in like jack

It was the park warden who told me the pond was originally a Victorian roller skating rink. A hundred and twenty years ago there was a craze for it, apparently. The shallow concrete gradients of the rink would have resounded with the rumble of vulcanised rubber wheels and the shrieks of skaters holding on to their bonnets and dignity. But the fashion waned by the turn of the century, the rink was filled, a waterfall dropped out of the rockery at the northern end, and an island for geese and ducks set in the middle.

Now, the water is only ankle deep, thickly congested with duck weed, over there a litter bin lying half-sunk, as if it tore itself free from its mounting and threw itself in to chase the bottles and cans and crisp packets.

Jack is sitting on one of the benches that border the pond. His legs are crossed and his arms folded contemplatively across them. He smokes, poised and relaxed, and chats to a neater, younger guy standing near to him, who waves over to us. As we get closer we can see that Jack is covered from head to foot in duck weed, his old denim jacket and jeans plastered with the little green leaves.

‘So what’s the story, Jack? What happened to you?’
‘I’m fine. Honestly. I saw a duck in trouble. I went in to help it. That’s it. That’s all there is.’
The young man chips in.
‘He waded out there. I wondered what he was doing, so I called you guys. I hope that’s all right. I thought he was – you know.’
Jack smiles up at him.
‘You’re a good kid. Do you know?’
‘Did I do the right thing?’
‘Sure. So – Jack. Did you go under the water at any point?’
‘No.’
‘Did you hurt yourself at all?’
‘No.’
‘And you feel all right in yourself?’
‘Of course. Look – what would you have done? Would you have helped the duck?’
‘I don’t know. What was it doing?’
‘Struggling.’
He makes a drunken mime, vaguely waving his cigarette around in front of him.
‘And how’s the duck now?’
‘It flew off.’
‘I bet.’
The kid points to the pond.
‘You can see the route he took.’
He’s right. There’s a clear, meandering track through the otherwise unbroken surface of green, right out as far as the island.
‘So what do you intend to do now, Jack?’
‘Finish this, then go home.’
‘Where do you live?’
He says his address, a homeless hostel in the middle of town. I can’t imagine what people will think when they pass him in the street, a shuffling figure covered in drying weed.
Jack taps the ash from his cigarette off to one side, and looks up at us.
‘One does what one can,’ he sniffs.

crazy blue hand

Stepan answers the door. His eyes are hooded, and he speaks with the slurred precision of a bottle of vodka and five o’clock in the morning.
‘Come. You help me, please. Is having diabetic problem.’
With an audible effort of will Stepan turns his body – a plucked and rangy affair in the ruins of a business suit – and shuffles back through the flat into the kitchen, where a man lies slumped across a melamine table.
‘A relative of yours?’ I ask him as Rae checks the guy over.
Stepan throws himself down in the opposite chair, studies the man for a moment, then flops his head back and shakes his hair out.
‘Kevin? Oh, please! I don’t know, honey! It’s first date.’ Then he ducks his chin back down again and lowers his focus onto me. His blue eyes seem to be covered in translucent skin. ‘Do you have somebody, baby?’, he drawls.
‘1.6,’ says Rae, tossing the kit back in her opened bag. ‘Can you draw up some Glucagon?’
I prep the syringe, bunch up the flesh of Kevin’s upper arm and jab him.
Rae makes some more checks and starts filling in the form. She speaks briskly to Stepan.
‘So tell us what happened, Stepan. How long’s your friend been like this?’
But Stepan doesn’t answer the question. He continues to stare at me. After a moment he waves vaguely behind him: ‘His medication is in box on fridge.’
‘On a first date?’ I say, going over to it.
Stepan absorbs the comment, then says: ‘You wearing ring like married man. You like women, honey?’
‘Stepan, let’s concentrate on your friend for a moment, can we? He’s not at all well.’
‘I know. I call you.’
‘So when did you become concerned?’
‘He diabetic. He tell me.’
‘How much has he had to drink?’
Stepan smiles and makes a proud gesture around the flat. There are bottles standing, lying down, all over the place. Suddenly he starts pulling on an old pair of blue examination gloves.
‘Count,’ he says.
‘Why are you putting the gloves on, Stepan?’
‘Is my business.’
‘It’s peculiar.’
‘Is my business.’
‘The glucagon we gave him is a quick fix, Stepan. It won’t last long. Kevin needs something to eat to bring his blood sugar back up to scratch. Could you make him some toast, please?’
‘Yes. Yes,’ says Stepan, frowning as he struggles to get his fingers in the correct holes of the glove.
‘Like now,’ says Rae. ‘It’s important.’
‘Yes! God!’ says Stepan, still wrestling and snapping the blue rubber gloves.
‘Do you have any food in the house?’
‘Of course I have food.’
‘Your friend will need to eat when he perks up. Can you please make him some toast, or something?’
‘You don’t speak to me like this.’
He gives up trying to get the gloves on and stands up. The chair scrapes backwards and topples over, and Stepan has to grab the table to stop himself falling with it. Kevin groans and stirs.
‘Okay. This is hopeless,’ says Rae. ‘Can you get the carry chair please, Spence?’
This galvanises Stepan.
‘No! What you say? You are not to take him to hospital. I am lawyer. This is my house. You do not do this please.’
‘But Stepan. Your friend’s ill. You’re drunk and in no position to do anything to help him. He’s not safe, so we have no choice.’
‘I know law. This is my house and you leave now please.’
‘Of course. With pleasure. With Kevin.’
‘No! Look! I make toast.’
He staggers over to the fridge and throws the door open. Inside, pathetically illuminated on a plastic tray, a couple of tomatoes and a single, mummified cocktail sausage. Stepan stares at this for a moment, then slams the door shut again.
‘I go to shops.’
He struggles to push his deformed blue hands into his trouser pocket, looking for change.
‘It’s not happening, is it, Stepan? I’m afraid we’re taking Kevin with us, and that’s the end of the story.’
‘No! You leave my house now please.’
Suddenly a young woman appears in the doorway, her hair all knotted up and her Snoopy night-shirt slack with exhaustion.
‘Stepan,’ she whispers. ‘What the fuck are you doing? What the fuck is going on?’
‘Fuck you!’ he shouts.
‘No. Fuck you, Stepan. Do you know what time it is? You’re fucking crazy. You’re a madman. I want you out of this flat tomorrow. Do you understand? Jesus fucking Christ!’
‘No! Fucking Jesus Christ fucking you! I not go anywhere. You go anywhere.’
‘Fuck you, Stepan.’
‘Fuck you.’
‘Can you call for some police assistance, Spence?’
The girl turns and silently withdraws, gliding like a sleepwalker back into the deeps of the night. Kevin sits upright suddenly and starts looking around. ‘What happened?’ he says.
‘You’ve had a hypo, Kevin, and we’d like to take you to hospital.’
‘Fine. Where are my trousers?’
‘No! You not call police! I cannot have scandals. I call you to help my friend, and now he’s better you can go, please. Thank you. Go. Go on.’
‘No. Stepan. Ssh now. It’s no good. Kevin is coming with us. We’ve called for police to make sure you don’t try to get in our way.’
Stepan produces a mobile phone from somewhere and struggles to hit 999 with his fingers bunched crazily in the glove.
‘I call police to have you thrown out.’
‘Fine. They’re coming anyway.’
‘No!’
He throws the phone across the flat.
‘What?’ says Kevin.
‘Why are you wearing the gloves anyway?’ I ask Stepan.
He stares at me again, breathing hard. But over the next moment or two his breaths slow and even out. He manages to right the chair, and when he sits back down, he tries to pick some strands of hair away from his face with a crazy blue hand.
‘One day I tell you,’ he smiles. And then playfully, he bites the slack blue rubber tip of his thumb.

the blue and the brown

The only person not to respond to our buzzing is the patient. His neighbours – draped out of various windows like so much washing – are more forthcoming.
‘That won’t do you any good, mate.’
‘He’s not in his flat.’
‘He’s out on the landing.’
‘As usual.’
‘Top floor, mate.’
‘Can’t miss him.’
‘But you might want to.’
One of them rouses sufficiently to duck back inside and release the door, then drifts back to the window to carry on with the vigil.
‘Thanks.’
We go in.

The block is a multicoloured stack of glass and brick, each floor strangely staggered, so that the whole building has the feel of a drunken experiment in Lego. We walk to the sixth floor up a floating concrete staircase.

Mr Sylvester is leaning with both arms on the balustrade, his lips pursed in an O. In his flat cap, blazer, tie and slacks, he looks like a retired Major taking his ease on the veranda.
He makes as if to touch the rim of his cap with his index finger as we rise up level with him.
‘Hello chaps,’ he puffs. ‘Sorry to trouble you. It’s the old asthma.’
He has a brown inhaler in his hand and as if to illustrate his condition, takes a couple of ineffective toots.
‘Where’s your blue inhaler, Mr Sylvester?’
‘My whatsit?’
‘Your blue inhaler? Where’s your Ventolin?’
He looks at Rae.
‘What’s he saying?’
‘He’s asking where your blue inhaler is? Have you got one?’
‘No. I ran out.’
‘Well there’s a problem for a start.’
He stares at us for a moment, then says: ‘I suffer with asthma. It’s my asthma playing up.’
‘Let’s go inside the flat and have a chat.’
‘Righto.’
He pushes himself away from his perch and we follow him into a boxy flat so stuffed full of craft material it’s like stepping into a giant workbox: a work table whose sewing machine is stacked around with boxes of thread, bags of scrap material, tiny drawers of pins and buttons, and neatly stacked piles of books on sewing, doll making, embroidery; there are shelves and shelves of DVDs – from Pilates for beginners to Advanced Origami – with just enough room for a black cat asleep next to a book on quilt making; fat reference books, collections of craft magazines in gilt pressed binders, the history of furniture; a knitting machine with a pattern half finished, and bags and bags of yarn overflowing underneath; and then to finish the flat off, in a heaped tangle of colour, a balcony crowded to the panes with potted plants, spindly hanging baskets and trays of little green seedlings.
‘Someone’s good with their hands,’ I say.
‘Hey?’
‘I say someone’s good with their hands. Does a lot of craft.’
‘I don’t know about that. I don’t like to get involved.’
Mr Sylvester sits down in the chair that’s obviously his, a saggy, worn-bare throne with a copy of TV Quick and a half-finished pint mug of orange squash.
‘How’s your breathing?’
‘Terrible. Absolutely terrible.’
But there’s no wheeze, he has no trouble talking, and his complexion is as brown as the chair. The SATS probe reads 98 per cent.
To emphasise his plight he takes another couple of toots on the inhaler.
‘The thing is, Mr Sylvester, as I’m sure you know, there are two types of inhaler. There’s a blue one that you use when you get an acute attack. You can use it as much as you need, and it’s really good in the short term for helping you get your breath. And then there’s a brown one, which is longer-acting – good for building up your lungs over time, but not much good when you’re feeling puffed. So you really need to get yourself a repeat prescription for the blue inhaler, if you’ve run out.’
‘How am I supposed to do that, then?’
‘Do you not go out much, then?’
‘Go out?’
‘Do you go shopping?’
‘Yes. I get the bus into town.’
‘So you could make an appointment at the doctors and get yourself a repeat scrip, then?’
‘I don’t know about that.’
I give up and start taking some obs.
‘Do you live with someone?’ Rae asks him. ‘Who’s your next of kin?’
‘Next of kin? I share the house with Kathleen, if that’s what you mean. She’s not my wife. I don’t want to rock the boat. We’re happy as we are.’
‘That’s lovely. So – is Kathleen at work?’
‘Yes. She’s at work, yes. She’s a good woman. None better.’
‘Where does she work, then?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t like to pry. None of my business.’
‘Is she due back soon?’
‘That’s why I like Kathleen. She’s punctual.’
‘So when’s she due back, then?’
‘Due back? Three, four hours? I don’t know. I don’t like to ask.’
Then he reaches behind him on the mantelpiece, pulls a blue inhaler out from underneath a stack of paper that I realise is a pile of old ambulance forms, gives it a shake, and puts it in his mouth. But the thing just hisses empty. He gives it a couple more shakes, tries once more, then tosses it into a wastepaper basket.
‘That’s it. That’s the one you should be using!’ I say.

He stares at me, then slowly, without saying a word, raises up the brown again, and takes a couple more squirts of that.

the war of two belles

The flat feels like an adult space catastrophically overrun by children. On opposite walls, just out of reach, some club posters, framed rave artwork from the early nineties, and over in a corner, propped up by a computer station, a guitar and a keyboard, both in protective flight bags. But the rest of the room - it’s as if a river of toys has burst its banks and flooded the place; half-opened boxes of games, disassembled dolls, a great tidal line of brightly coloured plastic washed up on every surface when the day receded. There’s just enough clear space for Belle to sit on the edge of the sofa and cry, whilst her husband, Tom, picks through the wreckage in a hunt for tobacco.
‘I can’t do it,’ she says. ‘I just can’t do it anymore.’ Then adds almost immediately, in a strangely off-to-the-side voice, ‘Listen to her. What’s she got to moan about?’
Belle has only taken a small overdose. Six citalopram hardly counts, even with the bottle of wine she washed them down with. But the fact she took them, the fact she came to press the tablets out of their blister pack into her palm, this has flipped her upside down.
‘I’m not normally like this,’ she says. ‘But it’s just all too much for me.’ She smiles at us. ‘Sorry. You’ve got better things to be doing. I don’t want to waste your time.’
‘Come on, babe,’ says Tom, sitting down next to her and putting his arm round her shoulder. ‘I love you. Yeah?’
‘I love you, too, honey.’ But her shoulders are stiff, and very soon Tom gets back up. ‘Where’s the tin?’ he says.
‘I don’t know.’


Tom stays in the flat whilst Belle walks with us out to the ambulance.
‘Can I have a hug?’ she says.
‘Not from me, I’m afraid,’ I say, opening the ambulance door.
‘How embarrassing. Everyone’s looking.’
‘I don’t think so. I don’t suppose they’ll even notice.’
‘Really?’
She throws herself down on a seat, and folds her arms and legs.
I sit opposite, Rae next to her.
‘Tell us what happened tonight, Belle.’
She blows her nose, then looks at me with watery eyes.
‘I do my best. I really do. I try and try and try. But it’s hard. I don’t want to put the kids into nursery. They’re not small for long. I wanted to enjoy them, give them as much as I could. I take them to play groups, they get out and about. But Tom’s started a new business, he’s out all the time – and I mean, all the time. He’s never home. It feels like I’m bringing the kids up by myself. And I get so tired. The kids bicker and fight. They’re having a horrible time. All I do is shout at them. They’re so incredibly demanding. And I get absolutely no time for myself. None. I’ve lost sight of who I am. What I want. I don’t know who I am anymore. We went on a little holiday last week, down to see friends in Dorset, surfing. Well, actually I was looking after the kids. Tom did the surfing.’
Then again, she drops her hands and the other Belle speaks.
‘Hark at her and her poor little hard luck story. God, some people just don’t know when they’re well off.’
I put the clipboard down and rub my eyes.
‘It’s hard,’ I say. ‘Bringing up small children is very, very hard. It’s no wonder you’re struggling. Anyone would.’
‘Would they?’ she says. ‘Did you?’
‘Well for a start me and my partner put both our girls through nursery, even though it was a stretch. We couldn’t have managed if we didn’t. I’m not saying it’s wrong or right. It’s just how we did it. My mum would never have put any of us into nursery even if she could’ve afforded it. She wanted to stay at home and look after us, which isn’t better or worse. It’s just different. Although I think she’d say looking after kids at home is better. Whenever I spoke to her on the phone she’d always end up asking how long their day was, and then sound really shocked. But you have to look at your own circumstances and decide what suits you best.’
‘I don’t have to go to hospital, do I? I don’t want to be locked up and never see my kids again.’
‘No-one’s going to be locking you up tonight, Belle. The only reason to take you to hospital would be to get you to talk to someone about what happened. Our worry would be if you stayed at home you’d do something else to hurt yourself. But you don’t have to go if you don’t want to. We can think of something else.’
‘I feel so stupid. Such a fraud. You’ve got better things to do.’
‘Nope. Not at the moment.’
‘Tom doesn’t understand what it’s like. He’s never there. He comes home and all he wants is something to eat and then go to sleep. He’s exhausted – but so am I. I’m completely exhausted. I get up in the morning and it’s like I never went to bed.’ She looks down and speaks in the other voice. ‘Some wife. There’s her husband trying to make a go of it and the mad bitch brings him down.’
‘I think it’s very difficult to be clear about what you want, and to go about getting it. I think that can make you feel very guilty, which just adds to the pain.’
‘I am guilty,’ she says. ‘My poor kids. They deserve someone better.’
She cries some more. Rae gives her fresh tissues.
When the crisis passes she asks me if I’ve ever done something similar.
‘I’ve never taken an overdose,’ I say.
She laughs.
‘You could at least have lied about it to make me feel better.’
‘I was on anti-depressants for a while, when I got really stressed towards the end of my teaching career.’
‘Did they help?’
‘Yeah, they helped.’
‘How?’
‘They let me stand back from it all and realise that teaching was driving me crazy.’
‘I’m just terrified I’m going to get stuck on them for the rest of my life.’
‘Not this sort. I know what you mean, but they’re not like tranquilisers or sleeping pills. If your doctor’s any good they’ll be able to reassure you. Is your doctor any good?’
‘I don’t like to bother them. They’ve got more important things to be doing.’
There’s a knock on the side door and Tom climbs in.
‘I can’t be long ‘cos of the kids. You going to be all right, babe?’ he says.
She smiles, and accepts a kiss on her forehead.
‘You taking her up the hospital?’
I look at Belle and she nods.
‘Here’s your keys, then, your phone and your purse. Get a taxi back, hon,’ he says. ‘Okay?’
‘Okay.’
He kisses her again and jumps back out.
‘Let’s go,’ she says, this other, tougher Belle. ‘Take the crazy bitch away.’

thirty, thirty-two

Geoff is sitting on the edge of the sofa, his legs pressed together and a pillow clutched to his middle. What light there is spilling in through the sitting room window is absorbed by the pallor of his face, flat as cream.
Alan, his partner, stands over by the mantelpiece and folds his arms.
I go over to Geoff and squat down beside him.
‘What’s happened, then?’
‘I was sick,’ he whispers. ‘I threw up blood.’
‘He threw up loads of blood. Three times. I’m so worried,’ says Alan, unfolding his arms, then straightaway folding them again.
‘Have you been feeling unwell through the day?’ I ask Geoff, feeling his pulse. Regular, sufficient.
‘No. I was fine.’
‘Did you get any warning you were going to be sick?’
‘Some. We’d eaten, I felt a bit dizzy, and when I came in here to lie down on the sofa I had to rush into the bathroom.’
‘Have you flushed the toilet since?’
‘I left it in case you wanted to look.’
‘Let’s see.’
I leave Geoff sitting there and follow Alan into the bathroom.
It’s a startling effect: the bathroom brightly lit, scrubbed and neat, a linear pattern of clean grouting, bleached white shower curtains, chrome towel rails, cute trinkets and mirrors – and then a splattered brown and red mess around the rim of the toilet. Inside, the bowl is full and dark.
‘And Geoff has thrown up like this three times?’
‘Yes. God – what do you think it is?’
We go back into the sitting room.
‘Do you have any pain at the moment?’ I ask him, putting on a SATS probe.
‘No.’
‘Any other strange feelings anywhere?’
‘No. A bit dizzy still, that’s it.’
‘What medical problems do you have?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Any family history of anything? Stomach ulcers, digestive problems? Anything like that?’
‘No.’
‘Any recent operations?’
‘No. Except for some root canal treatment. But that was two years ago.’
‘And your health has been okay recently?’
‘Fine.’
‘Let’s have a feel of your tummy.’
He lies back and pulls up his t-shirt. Everything looks okay.
‘Tell me if anything hurts.’
The only time he winces is when I press to the right of his abdomen, about where his liver is.
‘Eating and drinking okay?’
‘Yes.’
‘What about alcohol? How much would you say you got through a week?’
‘Nothing much. Hardly anything.’
‘Bowel movements all right?’
‘Yes.’
‘And nothing out of the ordinary in any other respect?’
‘No. What’s wrong? What’s the matter with me?’
‘I don’t know, Geoff. It looks like you’ve had a significant bleed either from your stomach or high up in your digestive system, but I don’t know why. It’s a trip to hospital, I’m afraid.’
He starts to cry.
‘Why didn’t I listen? Why?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You have to tell them everything, Geoff. They have to know.’
‘Know what?’
‘It’s so embarrassing,’ he sobs. ‘I can’t bear it.’
‘What? What’s been happening?’
Alan sits down with him on the sofa and takes his hand.
‘He’s been using pain killers. Nurofen Plus.’
‘Okay. How many?’
Alan hands him a tissue. Geoff blows his nose, collects himself, then stares down at his hands as they gently tear the tissue into pieces.
‘Thirty, thirty two,’ he whispers.
‘A day?’
‘I knew it was bad but I just couldn’t help myself.’
‘For how long?’
‘Since the tooth operation.’
‘Two years?’
‘About that.’ He looks up. ‘I’ve done some damage, haven’t I? I knew I would but I couldn’t stop myself. What’s going to happen to me?’
‘First things first,’ I say. ‘Let’s get some shoes on, keys, phone, wallet. Let’s get you up the hospital where we can start to get you better.’
Alan gets the stuff together whilst Geoff sits quietly.
‘It’s so embarrassing,’ he says.
‘It’s an addiction, that’s all. It’s been a problem for a while, but today’s the day you start to do something about it.’
‘I’ve taken so many, though.’
‘You have. But it’s surprising how many people are in the same boat. One step at a time, though. Let’s get you to a doctor and see what they have to say. There’s lots to be done.’
He rolls the shredded tissue into a ball and tosses it into a bin.
Alan comes over with his slippers.

bogof

Lucy plucks at her nightie and grimaces.
‘It’s bothering me now, this pain,’ she says. ‘I woke up with it.’
‘Are you all right, Loo?’ says her identical twin sister Margery, leaning forward in the chair opposite. ‘Should I fetch the doctor?’
‘We’re taking Loo to the hospital,’ Frank tells her. ‘They’ve got doctors there.’
‘I’ll be fine, Moo,’ Lucy says. ‘Don’t fret.’
Ninety-five the pair, the only difference between them is their dress. Lucy is still in her nightie, a long and rigid thing that could well be made out of greaseproof paper. She has a handful of curlers carefully rolled up in her hair and kept in place by a hairnet, and a pair of clumping slippers like scooped white tin loaves on her feet. Margery has dressed herself already, though, even though it’s barely five in the morning, the sky a luminous aquamarine and the sea slopping gently over the shore just a zimmer’s throw from the kitchen window. Her red cardigan matches her lipstick, which she has put on as carefully as she can, most of the way across.

Standing here in their flat is like standing on the set of Poirot, every detail meticulously observed, from the Bakelite switches, the silvered mirror hung by a chain, to the mahogany standard lamp, the gramophone and the ceramic dancing girls wafting about on the mantelpiece.
‘Moo will have to come,’ says Lucy. ‘She can’t stay here on her own.’
‘No. That’s fine. Just so long as you realise that you may be in for some time and she’ll have to make her own way back.’
‘Well she obviously can’t do that. I shall have to bring her. How long did you say I’ll be in?’
‘Hard to say. Quite long. And then they might decide to keep you in.’
‘Keep me in? Why ever would they keep me in?’
‘I’m not saying they will. I’m saying they might.’
‘Well if I’m to be kept in, Moo will, too.’
‘How?’
‘In a bed, of course.’
‘It doesn’t work like that.’
‘Why not? It’s a hospital, isn’t it? They have beds.’
‘Yes, but..’
‘If I can have a bed, so can she.’
‘Maybe hospitals used to do that, Lucy, but they don’t any more. They don’t have the room.’
‘You are taking me to the big hospital? In town?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then they’ll have room. Moo can’t stay here on her own. Someone has to make sure she takes her medicine. She’s not well, you know.’
Whilst we talk we make steady but irresistible movements towards going. I put the carry chair together. We shepherd Lucy into it.
‘I need to take Moo’s medicine with me. It’s in a big green plastic bag in the second bedroom. Could you fetch it, please? And my address book. I shall need to make some calls once I’m there. You’ll find it on the hall table. And there’s a small blue bag of toiletries in the bathroom.’
‘Let’s get you on the ambulance, Lucy. We’ll come back for all this stuff in a minute.’
‘So long as you don’t forget.’
Margery stares vacantly as we click the strap around Lucy’s arms.
‘Where are you going?’ she says.
‘To the hospital.’
‘And you’re coming, too,’ says Frank.
‘Oh. Good. Just a minute,’ she says, making a tiny movement forwards, but then immediately stopping, and forgetting what she was about to do, settling back down in the chair.

***

A few moments later I’m climbing back into the ambulance after having fetched the bag of medicines, the address book, the bag of toiletries. Lucy is sitting on the trolley, with Margery holding her hand from the nearest seat.
‘Here you are,’ I say, handing her the bag.
‘That’s the wrong bag. And did you get the address book?’
‘Yes. Look. Here.’
Lucy takes it, flicks through, sighs heavily and tosses it back.
‘And that’s the wrong address book,’ she says. ‘It’s out of date.’
‘It was the only one on the phone table,’ I say pathetically.
But I flip it open, and it strikes me that not one of the spidery numbers written there has an area code.

in a passing place

Looking out through the ambulance window is like looking through the side of a spinning zoetrope, the dark countryside cut up, run off in rippling blue panels of detail. We’re a long way out now. The road leans and turns, banked up steeply on either side with trees, stone walls, the sudden shock of a lighted window, a figure pressed back in a hedge, everything snapped and gone before you’ve really seen it, whilst high around us, beyond the manic play of our lights, bearing down like a wave, the massy black curve of the downs.
‘Half a mile. Should have its hazards on.’
The notes tell us the baby’s head is crowning.
‘Five hundred yards.’

And then we see it, tucked over in a passing place, an estate car with its lights flashing, the front doors open.

Frank puts the ambulance behind it, shielding it from the bend, and leaves the scene lights on. I hurry out of the truck to the passenger side of the car, whilst he fetches out the maternity pack.

Melissa is half-lying back on the seat that her husband Seth has wound down as far as he can. She is holding a glistening baby to her breast, wrapped in a bath towel; Seth is sitting sideways in the driver’s seat, his arms outstretched around the two of them.
‘Thank God. Thank God,’ Melissa says, her lips cracked and dry. ‘I don’t know what to do.’
‘Is it a boy or a girl?’ says Seth.
‘Let’s have a look. It’s a boy!’
‘Hello Eli,’ she says. ‘Welcome to the world.’
Eli squalls and hollers, bunching his wrinkled mitts in his face, blindly fumbling towards her breast.

More blue lights; a police car pulls up behind our ambulance.
‘A driver rang saying he’d heard screaming in a lay-by,’ says a police woman, striding over then hanging back, rising up on her toes for a peek, smiling.
‘Ahh!’ says her mate.
‘This is hilarious, ridiculous,’ says Seth. ‘I never imagined anything like this.’
‘Everything’s fine. You’re doing brilliantly.’
‘What happens now? I just don’t know what to do,’ says Melissa.
‘You’ve done it, Melissa. You’ve given birth to a beautiful little boy. All we need do is get ready to deliver the placenta. We’re ready to clamp the chord now - look. Would you like to cut it, Seth?’
I hand the scissors to him, he makes two or three snips, and the chord is through. I give him a couple of clean white blankets; he takes Eli out of the soiled towel, wraps him up snugly, then hands him back into Melissa’s arms again to suckle. After ten minutes I try to help the placenta along by rubbing up some contractions; Melissa begins to moan harder and push, and eventually in a slow gush of blood and liquor, the placenta flops out into my hands. I put it into a bowl and pass it back to Frank. I wave a bloody glove in the air at the two police women, and they wave back.

***

Five minutes later we’re posing for photos at the back of the ambulance. Seth’s camera gets passed around, variations on angles and backgrounds, but central to it all, Melissa and Eli enthroned on the trolley, the baby happily suckling, and a pale host of moths tumbling around us through the night.

A car drives past, slows briefly, speeds up.

‘What must they think?’ laughs Seth.
‘A major incident.’
‘A little miracle.’
‘We’d better get off.’
Whilst we load the trolley Seth packs the child seat back in the car and makes himself ready to follow.

We leave the police women standing by their patrol car, speaking into their radios, as we set off in convoy for the hospital.

strawberry wedge

Marion is wedged tight, utterly filling the narrow concrete space, like a character balloon inflated to fit a shoebox.
‘I’ve made a right fool of myself,’ she gasps. ‘I’ve ruined your strawberries, Geoff.’
‘Never mind about the strawberries.’
Geoff is standing next to me, a big man himself, sweating in a plaid shirt. ‘We’ve tried everything but we ran out of ideas,’ he says.
Behind us on the unlit patio, the other party guests carry on drinking and smoking at a picnic table as if nothing of any note is happening. I feel like a magician in a downbeat club, his flashiest trick – freeing the lady from the box – falling flat. No one’s the least bit interested.
‘How long’s she been down there?’
‘About half an hour. We gave her a drink.’
I run the flashlight over her again.
Marion has fallen backwards into an unguarded light well – a narrow concrete box about a foot wide, three deep, five long. Her knees are crooked up and her arms pushed forwards at the shoulder. The only injury she appears to have is a sprained wrist, but that’s the least of her worries.
Frank shakes his head. ‘Let’s get another crew along,’ he says.
Whilst we wait for them to arrive, I climb down into the tiny space available at the head end, and explore the problem from close up.
‘I need to pee’ she says. ‘That’s where I was headed when I fell in.’
‘We’ll soon have you out,’ I say to her, but it’s not going to be easy.
I unhook a hanging basket of strawberries swinging from an ornate iron bracket over our heads.
‘I’m lying on the other one,’ she says. ‘Sorry Geoff.’
‘Never mind about that,’ he says. ‘I can grow more strawberries.’
Someone laughs in the group around the patio table, but I think it’s unconnected. Cigarette smoke drifts across. The night is tall and cool above us. ‘Good job you landed face up,’ I say to her. ‘Could be worse.’
‘Could be worse,’ she says, bug-eyed, her face congested in the flashlight. ‘Can’t think how, but I’m sure you’re right.’
Frank reappears with a big grey bag full of manual handling equipment. He takes out the Mangar Elk – an inflatable mattress designed to lift heavy people off the floor. I slide it as far as I can under her back, and we inflate a few layers. It helps raise her up a bit, but not enough to get her out, and the confined space stops it inflating any more. Frank produces a lifting belt around her waist, and we’re struggling to fit it into position just as the second crew arrives. It breaks when we all grab hold and pull.
‘Much more of this and we’ll have to get the Brigade in,’ says Frank.
‘What will they do?’ asks Geoff.
‘Smash up the concrete with jack hammers I should think.’
‘Oh.’
‘Are there any more crisps or have we run out?’ someone shouts over from the picnic table.

Frank produces a couple of detachable seat belts from the lifting bag. We slip them around her shoulders and hips, then tie off the loose ends down her middle, an arrangement that makes her look like a big punnet of fruit with an orange handle. But even with this we can’t get her up; the flesh of her sides and hips is pressed against the rough plaster of the box and won’t let her up.
‘Let’s get the brigade running,’ I say to Frank. ‘We can try with the sliding sheets whilst we’re waiting.’
He makes the call, then fetches out a sliding sheet. Between us we tuck it as best we can between Marion and the wall. When we’ve all got a good hold and our feet in position, we haul on the orange belts. She lets out an enormous fart.
‘Sorry!’ she says.
‘Well I think it made a bit of room,’ I say – and she does rise up an inch or two more. But there’s still just too much friction between her sides and the wall, so we relax her back down again.
‘Let’s try stuffing the sliding sheet down both sides. If that doesn’t work, the brigade’ll have to tear the place up.’
Geoff blanches.
‘In a controlled way,’ I tell him.
‘Let’s get her legs up and lying on the edge of the wall first. She can’t weight bear, so we may as well.’
I manage to pull her legs up and out. Marion moans; I ask her if she’s okay.
‘I just feel such a fool,’ she says. ‘And I’ve ruined your strawberries, Geoff.’
‘Are you sure you didn’t bang your head?’ I ask her.
‘Positive. The only thing I’ve hurt is my wrist and my dignity.’
We rearrange the sheets again, then take a fresh grip and count down to the final effort. Just as the fire brigade are coming through the house, we haul Marion out of the well and up onto the patio flagstones, where she lies panting and swearing.
‘Everything all right then, chaps?’ says the fire officer.
‘Yep. Just managed to get her out.’
‘Excellent.’
He looks down at the hole and frowns.
‘Oh dear. Doesn’t look all that safe. You should really have that covered. Someone could have an accident.’
Geoff slaps him on the shoulder. ‘I’ll see to it in the morning.’

We help Marion into a sitting position. One of her friends hands her down a cigarette.
‘Can I have this?’ she says, already puffing away.
‘I think you’ve earned it.’
‘I bet you all think I’m a right fool.’
‘I’m the fool,’ says Geoff, wiping his face with a handkerchief. ‘All those hunky firemen and I didn’t get a single number.’

sirens or seagulls

The church has been converted into a hostel for the homeless. The old, iron banded oak doors stand open, but the security doors at the far end of the lobby are controlled by staff from behind a Plexiglas control room. We’re buzzed through. A young female warden with a radio shows us up a wide steel staircase that leads up a couple of turns to the first mezzanine floor and its living quarters. But there is another female warden kneeling on the floor on that landing, beside the supine figure of a man. The bottom part of the central stained glass window of the church rises up beyond them; behind a dirty grill, crapped up, barely distinguishable, a huddle of angels looking up with dread towards the next steel joist.
‘Nick has had a lot to drink. He suffers from psychotic episodes, which the drink only makes worse, obviously. We were escorting him off the premises because he’d been aggressive to some of the other residents, and he fell down a couple of steps and landed with a bit of a thump. We just wanted you to reassure us he was all right, really. I think he is, but there you are. We’ve called the police but we’ve no idea when they’ll get here. Could you find out for us?’
Frank radios control whilst I check Nick over. He opens his eyes to look at me. He’s obviously drunk, but seems oriented and doesn’t have any obvious injuries. He hasn’t fallen far, and I’m not about to try to restrain a drunk psychotic patient on a back board. He sits up of his own accord, then pulls himself up to full height.
‘Take it easy, Nick.’
I move the bag and board off to one side, out of the way.
‘What are you doing?’
‘We’re just checking to make sure you’re all right, mate. You had a bit of a fall.’
‘I want to go to my room.’
The second warden puts her hand on his shoulder.
‘You can’t go back, Nick. You’re going to have to leave for the night. You know why.’
‘No. Why?’
‘We’ve been through all this.’
He looks around him with low-lidded vacancy. He’s wearing a denim cut off jacket but no shirt; his skin is covered with crude tattoos pricked out in blue black ink. Dragons, skulls – and the word GOD, with the O centred on his belly button.
‘I want to go to sleep. I want to go back to my room.
‘Why don’t you come with us to the hospital so someone can keep an eye on you, Nick?’
‘I don’t want no fuckin’ hospital.’
‘Okay mate.’
‘The police haven’t got any units to assign just yet,’ says Frank. ‘They’ll update us as soon as they can.’
The second woman looks at me.
‘What do you think? Do you think he’s all right? He went down with a crash, but he didn’t knock himself out or anything.’
‘I would think he’s probably okay, but I can’t say for sure because of the drink.’
‘We’ve got to have him out, I’m afraid.’
Nick turns slowly to look at her.
‘You throwing me out?’
‘Not throwing you out, Nick. You just can’t stay here tonight. You know why.’
‘You throwing me out?’
‘Tonight, yes.’
‘I have to go back and get my fags.’
‘You can’t go back to your room, Nick. I’ll get your fags for you if you go with these gentlemen down to the lobby. I’ll fetch your fags.’
‘I want my fags.’
‘We’ll get your fags. Just go with these kind people.
Frank steps in.
‘I’ll give you one of mine outside and we can have a smoke. Come on. Let’s go.’
Nick turns to walk down the stairs. I’m by his left side, with Frank and the two wardens going ahead. I hand one of them the board and bag. ‘Hold these for us, would you?’ I say.
Two steps down and Nick suddenly climbs up onto the railings and tries to launch himself down the stairwell. I just manage to grab the lapel of his waistcoat – enough to slow him up and for Frank to reach over and grab the belt of his jeans. We have him suspended over the drop, twenty feet down onto the tiled lobby below. Nick whips and turns, trying to free our grip, reaching out beyond himself and grabbing on to the railings the other side of the drop; he tries to pull himself out of our control, and then go. But with my other hand I manage to loosen his grip, and then with one main effort we haul him back over the railings and down onto the stairs. As soon as he lands he starts trying to get up, to punch Frank, kicking and writhing, but I’ve still got hold of his top half and block off his swing so he can’t connect; Frank kneels on his side and finally we manage to close down his options. We’re all sweating, and breathing hard.
‘Could you get the radio out of my pocket?’ Frank asks me. I alter my grip enough to free a hand up to do that. Frank makes a Code 20 emergency call.
‘Police back up urgently, please.’
One of the female wardens is sobbing in a corner of the staircase. The other one speaks to her and she runs off to the office.
‘Are you guys okay?’ she says to us.
‘Yep. We’re fine.’
‘My god.’
Nick lies beneath us breathing heavily. Then he slows down and starts to talk.
‘I’m a freak. I’m not afraid to die,’ he says. ‘I’m a freak and I’m going to find out where you live. I’m going to put you in so much pain. I’m going to put you in pain you wouldn’t believe, and then I’m going to kill you. Are you afraid to die, my friend? You will be.’
I try to counter his aggression with banality.
‘Dear oh dear,’ I say to him. ‘I think that’s a bit of an over-reaction? We’re only here to help, Nick. I think you’re being a bit silly.’
‘Silly?’ he says. ‘You’re silly, you cunt. You’re silly and I’m going to kill you.’
The remaining warden says: ‘I can hear sirens.’
We all listen.
‘Sirens – or seagulls,’ I say.
‘Don’t’ she says.
But it is sirens. A minute later two police officers come running up the staircase. Frank briefs them, and they take over control of Nick with brutal efficiency. When Nick is safely cuffed and trussed, we help them haul him down the stairs.

***

Outside in the street, we watch the van arrive and Nick get loaded up. Frank smokes his fag. The moon is full and bright in the sky.
‘So where are all these football jobs then?’ I say, arching my back, stretching my arms left and right.
Frank spits into the gutter.
‘They’re all too fucking depressed to be any trouble,’ he says.

a triple alignment

2010. Midsummer in the Northern Hemisphere, six days past Summer solstice, 23° 26', the point of maximum inclination of the earth’s rotational axis towards the sun. The nights will lengthen, the days shorten. There will be a full moon on Sunday 27th June.

2010. FIFA World Cup. England will qualify as Group C runners up for the last 16. Through to the knockout stage, they will play Germany at the Free State Stadium, Bloemfontein at 3pm, Sunday 27th June.

2010. A weather system of high pressure will settle over the south, leading to a continuation and intensification of unusually high temperatures for the time of year. The hottest night of the year - light winds, clear skies - will be on Sunday 27th June.

Moon. Match. Mugginess: a triple alignment.

Working a night shift. [Holy crap]

imbalances

The house door is held open by an iron cat. We ring the bell and hear something like a rusty shop bell clattering deep within.
‘Hello? Ambulance?’
Frank pushes the door open a little further.
‘Someone’s not paid the bill.’
A long and narrow hallway leads off ahead of us, utterly dark, what little light there is from the street lamps unable to penetrate the dense gloom further than the threshold.
‘Hello?’
Frank fumbles around on the wall to his right trying to locate a switch. Suddenly a voice from the end of the corridor: ‘Hey guys. Come on in.’
There’s something coolly settled about the voice, like a birdwatcher speaking in a hide. Frank finds a switch and an overhead bulb snicks on, lighting up a tall man standing at the far end hugging a carrier bag of possessions to his chest. The man seems momentarily stunned, then says: ‘Did you guys want to come in and chat, or are you fixing to go straight off?’
‘Well seeing as you’re on your feet, let’s just go out to the vehicle.’
‘Sure. No problem.’ As he turns to lock his door we both go back outside.
‘Yeah – like I’m going down for a chat in there,’ says Frank to me out of the corner of his mouth.
‘Champagne service,’ the man says loudly, suddenly right behind us. He strides on ahead to the ambulance.
‘Right,’ says Frank.

***

Even though the man is sitting down, his long frame fills the ambulance to such an extent it seems to tip in his direction. He is wearing a knitted black suit and patterned blue shirt, with an expression on his face as heavy as his clothes: his widely-spaced brown eyes are strangely flattened out, and there is a slack fall to the cheeks beneath them, a smooth drop, livid as wet clay.
I offer to take his bag, but he grips on to it.
‘No. Thanks. I’m good with that.’
‘So,’ says Frank, sitting down on the trolley. ‘We haven’t been told very much.’
‘What’s to tell? Unless you know more’n you’re letting on – which wouldn’t surprise me. Do you?’
‘No. We were just told breathing problems?’
‘Breathing problems? No. That’s not it at all. Breathing problems? Why would they say that? Jeez. Now you really do have me worried.’
‘Never mind. Just tell us why we’re here tonight.’
‘I bet you’re thinking – damned Yankee! I wouldn’t blame you. But I’ve been here a while, just never lost the accent. So I s’pose I must qualify for something or other. I married a Brit, but she left me. I guess she had her reasons, nothing no rational person could identify.’
‘How are you in yourself?’
‘Me? Good. I’m good. Excepting for this damned infection I can’t seem to get on top of. I was in hospital with it, discharged, but now it looks like it’s flaring up again.’
‘And that’s why we’re here? You have an infection somewhere?’
‘That’s why you’re here, sir.’
‘Okay.’
‘Right.’
He looks at us.
‘I don’t want to be a nuisance,’ he says.

***

At the hospital he ducks quickly out of the ambulance like a marine sprinting out of a helicopter.
‘I gotta have a cigarette before I go in that place,’ he says, pulling a pack out of his jacket and shaking it. ‘You guys don’t mind, d’you?’
‘I’ll go on in and book you in.’
‘Thanks, man.’
He sparks up, and leaves the cigarette in his mouth as we talk. It bobs up and down at the corner of his lips.
‘So why were you sitting in the dark?’ I ask him.
‘Why was I sitting in the dark? Because I wanted to see that no-good son-of-a-bitch landlord if he came in. I wanted to have the drop on him.’
‘Why? What’s going on?’
‘Nothing. He’s crazy, s’all. He tried to have me killed.’
‘Why?’
‘When I first move in I pass him and his girlfriend in the hall. So I was nice and polite, say hi and how’re ya, looking straight at her – and there’s my mistake right there. Turns out he’s jealous. Next thing I know, he’s hiring three guys to whack me in the pub. But I’m pretty handy. I went to him next day and say “Hey, fella. What’s going on? What were you thinking?” Of course he said nothing, being a rather yellow livered individ’al. But from then on he’s been up to stuff.’
‘What like?’
‘Banging on the walls, constantly. All through the night.’
‘Can’t you move?’
He looks at me, takes the fag out of his mouth and spits off to the side.
‘Where?’ he says.

Silence. The A&E parking lot is filled with vehicles, but strangely there’s no-one about. It feels eerie, as if people have abandoned everything in a hurry.

‘Yeah,’ he continues. ‘My wife left me. I tried to find out why but there’s a point where logic and emotion separate. And you know what? I think there’s a whole area for research that’s being neglected because it ain’t PC and it don’t make for comfortable reading.’
‘What’s that, then?’
‘The effect of hormonal imbalances on the female psyche. I’ve done some work on it myself, but you meet the same, stonewalling attitudes. I rang up this female neurologist. As soon as I started to ask about the effect of oestrogen on a woman’s ability to think rationally, she hung up on me. It’s obvious, but you’re just not allowed to even think it. Women are making bad decisions day in day out for no other reason than their hormones are up the shit, but nothing’s done about it, families suffer, marriages break down, all for what?’
Frank saunters over.
‘All booked in,’ he says. ‘Finished your cigarette?’
The man drops it and grinds it out beneath is boot.
‘Breathing difficulties!’ he laughs. ‘Well I reckon the smoking’s fixed that.’

how do I look?

The scaffolders have taken their shirts off. The younger one has a smooth, wiry body, and the few tattoos he has up either arm look as fresh and unconvincing as stickers. The two older guys are tried and tougher versions, though. They parade the area of pavement between the truck and the building, great urban silverbacks, territorial grunts and shouts, low-slung bellies on lower-slung jeans, slopping the dregs of their tea into the gutter whilst scrappy England flags snap against the blue sky on poles stuck up behind the cab.
‘Oi oi! Here comes the cavalry!’ they shout as we walk towards the door with our bags. One of the bigger guys grabs the smaller one round the neck and rubs the top of his head with his knuckles. ‘Take him. He’s useless. I think his brain’s gone off in the heat.’
There’s a tray of tea things left on the little stone steps outside the house, china cups on a dark wooden tray, a stainless steel tea pot.
‘Where are our biscuits?’ Frank says back to them as I ring the buzzer.
‘Fackin’ hob nobs, mate. We scarfed the lot.’
Frank shakes his head.
‘You’re gonna need a bigger ladder.’


The tall Regency house rises up behind the scaffolding like an old weathered cake on a seaside theme, a lighthouse set against a cliff of butter cream. The central frontage is a delicate semi-circle, each floor marked with a sash window, the whole building more attractive for the battered face it presents. It looks like a well-loved toy; if the scaffolding was taken away, you could imagine a giant hand unclipping the front, swinging it out, and reaching in to arrange the furniture.

We’re buzzed through.

Inside the hallway a serpentine staircase rises up steeply through the core of the building, a dizzying six storeys, to a skylight visible through the centre, a bright cupola of glass and iron and the segmented sky beyond.

We begin the ascent.

Half way up we hear a woman calling down to us.
‘Keep coming. Don’t give up. Almost there.’

Diana is waiting for us on the top landing. A small, square woman in her eighties, she seems as well put together as the house, a formidable pastel construction, the light pink of her lipstick matching the darker pink of her skirt, her arms folded across a lavender silk chemise, her white hair tightly coiffed like a mother of pearl hat, each earlobe clipped with an ivory button.
‘The silly old fool’s through here,’ she says, turning. ‘He bished his head on the wall.’

We follow her into the flat.

Stanley is sitting on an Ottoman with a bloody tea towel tied around his forehead.
‘Are they here, darling?’ he says, turning his head awkwardly and seeing nothing. ‘Are they here?’
‘Hello, Stanley. We hear you’ve had a bit of a fall. Try not to move until we’ve had a look at you.’
‘Righto.’
He has a faded military bluster. Prominently displayed on a shelf behind him is a portrait of a man in uniform, straight-backed and serious with a young family beneath the protective wing of his outstretched arm. Time has moved on from that formal arrangement, effecting its usual blessings and depredations, but one thing that hasn’t changed over much is the moustache. Sixty years and still twitching, a bristling little Captain’s nose brush, ready for action.

Whilst I clean and dress the cut over his eye, Frank sits on the edge of a tasselled foot stool and asks him to tell us what happened.

‘This damned slipper,’ he says, stamping his right foot. ‘It tried to kill me.’
‘Darling. Please.’
‘Well honestly. It’s the stupidest thing. I was getting up to go to the lavatory when this damned slipper..’
‘Darling!’
‘Well it is! And I give you fair warning, this wretched article is headed straight for the bin. Followed by me, no doubt.’
‘I don’t think it’s that serious.’
‘No? Then why can’t I see out of my left eye?’
‘Because the tea towel has fallen down over it. There. Better?’
‘Oh. Right. Anyway. This damned slipper. It’s been waiting its moment for years and now this. Pitched me head first into a wall. Darling, did I damage anything?’
‘Your head do you mean?’
‘No. The wall.’
‘Darling there’s just the teensiest smudge of awfulness there but I can clean that up. It’s you we’re worried about.’
‘Me? You needn’t worry about me. Tough as old Harry.’

The living room has a studied air, discretely hung with framed prints and paintings of Georgian ladies strolling along the promenade; barges on the Thames; elongated horsemen riding to hounds; decorous skirmishes on the Hindu Kush. Tastefully arranged ceramic pigs ranked in strict height order to a tall floral lampshade and a bronze St George apparently pole vaulting over a dragon.

‘Are we done?’ he says, impatiently bobbing his head. ‘How do I look?’
‘You look an absolute fright,’ his wife tells him. ‘Now be quiet, darling. I have to phone and cancel my appointment with Dr Nick Nack or whatever he’s called.’
She hangs on the phone, playing with the white lead and tutting as she makes it through each of the automated options.
‘Really!’ she mutters. ‘I simply want to be connected.’

Stanley has to go in to have the cut above his eye properly cleaned and glued.
‘Will you be okay on the stairs?’
‘If I can hold on to you I’ll be fine,’ he says. ‘Lead on.’

At the top of the stairs he grips the banister and builds himself up for the descent. I stand in front of him, ready to walk down backwards and play catch if necessary, with Frank on his left holding on to his arm. We’re all set to go when Stanley suddenly shouts ‘Kelly! Kelly!’ as loud as he can down the stair well. Diana comes rushing out.
‘What on earth are you doing? You’ll have the whole building out. Be quiet!’ she says.
Stanley turns to look as far as he can over his shoulder.
‘I just wanted Kelly to see me in all these bandages,’ he says.
‘Oh darling,’ Diane says. ‘Do you really think she’s interested?’
‘Who’s Kelly?’ I ask him.
‘Kelly! The other love of my life.’
‘Come on, Casanova,’ says Frank. ‘One step at a time. Down we go.’

henry upstairs

The additional notes to the job are succinct: man, hates himself. We see a police car outside the entrance to the flats, so there’s no need asking for anything else. I park up behind it, slowing to a crawl to allow for the crowds of lunchtime shoppers to make room. We jump out and ring the intercom.
‘Has someone been murdered?’ asks the owner of the shop next door.
I shrug and smile. We’re buzzed through.

Dove Court has an out of time feel. The arcade of shops beneath the Thirties flats must once have been smart haberdasheries, milliners, gentleman’s outfitters. But those high end businesses have been superseded by charity shops, gift shops, everything under a pound shops, the arcade’s former glories detectable only in faint architectural traces – a fan of leaded glass there above a doorway, the elaborate black and white mosaic beneath our feet.

The lobby to Dove Court is protected by a substantial oak door. It has a besieged look, battered and scoured by the intervening years. There is an automatic closure arm above it, a mechanism so fierce it only allows us the minimum of width or time before it slams shut again.

In contrast to the bright high street, the lobby is cool and shadowed. There is a rounded oak desk to our left, but the last concierge must have palmed his last threepence fifty years ago. Now the office behind it is boarded up, and the counter littered with uncollected post. There is a cakey scent to the air, a spidery-footed mustiness that would have even the most negligent surveyor reaching for his damp meter. But at least the lift works. We head up to the fourth floor.

Incredibly, the first and second floors seem to be given over to offices – a furtive little import/export business, a herbalist with a human figure covered in arcane symbols and a name scrawled in thick green ink. The lift passes on up and then judders to a halt. We are confronted by an elegant wooden board with gilt arrows pointing left and right. The flat we need has no number but we could guess which one it is; the pane of glass in the front door has been put in and replaced by a rough piece of plywood; the lock edge of the door has recently been reinforced.

We knock once and step inside.

The tacky grab beneath our boots confirms what our noses already tell us: this is a filthy place. The carpet, such as it is, has a patchwork flowering of puce, brown and black stains; bin bags spilling with rubbish are placed here and there, clouds of flies bustling up as we pick our way around them; empty bottles of vodka are interspersed with two litre plastic milk cartons filled with urine; there is a half eaten plate of macaroni on the floor beneath the computer table, so dreadful even the flies seem to be erring on the side of caution.

A long, thin man in a shiny grey nylon shirt is sitting up on a camp bed. He pushes his filthy glasses back up his nose and smiles at us, a ghastly expression, involving a dropping of his scrubby white jaw and a generalised exposure of a rack of glistening teeth. A police officer is standing with his hands tucked inside his stab vest, looking at him. The contrast between the two is profound: the man, in a state of utter degradation, the police officer, fit and sharp and powerful. We nod and say hello to them both.

‘Guys, this is Henry. I’ve only just got here myself so I can’t tell you much. We got a call to a possible suicide, not sure where it originated. Your man Henry obviously has a few problems at the moment – I’ll leave you to get some more information whilst I just go over here – and open… this… window.’

We need to work quickly – for our benefit, not the patient. It doesn’t seem as if Henry has taken an overdose or hurt himself in any way, but he obviously can’t stay here.
Henry puts his hands together in an attitude of prayer.
‘Please help me,’ he says. ‘I’ve reached rock bottom.’
Rae sends me back down to the ambulance to get a chair.

I’m as quick as I can be. Back at the front door I try the ambulance trick of taking off my gloves and using them to stop the door closing, but the robotic arm is so fierce it spits them straight out onto the pavement. It’s just started to rain and the air is wonderfully clear and fresh. I look out for the inquisitive shop keeper, but he’s gone back inside. The crowds along the street are busy and bright and full of the affairs of the morning. The contrast is dizzying - the shoppers on one level, the destitute man on another, living in close proximity but as removed from each other as two entirely distinct species.

I troop back upstairs with the chair. Henry throws his arms and legs about in a panic about leaving his bed. It takes some firm persuasion and tactical manoeuvring to get him into the chair whilst maintaining minimal contact. Once he’s on board we wrap the blanket around him. We leave enough to make a little hood – ostensibly to guard against the rain, but in reality to put something between me and his fetid hair.

‘Bit of a fly problem you have here,’ I say as Rae straps him in.
‘I know,’ he says, struggling to free his arms. ‘It’s those bloody foreigners.’

The police officer shakes his head grimly, and holds the door.

strictly for the horses

Emil is waiting outside the house as we pull up. He sprints round to the back of the ambulance as we park; by the time I make it round there, he has the door open and is busy packing himself up into a tidy bundle.
‘I’m not as bad as I was,’ he says, gripping on to the arm rests, scrunched up on the seat with all the ease of a daddy long legs hiding in a matchbox. ‘I couldn’t get my breath, but I had a cigarette and that took the edge off it.’
‘So,’ I say, settling down opposite him on the stretcher, Rae standing by the ECG and BP machine, unfurling the cuff and probe. ‘Tell us all about it.’
‘I’ll be honest with you, yeah? I did a line of Ketamine. I’ve done it before, I’ve done it a thousand times. I’m getting help for it. It’s nothing.’
‘What’s different today?’
He licks his lips and his focus scatters around the inside of the vehicle. After a while it comes back down into him, and he reabsorbs it, and carries on.
‘So. Oh. Yeah. I snorted the gear, lay down and drifted off. But then Gary came in and asked if I wanted anything to drink, and I said yeah okay, so he got me some tea, and when I went to drink, my throat had gone all weird and I couldn’t swallow. So then I got a bit panicky, and Gary kept asking me if I was all right, which made me worse, and then my face went all numb, and I proper freaked out, and called you guys. And I’m sorry if I’ve wasted your time.’
‘Don’t worry about that, Emil. Just tell me – have you had an anxiety attack before?’
‘Yeah. Anxiety. Yeah.’
Rae reads out the BP and SATS results. As I write them down I say to him:
‘A bit ironic, isn’t it?’
‘What is?’
‘You take Ketamine. A hard core tranquiliser. And you get an anxiety attack.’
He stares at me, his eyes fat with chemical, then after a pause that lasts about a hundred years, he says very carefully:
‘No. Ketamine is a dissociative anaesthetic.’

early morning speechless

0200

The teenage girl is down on all fours on the pavement outside the pub, a look of anguish on her face, her long hair hanging perilously close to the splatterings of vomit beneath her; she looks like William Blake’s Nebuchadnezzar, but given a Miley Cyrus makeover: fluorescent yellow micro-skirt, crop top and – in the hands of her boyfriend – a spangly bag.
‘The taxi won’t take her,’ he says, swinging the bag like a lure and casting his eyes up and down the street. ‘We’ve been here an hour.’
Suddenly a woman appears at my shoulder.
‘Just look at you,’ she says, her tone surprisingly affectionate.
‘Are you a relative?’
‘You could say that. I’m the mother.’
‘Do you know what’s been going on?’
‘I know exactly what’s been going on. She’s had too much to drink.’
‘The problem is the taxi won’t take her in this state.’
‘She can stay with me, then.’
‘Okay. Sounds good. Where do you live?’
She jerks her thumb behind her. ‘Over the pub.’

0300

When the grandmother has made herself comfortable on the trolley, I hand her the four month old baby.
‘I don’t think this SATS reading’s accurate,’ I tell her. ‘He doesn’t look like he’s short of oxygen. But just in case, let’s give him a little bit extra, shall we? I won’t use a mask – I don’t want to upset him any more than I have already.’
I take the tubing from the pack, uncoil it, plug one end into the oxygen spigot.
‘Okay. Good.’
The grandmother and the child watch me, equally wide-eyed.
‘Now. What I want you to do is just hold this end of the tube and waft it in front of baby’s face. Like that. Just to give him that extra little boost.’

I smile reassuringly and hand the tube to the grandmother.

She sticks it in the baby’s ear.

the third circle

This night had no beginning, has no end.

We no longer drive. We climb in the cab and let the city move around us. It rolls past the window like a dodgy model city on an off-centred plate, crowds of tiny figures toppling against each other and calling out beneath the great grey lamp of the moon.

And the work keeps coming, job after job after job.

Falls.

They rise up and link arms, fifty bingo-winged Tiller girls advancing arm in arm, sequined support stockings, diamante slippers, feathery alarm pendants, high kicking an inch then falling in a line, left to right.

Anxiety attacks.

They scramble over each other, all hands on deck, a freaked crew of foundering sailors scrambling up the steps of the ambulance as the bulkhead bursts and the windows crack and the tail lift spits rivets along its seam.

Drunks.

They surf out of the bars and clubs on boards made from crushed fast food cartons, ATM cards and hair gel, crouched low, arms spread wide atop great breakers of blood and vomit, whilst their friends shout encouragement from the taxi stands: he’s never been like this before; her drink’s been spiked; he’s only had a glass or two; she’s got asthma.

Assaults.

They run in to each other, merge, rise up roaring as an unconvincing creature from the deep, suckered with weapons, smashing a bottle over its head with one tentacle, poking a beer glass in its eye with another, pushing itself over, slapping its beak, strangling itself, calling 999 on one mobile phone, filming itself on another, whilst we stand off yawning, watching the sou’westered police wade in with landing hooks.

But then, just when I realise my head has been twisted off and stuck back on upside down, the shift is over. In the space of an extended blink, someone has reached up, switched off the moon, wound up the night. Suddenly – unaccountably – instead of the Third Urban Circle of Hell, I’m on a charming country road, with plasticine trees tottering past the window of my little red and yellow car, and choruses of cheerful birds looping and fa-lah-lahing in the blue.

A hedgehog doffs his cap.

And stands there, smiling and stuffing his pipe, as the sleepy little ambulance figure gets kissed good morning, and carefully tucked away in a matchbox.

soundtrack

Ray’s wife Anne meets us at the top of the steps.
‘He’s lying on his side. I can’t move him. I think there’s something wrong with his breathing.’
‘Where is he?’
‘In the kitchen. But he’s big …’
We hurry in to the flat. Ray is lying on his left side on the floor of a narrow, galley kitchen, a pool of yellow vomit around him on the vinyl tiles. He is gasping spasmodically like a landed fish, his hands and nose and lips already a mottled grey blue. I feel for a pulse at his neck.
‘Nope. Agonal. We need to get him on his back.’
‘You be careful,’ Anne says, peering in over Frank’s shoulder. ‘He must be eighteen stone.’
I’d guess at least twenty-two. I grab his belt with one hand and guide his head with the other whilst Frank reaches in and uses Ray’s crooked legs as leverage. We manage to turn him on to his back in one haul, then reposition our grips and slide him a couple of feet away from the mess to a clearer space near the entrance. I pull his shirt up and start chest compressions; his eighty year old chest immediately snaps and cracks, giving beneath my hands like an old wicker basket.
‘Anne? When was the last time anyone saw Ray on his feet?’
‘I should say about half an hour ago.’
‘So he’s been down at least twenty minutes or so.’
Frank sticks the pads on and sparks up the defib.
‘Off’ he says, then after a moment: ‘PEA – on you go.’
‘Is he going to be all right?’ Anne says, one hand abstractedly plucking at the loose folds of skin beneath her chin.
‘He’s very poorly at the minute, Anne. His heart’s not working properly. This’ll be difficult for you to see. Why don’t you go out into another room whilst we do what we can? Is there anyone around who can sit with you?’
Just then a deep male voice sounds from along the corridor.
‘Stanley Green! says Frank, looking up from the head end where he takes care of ventilations. ‘I didn’t know you lived round here.’
A thick set guy with electric white hair and Fifties sideburns shows his face around the corner.
‘I live upstairs, Frankie. It’s Ray, is it? I saw the ambulance.’
Stanley watches me working on him for a second or two. Then he takes Ray’s wife by the shoulder. ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘Let’s go next door for a bit.’
‘Just before you go – Anne? What’s Ray’s medical history? What does he suffer with?’
‘Oh you name it,’ she says. ‘Do you want me to fetch you his appointment card? He’s supposed to be going in for a check-up in a couple of days. I suppose I’ll have to cancel that now.’
‘And how was his health today? Was he complaining of anything particularly?’
‘No. He was in a good mood. We were going out later.’
She frowns, watching me compress her husband’s chest but not seeming to connect with the desperate nature of my actions.
‘I’ll have to have a ring around,’ she says absently.
‘Come on, Anne. Let’s go and wait outside and let these guys do what they do.’
‘Do you want to know anything else? Towels? Water?’
‘No. Thanks. We’re fine. You go with Stanley and we’ll carry on. There’ll be another crew arriving in a moment to help us out. Maybe you could talk to one of them and give them all Ray’s details.’
‘Will do,’ she says, and Stanley leads her off.

***

An hour later and we all agree there’s nothing more to be done. Ray had a brief moment when it looked like his pulse might make a comeback, but it proved to be a false, adrenalized dawn (as they often are). We stand back from his body and begin to organise a clear-up. Frank goes to speak to Anne. After a few seconds I hear an agonised howl from a room out back. After a moment Frank re-appears.
‘I told her she could come in after we’ve cleaned him up,’ he says.
We drag him out of the kitchen and onto the carpet. It looks more comfortable than lying on the bare lino. We wipe his face, adjust his clothes, lie him neatly, place a clean white blanket over his length.
‘Are you going to extubate?’ I say to the paramedic.
‘No. I’ve got to leave it in situ for the coroner.’
‘Fair enough.’
But it seems a shame. Stanley comes in to the room and blanches when he sees his friend lying on the floor. But then he motions behind him for Anne to come in, and she takes her place by his side. After a moment she says weakly:
‘What’s that sticking out of his mouth?’
‘That was a tube to help him breathe. We’ve had to leave it in, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh.’
‘For the post mortem.’
‘Oh.’
We start to ferry our kit out of the way, discretely moving around Ray as he lies there, massive, motionless, jarringly out of place, run aground on the threshold of his kitchen. As I retrieve a scattering of drug packets from just the other side of him I notice the small bookcase, a CD player on the top shelf, rows of neatly stacked CDs beneath it. There is a tall, faded looking CD box leaning against the player where Ray left it: Dean Martin, posing in an open-necked, black silk shirt and rumpled cream jacket. Memories are Made of This.

wrists

Half past four in the morning and the music in the emptying club has been set to chill. Smoke and a densely sweated heat roll out through the double chrome doors, past the two bouncers standing with their hands respectfully cupped in front of them, professional mourners at the end of the world. The forecourt is a fisheye of tragedy, eerily pale in the light misting down from the lampposts on the road above, the patterned brickwork of the beachside walk, the dark, railway sleeper kerb and the cobbles on the beach beyond them, ghosting through a screen of smoky blues and greys. A tragic scene, from the litter of overturned chairs, scattered plastic pints and bodies draped over tables, to the groups of guys staggering off, pushing each other, climbing stuff, jumping down, and girls holding on to walls, walking barefoot with shoes in their hands, whilst around us from the deeper reaches of the night, wild screams and shouts and cries. The epic scale of it reminds me of a print on my mother-in-law’s wall: Napoleon’s retreat from Russia. I wouldn’t be surprised if I had to step over a fallen horse.

A couple of guys wave over to us from beneath the prow of a beached fishing boat further along. One of them is holding the arm of a man who lies face down at his feet, dipping and struggling, his enormous mop of curly hair thrashing about. He laughs as he struggles to hold on to the man, like a fisherman who’s somehow caught a live sheep in his nets.
‘He’s out of it,’ he says. ‘Rich is really out of it.’
I shine a torch down on to him whilst Rae squats down to ask him who he is and what might be wrong with him.
The man grips his t-shirt, pulling it away from his throat, gargling like an actor in a bad death scene.
‘Rich. Slow down, mate. Tell us what’s happened to you.’
As far as we can tell he had come out of the club and lain down on the beach. He hasn’t had any drugs; he hasn’t hurt himself.
‘So what’s the problem, Rich?’
‘My throat,’ he rasps. ‘My neck. My chest. I can’t breathe.’
Rae manages to calm him down sufficiently to establish that his life isn’t actually in danger at the moment. We can’t assess him properly here, though. There are too many people around, too many distractions. It’s cold, too, with a freshening wind coming in off the sea. We help Rich to his feet and take a slow, faltering walk back up the ramp to the ambulance parked up on the top road. His friends wave us off, leave him to it.
Up on the vehicle we get Rich on the stretcher where he rolls about groaning and complaining that his throat hurts. I slam the door shut. It feels good to be in the ambulance. Now and again as someone walks by they slap their hands on the side and shout taxi! or help me, I’m dying!, but inside the heater whirrs along, the light is bright and everything feels well-lit and safe and to hand in the best tradition of sanctuaries the world over.
‘Let’s start over, Rich,’ says Rae. ‘What has happened to you tonight? Why are we here?’
‘I came out of the club and fell over,’ he says, holding his neck.
‘You fell over? Where did you fall over?’
‘Just outside. I whacked my head on a bollard.’
‘You hit your head on a bollard?’
He nods, and winces.
‘Don’t nod. Just say yes or no.’
‘Yes. No. What?’
‘Were you knocked out?’
He shrugs.
‘Rich, we have to be clear about what happened to you. Let me feel your neck. Does that hurt?’
He yelps before Rae even gets a hand to him.
‘You have to be braver than this, Rich. Let me feel your neck.’
‘Be careful. I hurt it in Rugby last year and I can’t do anything more to it.’
‘So you have an old neck injury and you fell over tonight and banged your head. Is that right? Don’t shake your head, Rich.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Then we’ve got to put a collar on you, and put you on a board for the ride in.’
‘You can’t put me on a board. Last time I was left on it for six hours.’
‘That won’t happen tonight.’
‘And I feel sick.’
‘How much have you had to drink tonight?’
‘Nothing. Hardly anything. Four cups of whisky and Red Bull.’
‘Cups? What do you mean, cups? How big’s a cup?’
‘I don’t know. A cup.’
‘Had any drugs tonight?’
‘No. I don’t touch drugs.’
We both lean over him and shine a light in his eyes. They stare back at us, large and clear.
‘I’ll get the board,’ I tell Rae.
‘Shit. My mum’ll kill me,’ says Rich, then clears his throat with a ghastly retching sound. Rae grabs a bowl.

***

At the hospital the doctor feels down Rich’s back, working methodically along the spine as a team of us hold him on his side.
‘Does that hurt? Don’t nod, Rich, just say yes or no.’
‘Yes. Yes! No. Yes!’
‘Okay.’
We lower him back down.
‘We’ll send you for an x-ray, just to be safe, but I don’t think there’s anything going on, really. We’ll sort some pain relief whilst we’re about it, too.’
‘You won’t inject me, will you?’ he says, struggling to meet the doctor’s eye without turning his head.
‘No. It’ll just be a pill.’
‘Because I have a dreadful phobia.’
‘A phobia? Of needles?’

Rich blinks and looks straight up at the ceiling. ‘No,’ he says. ‘Wrists.’

no biscuits

Two o’clock in the morning and the entrance to the residential home for troubled teenagers is all lit up. I buzz the warden and after a moment the latch clicks. Once inside we walk over to a serving hatch set into the wall overlooking the lobby. The man sat in the office there has a slack look to him, grey and poorly focused, like the security monitors mounted on the wall behind him.
‘Room 113. I’ll take you through. Sorry to drag you out. I’m sure it’s nothing.’
He leads us along corridors, through fire doors.
‘I expect you get a lot of this,’ he says, twirling and un-twirling the master key on a long piece of cord. ‘I couldn’t do your job.’
‘I’m not sure I could do yours,’ I say.
‘Don’t feel too sorry for me. There are benefits, you know.’
‘Same with us. All the bandages you can eat.’
‘Yeah – but all that blood and guts ...’
‘Yeah – but all those teenagers…’
He grunts, then breaks off to knock a couple of times on a partially open door, pushing it aside with a knuckle.
‘It’s the ambulance, Cheryl.’
A young guy opens the door.
‘I did my best but nothing worked,’ he says.
‘Let’s have a look.’
He stands aside and we move into the room, a utilitarian cube with a sink and shelf in one corner, a single bed along one side and a plain armchair opposite. Cheryl is lying the wrong way up on the bed, face up at the end, her feet on the pillow. She breathes quickly, holding her hands lightly on her belly, the pale fingers curled over into her palms like two strange creatures washed up on a rock.

Cheryl is having an anxiety attack. She’s had them before, she knows what to do. Except this time it’s gone on for longer, and she can’t break out of it.

‘My name’s Gary. I’m Cheryl’s friend from next door,’ the young guy says, squatting down and leaning back against the wall. He rubs his hands briskly with his face. ‘Jesus Christ. I’m supposed to be at work at eight. But I can’t bunk off. It’s my first day and I can’t screw this one up as well.’
‘We can handle things here okay. Why don’t you go and get some rest?’
‘Nah. I’ll stick around and make sure everything’s good. I’m used to going without sleep.’
It doesn’t sound an idle boast. He is long and pale, his bleach blond hair spiked upright like the shoots of something forced in the dark; even the tattoos on his arms have a shadowy quality, as if a sleepwalking tattooist inked-in the patterns by moonlight.

Gary reaches up and pats Cheryl on the shoulder. ‘I’m here for you, girl,’ he says.

Half an hour later Cheryl is sitting upright, breathing more slowly, looking exhausted.
‘She’s got to move out today,’ says Gary.
He stands up. ‘Shall I make some tea?’
‘That’d be great.’
When he’s out of the room Cheryl reaches under the pillow and pulls out a letter. She hands it to me without saying anything. I scan it quickly – something about internet grooming, a court case abandoned, a professional expression of support, a wish that things go well, keep in touch, and so on.
‘That sounds pretty tough,’ I say, handing her back the letter. ‘And you’ve got to move out today?’
She nods.
‘Are you getting all the help you need? Have you got a social worker?’
She folds the letter up and pushes it back under the pillow as Gary comes in with a tray of tea.

‘No biscuits I’m afraid,’ he says, looking around in vain for a clear space to put the tray down. ‘I had a fresh packet this morning but someone’s gone and scoffed the fucking lot.’

drama club

Imogen is lying across her boyfriend in the back seat of the car, thrashing her legs and arms around, reaching up to grasp the hand grip above the door, pulling herself up and then letting herself go again, kicking the back of the passenger chair, slapping the ceiling, kicking the door. But as we approach the car in the dark, the whole performance seems just that – a controlled, intermittently hysterical display; her boyfriend and her boyfriend’s father look out at us by the interior light of the car, pale-faced, in need of rescue.
‘Asthma. Imogen’s having an asthma attack.’
Frank leans in, long and slow as an old-hand detective sniffing a crime scene.
‘This isn’t asthma,’ he says after a second or two, then: ‘Sit yourself up, love, and let’s have you on the ambulance.’
She had paused for a moment, but suddenly launches in to another bout of thrashing.
‘I’m serious now, Imogen. It’s cold out here. We can’t be all night.’
The hard edge seems to drop from her distress. She lets her boyfriend sit her up, then after a few fluttery passes of her hand across her face, slips out of the car and stands in the sharp night air, swaying impressively but not falling down, breathing quickly into the top of her chest.
‘Just slow that breathing down for me, would you, Imogen? And then let’s have you on the truck.’
She scuffs her feet as she walks, but makes it to the ambulance without us having to carry her.
‘That’s it,’ says Frank, offering a hand to get her up on to the truck. ‘There we go. Let’s have a seat and a chat.’
Imogen grips the handrails of the chair and breathes deeply, strange gasping respirations. She is a frail seventeen, the fringe of her long straight hair overhanging her eyes.
I go to put the SATS probe on her finger but she pulls it away as if I was going to pinch her finger in a clothes peg.
‘Don’t worry. Look. It goes on quite easily.’
I show her by putting it on my finger.
‘I need to do your blood pressure as well.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m perfectly fit,’ she says, then grips the arms of the chair and kicks her legs forwards. ‘For the love of God!’ she screams.
‘Where is the pain, Imogen?’
‘In my back. In my fucking goddamned back. Excuse me swearing.’
‘Is this new pain?’
‘No. Yes. I don’t know what you mean.’
‘It’s quite simple, Imogen. Have you had this pain before?’
‘I fell off a bench in drama class last month and they said I strained my back. Oh dear God!’
‘Did you go to hospital?’
‘Yes. D’ur. They took x-rays and everything.’
‘And what did they find?’
‘They just said it was a strain.’
‘Did they prescribe any medication?’
‘No. Look – stop talking. Do something.’
‘We can’t do anything until we know what’s the matter. Look – your SATS are perfect, your blood pressure is fine.’
‘Call yourself doctors?’
‘But we’re not doctors, Imogen. We’re the ambulance.’
‘Well do something ambulance-y, then.’
She takes traumatised gulps of air, her head craning up like a distressed baby bird, for all the world like a person in the very last extremity of pain. But nothing leads us to believe that she is in fact in pain. Her obs are fine, nothing we do or ask leads us to believe anything different, and her boyfriend, when he looks in at the door, is calmly playing his DS.
'Is she going in, then?’ he says, not looking up.
‘We’re just trying to establish that,’ says Frank. ‘Do you have pins and needles in your hands Imogen?’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘You know. Your hands go all tingly.’
She looks straight at Frank – as far as we can tell, the fringe so completely covers her eyes.
‘Who do you think I am? Fucking Tinkerbell?’
‘Less of the attitude, young lady,’ says Frank, leaning back against the bulkhead and fixing her with a stern look. ‘We’re here to help you.’
She laughs.
‘You remind me of my teacher.’
But then she seems to remember where she is and what she’s about.
‘For the love of God!’ she screams, arching back in the seat and slapping the arm rest.
She seems to have learned her expressions of distress from the pages of a Victorian novel.
‘What were you doing tonight?’ says Frank, ploughing on.
‘I was at drama club.’
‘So. You did your back in at drama club a month ago, and now you’re having breathing problems at drama club. It all sounds very – dramatic.’
‘Ha bloody ha. Oh – dear God!’
This flip-flop behaviour is extraordinary. One moment extravagant expressions of agony, the next the kind of sassy street shapes you’d expect from a twenty-first century teenager. If I had to make a differential diagnosis it would be either anxiety attack or intermittent possession by Nancy from Oliver Twist.
‘Let’s review the situation. You hurt your back a month ago but nothing was found, you’re not on any medication for it and you’ve been back to normal since. Your back started to hurt tonight in drama club, and then later on when you got in the car to be taken home it started to affect your breathing. Since you’ve been with us your breathing has calmed down a lot, and all of your observations are normal.’
Frank studies her for a moment.
‘Is your mum at home?’
‘No. She’s on her way back from holiday.’
‘Is there anyone else at home?’
‘My older sister.’
‘Do you two get on?’
‘No. I hate her guts. Oh my sweet God! Jesus!’
‘You see, Imogen. Normally I’d be happy to let you go back home, but every now and again you still seem ready to tip back into another panic, and that can’t go on, can it? So the only other option is to take you to hospital.’
Imogen says she doesn’t want to go to hospital. She doesn’t want to wait for hours to be seen by a doctor.
‘At least you’ll be safe there. I think I know what the problem is, but there’s always a chance it could be something else.’
‘I’m not going to no hospital.’
We confer with the boyfriend, who sighs when he has to prematurely finish his game and put the DS back in his pocket.
‘Don’t worry, Immie. I’ll come with you.’
The boyfriend’s father, a benign, slightly worn down character with a pair of thick glasses, a scraggy beard and a walking stick that could all be part of a kit, seems happy to let him.

***

We park Imogen and her boyfriend in the waiting room. In front of this more substantial audience – one without the same investment or interest in her condition – Imogen calms down, and sits perfectly happily in the wheelchair, looking over her boyfriend’s shoulder at the DS.

We’re asked to take a transfer to another hospital, but there’s a delay as the patient is stabilised. We’re still at the desk half an hour later when a harassed woman in a crumpled black suit hurries up to the nurse’s station.
‘My daughter Imogen was brought in by ambulance and I’ve come to take her home.’
‘Yes. I know the girl. But she hasn’t been assessed by the medical team yet.’
‘Yes. Yes. It’s okay. I know all about it. I’ll just take her straight home, thanks.’
The nurse pulls a wise but tough, Robert de Niro face – a sub-text something like: If you’re sure that’s what you wanna do, then by all means. Go right ahead.

‘Through there,’ is all she actually says. The woman hurries through.