s none of your business. Leave me alone. Or kill me, and then leave me alone.’
‘Come on. We’re only here to help. You’re lying on the floor, cold and wet. Tell us your name and then we can talk like civilised human beings.’
‘My name? You want to know my name? Well, fuck you. My name is Tony Fucking Blair.’
A police car turns up the ramp into the car park.
‘Who the fuck is that, now?’, the old man says, raising his head and sniffing blindly.
‘It’s the police – erm – Tony.’
‘They’re going to beat me up and kill me.’
‘No they’re not. They’re here to make sure you’re okay, just like we are.’
‘Fuck off.’
We stand up and when the two PCs come over we tell them what we’ve found so far. The police man takes a few steps away to talk on his radio; the police woman squats down beside the old man. The lights from our torches reflect brightly off her neatly tied blond hair and pressed white shirt. She could be an angel come down to see what life is like on Earth, persuaded to wear a stab vest and cuffs.
‘Hello sir,’ she says. ‘My name’s Ella. What’s yours?’
‘Simon Larkinson,’ he says, meekly.
‘Hello Simon. What seems to have happened to you tonight?’
There is a pause. Simon pants quickly and quietly, like an exhausted animal.
‘I’m cold,’ he says.
‘Well no wonder. Lying on the ground like this. Let’s get you somewhere warm where we can talk properly.’
‘Okay then.’
I fetch the trolley from the ambulance.
We all work together, stand him up and settle him onto it.
As I’m strapping him in he looks up at me.
‘Did you see that fillum?’, he says, with a delicious shudder that runs from his scalp to his boots. ‘”Venus”, I think it was. Peter O’Toole. A great actor, there. And not much older than me.’
And then satisfied with that, he seals his lips around those dreadful teeth, tugs the blankets up to his chin, closes his eyes, and suffers to be manoeuvred onto the vehicle with the graven resolve of a newly beatified priest.
It doesn’t last.
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
trouble
‘I’m well battered, me.’
Jaime is ticking with coke. Everything about him – his sudden, drawn smiles, the way he laughs and dabs at his swollen face with a beer towel, the way he ducks and changes direction as each new thought comes to him – every beat of him seems tapped out by a frantic chemical metronome.
‘I only came down here ‘cos I heard it was a chilled out place, and now look at me. I’d have stayed where I was if I’d known. Jesus.’
Jaime has the bony, drawn out face of a young deer. He comes out of the club foyer, blinking and scanning the early morning streets like he’s stepping out of a forest into a clearing.
‘My mother’ll just die,’ he says. Then: ‘Where’s Cal? I want Cal.’
‘Cal’s just talking to the security staff. Come on to the ambulance, Jaime. We need to check you over.’
We lead him up the back steps and sit him down. There is a fug of smoke and booze about him that rises up gently into the astringent glare of the ambulance.
‘I was doing a line or two in the toilets, like. Everything was fine, everything was lovely. A wee drink or two, you know? A night out, that’s what I’m saying. You know what I’m saying.’
‘So then what happened?’
‘Well, we’d gotten friendly with these guys. They bought us two a drink, we bought them a drink. Fine. Lovely. I went to do some coke in the toilet. They were there. I gave them a bit. Fine. Lovely. Then back upstairs one of them says to me did I want to come outside for a ciggie? So I says okay, right enough. So I follow him outside, he leads me round by the bins, then before you know it he has me by the throat up against the wall and he says “I kill people for a living”. So I says okay, fair enough. And he says “Give me all your drugs” and I says that was all I had, there, you saw it, I shared it with you, that was everything.’ He looks up at me as if I’m the guy in the alley, then looks down again as the moment passes.
‘So then some other guys turn up, and they throw me on the ground, start jumping up and down on me like I’m a kiddie trampoline, screaming they were going to kill me. Then they took my wallet and went. I had a hundred pound in there. All my cards. Oh my god. My mum’s going to kill me. And my little bro sick, too.’
Rae carries on cleaning his wounds. I step back outside.
Cal is waiting. A tall, lean black kid, he leans against the side of the ambulance smoking with self-possessed economy, blowing out a thin line of smoke, studying the police car as it turns down towards us from the top of the street.
‘Did you see what happened?’
‘Did I see what happened? No. Mate. Listen to me. If I’d seen what happened, it wouldn’t have happened. D’you understand me?’
‘Do you think Jaime was knocked unconscious?’
‘I have no idea about that. You’re the doctor. I think he must’ve been, yeah. He was well battered.’
‘He’s going to need treatment up at the hospital. Are you coming with him?’
Cal takes one more drag on his cigarette, then flicks it away up the alley. Before he goes up the steps onto the ambulance he turns and leans into me, angling his head past my shoulder as if he were about to give me a hug.
‘Things would’ve worked out very different if I’d have been there,’ he says in a low voice.
I give him a couple of encouraging slaps on the shoulder, and leave my hand there in case I need it.
‘It’s a shame he was on his own,’ I say, sounding to myself strangely flat and out of key, like an extra in a film suddenly given a line. ‘I’m sure Jaime wouldn’t have got into trouble if you’d have been there.’
‘No, mate.’ He looks me full in the eyes. ‘I would’ve stabbed the guy.’
Jaime is ticking with coke. Everything about him – his sudden, drawn smiles, the way he laughs and dabs at his swollen face with a beer towel, the way he ducks and changes direction as each new thought comes to him – every beat of him seems tapped out by a frantic chemical metronome.
‘I only came down here ‘cos I heard it was a chilled out place, and now look at me. I’d have stayed where I was if I’d known. Jesus.’
Jaime has the bony, drawn out face of a young deer. He comes out of the club foyer, blinking and scanning the early morning streets like he’s stepping out of a forest into a clearing.
‘My mother’ll just die,’ he says. Then: ‘Where’s Cal? I want Cal.’
‘Cal’s just talking to the security staff. Come on to the ambulance, Jaime. We need to check you over.’
We lead him up the back steps and sit him down. There is a fug of smoke and booze about him that rises up gently into the astringent glare of the ambulance.
‘I was doing a line or two in the toilets, like. Everything was fine, everything was lovely. A wee drink or two, you know? A night out, that’s what I’m saying. You know what I’m saying.’
‘So then what happened?’
‘Well, we’d gotten friendly with these guys. They bought us two a drink, we bought them a drink. Fine. Lovely. I went to do some coke in the toilet. They were there. I gave them a bit. Fine. Lovely. Then back upstairs one of them says to me did I want to come outside for a ciggie? So I says okay, right enough. So I follow him outside, he leads me round by the bins, then before you know it he has me by the throat up against the wall and he says “I kill people for a living”. So I says okay, fair enough. And he says “Give me all your drugs” and I says that was all I had, there, you saw it, I shared it with you, that was everything.’ He looks up at me as if I’m the guy in the alley, then looks down again as the moment passes.
‘So then some other guys turn up, and they throw me on the ground, start jumping up and down on me like I’m a kiddie trampoline, screaming they were going to kill me. Then they took my wallet and went. I had a hundred pound in there. All my cards. Oh my god. My mum’s going to kill me. And my little bro sick, too.’
Rae carries on cleaning his wounds. I step back outside.
Cal is waiting. A tall, lean black kid, he leans against the side of the ambulance smoking with self-possessed economy, blowing out a thin line of smoke, studying the police car as it turns down towards us from the top of the street.
‘Did you see what happened?’
‘Did I see what happened? No. Mate. Listen to me. If I’d seen what happened, it wouldn’t have happened. D’you understand me?’
‘Do you think Jaime was knocked unconscious?’
‘I have no idea about that. You’re the doctor. I think he must’ve been, yeah. He was well battered.’
‘He’s going to need treatment up at the hospital. Are you coming with him?’
Cal takes one more drag on his cigarette, then flicks it away up the alley. Before he goes up the steps onto the ambulance he turns and leans into me, angling his head past my shoulder as if he were about to give me a hug.
‘Things would’ve worked out very different if I’d have been there,’ he says in a low voice.
I give him a couple of encouraging slaps on the shoulder, and leave my hand there in case I need it.
‘It’s a shame he was on his own,’ I say, sounding to myself strangely flat and out of key, like an extra in a film suddenly given a line. ‘I’m sure Jaime wouldn’t have got into trouble if you’d have been there.’
‘No, mate.’ He looks me full in the eyes. ‘I would’ve stabbed the guy.’
Saturday, May 30, 2009
cornered
This hardware shop is a skewed triangle of a building, dropped into the space left at the end of a row of irregularly shaped terraced houses. It sits there like a darkly painted brick from a child’s toy, the right shape for the right hole, glass fronted, crudely lettered in white paint, with an old fashioned, white and black striped awning already wound out despite the early hour, thrumming and spattering beneath a sudden fall of rain.
There is a policeman sheltering under it.
‘All right, guys?’ he says.
We expect him to lead us straight into the shop, but instead he waggles his fingers confederately. We all huddle up under the awning.
‘Just so you know, your man Patrick inside is not unknown to the police. In fact he’s due in court in a couple of days on a fraud charge. So his story this morning – two heavies mugging him for the float and making him take drugs – well, I’ll leave it up to you to decide. But I would think it’s a classic case of Jackanory.’
‘We’ll bear it in mind.’
The policeman answers a call on his radio. ‘Yeah – LOB,’ he says, and waves us on. We make our way inside.
The shop is dark, despite a couple of yellowing strip lights precariously tacked to the ceiling and an angle-poise on the worn wooden counter. Even the shadows reek of oil. There is another policeman standing propped against some steel shelving with his arms folded. To his left, up against the counter and slumped on an upturned bucket, is a man in his sixties, dressed in a tight brown jersey and brown trousers. He is a study in dejection, the vee of his legs like an open drain for the energy pouring from his hands and his downturned face.
‘Patrick?’
His eyes and mouth remained zip-locked.
‘It’s the ambulance, Patrick. What’s happened to you this morning?’
‘Come on, Patrick. Tell these good people what you told us.’
Patrick raises his head but his eyes remain closed. He talks quietly, in a voice as dessicated and brittle as the fly husks on display with the cans and things in the window.
‘When I opened up this morning, two men pushed their way into the shop. They demanded money. When I said I didn’t have any, they hit me over the head with a piece of wood, then forced me to swallow some tablets. I don’t know what they were. They said they might do me some good.’
The policeman holds up a plain wooden stake.
‘This is what they’re supposed to have used.’
‘Is that right? Is that what they used, Patrick? Where did they hit you?’
‘Across my forehead, and across my arms.’
I look more closely at his face. The only marks I can see are a few speckled scabs of eczema. There is no evidence of any violence.
Patrick’s eyes remain closed.
‘Were you knocked out, Patrick?’
‘No. I don’t think so.’
‘Did you fall down?’
‘No. I kept my feet.’
He suddenly opens his eyes and looks at me, but it is a two dimensional expression, curiously fixed and unexpectant. I feel as if I’m being scrutinised by a mannequin.
‘It’s happened before. They’re always doing it. They demand money to leave me alone. They’re drug dealers. The police know about it but chose not to do anything, I don’t know why. I’ve been left to cope on my own.’
We give him a check over, which he suffers to happen with the same, flat expression of sufferance.
‘Everything seems fine, Patrick. How do you feel in yourself?’
‘Woozy.’
Rae goes into the back of the shop to see if she can find some examples of the pills Patrick says he was forced to swallow. The chain-link fly curtain swooshes behind her with a rattle.
The first policeman comes into the shop from outside.
‘How are we doing?’ he says, and when I tell him he folds his arms and says: ‘Okay. Look. In the spirit of openness, Patrick. What I suggest is that we say nothing more about this. You know and I know that this is nothing more than a diversionary tactic to get you out of appearing in court. But that’s not going to happen, is it? Let’s be realistic.’
‘You tell me. You seem to know everything.’
‘Well I don’t know everything, Patrick, but I know a fair bit about this. And this is a big waste of everybody’s time. Where’s the evidence of a struggle? Where are the witnesses?’
‘I don’t know. You tell me.’
‘I will tell you, Patrick. They don’t exist, Patrick. So what I suggest is that we drop the pretence and say no more about it. It’s a generous offer, Patrick. Let’s forget the whole thing so everyone can go about their business. But if you carry it on, I can tell you now it won’t do you the slightest bit of good. In fact, it can only make things worse. So what do you say?’
Patrick resumes the position he was in when we first came into the shop.
‘Patrick?’
I touch him on the shoulder.
‘From the ambulance point of view, there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with you, Patrick. But our protocol is that if you want us to take you to hospital, we will. Is that what you want to happen?’
Without looking up he says: ‘I was attacked this morning by two men.’
‘Well then we’ll go to hospital. Come on. Let’s go out to the vehicle.’
At first he seems poised on the edge of a pseudo-fit, dropping his arms down by his side, tipping his head back, working up some tremors in his legs.
‘What are you doing, Patrick?’
He hesitates, gives up on that idea, stands up.
‘Let’s go,’ he says.
Outside, his shop assistant rolls up on his bike with a juddering squeal of brakes.
‘Patrick! Has it happened again?’, he says. ‘Two men pushing their way in, demanding money?’
We all look at him.
Is that a wig?
There is a policeman sheltering under it.
‘All right, guys?’ he says.
We expect him to lead us straight into the shop, but instead he waggles his fingers confederately. We all huddle up under the awning.
‘Just so you know, your man Patrick inside is not unknown to the police. In fact he’s due in court in a couple of days on a fraud charge. So his story this morning – two heavies mugging him for the float and making him take drugs – well, I’ll leave it up to you to decide. But I would think it’s a classic case of Jackanory.’
‘We’ll bear it in mind.’
The policeman answers a call on his radio. ‘Yeah – LOB,’ he says, and waves us on. We make our way inside.
The shop is dark, despite a couple of yellowing strip lights precariously tacked to the ceiling and an angle-poise on the worn wooden counter. Even the shadows reek of oil. There is another policeman standing propped against some steel shelving with his arms folded. To his left, up against the counter and slumped on an upturned bucket, is a man in his sixties, dressed in a tight brown jersey and brown trousers. He is a study in dejection, the vee of his legs like an open drain for the energy pouring from his hands and his downturned face.
‘Patrick?’
His eyes and mouth remained zip-locked.
‘It’s the ambulance, Patrick. What’s happened to you this morning?’
‘Come on, Patrick. Tell these good people what you told us.’
Patrick raises his head but his eyes remain closed. He talks quietly, in a voice as dessicated and brittle as the fly husks on display with the cans and things in the window.
‘When I opened up this morning, two men pushed their way into the shop. They demanded money. When I said I didn’t have any, they hit me over the head with a piece of wood, then forced me to swallow some tablets. I don’t know what they were. They said they might do me some good.’
The policeman holds up a plain wooden stake.
‘This is what they’re supposed to have used.’
‘Is that right? Is that what they used, Patrick? Where did they hit you?’
‘Across my forehead, and across my arms.’
I look more closely at his face. The only marks I can see are a few speckled scabs of eczema. There is no evidence of any violence.
Patrick’s eyes remain closed.
‘Were you knocked out, Patrick?’
‘No. I don’t think so.’
‘Did you fall down?’
‘No. I kept my feet.’
He suddenly opens his eyes and looks at me, but it is a two dimensional expression, curiously fixed and unexpectant. I feel as if I’m being scrutinised by a mannequin.
‘It’s happened before. They’re always doing it. They demand money to leave me alone. They’re drug dealers. The police know about it but chose not to do anything, I don’t know why. I’ve been left to cope on my own.’
We give him a check over, which he suffers to happen with the same, flat expression of sufferance.
‘Everything seems fine, Patrick. How do you feel in yourself?’
‘Woozy.’
Rae goes into the back of the shop to see if she can find some examples of the pills Patrick says he was forced to swallow. The chain-link fly curtain swooshes behind her with a rattle.
The first policeman comes into the shop from outside.
‘How are we doing?’ he says, and when I tell him he folds his arms and says: ‘Okay. Look. In the spirit of openness, Patrick. What I suggest is that we say nothing more about this. You know and I know that this is nothing more than a diversionary tactic to get you out of appearing in court. But that’s not going to happen, is it? Let’s be realistic.’
‘You tell me. You seem to know everything.’
‘Well I don’t know everything, Patrick, but I know a fair bit about this. And this is a big waste of everybody’s time. Where’s the evidence of a struggle? Where are the witnesses?’
‘I don’t know. You tell me.’
‘I will tell you, Patrick. They don’t exist, Patrick. So what I suggest is that we drop the pretence and say no more about it. It’s a generous offer, Patrick. Let’s forget the whole thing so everyone can go about their business. But if you carry it on, I can tell you now it won’t do you the slightest bit of good. In fact, it can only make things worse. So what do you say?’
Patrick resumes the position he was in when we first came into the shop.
‘Patrick?’
I touch him on the shoulder.
‘From the ambulance point of view, there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with you, Patrick. But our protocol is that if you want us to take you to hospital, we will. Is that what you want to happen?’
Without looking up he says: ‘I was attacked this morning by two men.’
‘Well then we’ll go to hospital. Come on. Let’s go out to the vehicle.’
At first he seems poised on the edge of a pseudo-fit, dropping his arms down by his side, tipping his head back, working up some tremors in his legs.
‘What are you doing, Patrick?’
He hesitates, gives up on that idea, stands up.
‘Let’s go,’ he says.
Outside, his shop assistant rolls up on his bike with a juddering squeal of brakes.
‘Patrick! Has it happened again?’, he says. ‘Two men pushing their way in, demanding money?’
We all look at him.
Is that a wig?
Sunday, May 24, 2009
safe little dogs
On the driveway of the block of flats there is an elderly woman standing half in and half out of a car, one hand on the open door and the other fiddling with a bunch of keys.
‘Is it for Richardson? Flat forty?’ she says. ‘Have you come for my daughter, Jane?’
‘Who are you?’
‘I’m her mum.’
‘Yep, we’ve come for your daughter.’
There is a little boy in the passenger seat. He studies me through the dirty windscreen.
‘I’ll just go straight up the hospital and see you there,’ the woman says, getting back into the car.
‘Okay.’
We hurry on inside.
The lift descends and opens. Two woman like hyper inflated character balloons bustle and jostle each other as they struggle out of the lift with a couple of bichon frises.
‘Morning,’ I say to them.
They all look horrified.
We let them pass, then carry on up to the fifteenth floor.
The lift door opens onto a man so consumptively thin he could hide behind a cane.
‘Hurry up, guys. She’s really done it this time.’
He leads us through a stark and dirty flat into a galley kitchen where his ex-wife Jane is lying on her back, blue lipped and unmoving.
‘I think she took some heroin,’ he says. ‘I just nipped out to the shops to get some things in. I was only gone a minute. Do you think she’ll make it?’
I set to work clearing and securing her airway, using a BVM to breathe for her, whilst Rae draws up some narcan to counteract the effect of the heroin.
‘I was here about four days ago, same thing,’ says Rae. ‘She’s pushing her luck.’
‘There’s some dodgy gear about,’ the partner says. ‘I told her not to take it on her own.’
‘Can you fetch us her list of medications please?’ Rae asks him. As soon as he’s gone she says: ‘Exactly the same last time. Only then the little boy was in the sitting room on the couch, watching the whole thing. I reported it to social services, but I haven’t heard back yet. Did you see him in the car just now?’
‘Was that him?’
‘Yeah – with the grandma. I’m not happy about this. I wouldn’t mind betting they called the grandma over to make it look as if she had the kid the whole time.’
The partner comes in again with a scrip.
‘How’s she doing?’
‘She’s making some effort to breathe for herself now. It shouldn’t be long before she’s up and talking to us.’
‘Thanks for coming, guys.’
‘No worries.’
Jane sits on the edge of the sofa, smoking a roll-up. Mike, her ex, paces about anxiously.
‘Please don’t tell the social,’ she says. ‘I’ll lose my boy for sure.’
‘We’re worried about the way things are at the moment, Jane. Not just for you, but for Josh, too. What happens if you take an OD like today and he gets left on his own? What would he do? How would that be for him?’
‘But he doesn’t stay with me. He stays with his Grandma.’
‘He was here when this happened to you just the other week, Jane. It was me who brought you back from the dead then, too.’
‘I am grateful, and I’m sorry. But please don’t tell the social. They’ll get the wrong end of the stick and I’ll lose little Joshie. I don’t know what I’d do if they took Joshie away.’
She starts crying, dragging fixedly on the cigarette between sobs.
‘The boy’s okay,’ says Mike. ‘His grandma takes good care of him.’
‘You can see our worries, though, can’t you? You can see how it looks to us?’
‘Yeah – of course. But please – don’t tell the social.’
Jane refuses to come to hospital, even though we explain that narcan has a short half-life, and the effects will wear off soon.
‘I’ll be with Mike,’ she says. ‘I’ll be fine.’
She signs our release papers, and we leave. As soon as we’re back in the cab, we request some off-road time to fill in a Vulnerable Child form back on base.
The two women we passed in the lobby are exercising their dogs on the slopes in front of the tower block. They play out spools of line to let the dogs wander on the grass, chatting watchfully as the white woolly heads bob up and down, like miniature sheep, grazing.
‘They must shampoo those dogs every day,’ Rae says.
‘And blow dry them.’
I imagine the dogs standing patiently in an aluminium sink, suffering jug after jug of warm, cleansing water to wash the suds and the dirt away.
Good, clean, safe little dogs.
I wonder which floor they live on.
‘Is it for Richardson? Flat forty?’ she says. ‘Have you come for my daughter, Jane?’
‘Who are you?’
‘I’m her mum.’
‘Yep, we’ve come for your daughter.’
There is a little boy in the passenger seat. He studies me through the dirty windscreen.
‘I’ll just go straight up the hospital and see you there,’ the woman says, getting back into the car.
‘Okay.’
We hurry on inside.
The lift descends and opens. Two woman like hyper inflated character balloons bustle and jostle each other as they struggle out of the lift with a couple of bichon frises.
‘Morning,’ I say to them.
They all look horrified.
We let them pass, then carry on up to the fifteenth floor.
The lift door opens onto a man so consumptively thin he could hide behind a cane.
‘Hurry up, guys. She’s really done it this time.’
He leads us through a stark and dirty flat into a galley kitchen where his ex-wife Jane is lying on her back, blue lipped and unmoving.
‘I think she took some heroin,’ he says. ‘I just nipped out to the shops to get some things in. I was only gone a minute. Do you think she’ll make it?’
I set to work clearing and securing her airway, using a BVM to breathe for her, whilst Rae draws up some narcan to counteract the effect of the heroin.
‘I was here about four days ago, same thing,’ says Rae. ‘She’s pushing her luck.’
‘There’s some dodgy gear about,’ the partner says. ‘I told her not to take it on her own.’
‘Can you fetch us her list of medications please?’ Rae asks him. As soon as he’s gone she says: ‘Exactly the same last time. Only then the little boy was in the sitting room on the couch, watching the whole thing. I reported it to social services, but I haven’t heard back yet. Did you see him in the car just now?’
‘Was that him?’
‘Yeah – with the grandma. I’m not happy about this. I wouldn’t mind betting they called the grandma over to make it look as if she had the kid the whole time.’
The partner comes in again with a scrip.
‘How’s she doing?’
‘She’s making some effort to breathe for herself now. It shouldn’t be long before she’s up and talking to us.’
‘Thanks for coming, guys.’
‘No worries.’
Jane sits on the edge of the sofa, smoking a roll-up. Mike, her ex, paces about anxiously.
‘Please don’t tell the social,’ she says. ‘I’ll lose my boy for sure.’
‘We’re worried about the way things are at the moment, Jane. Not just for you, but for Josh, too. What happens if you take an OD like today and he gets left on his own? What would he do? How would that be for him?’
‘But he doesn’t stay with me. He stays with his Grandma.’
‘He was here when this happened to you just the other week, Jane. It was me who brought you back from the dead then, too.’
‘I am grateful, and I’m sorry. But please don’t tell the social. They’ll get the wrong end of the stick and I’ll lose little Joshie. I don’t know what I’d do if they took Joshie away.’
She starts crying, dragging fixedly on the cigarette between sobs.
‘The boy’s okay,’ says Mike. ‘His grandma takes good care of him.’
‘You can see our worries, though, can’t you? You can see how it looks to us?’
‘Yeah – of course. But please – don’t tell the social.’
Jane refuses to come to hospital, even though we explain that narcan has a short half-life, and the effects will wear off soon.
‘I’ll be with Mike,’ she says. ‘I’ll be fine.’
She signs our release papers, and we leave. As soon as we’re back in the cab, we request some off-road time to fill in a Vulnerable Child form back on base.
The two women we passed in the lobby are exercising their dogs on the slopes in front of the tower block. They play out spools of line to let the dogs wander on the grass, chatting watchfully as the white woolly heads bob up and down, like miniature sheep, grazing.
‘They must shampoo those dogs every day,’ Rae says.
‘And blow dry them.’
I imagine the dogs standing patiently in an aluminium sink, suffering jug after jug of warm, cleansing water to wash the suds and the dirt away.
Good, clean, safe little dogs.
I wonder which floor they live on.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
coping strategies
‘Let me begin by telling you a little bit about myself.’
The HR manager’s words drift out across the room of paramedics with the enervating creep of carbon monoxide. Everyone sprawls, a green slew of bodies scooped up from the big Trust pond in a bucket marked: Continuous Professional Development and tipped into this conference room. The programme today will cover Equality, Diversity, Coping with Stress and Listening Skills.
She smiles with political levels of resilience, and continues.
‘I’ve been a manager all my working life, after completing a degree course in Business and Economics. I worked five years as a senior HR manager with a large department store, enjoying the challenges of that position enormously. The retail world is fascinating, fast-moving, pretty demanding, and I loved it.’
She scans her audience. She reminds me of the robot Gort from The Day the Earth Stood Still. She has the same smooth metal styling, the same bulletproof purity of purpose.
‘But when the business was subject to a takeover, I was forced to evaluate my position with the in-coming regime, and actually found I didn’t much want to work for them. So I took voluntary redundancy and started a new business. In fact I ran away to Guernsey and opened a Bed & Breakfast. I enjoyed that challenge enormously, but anyone will tell you that running your own business is probably one of the most stressful things you can do. So after three years I’d decided that I’d explored everything that particular arena had to offer, and was ready to come back into a more formal place of work. So I joined the ambulance service, and have been here now as senior HR manager for about twelve months or so.’
She lifts her visor to gauge the level of interest.
‘But enough about me. Let’s go round the room and learn a little more about each other. I want you to tell us your name, where you’re from – and one thing you did this weekend that you really enjoyed.’
***
Jeannie is sitting on the bed with both hands resting palm upwards in her lap, the backs of her fingers and her red-painted fingernails lined up and resting against their opposite number, thumbs on top and relaxed, a neat arrangement of studied calm. The soft underside of her arms are turned upwards, and where Jeanie has striped across them with the kitchen knife, the skin stretches apart like a torn stocking.
‘Jeannie – it’s the ambulance. My name’s Spence and this is Rae. I can see you’ve hurt yourself, but what we need to do before we come any closer is to make sure you’re not going to do anything to hurt us.’
She looks across at us with a curiously tender expression.
‘I wouldn’t hurt you,’ she says, and smiles.
‘I just need to get that knife out of the way, though.’
I pick it up by the bloodied black handle and toss it across the room.
‘Any other weapons?’
She gives a shake of the head.
‘Where are the police?’ she says.
‘They couldn’t send anyone at the minute, so we thought we’d come in anyway and see how you were.’
‘That’s nice.’
Her bedsit is a compact world of light and dark, order and disorder. The rucked-up bed that Jeannie sits on is an island in a sea of magazines, food cartons and tangled clothes, but above the squalid brown horizon of all this, neatly tacked-up across the institutional magnolia walls, Jeannie has an array of baby photos, laid out in a grid.
‘My brother’s child,’ she says.
On a pile of books in one corner, there is a red plastic hamster cage.
‘And that’s Aiko. It’s a Japanese word. It means Little Love.’
**
We’ve been put into small groups and asked to think about all the things we do to cope with stress. We are to write them in a list, and then share what we have when we all come back together. The manager drifts between the groups. She comes and sits with us.
‘Show me what’s top of your list,’ she says.
We tell her that meeting back on base, sitting with our colleagues in the mess room, talking about the jobs we’ve done – this is one of the most helpful things. They’ll have come up against the same jobs, we say. They’ll have a view on it.
‘Unfortunately as you know the move is away from ambulance stations as such, so let’s just put that idea to one side and think about what other mechanisms you have to cope with stress. I see here you’ve written sport down. Good. Sport’s a good one. Doesn’t it create endorphins, or something? Is that right? You’re the experts.’
**
I clean Jeannie’s arms with a gauze pad soaked in sterile water. The new wounds overlay older wounds, where the skin has knitted back together in a tangle of puce coloured scar tissue.
‘I’ve had a few grafts,’ she says.
I bandage her arms up right and left.
‘One or two of these need attention at the hospital, Jeannie. Plus I’m not happy leaving you here alone. Will you come with us to the hospital? You’ll be able to talk to someone there.’
‘I think I’ve done enough talking,’ she says. ‘I’m all talked out.’
‘But you will come with us?’
‘If you want.’
She puts on a heavy brown woollen jacket, and roots about for her keys.
‘I’ll have a tidy up tomorrow,’ she says. ‘See you later, Aiko.’
**
The HR manager stands alongside a flip chart and explains how stress works.
‘I spent some time with the Samaritans,’ she says. ‘They deal with this stuff all the time, and they have a really interesting way of explaining the equation of stress, if you like – and it’s a diagram that I found really useful. I’ll draw it for you.’
With a fat black marker pen she squeaks out a more than wedge, then two parallel lines cutting down across the middle of it.
‘This end of the wedge you might call extreme happiness, or euphoria. The kind of feeling you have when you first fall in love, or look at a newborn baby. This end – the thin end – you might call despair, depression, suicidal thoughts, when you feel you can’t carry on. Of course, no-one could live either absurdly happy all the time, here at the euphoric end of the spectrum, but by the same token, nor could they live constantly in the pits of despair. So what happens is, people live mostly in the comfort zone, which is here, in the middle. Neither too happy or too sad. And what happens is that their emotional life is a series of little adjustments, sometimes this way, towards happiness, or sometimes this way, towards despair. It’s a constant battle to maintain the status quo here in the middle, the comfort zone.’
She taps the marker pen in her hand and gives us a sly look.
‘Now – here’s a story for you. A man rings up saying he wants to kill himself. Okay. Fine. The Samaritan is trained to deal with this. He says something like: ‘What’s happened?’ And then the man turns round and says he wants to kill himself because his toaster has broken. What do you make of that?’
Frank puts his hand up.
‘Has he got a grill?’
**
These pavements are the town’s arteries and these people its blood cells, pulsing through town, bustling and jostling beneath the high midday sun.
Jeannie sits with me in the back of the ambulance, staring out through the window as we rattle on towards the hospital.
A woman and her partner cross the street with a buggy.
‘You should see my brother’s baby,’ she says. ‘She’s such a cutie.’
**
Day Three of the course runs to a close. The HR manager thanks us for our participation and wishes us luck in our careers. She packs away her folder and pens as we make for the door. Outside in the hotel car park the spring air flaps around us, its heady blue flavours cut with pine bark chippings, softening tarmac and chip fat drifting out from the kitchen windows.
I say goodbye to the others and climb into my car.
Never has it felt so safe, so musical, so mine.
The HR manager’s words drift out across the room of paramedics with the enervating creep of carbon monoxide. Everyone sprawls, a green slew of bodies scooped up from the big Trust pond in a bucket marked: Continuous Professional Development and tipped into this conference room. The programme today will cover Equality, Diversity, Coping with Stress and Listening Skills.
She smiles with political levels of resilience, and continues.
‘I’ve been a manager all my working life, after completing a degree course in Business and Economics. I worked five years as a senior HR manager with a large department store, enjoying the challenges of that position enormously. The retail world is fascinating, fast-moving, pretty demanding, and I loved it.’
She scans her audience. She reminds me of the robot Gort from The Day the Earth Stood Still. She has the same smooth metal styling, the same bulletproof purity of purpose.
‘But when the business was subject to a takeover, I was forced to evaluate my position with the in-coming regime, and actually found I didn’t much want to work for them. So I took voluntary redundancy and started a new business. In fact I ran away to Guernsey and opened a Bed & Breakfast. I enjoyed that challenge enormously, but anyone will tell you that running your own business is probably one of the most stressful things you can do. So after three years I’d decided that I’d explored everything that particular arena had to offer, and was ready to come back into a more formal place of work. So I joined the ambulance service, and have been here now as senior HR manager for about twelve months or so.’
She lifts her visor to gauge the level of interest.
‘But enough about me. Let’s go round the room and learn a little more about each other. I want you to tell us your name, where you’re from – and one thing you did this weekend that you really enjoyed.’
***
Jeannie is sitting on the bed with both hands resting palm upwards in her lap, the backs of her fingers and her red-painted fingernails lined up and resting against their opposite number, thumbs on top and relaxed, a neat arrangement of studied calm. The soft underside of her arms are turned upwards, and where Jeanie has striped across them with the kitchen knife, the skin stretches apart like a torn stocking.
‘Jeannie – it’s the ambulance. My name’s Spence and this is Rae. I can see you’ve hurt yourself, but what we need to do before we come any closer is to make sure you’re not going to do anything to hurt us.’
She looks across at us with a curiously tender expression.
‘I wouldn’t hurt you,’ she says, and smiles.
‘I just need to get that knife out of the way, though.’
I pick it up by the bloodied black handle and toss it across the room.
‘Any other weapons?’
She gives a shake of the head.
‘Where are the police?’ she says.
‘They couldn’t send anyone at the minute, so we thought we’d come in anyway and see how you were.’
‘That’s nice.’
Her bedsit is a compact world of light and dark, order and disorder. The rucked-up bed that Jeannie sits on is an island in a sea of magazines, food cartons and tangled clothes, but above the squalid brown horizon of all this, neatly tacked-up across the institutional magnolia walls, Jeannie has an array of baby photos, laid out in a grid.
‘My brother’s child,’ she says.
On a pile of books in one corner, there is a red plastic hamster cage.
‘And that’s Aiko. It’s a Japanese word. It means Little Love.’
**
We’ve been put into small groups and asked to think about all the things we do to cope with stress. We are to write them in a list, and then share what we have when we all come back together. The manager drifts between the groups. She comes and sits with us.
‘Show me what’s top of your list,’ she says.
We tell her that meeting back on base, sitting with our colleagues in the mess room, talking about the jobs we’ve done – this is one of the most helpful things. They’ll have come up against the same jobs, we say. They’ll have a view on it.
‘Unfortunately as you know the move is away from ambulance stations as such, so let’s just put that idea to one side and think about what other mechanisms you have to cope with stress. I see here you’ve written sport down. Good. Sport’s a good one. Doesn’t it create endorphins, or something? Is that right? You’re the experts.’
**
I clean Jeannie’s arms with a gauze pad soaked in sterile water. The new wounds overlay older wounds, where the skin has knitted back together in a tangle of puce coloured scar tissue.
‘I’ve had a few grafts,’ she says.
I bandage her arms up right and left.
‘One or two of these need attention at the hospital, Jeannie. Plus I’m not happy leaving you here alone. Will you come with us to the hospital? You’ll be able to talk to someone there.’
‘I think I’ve done enough talking,’ she says. ‘I’m all talked out.’
‘But you will come with us?’
‘If you want.’
She puts on a heavy brown woollen jacket, and roots about for her keys.
‘I’ll have a tidy up tomorrow,’ she says. ‘See you later, Aiko.’
**
The HR manager stands alongside a flip chart and explains how stress works.
‘I spent some time with the Samaritans,’ she says. ‘They deal with this stuff all the time, and they have a really interesting way of explaining the equation of stress, if you like – and it’s a diagram that I found really useful. I’ll draw it for you.’
With a fat black marker pen she squeaks out a more than wedge, then two parallel lines cutting down across the middle of it.
‘This end of the wedge you might call extreme happiness, or euphoria. The kind of feeling you have when you first fall in love, or look at a newborn baby. This end – the thin end – you might call despair, depression, suicidal thoughts, when you feel you can’t carry on. Of course, no-one could live either absurdly happy all the time, here at the euphoric end of the spectrum, but by the same token, nor could they live constantly in the pits of despair. So what happens is, people live mostly in the comfort zone, which is here, in the middle. Neither too happy or too sad. And what happens is that their emotional life is a series of little adjustments, sometimes this way, towards happiness, or sometimes this way, towards despair. It’s a constant battle to maintain the status quo here in the middle, the comfort zone.’
She taps the marker pen in her hand and gives us a sly look.
‘Now – here’s a story for you. A man rings up saying he wants to kill himself. Okay. Fine. The Samaritan is trained to deal with this. He says something like: ‘What’s happened?’ And then the man turns round and says he wants to kill himself because his toaster has broken. What do you make of that?’
Frank puts his hand up.
‘Has he got a grill?’
**
These pavements are the town’s arteries and these people its blood cells, pulsing through town, bustling and jostling beneath the high midday sun.
Jeannie sits with me in the back of the ambulance, staring out through the window as we rattle on towards the hospital.
A woman and her partner cross the street with a buggy.
‘You should see my brother’s baby,’ she says. ‘She’s such a cutie.’
**
Day Three of the course runs to a close. The HR manager thanks us for our participation and wishes us luck in our careers. She packs away her folder and pens as we make for the door. Outside in the hotel car park the spring air flaps around us, its heady blue flavours cut with pine bark chippings, softening tarmac and chip fat drifting out from the kitchen windows.
I say goodbye to the others and climb into my car.
Never has it felt so safe, so musical, so mine.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
moving to fiji
A police car is parked outside the all-night pizza place, a small group of people standing outside. We walk over. A middle-aged man with a bloodied face is talking to a couple of officers. I wait just to the side whilst he finishes what he has to say, then introduce myself.
The man gives me a slantways look.
‘I don’t need no ambulance,’ he says. ‘I just want to go home.’
‘Let’s have a chat on the truck, clean you up a bit and see what the damage is, then we’ll decide what to do next.’
‘Okay. Fine. Whatever.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘Is that a police question?’
‘No. It’s just a "what’s your name" type question.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘Spence.’
‘Spence? Whatever kind of name is that? What’s your first name? Pound-Shilling?’
He smirks, then hawks some blood out onto the pavement.
‘So are you going to tell me your name?’
‘Oh. Yeah. My ‘name’. It’s Murphy. Okay? Easy one to spell.’
The policewoman gives me an apologetic look, then says to Murphy: ‘Just behave and go with these people. We’ve got all we need and we’ll be in touch.’
‘Great. Be in touch. I know what you mean.’
I help him into the truck. Rae shows him to a seat.
‘Tell us what happened.’
‘Life, that’s what happened, Henny Pen. I was just swapping banter with some kids in the pizza place, they went mental, I got a battering. This one guy, he just kept punching and punching me. As hard as he could, working his fist right into my face. I haven’t had a beating like that since I were a kid. For what? For talking like a normal human being. For being human.’
He gives his swollen face some exploratory prods with his finger, and winces.
‘I don’t deserve that. No one does. I know I can be a bit mouthy sometimes, but I’m a decent bloke, at the bottom of it all.’
I start to clean his head up with a saline-soaked gauze swab.
‘Were you knocked out, Murphy?’
‘It’ll take more than those chimps to put me down.’
‘Well you’ve got a deep cut just here that’ll need glueing. And I think you might need an x-ray to rule out any facial fractures.’
‘No mate. I just want to go home and sleep it off.’
‘That’s not something we’d recommend, Murphy.’
He stares at a bloody tissue in his hands.
‘D’you know what, mate? I’ve had just about enough of this western world.’
I rip open some fresh swabs.
‘I don’t know there’s anywhere that’s free of this kind of stuff,’ I say. ‘I was brought up in the country, and we had our fair share of after-pub violence.’
‘Yeah? Well – there’s always Fiji.’
‘Fiji?’
‘Yeah. Fiji.’
‘Is that a good place, then?’
‘I have not the slightest idea.’
He grunts, smiles crookedly, then offers up his right palm, american style. I smack it.
‘Good one,’ I say.
He relaxes his hand back down onto his lap and then stares at it, like it just operated on its own accord. Then he sighs wetly through his nose and spits some more blood into a tissue.
I carry on cleaning him up.
Suddenly he says: ‘I can’t bear that my kids will have to see me like this tomorrow.’
And he starts to cry, shaking apart in the chair with sharp little jerks of his shoulders.
‘My kids love me,’ he chokes. ‘I am loved. I am loved. I don’t deserve this.’
We clean him up as best we can, and when we’re done, we take him to the hospital.
The man gives me a slantways look.
‘I don’t need no ambulance,’ he says. ‘I just want to go home.’
‘Let’s have a chat on the truck, clean you up a bit and see what the damage is, then we’ll decide what to do next.’
‘Okay. Fine. Whatever.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘Is that a police question?’
‘No. It’s just a "what’s your name" type question.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘Spence.’
‘Spence? Whatever kind of name is that? What’s your first name? Pound-Shilling?’
He smirks, then hawks some blood out onto the pavement.
‘So are you going to tell me your name?’
‘Oh. Yeah. My ‘name’. It’s Murphy. Okay? Easy one to spell.’
The policewoman gives me an apologetic look, then says to Murphy: ‘Just behave and go with these people. We’ve got all we need and we’ll be in touch.’
‘Great. Be in touch. I know what you mean.’
I help him into the truck. Rae shows him to a seat.
‘Tell us what happened.’
‘Life, that’s what happened, Henny Pen. I was just swapping banter with some kids in the pizza place, they went mental, I got a battering. This one guy, he just kept punching and punching me. As hard as he could, working his fist right into my face. I haven’t had a beating like that since I were a kid. For what? For talking like a normal human being. For being human.’
He gives his swollen face some exploratory prods with his finger, and winces.
‘I don’t deserve that. No one does. I know I can be a bit mouthy sometimes, but I’m a decent bloke, at the bottom of it all.’
I start to clean his head up with a saline-soaked gauze swab.
‘Were you knocked out, Murphy?’
‘It’ll take more than those chimps to put me down.’
‘Well you’ve got a deep cut just here that’ll need glueing. And I think you might need an x-ray to rule out any facial fractures.’
‘No mate. I just want to go home and sleep it off.’
‘That’s not something we’d recommend, Murphy.’
He stares at a bloody tissue in his hands.
‘D’you know what, mate? I’ve had just about enough of this western world.’
I rip open some fresh swabs.
‘I don’t know there’s anywhere that’s free of this kind of stuff,’ I say. ‘I was brought up in the country, and we had our fair share of after-pub violence.’
‘Yeah? Well – there’s always Fiji.’
‘Fiji?’
‘Yeah. Fiji.’
‘Is that a good place, then?’
‘I have not the slightest idea.’
He grunts, smiles crookedly, then offers up his right palm, american style. I smack it.
‘Good one,’ I say.
He relaxes his hand back down onto his lap and then stares at it, like it just operated on its own accord. Then he sighs wetly through his nose and spits some more blood into a tissue.
I carry on cleaning him up.
Suddenly he says: ‘I can’t bear that my kids will have to see me like this tomorrow.’
And he starts to cry, shaking apart in the chair with sharp little jerks of his shoulders.
‘My kids love me,’ he chokes. ‘I am loved. I am loved. I don’t deserve this.’
We clean him up as best we can, and when we’re done, we take him to the hospital.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
don't call me ruby
Mrs Elswick is stretched out on the bedroom carpet between the second of the two single beds and the wall. She is neatly arranged; someone has put a pillow under her head and a duvet on top. She lies there looking up at us, her jaw springing up and down like a ventriloquist’s dummy on the back seat of a car.
‘I fell off the edge of the bed,’ she chatters.
Frank checks her over. There are two community responders in the hallway talking to Mr Elswick, a worn and rounded man with a habit of staring fixedly then blinking twice as an afterthought. He is standing in front of a long wall mirror; the effect is of someone split down the middle.
‘The very same thing happened yesterday,’ he says. ‘I just don’t know what to do.’
‘We’ll have a chair please, Spence,’ says Frank.
Out on the truck we run through our medical shtick.
‘We’ll be coming at you from all angles,’ says Frank, hauling out the ECG leads. ‘Like a pit stop at the Formula One.’
‘Ooh yes,’ says Mrs Elswick.
‘I’ll do your tyres,’ I say.
She doesn’t hear me.
Frank towers above the scene, his hands working with the easy autonomy that comes with repetition. If I looked into his eyes now I would catch him slouched back with his feet up on his brain’s console, flicking through a magazine.
‘Erm - one of the community responders told me not to call you Ruby,’ he says, peeling open the ECG dots, flipping the clear plastic circles into a vomit bowel and sticking her up. ‘Why’s that, then?’
‘Ruby’s my middle name,’ says Mrs Elswick, her jaw working up and down.
‘So what do you like being called?’
‘Ruby.’
Frank switches on the ECG monitor and feels her pulse.
‘I don’t get it. We’re not to call you Ruby, but it’s your middle name, and it’s what you like to be called.’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m missing something.’
Mrs Elswick rolls her eyes upwards in an exaggerated expression of teacherly despair, but any fine motor function is difficult whilst her jaw springs up and down as it does.
‘My middle name’s Ruby, but my Father said I shouldn’t ever use it. He said it was a tart’s name.’
‘What nonsense,’ says Frank, poking a thermometer in her ear and sniffing at the result. ‘Now - rhubarb. That’s a tart’s name.’
We are all laughing when I open the door to Mr Elswick.
He blinks up at us, twice, with great precision.
‘I fell off the edge of the bed,’ she chatters.
Frank checks her over. There are two community responders in the hallway talking to Mr Elswick, a worn and rounded man with a habit of staring fixedly then blinking twice as an afterthought. He is standing in front of a long wall mirror; the effect is of someone split down the middle.
‘The very same thing happened yesterday,’ he says. ‘I just don’t know what to do.’
‘We’ll have a chair please, Spence,’ says Frank.
Out on the truck we run through our medical shtick.
‘We’ll be coming at you from all angles,’ says Frank, hauling out the ECG leads. ‘Like a pit stop at the Formula One.’
‘Ooh yes,’ says Mrs Elswick.
‘I’ll do your tyres,’ I say.
She doesn’t hear me.
Frank towers above the scene, his hands working with the easy autonomy that comes with repetition. If I looked into his eyes now I would catch him slouched back with his feet up on his brain’s console, flicking through a magazine.
‘Erm - one of the community responders told me not to call you Ruby,’ he says, peeling open the ECG dots, flipping the clear plastic circles into a vomit bowel and sticking her up. ‘Why’s that, then?’
‘Ruby’s my middle name,’ says Mrs Elswick, her jaw working up and down.
‘So what do you like being called?’
‘Ruby.’
Frank switches on the ECG monitor and feels her pulse.
‘I don’t get it. We’re not to call you Ruby, but it’s your middle name, and it’s what you like to be called.’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m missing something.’
Mrs Elswick rolls her eyes upwards in an exaggerated expression of teacherly despair, but any fine motor function is difficult whilst her jaw springs up and down as it does.
‘My middle name’s Ruby, but my Father said I shouldn’t ever use it. He said it was a tart’s name.’
‘What nonsense,’ says Frank, poking a thermometer in her ear and sniffing at the result. ‘Now - rhubarb. That’s a tart’s name.’
We are all laughing when I open the door to Mr Elswick.
He blinks up at us, twice, with great precision.
Monday, May 11, 2009
who will be there?
‘Are you the man who stole my chairs, my carpets and my pictures?’
‘No. My name’s Spence and this is Rae. We’re from the ambulance.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yep. Your neighbour, Sheila, has called us because she’s worried about you.’
‘Every last stick of furniture gone, the carpets, everything. It’s an absolute scandal. Are you sure it wasn’t you?’
Margaret leans forward and scans me with eyes so ancient they carry only a memory of blue. She is sitting in her coat, buttoned up, ready for the off, her battered old brown handbag clasped on her lap. Sheila is standing next to her with one hand on her shoulder, as if she is posing for a plate photograph.
‘She’s not herself,’ she says.
Out on the ambulance, Margaret settles into the seat and brightens.
‘Are you taking me home?’
‘Where is your home, Margaret?’
She gives the address we have just led her out of.
‘Do you know why we’re here today, Margaret?’
‘I haven’t the faintest idea,’ she says, drawing her handbag closer to her. ‘All I know is that some man came and took my furniture and he had no right to it. I think it was you. I think this is all part of your stupid game.’
‘The reason Sheila called us out was that you don’t seem yourself. She says you’ve been very confused these past few days.’
‘Confused? My dear, I was fifty years in the government. I think you’ll find I know precisely what day of the week it is.’
Her eyes bore into me, two topaz stones set in a weathered mask.
‘And I want my furniture back.’
Later in the journey she asks me again where we are taking her.
‘To the hospital,’ I say. ‘You need to see a doctor.’
She pauses. A confusion settles on her, then lifts, then settles again.
‘Will my parents be there?’ she says. ‘My elder brother Jeremy?’
‘How old is Jeremy?’ I ask her, as gently as I can.
‘Forty,’ she says.
Then she looks at me, and smiles, as the ambulance floods with time.
‘No. My name’s Spence and this is Rae. We’re from the ambulance.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yep. Your neighbour, Sheila, has called us because she’s worried about you.’
‘Every last stick of furniture gone, the carpets, everything. It’s an absolute scandal. Are you sure it wasn’t you?’
Margaret leans forward and scans me with eyes so ancient they carry only a memory of blue. She is sitting in her coat, buttoned up, ready for the off, her battered old brown handbag clasped on her lap. Sheila is standing next to her with one hand on her shoulder, as if she is posing for a plate photograph.
‘She’s not herself,’ she says.
Out on the ambulance, Margaret settles into the seat and brightens.
‘Are you taking me home?’
‘Where is your home, Margaret?’
She gives the address we have just led her out of.
‘Do you know why we’re here today, Margaret?’
‘I haven’t the faintest idea,’ she says, drawing her handbag closer to her. ‘All I know is that some man came and took my furniture and he had no right to it. I think it was you. I think this is all part of your stupid game.’
‘The reason Sheila called us out was that you don’t seem yourself. She says you’ve been very confused these past few days.’
‘Confused? My dear, I was fifty years in the government. I think you’ll find I know precisely what day of the week it is.’
Her eyes bore into me, two topaz stones set in a weathered mask.
‘And I want my furniture back.’
Later in the journey she asks me again where we are taking her.
‘To the hospital,’ I say. ‘You need to see a doctor.’
She pauses. A confusion settles on her, then lifts, then settles again.
‘Will my parents be there?’ she says. ‘My elder brother Jeremy?’
‘How old is Jeremy?’ I ask her, as gently as I can.
‘Forty,’ she says.
Then she looks at me, and smiles, as the ambulance floods with time.
Thursday, May 07, 2009
scoot the merciful
The notes tell us we will be met.
As we push through the revolving doors into the hotel lobby there is a fierce haircut of a man in white shirt and red waist coat standing in the centre spot of the circular parquet floor, his legs apart and his hands lightly clasped in front of him. He makes no gesture of recognition, or sign of any kind.
It hardly needs saying, but: ‘Ambulance.’
Without moving anything other than his lips, he says:
‘This way.’
Then with a lean limbed economy, pivots and strides off up the main staircase.
‘So what’s happened here tonight?’
‘They tell you.’
‘Okay. Good.’
He leads us onto the first landing where a young girl is lying in the recovery position. A select audience of hotel staff have lined themselves up in order of seniority along the opposite wall, from Chamber Maid to Manager. I could be a detective entering a murder scene. I should be saying: ‘Nobody leaves until I say so,’ but instead begin with the usual: ‘What’s happened?’
The Manager, a Praying Mantis in a stripy three piece and shiny shoes, steps forward.
‘My security staff were alerted to a disturbance in room 44, this lady’s room. People had heard loud voices, crashing noises, and so on and so forth. My staff had to force their way into the room, found this lady on the bed and her partner in the bathroom. When they helped the lady out of the room, she complained of feeling dizzy, so they assisted her to the floor, which is where you find her now.’
‘And did anyone call the police?’
‘I am assured they will be here soon.’
I kneel beside the patient. A heavy set girl in her early twenties, her age weighs more heavily in her face than it should. She seems embarrassed rather than distressed, reluctant rather than unable to talk. No apparent injuries. We sit her up.
She puts one hand to her face as if she is trying to remember something, then suddenly stands up decisively.
‘Let’s go to the ambulance,’ she says.
The manager and his staff almost applaud.
The ambulance sits outside the hotel, a cosy box of light amongst the feral noises of a Saturday night, flowing round us, moving on.
Leila says he’s attacked her before. Last time with a knife. Leila shows us a tiny scar just underneath her chin. Tonight they were arguing, she doesn’t remember what about. He grabbed her, threw her against the wardrobe, bruised her arms where he held her, scratched her breasts. She tells us this with a muted attention to detail that would seem casually conversational were it not for the context.
There is a knock on the door.
I let a policewoman on board.
‘Could one of you go back up and have a look at Ken, the other party? He’s had a bash to the head and an eye injury.’
En route to the hospital. Leila is back at the hotel being questioned by the police, Ken is on the ambulance, a head wound from an ashtray and an eye that’s been poked with a fingernail.
‘This is shit, man,’ he says.
The policeman riding with us says nothing. He looks exactly like the guy who met us in the lobby at the beginning. How could that be?
He smiles.
I hand in the paperwork at reception.
‘Is Scoot still there?’ I ask Zoe.
‘Yeah – come on.’ She opens the door and lets me in.
Scoot is exactly where he’s been all night, bundled up in blankets beneath the desk in the storeroom.
‘Hey Scoot. What d’ya say, what d’ya know?’
He looks up, gives my hand a sniff, then grants a dab or two of his head.
‘I dunno, Scoot. People, ay?’
Suddenly Scoot looks up, as if he is listening to a command from far away. But then he relaxes again as the impulse fades, gives a jaded smack of the lips, and settles himself back down amongst the blankets.
Scoot the Merciful at peace again, the fluorescent lights of the A&E department burning on through the night around him.
As we push through the revolving doors into the hotel lobby there is a fierce haircut of a man in white shirt and red waist coat standing in the centre spot of the circular parquet floor, his legs apart and his hands lightly clasped in front of him. He makes no gesture of recognition, or sign of any kind.
It hardly needs saying, but: ‘Ambulance.’
Without moving anything other than his lips, he says:
‘This way.’
Then with a lean limbed economy, pivots and strides off up the main staircase.
‘So what’s happened here tonight?’
‘They tell you.’
‘Okay. Good.’
He leads us onto the first landing where a young girl is lying in the recovery position. A select audience of hotel staff have lined themselves up in order of seniority along the opposite wall, from Chamber Maid to Manager. I could be a detective entering a murder scene. I should be saying: ‘Nobody leaves until I say so,’ but instead begin with the usual: ‘What’s happened?’
The Manager, a Praying Mantis in a stripy three piece and shiny shoes, steps forward.
‘My security staff were alerted to a disturbance in room 44, this lady’s room. People had heard loud voices, crashing noises, and so on and so forth. My staff had to force their way into the room, found this lady on the bed and her partner in the bathroom. When they helped the lady out of the room, she complained of feeling dizzy, so they assisted her to the floor, which is where you find her now.’
‘And did anyone call the police?’
‘I am assured they will be here soon.’
I kneel beside the patient. A heavy set girl in her early twenties, her age weighs more heavily in her face than it should. She seems embarrassed rather than distressed, reluctant rather than unable to talk. No apparent injuries. We sit her up.
She puts one hand to her face as if she is trying to remember something, then suddenly stands up decisively.
‘Let’s go to the ambulance,’ she says.
The manager and his staff almost applaud.
The ambulance sits outside the hotel, a cosy box of light amongst the feral noises of a Saturday night, flowing round us, moving on.
Leila says he’s attacked her before. Last time with a knife. Leila shows us a tiny scar just underneath her chin. Tonight they were arguing, she doesn’t remember what about. He grabbed her, threw her against the wardrobe, bruised her arms where he held her, scratched her breasts. She tells us this with a muted attention to detail that would seem casually conversational were it not for the context.
There is a knock on the door.
I let a policewoman on board.
‘Could one of you go back up and have a look at Ken, the other party? He’s had a bash to the head and an eye injury.’
En route to the hospital. Leila is back at the hotel being questioned by the police, Ken is on the ambulance, a head wound from an ashtray and an eye that’s been poked with a fingernail.
‘This is shit, man,’ he says.
The policeman riding with us says nothing. He looks exactly like the guy who met us in the lobby at the beginning. How could that be?
He smiles.
I hand in the paperwork at reception.
‘Is Scoot still there?’ I ask Zoe.
‘Yeah – come on.’ She opens the door and lets me in.
Scoot is exactly where he’s been all night, bundled up in blankets beneath the desk in the storeroom.
‘Hey Scoot. What d’ya say, what d’ya know?’
He looks up, gives my hand a sniff, then grants a dab or two of his head.
‘I dunno, Scoot. People, ay?’
Suddenly Scoot looks up, as if he is listening to a command from far away. But then he relaxes again as the impulse fades, gives a jaded smack of the lips, and settles himself back down amongst the blankets.
Scoot the Merciful at peace again, the fluorescent lights of the A&E department burning on through the night around him.
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
scoot
A&E reception stands guard over the entrances to the Walk-In minors, GP out of hours and major zones. It is a foursquare, plexiglass temple to Admin Kali, the multi-tasking Mother of Process and Information, Creator of Record, Taker of Number, Keeper, Caller, Confessor. Zoe and Claire are two of her acolytes. I imagine they were free administrative spirits haunting a grove here on this hill a thousand years ago, and the hospital was built around them. Now they are caught within these walls, and the years have stacked up, and the ambulance crews come and go, endlessly bowling in through the magic doors with snow in their hair or rain on their shoulders or sunshine on their backs, a relentless train of pilgrims wheeling past the windows, surrendering their paper tributes, bothering them for pens.
Today as Rae and I hand in our patient report form Zoe stands up and smiles.
‘Come round and have a look at what we’ve got,’ she says. ‘You’re going to love it. Come on.’
She slides the hatch closed and then comes round to let us in through the security door.
‘Have a look in there,’ Zoe says, pointing in to their little storeroom.
Under a desk there is a dog curled nose to tail in a nest of blankets. It looks up.
‘His name’s Scoot.’
Scoot is a Springer Spaniel, a ragged brown and white scrap of a dog whose black eyes seem to make up four fifths of his body. His expression is so desperately mournful even Disney would have blushed. It fells us both, bringing us to our knees beside the nest.
Claire appears in the doorway behind Zoe.
‘What do you think of our new assistant?’ she says.
‘He’s so-o-o cute,’ says Rae, mussing the dog. ‘I want him.’
‘Well what he wants is another Cheddar biscuit,’ says Claire. She produces half a packet. It makes its way along the line to Rae, who taps one out and presents it to the dog. But Scoot’s either eaten his fill or he’s too overcome with depression – a condition which, judging by his expression, he has learned to live with. He gives the biscuit a disappointed sniff and then plumps himself back down again.
‘How did you get Scoot?’
‘He came in with a woman who’s taken an overdose. Nothing too serious, but they’re keeping her on CDU for a little longer. It’s not worth calling the RSPCA ‘cos she’ll probably be discharged tonight. So we offered to look after him. And he’s no bother at all – are you? Are you?’
Scoot raises his eyebrows in our direction, then carries on staring at his front paws.
‘Trouble is, we’ve just heard matron is coming on at seven, and she’ll have us all taken out and shot.’
‘She never comes in at that time!’ says Claire, kicking the door frame. ‘Why now? It’s so typical of her.’
‘I don’t think even Matron would mind about Scoot, though,’ says Rae. ‘I mean, look at him!’
We all look at him.
Scoot gives a professional sigh, and wriggles down further amongst the blankets.
Outside, a crew wheels past the serving hatch with a man strapped and groaning on a spinal board.
Rae places the cheddar biscuit next to the vomit bowl filled with drinking water, gives Scoot a last, loving fuss, then stands up. Her knees give an audible crack and she staggers slightly.
‘You’re worse than me,’ says Zoe, offering her one of the biscuits. ‘You’re falling to bits.’
‘I don’t think I’ll do anything else tonight,’ says Rae, snapping down the biscuit in two bites and smacking the crumbs from her hands. ‘I think I’ll just curl up under the desk with Scootie pie. And if Matron comes in and makes a fuss, well then I’ll just have to bite her bony butt. We don’t care, do we Scoots? We don’t care.’
But the dog is already asleep.
Today as Rae and I hand in our patient report form Zoe stands up and smiles.
‘Come round and have a look at what we’ve got,’ she says. ‘You’re going to love it. Come on.’
She slides the hatch closed and then comes round to let us in through the security door.
‘Have a look in there,’ Zoe says, pointing in to their little storeroom.
Under a desk there is a dog curled nose to tail in a nest of blankets. It looks up.
‘His name’s Scoot.’
Scoot is a Springer Spaniel, a ragged brown and white scrap of a dog whose black eyes seem to make up four fifths of his body. His expression is so desperately mournful even Disney would have blushed. It fells us both, bringing us to our knees beside the nest.
Claire appears in the doorway behind Zoe.
‘What do you think of our new assistant?’ she says.
‘He’s so-o-o cute,’ says Rae, mussing the dog. ‘I want him.’
‘Well what he wants is another Cheddar biscuit,’ says Claire. She produces half a packet. It makes its way along the line to Rae, who taps one out and presents it to the dog. But Scoot’s either eaten his fill or he’s too overcome with depression – a condition which, judging by his expression, he has learned to live with. He gives the biscuit a disappointed sniff and then plumps himself back down again.
‘How did you get Scoot?’
‘He came in with a woman who’s taken an overdose. Nothing too serious, but they’re keeping her on CDU for a little longer. It’s not worth calling the RSPCA ‘cos she’ll probably be discharged tonight. So we offered to look after him. And he’s no bother at all – are you? Are you?’
Scoot raises his eyebrows in our direction, then carries on staring at his front paws.
‘Trouble is, we’ve just heard matron is coming on at seven, and she’ll have us all taken out and shot.’
‘She never comes in at that time!’ says Claire, kicking the door frame. ‘Why now? It’s so typical of her.’
‘I don’t think even Matron would mind about Scoot, though,’ says Rae. ‘I mean, look at him!’
We all look at him.
Scoot gives a professional sigh, and wriggles down further amongst the blankets.
Outside, a crew wheels past the serving hatch with a man strapped and groaning on a spinal board.
Rae places the cheddar biscuit next to the vomit bowl filled with drinking water, gives Scoot a last, loving fuss, then stands up. Her knees give an audible crack and she staggers slightly.
‘You’re worse than me,’ says Zoe, offering her one of the biscuits. ‘You’re falling to bits.’
‘I don’t think I’ll do anything else tonight,’ says Rae, snapping down the biscuit in two bites and smacking the crumbs from her hands. ‘I think I’ll just curl up under the desk with Scootie pie. And if Matron comes in and makes a fuss, well then I’ll just have to bite her bony butt. We don’t care, do we Scoots? We don’t care.’
But the dog is already asleep.
Friday, May 01, 2009
two old friends
Geoffrey is the very ambassador of punctuality. If he says he’ll be there at nine he’ll be there a minute before, pressed, polished, clipped, buttoned, straight-backed and smiling, a crisply folded newspaper under his left arm, his right reaching out for the measured handshake that will fade on the ninth stroke of the clock.
Which is why James knows something is wrong.
Usually the two of them catch the bus into town early every Saturday and stay until lunch, but James needs to pick up some shoes that have been re-heeled and Geoffrey needs to organise a present for his granddaughter’s wedding. So they arranged a special mid-week trip. Geoffrey was to call round for James as his flat is nearest to the bus stop.
The two flats – economical, sensible, self-contained – stand as well-appointed symbols for the position in life both men have reached. Retired professionals – James from the print trade (high-end catalogues and diaries for museums and art galleries), Geoffrey from the Royal Fleet Auxiliary and latterly the Civil Service – James has been married and divorced with one son in Australia, Geoffrey has two daughters at either ends of the country and a wife laid to rest in the local churchyard. Both men have been retired so long the memory of their working lives hangs in the air as abstracted and strangely coloured as the gilded photos on their walls. Shopping trips, bridge parties, family excursions, the Horse and Hounds and the Ten O’clock News - this is the comfortable currency of their lives now, and they spend a good deal of it in each other’s company.
But today is different.
James stands with the phone in his hand, picturing the little iron and glass table in the hallway the other end, hearing exactly the sound the phone would be making on it, every unanswered ring another reason why Geoffrey might not be able to answer: he’s forgotten the appointment and made other plans, he’s been called away on urgent business, he’s ill. But like little waves running out to a bigger, more destructive mass, the conviction grows in him that the reason Geoffrey is not answering is that he has collapsed on the floor.
James hangs up, then after a moment presses the green button again and dials 999. But then before that call is answered he replaces the handset in its cradle. He should go round himself and see what the problem is. Maybe he is the one who has got things mixed up.
He hurries round to his friend’s flat. He checks the windows from the road as he turns up the path. The curtains are open in the lounge. He walks towards it as quickly as he can, strides up to the door and knocks brightly three times. No reply. He knocks again, a different pattern, not his usual, and presses the bell for good measure. After a little while he walks round through the curved red-brick arch and checks the bedroom window. The curtains are still drawn there. On an impulse he knocks on the window, too, but immediately feels foolish. As he walks back through the archway he pulls out the spare key that he has been turning absently round and round in his raincoat pocket. He puts it into the lock and opens the door.
‘Hello? Geoffrey?’
The silent interior draws him in. He looks into the lounge. Empty. He looks into the bathroom. Empty. He comes to the bedroom and steps inside.
Geoffrey had been sitting up in bed with a breakfast tray on his lap, reading the newspaper. Now he is sprawled face down, his glasses squashed cruelly into his face, one hand stretched out and over the side of the bed, a GTN spray on the carpet a few feet away. The contents of the tray – a hard-boiled egg, a slice of toast, a glass of juice and a cafetiere of coffee, are scattered around him on the counterpane. James reaches out and gives his shoulder a little push. It might as well be wood.
***
When the ambulance arrives, James watches them park down on the road. He waves as they look up towards the block so they know which entrance to come to. They collect their bags from the back of the truck, slam the door and make their way up to him. When they’re within hailing distance he says:
‘I think he’s gone.’
One of them says: Can you show us where to go?
He’s not altogether sure he can.
Which is why James knows something is wrong.
Usually the two of them catch the bus into town early every Saturday and stay until lunch, but James needs to pick up some shoes that have been re-heeled and Geoffrey needs to organise a present for his granddaughter’s wedding. So they arranged a special mid-week trip. Geoffrey was to call round for James as his flat is nearest to the bus stop.
The two flats – economical, sensible, self-contained – stand as well-appointed symbols for the position in life both men have reached. Retired professionals – James from the print trade (high-end catalogues and diaries for museums and art galleries), Geoffrey from the Royal Fleet Auxiliary and latterly the Civil Service – James has been married and divorced with one son in Australia, Geoffrey has two daughters at either ends of the country and a wife laid to rest in the local churchyard. Both men have been retired so long the memory of their working lives hangs in the air as abstracted and strangely coloured as the gilded photos on their walls. Shopping trips, bridge parties, family excursions, the Horse and Hounds and the Ten O’clock News - this is the comfortable currency of their lives now, and they spend a good deal of it in each other’s company.
But today is different.
James stands with the phone in his hand, picturing the little iron and glass table in the hallway the other end, hearing exactly the sound the phone would be making on it, every unanswered ring another reason why Geoffrey might not be able to answer: he’s forgotten the appointment and made other plans, he’s been called away on urgent business, he’s ill. But like little waves running out to a bigger, more destructive mass, the conviction grows in him that the reason Geoffrey is not answering is that he has collapsed on the floor.
James hangs up, then after a moment presses the green button again and dials 999. But then before that call is answered he replaces the handset in its cradle. He should go round himself and see what the problem is. Maybe he is the one who has got things mixed up.
He hurries round to his friend’s flat. He checks the windows from the road as he turns up the path. The curtains are open in the lounge. He walks towards it as quickly as he can, strides up to the door and knocks brightly three times. No reply. He knocks again, a different pattern, not his usual, and presses the bell for good measure. After a little while he walks round through the curved red-brick arch and checks the bedroom window. The curtains are still drawn there. On an impulse he knocks on the window, too, but immediately feels foolish. As he walks back through the archway he pulls out the spare key that he has been turning absently round and round in his raincoat pocket. He puts it into the lock and opens the door.
‘Hello? Geoffrey?’
The silent interior draws him in. He looks into the lounge. Empty. He looks into the bathroom. Empty. He comes to the bedroom and steps inside.
Geoffrey had been sitting up in bed with a breakfast tray on his lap, reading the newspaper. Now he is sprawled face down, his glasses squashed cruelly into his face, one hand stretched out and over the side of the bed, a GTN spray on the carpet a few feet away. The contents of the tray – a hard-boiled egg, a slice of toast, a glass of juice and a cafetiere of coffee, are scattered around him on the counterpane. James reaches out and gives his shoulder a little push. It might as well be wood.
***
When the ambulance arrives, James watches them park down on the road. He waves as they look up towards the block so they know which entrance to come to. They collect their bags from the back of the truck, slam the door and make their way up to him. When they’re within hailing distance he says:
‘I think he’s gone.’
One of them says: Can you show us where to go?
He’s not altogether sure he can.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
contents of a fridge
After the death of Mrs Dorothy Cheeseman’s husband Harold following a brisk but inelegant struggle with prostate cancer; and after an efficient funeral on an averagely sunny day in a square-cut crematorium with adequate attendance and foliage, undercut somewhat by a vicar who could not pronounce his R’s and A Nightingale sang in Berkley Square (Harold hated London); and after six months had fallen from the calendar like so many dead leaves; and after the health insurance that Harold had arranged with his usual prescience had fattened up the joint account overnight, Mrs Dorothy Cheeseman – acting on the instructions of their only daughter, Claire, a woman who had obviously hooked all her genetic ducks from Harold’s ancestral pond, especially a talent for organisation and a thin-lipped approach to problem-solving, (but Claire’s edginess in company could only have come from Dorothy, whose own particular terrors had grown exponentially since she was eight years old at her father’s Christmas work’s do, 1948, when she was pushed up first on stage to collect her present from Father Christmas and threw up three bottles of apple pop and a crab-paste sandwich into his sack) – Mrs Dorothy Cheeseman, widow, sold the family home and moved into the manageable, one bedroom flat Claire and her silent partner Ben had arranged for her just a simple bus ride away from their front door on the other side of town.
And now her sciatica was playing up.
She had been sitting on the sofa looking out at the newly planted communal lawn for a few hours. The washing line had one plain white tea towel fluttering there, but no-one seemed bothered to add any more or take this one down. She watched it for hours. The sun moved across the grass and changed the angles of its shadows at the edges, until the ache in her leg – a cramp that spread from the root of her hip to the heel bone – forced her to get up, move about, find an aspirin. She swallowed the pill with a glass of warmish tap water, then suddenly picked up the phone and dialled 999.
She let the ambulance people in via a short struggle with the entry phone, then sat back down on the sofa.
When they came in they seemed to fill the room completely with their bags and their bulky jackets and their overloud characters. Mrs Dorothy Cheeseman wished she had not bothered.
One of them, the older of the two, a man who reminded her of Harold’s German business associate Klaus, with the same squashy features and crooked teeth, except Klaus was always on the verge of clasping her round the shoulders to draw her to him, and smelled of yeast and pipe smoke. But this man only touched her lightly round the wrist, and smelled of disinfectant. The other ambulance man, a squared-off chap who looked as if he should be outside sawing logs, drew up a stool and sat quietly.
‘I bet they think I’m a fool,’ she thought.
She told them about her leg. And, no, she hadn’t been to a doctor because she had only just moved here and these things were not easy to sort out.
She looked about the room and realised with a low-down stumbling feeling that she had not made the bed. In fact, all her clothes were strewn about the floor. She had been meaning to have a tidy up. What would they think?
‘I’m so hungry,’ she said to them. ‘I haven’t had a thing to eat in days. And I can’t go shopping because of my leg.’
She had been expecting to be scooped up and rushed to the hospital, but the men in green did not appear to be in any kind of rush. Were they always this slow? The old one carefully wrote down the facts and figures whilst the short one fussed about with blood pressure cuffs and thermometers and blood sugar kits – though what all this had to do with a leg she could not possibly say. Suddenly the short one seemed to be finished with all that. He packed his kit away, stood up and asked if she would like a cup of tea, then wandered off into the kitchen to get it. Dorothy tried to listen to the old one talking on in a quiet voice about options and such, but her attention was really focused on the kitchen.
‘I haven’t any food at all,’ she suddenly shouted out to him. ‘Not a thing.’
But when he looked in the fridge for the milk, Dorothy knew exactly what he would see: two spotted rashers of bacon, a tub of marge, and a dried-out slab of Leicester cheese.
And now her sciatica was playing up.
She had been sitting on the sofa looking out at the newly planted communal lawn for a few hours. The washing line had one plain white tea towel fluttering there, but no-one seemed bothered to add any more or take this one down. She watched it for hours. The sun moved across the grass and changed the angles of its shadows at the edges, until the ache in her leg – a cramp that spread from the root of her hip to the heel bone – forced her to get up, move about, find an aspirin. She swallowed the pill with a glass of warmish tap water, then suddenly picked up the phone and dialled 999.
She let the ambulance people in via a short struggle with the entry phone, then sat back down on the sofa.
When they came in they seemed to fill the room completely with their bags and their bulky jackets and their overloud characters. Mrs Dorothy Cheeseman wished she had not bothered.
One of them, the older of the two, a man who reminded her of Harold’s German business associate Klaus, with the same squashy features and crooked teeth, except Klaus was always on the verge of clasping her round the shoulders to draw her to him, and smelled of yeast and pipe smoke. But this man only touched her lightly round the wrist, and smelled of disinfectant. The other ambulance man, a squared-off chap who looked as if he should be outside sawing logs, drew up a stool and sat quietly.
‘I bet they think I’m a fool,’ she thought.
She told them about her leg. And, no, she hadn’t been to a doctor because she had only just moved here and these things were not easy to sort out.
She looked about the room and realised with a low-down stumbling feeling that she had not made the bed. In fact, all her clothes were strewn about the floor. She had been meaning to have a tidy up. What would they think?
‘I’m so hungry,’ she said to them. ‘I haven’t had a thing to eat in days. And I can’t go shopping because of my leg.’
She had been expecting to be scooped up and rushed to the hospital, but the men in green did not appear to be in any kind of rush. Were they always this slow? The old one carefully wrote down the facts and figures whilst the short one fussed about with blood pressure cuffs and thermometers and blood sugar kits – though what all this had to do with a leg she could not possibly say. Suddenly the short one seemed to be finished with all that. He packed his kit away, stood up and asked if she would like a cup of tea, then wandered off into the kitchen to get it. Dorothy tried to listen to the old one talking on in a quiet voice about options and such, but her attention was really focused on the kitchen.
‘I haven’t any food at all,’ she suddenly shouted out to him. ‘Not a thing.’
But when he looked in the fridge for the milk, Dorothy knew exactly what he would see: two spotted rashers of bacon, a tub of marge, and a dried-out slab of Leicester cheese.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
daniels then and now
Daniel then
I was born into this world on the thirteenth day of March, 1770, may it please you, received into the sure and respectable arms of the Lambert family senior, in the county seat of Leicester. My father, John, in stature and in public life a substantial and hospitable man, keeper of the Bridewell jail, redoubtable servant of the county of Leicestershire, breeder of dogs and fighting cocks, held me to his heart a boy of grace and opportunity, heir designate to the modest fortunes he had so assiduously acquired. I grew strong like him, swimming in the Stour, hunting and fishing, taking all of life that I could with an appetite born of a naturally expansive mind and a temperament which demanded of all experience the simple necessity of sampling as much of it that I could. By virtue of this temperament, in the most part the result of an indulgent heritage, by which I mean a father who wished me all the things he was denied in his youth, and a mother for whom bread and game, pies, puddings and pitchers of ale marched on through the household as like the very blood of the body Lambert – by virtue of this temperament, as I say, the weighty proclivities I was born with, and the idiosyncrasies I can only claim for myself, I grew in circumference as much as in height. The love people bore for me, my family and friends, indeed the very prisoners who were given into my charge when I succeeded my father as president of the gaol, all the love that orbited me in my heavenly path through life, seemed to act on me in much the same way as food.
By the time I was pensioned from my job in 1804, I was of considerable girth, my clothes specially made, and the furniture in my house reinforced by craftsmen without whose skill and ingenuity my comfort would have been in jeopardy. I grew to be such the celebrity in my home town that I would be followed about by crowds of rowdy boys, riding in my wake like so many bottles bobbing about behind the progress of a ship. Without work to maintain me, and with a pension grown exhausted by the demands placed upon it, I thought about the ways in which I might earn an extra sixpence or two, and struck upon the idea of charging admission to look upon me, five shillings per person, with a reduction for large parties. Though it pained me to exhibit myself in this way, it allowed for the fitting of a special carriage, and sundry other life essentials.
On the twenty first of July, 1809, I had repaired to the races at Stamford, and taken up lodging at an Inn in that fair town. It was there that my heart and my life finally acceded to the strains placed upon them. I fell asleep, and did not open my eyes on this world again.
The inn keeper and his men looked at the situation all of the morning and some of the afternoon, scratching their heads and pacing the circumference of my bed, taking measurements, gauging material strengths, angles and probabilities. Finally it was decided that the only way to remove my mortal remains was to take out the window adjacent to the cot, partially demolish the attendant wall, apply planks of wood as a bridge to a waggoner’s cart judiciously parked in the courtyard, and slide me out by means of ropes.
At my funeral, twenty pall bearers bore my coffin into the ground, and there it was, dear reader, my life’s adventure found its end.
Daniel now
We hear an obstructed rattle from the front room as the son leads us in to his father.
'He was like this yesterday, maybe not quite so bad,’ he says, pushing open the door.
A glutinous landslip of a figure, Daniel is not so much sitting in the huge electric chair as spilling out of it, his massive legs planted either side of a belly so enormous it would take a team of tailors with ladders to clothe it; as it is, he seems to be wearing a shower curtain as a nightshirt. The cupid features of his face float on an indeterminate mass of mottled flesh, the lips tinged with blue. I take up the controls to the chair and adjust his position, tipping him back enough to open his airway and stop him snoring. The cyanotic mottling gradually fades, his level of consciousness rises, but there is a crackle from his lungs.
‘How long’s his chest been like this?’
‘A few weeks. He normally has problems with his breathing, but it’s getting worse.’
We put an oxygen mask on him, check him over. His sats come up to an acceptable level, but he seems to be running a temperature, and his breathing is obviously compromised by infection. There is no blood pressure cuff available outside of London Zoo that would fit around his arm, but at least he has a good radial pulse.
The son stands watching us, his hands hooked in the back pockets of his jeans. He seems nervous, scooped out by things. I wonder when he ate last.
‘Normally with a chest infection like this we’d simply take your dad to hospital,’ I tell him, putting the clipboard to one side.
‘I don’t want to go to no bleedin’ hospital. I hate them places,’ wheezes Daniel, pulling off our mask and putting on his own nasal cannula instead. ‘They’re full of sick people.’
‘He won’t go if he doesn’t want to. He’s a stubborn old git.’
‘The thing is, even if he did want to go, it wouldn’t be an easy thing, given his weight. What – about thirty two stone, would you say?’
‘Charming,’ Daniel says, adjusting the cannula.
There is a knock on the side of the open door and a bright young woman hellos her way into the room.
‘Hi Keith. Everything all right? I saw the ambulance.’
‘Yeah. Thanks Jean. Dad took a bit of a turn’s all. We’re just figuring out what to do with him.’
‘Send me to the knackers,’ says Daniel. ‘Make a bit of money.’
‘Oh you,’ says Jean. ‘Well – just thought I’d check in. If there’s anything you need…’ And she goes.
‘It’s just a logistical problem, that’s all,’ I say to Daniel. ‘We’d need at least a second crew here to help with the lift, but then you won’t fit on our trolley anyway. So we’d have to arrange for a special truck to come out, and I’m not sure how soon that could be. I think the best thing is for the doctor to come out and have a look at you here – which is what you probably want anyway. See if this chest infection can be handled at home. And if the doctor thinks a trip up the hospital is definitely needed, then at least we’ve got a bit more of a run up to organise things. I’ll call Control and give them a heads up. What do you think?’
Keith sits on a stool, fishes a pack of cigarettes and a lighter out of his top pocket, then hands me across the phone.
‘They know us there,’ he says. ‘It’s on speed dial 3. Tell him I’ll be here all day to let him in.’
I was born into this world on the thirteenth day of March, 1770, may it please you, received into the sure and respectable arms of the Lambert family senior, in the county seat of Leicester. My father, John, in stature and in public life a substantial and hospitable man, keeper of the Bridewell jail, redoubtable servant of the county of Leicestershire, breeder of dogs and fighting cocks, held me to his heart a boy of grace and opportunity, heir designate to the modest fortunes he had so assiduously acquired. I grew strong like him, swimming in the Stour, hunting and fishing, taking all of life that I could with an appetite born of a naturally expansive mind and a temperament which demanded of all experience the simple necessity of sampling as much of it that I could. By virtue of this temperament, in the most part the result of an indulgent heritage, by which I mean a father who wished me all the things he was denied in his youth, and a mother for whom bread and game, pies, puddings and pitchers of ale marched on through the household as like the very blood of the body Lambert – by virtue of this temperament, as I say, the weighty proclivities I was born with, and the idiosyncrasies I can only claim for myself, I grew in circumference as much as in height. The love people bore for me, my family and friends, indeed the very prisoners who were given into my charge when I succeeded my father as president of the gaol, all the love that orbited me in my heavenly path through life, seemed to act on me in much the same way as food.
By the time I was pensioned from my job in 1804, I was of considerable girth, my clothes specially made, and the furniture in my house reinforced by craftsmen without whose skill and ingenuity my comfort would have been in jeopardy. I grew to be such the celebrity in my home town that I would be followed about by crowds of rowdy boys, riding in my wake like so many bottles bobbing about behind the progress of a ship. Without work to maintain me, and with a pension grown exhausted by the demands placed upon it, I thought about the ways in which I might earn an extra sixpence or two, and struck upon the idea of charging admission to look upon me, five shillings per person, with a reduction for large parties. Though it pained me to exhibit myself in this way, it allowed for the fitting of a special carriage, and sundry other life essentials.
On the twenty first of July, 1809, I had repaired to the races at Stamford, and taken up lodging at an Inn in that fair town. It was there that my heart and my life finally acceded to the strains placed upon them. I fell asleep, and did not open my eyes on this world again.
The inn keeper and his men looked at the situation all of the morning and some of the afternoon, scratching their heads and pacing the circumference of my bed, taking measurements, gauging material strengths, angles and probabilities. Finally it was decided that the only way to remove my mortal remains was to take out the window adjacent to the cot, partially demolish the attendant wall, apply planks of wood as a bridge to a waggoner’s cart judiciously parked in the courtyard, and slide me out by means of ropes.
At my funeral, twenty pall bearers bore my coffin into the ground, and there it was, dear reader, my life’s adventure found its end.
Daniel now
We hear an obstructed rattle from the front room as the son leads us in to his father.
'He was like this yesterday, maybe not quite so bad,’ he says, pushing open the door.
A glutinous landslip of a figure, Daniel is not so much sitting in the huge electric chair as spilling out of it, his massive legs planted either side of a belly so enormous it would take a team of tailors with ladders to clothe it; as it is, he seems to be wearing a shower curtain as a nightshirt. The cupid features of his face float on an indeterminate mass of mottled flesh, the lips tinged with blue. I take up the controls to the chair and adjust his position, tipping him back enough to open his airway and stop him snoring. The cyanotic mottling gradually fades, his level of consciousness rises, but there is a crackle from his lungs.
‘How long’s his chest been like this?’
‘A few weeks. He normally has problems with his breathing, but it’s getting worse.’
We put an oxygen mask on him, check him over. His sats come up to an acceptable level, but he seems to be running a temperature, and his breathing is obviously compromised by infection. There is no blood pressure cuff available outside of London Zoo that would fit around his arm, but at least he has a good radial pulse.
The son stands watching us, his hands hooked in the back pockets of his jeans. He seems nervous, scooped out by things. I wonder when he ate last.
‘Normally with a chest infection like this we’d simply take your dad to hospital,’ I tell him, putting the clipboard to one side.
‘I don’t want to go to no bleedin’ hospital. I hate them places,’ wheezes Daniel, pulling off our mask and putting on his own nasal cannula instead. ‘They’re full of sick people.’
‘He won’t go if he doesn’t want to. He’s a stubborn old git.’
‘The thing is, even if he did want to go, it wouldn’t be an easy thing, given his weight. What – about thirty two stone, would you say?’
‘Charming,’ Daniel says, adjusting the cannula.
There is a knock on the side of the open door and a bright young woman hellos her way into the room.
‘Hi Keith. Everything all right? I saw the ambulance.’
‘Yeah. Thanks Jean. Dad took a bit of a turn’s all. We’re just figuring out what to do with him.’
‘Send me to the knackers,’ says Daniel. ‘Make a bit of money.’
‘Oh you,’ says Jean. ‘Well – just thought I’d check in. If there’s anything you need…’ And she goes.
‘It’s just a logistical problem, that’s all,’ I say to Daniel. ‘We’d need at least a second crew here to help with the lift, but then you won’t fit on our trolley anyway. So we’d have to arrange for a special truck to come out, and I’m not sure how soon that could be. I think the best thing is for the doctor to come out and have a look at you here – which is what you probably want anyway. See if this chest infection can be handled at home. And if the doctor thinks a trip up the hospital is definitely needed, then at least we’ve got a bit more of a run up to organise things. I’ll call Control and give them a heads up. What do you think?’
Keith sits on a stool, fishes a pack of cigarettes and a lighter out of his top pocket, then hands me across the phone.
‘They know us there,’ he says. ‘It’s on speed dial 3. Tell him I’ll be here all day to let him in.’
Friday, April 24, 2009
the piano tuner
I can imagine this crowd foraging through bargains in a Church hall. They have the same good-humoured competitiveness, the same restless sense of purpose. It is a disparate mix: mothers, office workers, middle-managers and students, all dressed militia-style in a haphazard kit of army surplus jackets, scarves, disposable charity shop t-shirts and good boots.
The two policemen shut the holding bay door behind us with a clunk and survey the scene.
‘Her name’s Marge. She’s been arrested under suspicion of trespassing and criminal damage. She’s sitting over there, in that corner,’ one says.
We follow him through to a middle-aged woman sitting on the bench that runs the length of the bay. She has her right hand wrapped up in a dirty white t-towel and held up in the air. She smiles pleasantly at us. I expect her to say: ‘How much for this?’ but instead she says: ‘I’m so sorry to bother you. It’s all a bit embarrassing.’
‘What’s happened?’
‘Well, there’s a fair bit I have to be careful telling you, apparently. But the gist of it is that I was climbing over a fence and hurt my finger. A friend of mine who’s a nurse did a makeshift dressing because we didn’t have time for much else. And the police called you when I – erm – got here because they were very sweet and they thought I’d better have it looked at. I’m sure it’s nothing.’
We help her up and lead her back through the crowd to the ambulance parked outside. A few people pat her on the back, wish her well. A young guy in a jacket sprouting all over with badges punches the air and cries out ‘Go Margie! Go Margie!’ but no-one joins in. The unexpected silence closes over him, and the door slams shut behind us.
With the patient sat comfortably on the ambulance, the two policemen waiting just outside, I set to work unwrapping her hand.
‘I’m a bit squeamish,’ she says, tugging off her woolly hat and shaking out a hedge of steely grey hair. ‘It doesn’t hurt though.’
In fact she has no sensation in her hand at all.
As I work my way through the extemporary bandaging, Marge tells us a little more.
‘We were at a laboratory that experiments on animals. Breaking in, actually. I mean, here we are, chatting like this, and there are dogs just the other side of town with disinfectant being dropped into their eyes. Did you know that? Disinfectant. You have to do something.’
She loosens the scarf around her neck.
‘Anyway. I was climbing over this horribly pointy fence and I got caught up. It was tricky and of course I’m not the world’s most athletic commando. I think I must have slipped back and got my hand caught. So I hung there for a moment until lovely Jake hoiked me up from below and someone else worked my hand free. We didn’t have time to hang around – no pun intended. We had to get in there and – well – complete the mission. Which we did. Hurrah.’ She smiles at me. ‘Down to it, yet?’
The inner layers of the dressing are crusty with dried blood.
‘How long ago did this happen would you say?’
‘I don’t know. Three, four hours?’
‘We’ll have to soak this lot off.’
‘Sorry to be a nuisance.’
I fill a bowl with saline and she dips her hand in it. A cloud of red slowly spreads outwards into the water. After a moment or two we ask Marge to hold her hand back up, and then with a large syringe filled with more saline I unwrap the inner layers, gently hosing underneath to loosen the dried blood and release the skin caught up underneath.
Rae is poised next to me with a large, damp gauze.
Marge looks off to the side.
The dressing comes away.
In the brief instant before squirts of blood arc delicately into the air and Rae leans in with a dressing, I catch a view of the injury: Marge’s ring and middle fingers have been partially de-gloved, the flesh and skin of both ripped at the root and slid upwards.
‘How is it?’ she says.
‘It’s quite a serious injury,’ I tell her. ‘And the delay hasn’t helped. We need to get you to hospital as soon as we can to get it repaired.’
‘It hurts a bit now.’
I clean the area as best I can, re-bandage the wound and put her arm in a sling. I tell the policemen waiting outside that Marge needs to go to hospital right away, and we’ll be driving on lights and sirens. Whilst they make arrangements, Rae jumps out and goes to the cab to call the job in .
‘It’s really quite a deal then,’ Marge says quietly. She rubs her nose with the back of her good hand and looks clear into me.
‘I’m a piano tuner,’ she says.
The two policemen shut the holding bay door behind us with a clunk and survey the scene.
‘Her name’s Marge. She’s been arrested under suspicion of trespassing and criminal damage. She’s sitting over there, in that corner,’ one says.
We follow him through to a middle-aged woman sitting on the bench that runs the length of the bay. She has her right hand wrapped up in a dirty white t-towel and held up in the air. She smiles pleasantly at us. I expect her to say: ‘How much for this?’ but instead she says: ‘I’m so sorry to bother you. It’s all a bit embarrassing.’
‘What’s happened?’
‘Well, there’s a fair bit I have to be careful telling you, apparently. But the gist of it is that I was climbing over a fence and hurt my finger. A friend of mine who’s a nurse did a makeshift dressing because we didn’t have time for much else. And the police called you when I – erm – got here because they were very sweet and they thought I’d better have it looked at. I’m sure it’s nothing.’
We help her up and lead her back through the crowd to the ambulance parked outside. A few people pat her on the back, wish her well. A young guy in a jacket sprouting all over with badges punches the air and cries out ‘Go Margie! Go Margie!’ but no-one joins in. The unexpected silence closes over him, and the door slams shut behind us.
With the patient sat comfortably on the ambulance, the two policemen waiting just outside, I set to work unwrapping her hand.
‘I’m a bit squeamish,’ she says, tugging off her woolly hat and shaking out a hedge of steely grey hair. ‘It doesn’t hurt though.’
In fact she has no sensation in her hand at all.
As I work my way through the extemporary bandaging, Marge tells us a little more.
‘We were at a laboratory that experiments on animals. Breaking in, actually. I mean, here we are, chatting like this, and there are dogs just the other side of town with disinfectant being dropped into their eyes. Did you know that? Disinfectant. You have to do something.’
She loosens the scarf around her neck.
‘Anyway. I was climbing over this horribly pointy fence and I got caught up. It was tricky and of course I’m not the world’s most athletic commando. I think I must have slipped back and got my hand caught. So I hung there for a moment until lovely Jake hoiked me up from below and someone else worked my hand free. We didn’t have time to hang around – no pun intended. We had to get in there and – well – complete the mission. Which we did. Hurrah.’ She smiles at me. ‘Down to it, yet?’
The inner layers of the dressing are crusty with dried blood.
‘How long ago did this happen would you say?’
‘I don’t know. Three, four hours?’
‘We’ll have to soak this lot off.’
‘Sorry to be a nuisance.’
I fill a bowl with saline and she dips her hand in it. A cloud of red slowly spreads outwards into the water. After a moment or two we ask Marge to hold her hand back up, and then with a large syringe filled with more saline I unwrap the inner layers, gently hosing underneath to loosen the dried blood and release the skin caught up underneath.
Rae is poised next to me with a large, damp gauze.
Marge looks off to the side.
The dressing comes away.
In the brief instant before squirts of blood arc delicately into the air and Rae leans in with a dressing, I catch a view of the injury: Marge’s ring and middle fingers have been partially de-gloved, the flesh and skin of both ripped at the root and slid upwards.
‘How is it?’ she says.
‘It’s quite a serious injury,’ I tell her. ‘And the delay hasn’t helped. We need to get you to hospital as soon as we can to get it repaired.’
‘It hurts a bit now.’
I clean the area as best I can, re-bandage the wound and put her arm in a sling. I tell the policemen waiting outside that Marge needs to go to hospital right away, and we’ll be driving on lights and sirens. Whilst they make arrangements, Rae jumps out and goes to the cab to call the job in .
‘It’s really quite a deal then,’ Marge says quietly. She rubs her nose with the back of her good hand and looks clear into me.
‘I’m a piano tuner,’ she says.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
beneath the cherry tree
A man has collapsed and died from a suspected heart attack in a local park. Two paramedic crews attended the scene but were unable to revive him. A popular family man in his mid-forties, he was a well-known character in the area, active in local charities and a familiar figure at the local pub. Friends and acquaintances described him as a friendly, witty man with an encyclopaedic general knowledge, always willing to put himself out for others and ready to help wherever possible. An Inquest is scheduled for later in the week.
I flatten the paper, push it across the table to my wife and tap the paragraph.
‘That’s the guy we went to.’
***
The cherry tree is out in blossom, its branches freighted with thick masses of light pink flowers.
A man is spread out on his back beneath it, his legs and feet stretched across the little tarmac pathway and the rest of him on a grass verge, the clothes cut away from his chest, a paramedic kneeling beside him with her arms locked, rocking up and down on his chest, and another paramedic with a mask clamped to the man’s face, rhythmically pressing oxygen into him. We duck beneath the blue and white police tape stretched across the path.
‘Hi guys. Thanks for getting here so quick,’ says the paramedic on the mask.
We take over their positions whilst they give us the story.
‘Okay guys. This man had been seen sitting under the tree by various people around lunchtime, nothing obviously wrong. A guy who works in that hardware store over there had passed him on his way back from the sandwich shop, slumped forwards and snoring, thought he was just the worse for drink. That was about one twenty. The guy came back outside the shop for a smoke at about one forty, noticed the guy flat on his back halfway across the path. He called the police to report him as drunk. The police responded on low priority to a D&D, getting here just on two. Found him apparently dead. We got here about five or eight past. So unfortunately no CPR attempted at any point until then, which must be at least half an hour, probably more. The guy’s asystole but warm, pupils fixed – but he’s young, so we went for it. What’s the time now?’
We carry on for another twenty minutes, bustling through a resus protocol that lacks for nothing but the one thing that would have made a difference: timeliness. Nothing changes, and nothing we can do can stop the man from riding out beneath us on a relentless line of asystole. We stand up, stretch the cramp out of our legs. Clear away the empty tubes, the oxygen line, airway adjuncts, pads and empty cartons, stuffing it all into clinical waste bags.
Two policemen come over to take details and discuss the next phase. They have his wallet and phone. They have numbers to call.
A scattering of cherry blossom drifts down across all of us, catching in our hair like confetti.
I flatten the paper, push it across the table to my wife and tap the paragraph.
‘That’s the guy we went to.’
***
The cherry tree is out in blossom, its branches freighted with thick masses of light pink flowers.
A man is spread out on his back beneath it, his legs and feet stretched across the little tarmac pathway and the rest of him on a grass verge, the clothes cut away from his chest, a paramedic kneeling beside him with her arms locked, rocking up and down on his chest, and another paramedic with a mask clamped to the man’s face, rhythmically pressing oxygen into him. We duck beneath the blue and white police tape stretched across the path.
‘Hi guys. Thanks for getting here so quick,’ says the paramedic on the mask.
We take over their positions whilst they give us the story.
‘Okay guys. This man had been seen sitting under the tree by various people around lunchtime, nothing obviously wrong. A guy who works in that hardware store over there had passed him on his way back from the sandwich shop, slumped forwards and snoring, thought he was just the worse for drink. That was about one twenty. The guy came back outside the shop for a smoke at about one forty, noticed the guy flat on his back halfway across the path. He called the police to report him as drunk. The police responded on low priority to a D&D, getting here just on two. Found him apparently dead. We got here about five or eight past. So unfortunately no CPR attempted at any point until then, which must be at least half an hour, probably more. The guy’s asystole but warm, pupils fixed – but he’s young, so we went for it. What’s the time now?’
We carry on for another twenty minutes, bustling through a resus protocol that lacks for nothing but the one thing that would have made a difference: timeliness. Nothing changes, and nothing we can do can stop the man from riding out beneath us on a relentless line of asystole. We stand up, stretch the cramp out of our legs. Clear away the empty tubes, the oxygen line, airway adjuncts, pads and empty cartons, stuffing it all into clinical waste bags.
Two policemen come over to take details and discuss the next phase. They have his wallet and phone. They have numbers to call.
A scattering of cherry blossom drifts down across all of us, catching in our hair like confetti.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Fiona in greens
Bear Court. Sounds more like a headline than an address. Fiona looks it up in the map book whilst I machete my way through the early evening traffic. This is perfect timing for a call; surely our last of the day, and the last that Fiona will do for the next six months until her baby is born.
She points the address out on the map. Perfect. And there’s a car on scene already, so the paperwork should mostly be done. We wave at the traffic like crazy royals as it falls away before us.
Bear Court. A great, sandstone cube landed amongst some trees. I drive into the car park past a wide, white sign and its logo: a bear, rearing up, with a sash. There’s a path and a run of stubby black path lights leading up to a door. You could swivel the building through ninety degrees and find no difference. The only thing that suggests that this is indeed the front is the fact that the RRU is parked here. I grab the chair out of the truck and we walk up to the building.
Bear Court. No wonder the bear in the logo is angry. A rage born of confusion, no doubt. This is the rear of the building. We walk back to the truck and drive round to the front (looks like the back, has poorer access). I park. We walk up to an identical door.
Inside, the building is run through with a blue carpeted corridor that seems to extend as we walk along it. About five miles further on we see that one of the thousand doors here is open. We can hear voices, and as we get even nearer, a formidable figure steps out and waves to us.
A woman as square as the building, she is contained by a quilted floral dressing gown and a hair net, utterly in keeping with her environment, somehow, like she’s not so much a resident as an architectural extension.
‘Over here!’ she calls, and we gradually make the distance.
Inside, the flat is as bustling as the rest of the building is dormant. Frank is on the car today. He’s kneeling down beside a rumpled bed where an elderly woman is sitting propped against a dressing table. Two more elderly women are fussing around in the room, laughing and giving each other playful little slaps on the shoulder.
‘Ooh, here comes the cavalry,’ one of them says. Then: ‘We’ll get out of your way.’
‘Watch from the cheap seats.’
‘You’ll be alright, Eth. You’ve got the A Team.’
‘Mine’s the one in green.’
‘They’re all in green. Even the lady.’
‘Well I’m not fussy.’
‘Oh you.’
Slap.
Frank looks at me. If I ever came across a cow lost in a shopping centre I would expect to see the same expression: a lugubrious and silent plea to be led back to the fields.
‘Sorry I didn’t move the car, guys,’ he says. ‘I couldn’t face hauling all those bags back to the car, so I came up some steps at the side. Anyway. This is Ethel. Ethel has been feeling nauseous on and off today. Took herself to bed. Found herself on the floor. Looks like she passed out for a minute or two. Was sick. No pain, obs okay – blood sugar slightly high but nothing major. Had a similar episode a month ago, nothing found.’ He pats her on the hand. ‘How are you feeling now, Ethel?’
‘Okay,’ she says, with a washed-out smile. ‘Don’t fancy a trip up to hospital. Don’t like hospitals.’
‘Who does. I’m allergic to them,’ Frank says, taking off his stethoscope. ‘All yours, chaps.’
We help her into our chair and wrap her in blankets. I am at the business end of the chair and reverse out of the flat. Frank and Fiona walk off down the corridor to call the lift, leaving me surrounded by a flap of nightgowns as heavily made-up and frenetic as clowns at the circus, pushing each other around in some elaborate and incomprehensible piece of shtick involving keys, slippers, cats, scrawled phone numbers on scraps of paper. They seem never to have come across the concept of ‘a door on the latch’ and struggle to close it.
I look ahead into the distance to where the tiny figures of Fiona and Frank talk nonchalantly by an opened lift.
I will never make it there. I will live out the rest of my life here by this door.
***
Ethel lies back on the ambulance trolley looking as white - and flat - as the sheet. But her blood pressure is fine, everything seems okay. The ECG is ticking along nicely.
‘Ready to go,’ I say to Fiona.
‘Yep. Let’s head on out.’
I jump down, shut the door. Climb in the front.
The sun is low in the sky but it’s still warm. It’ll be a lovely summer. I put the radio on. Call our leaving time through the hatch, and set off.
Just as I’m pulling out of the car park, I hear Fiona call out: ‘She’s gone.’ Followed by a crashing noise. I stop the ambulance and hurry back round.
‘She went bradycardic, then asystole,’ she says as I climb back inside. ‘I dropped the back of the trolley and it shocked her out of it.’ She squeezes her shoulder. ‘Ethel?’ She opens her eyes and moves her head feebly from side to side, muttering. ‘Are you with us, Ethel?’
I look at the printed strip. Flat line for a few seconds. Incredible.
Ethel begins to retch, so we turn her on her side. She vomits a little into the bowl I hold for her.
After a while she settles down. She says she still has no pain. Nothing untoward shows on the ECG. Everything seems fine – but that period of asystole sits heavily on the paper in front of us, a resonant mark of doom. I go back round to the cab, call the job in, and head off through the traffic on lights and sirens.
I look in the rear view mirror. Fiona leaning forward, attending to Ethel.
Fiona with the baby growing inside her. Fiona in Greens, Provider and Protector.
Cars pull over to let us through.
She points the address out on the map. Perfect. And there’s a car on scene already, so the paperwork should mostly be done. We wave at the traffic like crazy royals as it falls away before us.
Bear Court. A great, sandstone cube landed amongst some trees. I drive into the car park past a wide, white sign and its logo: a bear, rearing up, with a sash. There’s a path and a run of stubby black path lights leading up to a door. You could swivel the building through ninety degrees and find no difference. The only thing that suggests that this is indeed the front is the fact that the RRU is parked here. I grab the chair out of the truck and we walk up to the building.
Bear Court. No wonder the bear in the logo is angry. A rage born of confusion, no doubt. This is the rear of the building. We walk back to the truck and drive round to the front (looks like the back, has poorer access). I park. We walk up to an identical door.
Inside, the building is run through with a blue carpeted corridor that seems to extend as we walk along it. About five miles further on we see that one of the thousand doors here is open. We can hear voices, and as we get even nearer, a formidable figure steps out and waves to us.
A woman as square as the building, she is contained by a quilted floral dressing gown and a hair net, utterly in keeping with her environment, somehow, like she’s not so much a resident as an architectural extension.
‘Over here!’ she calls, and we gradually make the distance.
Inside, the flat is as bustling as the rest of the building is dormant. Frank is on the car today. He’s kneeling down beside a rumpled bed where an elderly woman is sitting propped against a dressing table. Two more elderly women are fussing around in the room, laughing and giving each other playful little slaps on the shoulder.
‘Ooh, here comes the cavalry,’ one of them says. Then: ‘We’ll get out of your way.’
‘Watch from the cheap seats.’
‘You’ll be alright, Eth. You’ve got the A Team.’
‘Mine’s the one in green.’
‘They’re all in green. Even the lady.’
‘Well I’m not fussy.’
‘Oh you.’
Slap.
Frank looks at me. If I ever came across a cow lost in a shopping centre I would expect to see the same expression: a lugubrious and silent plea to be led back to the fields.
‘Sorry I didn’t move the car, guys,’ he says. ‘I couldn’t face hauling all those bags back to the car, so I came up some steps at the side. Anyway. This is Ethel. Ethel has been feeling nauseous on and off today. Took herself to bed. Found herself on the floor. Looks like she passed out for a minute or two. Was sick. No pain, obs okay – blood sugar slightly high but nothing major. Had a similar episode a month ago, nothing found.’ He pats her on the hand. ‘How are you feeling now, Ethel?’
‘Okay,’ she says, with a washed-out smile. ‘Don’t fancy a trip up to hospital. Don’t like hospitals.’
‘Who does. I’m allergic to them,’ Frank says, taking off his stethoscope. ‘All yours, chaps.’
We help her into our chair and wrap her in blankets. I am at the business end of the chair and reverse out of the flat. Frank and Fiona walk off down the corridor to call the lift, leaving me surrounded by a flap of nightgowns as heavily made-up and frenetic as clowns at the circus, pushing each other around in some elaborate and incomprehensible piece of shtick involving keys, slippers, cats, scrawled phone numbers on scraps of paper. They seem never to have come across the concept of ‘a door on the latch’ and struggle to close it.
I look ahead into the distance to where the tiny figures of Fiona and Frank talk nonchalantly by an opened lift.
I will never make it there. I will live out the rest of my life here by this door.
***
Ethel lies back on the ambulance trolley looking as white - and flat - as the sheet. But her blood pressure is fine, everything seems okay. The ECG is ticking along nicely.
‘Ready to go,’ I say to Fiona.
‘Yep. Let’s head on out.’
I jump down, shut the door. Climb in the front.
The sun is low in the sky but it’s still warm. It’ll be a lovely summer. I put the radio on. Call our leaving time through the hatch, and set off.
Just as I’m pulling out of the car park, I hear Fiona call out: ‘She’s gone.’ Followed by a crashing noise. I stop the ambulance and hurry back round.
‘She went bradycardic, then asystole,’ she says as I climb back inside. ‘I dropped the back of the trolley and it shocked her out of it.’ She squeezes her shoulder. ‘Ethel?’ She opens her eyes and moves her head feebly from side to side, muttering. ‘Are you with us, Ethel?’
I look at the printed strip. Flat line for a few seconds. Incredible.
Ethel begins to retch, so we turn her on her side. She vomits a little into the bowl I hold for her.
After a while she settles down. She says she still has no pain. Nothing untoward shows on the ECG. Everything seems fine – but that period of asystole sits heavily on the paper in front of us, a resonant mark of doom. I go back round to the cab, call the job in, and head off through the traffic on lights and sirens.
I look in the rear view mirror. Fiona leaning forward, attending to Ethel.
Fiona with the baby growing inside her. Fiona in Greens, Provider and Protector.
Cars pull over to let us through.
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