Make like Bender

Futurama

I won’t be posting for a couple of weeks as we’re off on holiday. So just a quick note to say thanks for reading & commenting. I hope you all manage to get away somewhere this summer and have a very well-deserved break.

Okay? Right? So... Cheese it!

the storm

Martha insists on buttoning up the dressing gown herself, a slow and difficult operation with ninety-six-year-old hands.

‘Jes’ a minute,’ she says. ‘Last two.’

She hardly needs it. The night is so oppressively hot it’s exhausting just to breathe. In Martha’s airless kitchen even the mantelpiece clock has given up. It sits there, sweating the time.

We’ve been trying to hurry things along, conscious of the storm that’s been brewing through the night, a series of wild and hectic flashes growing in ferocity, and like monstrous footsteps heading our way, the whumps and thumps of thunder so low you feel it in your chest.

‘We ought to get a move on, Martha. We don’t want to get caught in the rain.’

‘Jes’ a minute.’

Her cottage is set back down a rocky lane. Getting her out to the ambulance on our carry chair is going to be difficult; in the pouring rain, it’ll be worse.

The dimly lit kitchen is suddenly illuminated by a pulse of silvery white light, so intense every detail holds its image for a moment after.

‘One and two and three and four and ...’

A monstrous tearing sound low overhead.

‘Let’s get you comfy in our seat,’ I tell her.

It’s a delicate process. She shuffle-turns with difficulty, and like anyone who’s suffered falls in the past, finds it difficult to trust that the same thing won’t happen again. But our desire to be out and on the truck before the rain comes makes us even more positive than normal. We actively sit her down, apply the straps, and hurry outside.

Another crack of lightning, this one so close all my hairs line up in one direction. I try to remember what I read about lightning; nothing I can think of is reassuring: how it branches out from the strike point, how it’s attracted to tall objects (like these trees, like that lamppost); how susceptible you are on high ground (Martha’s road, for instance).

 ‘One and two and three and ..’

Another dreadful rack of thunder.

 ‘Almost there.’

We’re almost running with her now, lifting the wheels of the chair clear of all the ruts and stones. Despite all the frantic jiggling, Martha is perfectly composed.

 ‘Okay?’ I ask her.

 ‘Fine,’ she says. ‘Don’t drop me’

By the time we’ve reached the ambulance, risen up on the tail lift, settle her comfortably on the trolley and packed everything away, the first of the rain has started to fall – fat, warm drops that feel good in the heat.

We shelter in the ambulance just as the storm hits, watching through the slats of the cabin window as terrifying blasts of electricity arc from sky to earth, leaping down in vertical rivers of energy, or drift off across the sky like demonic hair.

‘Jesus Christ!’

‘Oh my God!’

‘Are you okay, Martha?’ says Rae, shouting above the sound of the rain as it cannonades across the roof of the ambulance. She reaches out to the old woman and holds her hand. ‘I hope you’re not scared of the storm’

‘No dear,’ says Martha, laying her free hand on top, and resting her head back on the cushion. ‘No. I’m not scared of the storm.’

high stakes

The transfer team are perfectly nice about it. They make encouraging comments, useful suggestions, jokes to ease the tension. But there’s an increasingly steely undercurrent to the banter that grows as horribly as the delay until the anaesthetist is driven to say: If this doesn’t work, I think we should take the patient off again and into resus.

It doesn’t work. For whatever reason, the trolley clamping mechanism just will not engage. Five millimetres would do it, but nothing, no creative cheating of the angle, no subtle variations on force downwards, upwards or any-wards – nothing we can think of makes any difference. I’m down on all fours trying to figure out what’s wrong, but everything seems okay, and I’m completely stumped.

Reluctantly, we set about off-loading the patient. We unplug everything, swap the ventilator oxygen back onto cylinder, untangle all the leads and drains and drips, re-organise the blankets, and then carefully begin manoeuvring the whole unwieldy package back out of the cabin, onto the tail-lift, and, mindful of the snag risks, the closing gaps, the tight spaces and every other hazard, we move the patient in through the A&E doors and into resus.

‘So what shall we do?’ says the anaesthetist, smiling pleasantly but red in the face. ‘Order another truck?’

‘Give us a few minutes to have one last look, then if that doesn’t work we’ll get you another.’

‘Fine.’

I’m mindful of the fact that if we stand down from this job, our friends who’ve just this moment cleared in front of us will almost certainly have to do it, and as they finish in half an hour, it would mean a significant over-run.

They’re more than happy to lend us their trolley so we can check the clamping mechanism again. It clicks in smoothly – as it has done all day. There’s nothing bent out of shape, and no other signs of damage or failure to account for the difficulty. We can only think that the patient load is affecting the trolley balance. Maybe if we take off all the apparatus just before we push the trolley fully home, it’ll work.

I explain the theory to the Anaesthetist.

‘If you think that’s it,’ he says. ‘I’m happy to give it another go.’

His smile is a little less certain, though. The patient needs to be with the vascular team right away, and we’re all conscious of time passing. The beeps of all the life support machinery couldn’t measure out the stress of the scene any more emphatically.

‘If you’re absolutely sure,’ he says.

‘It’s going to work.’

‘Let’s do it.’

We unplug the patient, set him up for the short trip back out of A&E and onto the truck again. Once we’ve risen up on the lift and moved into position, we take off as much of the equipment as we can, getting as many hands on board to hold it all and keep the trolley clear. Then I manoeuvre more fully into position, introducing the trolley bar into the mouth of the clamping mechanism.

One millimetre only, and it still doesn’t work.

In desperation, I sit on the floor, put the heel of my boot onto the bar, and push as hard as I can.

Click.

‘Excellent!’ says the Anaesthetist. ‘Phew! Thank God for that!’

The ODP bends down and slaps me on the shoulder.

‘Well done,’ he says. ‘I never doubted you for a second.’

humpty numpty

Geoff couldn’t be lying any more precisely than if he’d stretched himself out on his back on a large sheet of paper and asked someone to draw round him with a crayon. Title at the top: Man on Carpet. Except no doubt he’d want the title changed, to Man who woke up unexpectedly on the floor after just four cans of beer, now with pain in his neck.

‘I got hit by a car twelve years ago, and it left me with an unstable fracture,’ he says. ‘No. Can’t feel that. No. Nor that. I’ve got pins and needles in my right hand. Can you move it for me, Rae? Yeah? And my leg, too. That’s gone numb. No – wait. I mean the left one.’

There’s something unconvincing about Geoff. He chatters on about his ailments and accidents, his drinking and his unreliable friends, his fights outside the courthouse and his troubles with the police, in the same way that he talks about his jacket or his fags – like a man standing in for someone else, versed in all the details, but lacking connection.

‘I’m first-aid trained,’ he says, smacking his lips. ‘So I knew exactly what to do. As soon as I woke up on the floor I knew not to move a muscle, but stay still and leave it to the experts. Luckily I had my phone in my pocket and could call for help, which I did straight away, knowing the damage I could do if I tried anything else. So here we are. I’m in your hands. I’ll be guided by you.’

There’s no sign of trauma, and no sign of any disturbance in the flat. But he’s complaining of central neck pain and neurological deficit, and we’re duty bound to fully immobilise. We’re a few flights up, with a narrow, sharply turning staircase to complicate things, so I call for a second crew to help.

‘Has this ever happened to you before, Geoff?’

‘Yes. A year or so back.’

‘Tell us about that.’

‘It was exactly the same. I woke up on the floor. Pain in the neck. Got parcelled up. Carried out. Taken to hospital.’

‘And what did they find?’

‘Nothing. Sent me home with pain killers.’

‘Any follow up?’

‘Nah. I don’t like hospitals. I try to stay out of ‘em.’

He laces his fingers contentedly across his belly.

‘So you’re getting some movement back in your hand, then?’

‘Not really. I just wanted to get it out of your way when you slide the scoop under. I’m first aid trained. I like to help where I can.’

When the second crew arrives we log roll Geoff onto the scoop and then strap him into the vacuum mattress.

‘Hey – this is a bit kinky!’ he says. ‘Tell you what. Why don’t we all just go to bed?’ he says. ‘Maybe not you. But you and you. That’d be more fun, wouldn’t it?’

‘Let’s keep comments like that out of it, shall we, Geoff?’

‘Yeah – no worries. Don’t mind me. I’m just trying to lighten the situation. You do an amazing job. Not as good as the last crew, but not bad. A close second. I’m sorry to be such a bother. At least I’m not fat.’

We carry him out of the sitting room.

There’s a notice sellotaped to the front door, crudely written with black marker pen on a scrap of torn cardboard: Do not forget U keys UR numpty.

‘Have you got your keys, Geoff?’

‘They’re on a chain on my belt’ he says. Then smirks up at Rae as she reaches over to unclip them. ‘Don’t tug too hard,’ he says, ‘you might do me a mischief.’

third time unlucky

The first thing you notice about Colin’s flat is the smell, a rank and cloying cheesiness that immediately has you panting through your mouth like a dog. The second are the many squares of paper stuck over the walls and cupboard doors – crudely handwritten slogans: You don’t have to be mad to work here but it helps and I’m about to go nuckin’ futs and The floggings will continue until morale improves, and so on. In one alcove is a tall, black bookcase, each shelf given over to a fussy collection of figurines: the first two, native Americans, the next, witches and warlocks, the next elves and faeries, the very top shelf taken up by three wax skulls, one of them horned. Each shelf has a handwritten notice: You can look but do NOT touch. Each time Colin has written it, he’s made some kind of mistake and crossed it out furiously, until the very last notice on the top shelf beneath the skulls which, from here at least, looks relatively neat and clean.

Colin is rocking backwards and forwards in an old rocking chair, his filthy white towelling robe gaping open across a distended, waxy white abdomen, the scar of an old laparotomy straining like the zip on an overstuffed bag. Colin is talking as we come into the room, an excitable jabbering that would be surprising at any time of day; at three o’clock in the morning, in this stinking, airless room, it’s quite overwhelming.

‘Six point three it was! Six point three! So I checked it again and blow me, it was down a point! I’ve kept a record of the tests for the past few weeks – look! Here! That’s me, there! It’s never usually that up and down, so I was very confused by that. I’d just finished watching my DVD and I thought – hey! I don’t feel right. So I got my kit out and gave it a bash, and look – see? How it’s up and down? I’ve had some food and something to drink. I’ve done my injections exactly as I’m supposed to. So how d’you account for it? Or is it just me? Have I got completely the wrong end of the stick? I ‘spect you think I’m I right old duffer. Hey? Hey?’

Luckily, Rae’s attending. She drops straight in to get-out-quick mode, each question direct and sharply illuminating, like an emergency beacon that starts to flash as soon as it hits the water.

We’re out of the flat in five minutes. Even the lift smells sweet.

*

Nerys the pat nurse looks at me and shakes her head as I’m cleaning up in the triage area.

‘That’s the third dreadful patient you’ve brought me tonight,’ she says. ‘What did I ever do to you?’

She’s right. I do feel bad.

The first was a disruptive mental health patient, who ended up charging round the department knocking things over, or standing stock-still and freaking everyone out with a weird smile; the second was a creepy drunk guy with neck pain who made inappropriate comments from where he lay immobilised on his trolley.

‘They gave us grief, too,’  I tell her. ‘Don’t forget, that first patient tried to throw herself out of the ambulance and I spent the whole time wrestling with her in the back. And neck pain guy, we had to immobilise him in his dodgy flat, listen to him for an hour whilst we waited for back-up, then carry him down four flights of stairs. And he wasn’t light.’

‘Yeah? Am I supposed to feel sorry for you? At least you get to drop them off and walk out. We have to sit with them for hours.’

She’s got a point. That’s one benefit of working on the ambulance. You get limited exposure to the difficult patients.

‘I’ll make it up to you,’ I tell her.

‘How exactly?’

‘I’ll think of something.’

‘Yeah? I can’t wait to hear it.’

At four o’clock in the morning, she may be waiting a while.

unorthodox therapies

‘I’ve been around lurchers all me life’, says Thomas. ‘Greyhounds, lurchers.’

He hands me back my phone, and while I scroll back out of the gallery pics to the home page, he leans forward and starts coughing, a darkly churning noise, like someone trying to start an old car with a handle.

‘Maybe you’d better not talk for a bit, Thomas.’

‘Jes’ give me a minute. I’ll be all right. I find it takes me mind off of it.’

After a lot of hawking and gargling he leans forward and spits into the vomit bowl, then wipes his mouth with the bundle of tissue he has in his other hand, and rests his head back.

‘I should never have smoked,’ he gasps, closing his eyes. ‘Good job I stopped when I did, though. And all without them patches and whatnot. Jes’ will power and the love of a good woman.’

I replace the bowl and tissues with fresh.

The ambulance rocks along.

When Thomas has found the energy again, he continues.

‘Ye-es. Smashing dogs, lurchers. But like all them long-legged dogs, they are prone to yer sprains and strains.’

‘This is the third Lola’s had this year.’

‘I’m not surprised. No doubt going after rabbits a bit too enthoosiastic?’

‘Yep.’

‘But there’s a trick to getting them over it. Know what it is?’

‘No.’

‘You give ‘em a good ol’ rub down. Really work your fingers in, from the shoulder down to the paw. The moment you see they’re brewing up a bit of a limp, you get in there with your fingers. And when you’ve had a good ol’ prod and a poke, you know what you do next?’

‘What?’

‘You throw them in the air! Not a huge amount, ‘course. Jes’ enough so’s when they land they land paws down running. And the limp’ll have gone, I guarantee it!’

‘I might try that then.’

‘Oh ye-es. I’ve had lurchers all me life. And you know the trick to getting a good one?’

‘No. What’s that?’

‘Let the dog pick you. You don’t pick the dog. And see it with its mum.’

He nods emphatically.

‘You’ll know when the dog knows, not a moment sooner.’

*

Later that day, we’re sitting in Sheila’s front room. Sheila is ninety-four, thoroughly independent. Her neighbours pop round most days, help keep the little garden tidy, the odd dinner and bake, and she has someone come in and clean the house once a week. But apart from that, she still goes to the local shop every day for her TV Quick and her groceries, and manages quite well enough, thank you very much.

Only she does suffer with a touch of arthritis, and it was playing up so much through the day that she got worried something else might be wrong and she pushed her red button.

‘I’m so sorry to call you out. I know you’ve got better things to do.’

‘Absolutely not. You should always call us if you’re worried. It keeps us in a job.’

‘Still. I don’t like to make a fuss.’

Everything seems fine. We decide to make a call to her GP, though, as she hasn’t seen her for a while and could do with a review.

I sit back down on the sofa next to her to explain what’s going to happen next.

‘You couldn’t rub my arm, could you?’ she says.

‘Sure.’

I start to massage her arm, working my way down from shoulder to fingers.

‘Ooh – that’s better,’ she says.

‘Good’ I say – gauging the distance from the sofa to the middle of the room.

in the unit

Harry reminds me of a Rock ‘Em! Sock ‘Em! robot. He’s got the grimace, the crouch, the crooked arms, the bunched fists. He’s also got a significant skin flap on the top of his head from where he toppled forward half an hour ago. The carer has done her best to tidy him up, but Harry is an aggressive dementia patient at the best of times and his head injury has only made him worse. Without plenty of hands to help it’s impossible to get anything done. The crevices of his ancient face are stained with drying blood, in contrast with the dull, milky white hostility of his eyes.

‘I’ll muckin’ do you,’ he says, swinging his arms backwards and forwards. ‘I’ll knock yer muckin’ lights aht.’

If it wasn’t for the wound, it would be tempting to rest a hand on the top of his head and keep him at arm’s length; as it is, we have to inveigle him into our chair, swaddle him tightly in blankets, and strap him in securely. When the carer bends down to put his shoes on, Harry tries to kick her.

‘Gerd aht’avit’ he says.

We strap his legs, too.

It’s a shame we can’t treat the head wound here, but it’s just too deep, and aside from the stitches and sedation, he’ll need a close watch for any developing head injury.

‘Will you be able to spare a member of staff to come with Harry?’ I ask the carer.

Just at that moment, there’s a crash from the room next door, followed by a high-pitched scream and anguished shouts for help.

For a moment I think the carer might cry. She pushes her hair away from her face with the back of a gloved hand, then takes a steadying breath.

‘No,’ she says after a moment. ‘Sorry.’

And hurries out to see what’s happened.

super

‘I don’t keep bulbs in the sockets. I’m saving on the electric.’

A doughy man in his early thirties, there’s an unsettling aura about David, something beyond the smell of stale sweat and self-neglect, something that the three flies buzzing overhead are probably trying to spell out. He stands quite neutrally in the middle of the room, his arms down by his sides, waiting for our next question.

We have to make do with what natural light there is, coming in through the yellowing net curtains, illuminating an orderly but airless and foul-smelling room, comprising a sofa, table, bookcase of DVDs, a glass cabinet filled with porcelain tortoises, and on every wall, a different superhero: The Incredible Hulk, Captain America, Wonder Woman, Batman.

‘Great posters,’ I say.

He turns his eyes on me and smiles unexpectedly. His gum-line is so low, his teeth so angled and rotten, I feel like taking a step back, like Roy Schneider in Jaws, chumming over the side of the boat and the shark suddenly rearing up.

‘Do you? Do you like my posters?’

‘Yep,’ I say. ‘They’re erm…’ And for the moment I can’t think of a word.

David stares at me.

‘Super.’

any which way

Elsie is on the floor again. It’s the second time in a week I’ve been out to her. A stack of ambulance sheets on the sideboard is testament to the growing trend.

‘Not you again!’ she says, swiping the air. ‘I might’ve known you’d be back.’

Elsie’s ninety-five. She’s been widowed half a lifetime, longer than she was married. She moved into this house with her husband Jim, and they raised one child, Sandra. They wanted more but something went wrong and that was that. When Sandra was old enough, Elsie went to work in a local factory – ‘Who cares what they made, so long as we got paid of a Friday’. She didn’t like it particularly, but she was there thirty years. When Elsie and Jim retired, she knitted things for the grandkids and great grandkids and the WI; Jim went fishing. There’s a photo of him up on the wall, a broad-faced man offering a giant flounder up to the camera. It’s funny, the way he’s holding it, solemnly and steadily, like the fish is saying something important and he wants us all to hear.

 ‘He liked to fish,’ she says. ‘A lovely man. And then he was gone, just like that. Now then – are you going to make me that tea you promised or not? It won’t make itself.’

Elsie is living in that precarious, twilight world between managing at home and having to go into residential care. She’s got all the mobility aids you can think of – a trolley with her bits and pieces on a tray, a surround for the loo, a walk-in shower, grab rails strategically fixed here and there, laminate flooring, everything labeled and safely tidied away – but despite all this, despite the four carers a day and the meals on wheels and the pharmacy deliveries and the regular visits by the District Nurses and doctors from the local practice, still she manages to end up on the floor. There’s nothing to her, though. She’s so frail you could probably pick her up with these sugar tongs.

‘Ring Sandra, could you?’ Elsie says, settling into the cushions again. ‘She’ll be worried.’

‘Let me just give you the once over and see you’re all right first.’

‘You what? You want to give me the once over? Well – it’s been a long while since I had a young man do that.’

Elsie likes to flirt. In fact, once she’s latched on she won’t let go, and everything starts to sound risqué.

When I go to make her that cup of tea, I ask her: ‘How do you take it?’

‘I don’t know. Any which way I can.’

When I kneel on the floor to take her blood pressure, she says: ‘A young man on his knees. That takes me back.’

Or when I ask her if she hurt herself falling out of the chair, she says: ‘Just my bottom, dear. But I ‘spect it’ll be all right if you give it a little rub.’

She quivers with a scattering kind of attention, which, along with her white and wiry hair and loose teeth make her seem more like a malfunctioning robot. She’s a little hard of hearing and her eyes flicker between my eyes and my lips, on the lookout for scandalous opportunities.

‘I think you escaped this time,’ I say, putting my things away.

‘Why would I want to escape? A lovely young man like you.’

‘Behave, Elsie! You’re making me blush!’

‘Am I? I think it’d take more than that to make you blush.’

‘Look – I don’t think you did yourself any damage, Elsie. And you certainly don’t need to go to hospital.’

‘Hospital? I don’t want to go to hospital. It’s full of sick people.’

‘Exactly.’

‘I’m quite happy here on my own, thank you very much. ‘Course, I’d be even happier if you stayed with me.’

‘I can’t do that, Elsie. I’ve got work to do.’

‘Oh, don’t worry about that. They’ll understand.’

‘Anyway - shall I call Sandra and let her know what happened?’

She deflates a little, and relaxes back into her normal operating mode.

‘If you wouldn’t mind,’ she says, and looks around for her tea.

Sandra’s obviously been waiting by the phone. She answers immediately.

‘I’ve put Elsie back in her chair,’ I tell her. ‘She’s not hurt, so I won’t be taking her to hospital.’

‘You don’t think she should go in, then? To find out why she keeps falling?’

‘To be honest, Sandra, she’s been in plenty of times already, and it’s always the same. She’s not complaining of anything new this morning, and she’s well set-up here, so I think the best thing is if we leave a note for her GP to review things later on. The carer’s due any minute.’

‘Oh’

A silence follows that I let ride for as long as I can, but eventually I’m driven to ask: ‘Is that okay?’

‘Do you think Mum can hear what I’m saying?’ she says, a harder and more direct tone to her voice.

‘No. Probably not.’

‘Please don’t say this out loud or tell her what I said, but we’re going to get her put in a home.’

‘I see.’

‘We can’t cope any more. I’m seventy-odd myself, and Len’s not well. We can’t keep on like this.’

She sounds exhausted, close to tears.

‘No. Right. Sorry to hear it.’

‘But thanks for what you’ve done. I’m sorry you keep getting called out.’

‘It’s no problem. Shall I pass you over to Elsie?’

‘No. Let her enjoy her tea. Tell her I'll be round later.’

Elsie is looking across at me and smiling. I say goodbye to Sandra and hang up.

‘Lovely cuppa,’ says Elsie, taking another unsteady slurp. ‘Any-hoo. What did my darling daughter have to say?’

‘She said she’d see you soon.’

‘That’s good,’ says Elsie, then sighs and puts the cup aside. ‘She’s a lovely girl, you know. She just takes on too much, like her father. One of nature’s worriers. I probably don’t help, what with one thing and another, but really, she’s got to learn to let go.’

I pick up my bag to go.

‘Is there anything I else I can do for you?’

‘Oh – plenty!’ she says, and grins lasciviously.

all knees

We’ve had a whole day of elderly falls – non-injury, almost all of them arthritic knees giving out  – but this next one sounds serious.

Fire. Elderly male, fallen. Fire Brigade en route. Please call with early update.

The high street is so stuffed up with buses and cars and scaffolding trucks and crowds out enjoying the sunshine, I wouldn’t be surprised to see an armed mob on a barricade round the next corner. Still, I do what I can, and we get there in reasonable time.

A fire truck is parked up outside the house, but its hoses haven’t been deployed, and everything seems calm. We grab the resus and drugs bags from the ambulance, and scanning the air for tell-tale smoke, hurry past the worried on-lookers to the house with its front door and all its windows open.

Inside, an elderly man is sitting on the hall floor supported by a fire fighter. Three other fire fighters are inspecting the house, but there’s a leisurely feel to the place, and the smell of something burnt in the kitchen.

‘What happened?’ asks Rae, putting her bag aside and kneeling next to the patient.

‘Don’t ask,’ he says. ‘But anyway, nice to see you.’

‘Denis is a little embarrassed,’ says the fire fighter, giving him a reassuring slap on the shoulder.

‘Well – wouldn’t you be?’ says Denis.

The fire fighter laughs.

‘We heard there was a fire,’ says Rae, putting a SATS probe on Denis’ finger.

‘No,’ sighs Denis. ‘I was making some lunch and I burned the toast. The damned alarm went off, and when I tried to turn it off, I fell over and couldn’t get up again.’

He shrugs, and rubs his legs.

‘It’s these damned arthritic knees.'

shuttered

The updates that come through are more and more outrageous - for the spelling as much as the detail.

Patient has whole in head. Then: Glass stikking out. And finally: Blood sporting.

‘Dear oh dear’ sighs Rae as she acknowledges each addition. ‘It’s like getting texts from my nephew.’

A young woman waves to us in the street.

‘He’s upstairs,’ she says as we pull up. ‘Come – I show you.’

She leads us to a battered door set back in a recess beside a shop. The first thing we see, looming out of the shadowy hallway, is a life-size plastic waiter, eyes closed, nose in the air, a deflated silver party balloon draped over his tray.

‘Don’t worry,’ she says, taking the stairs two at a time. ‘Is not real.’

We follow her up the narrow staircase to where Tarek is sitting on the side of a bath in a little room on the second floor, one hand pressing a bloody towel to his head, the other holding a cigarette.

‘Hi. Would you mind putting your cigarette out?’

‘Is head I need help with, not lung, my friend.’

‘I know, I know. It’s just – it’ll get in the way.’

‘Okay. Just don’t be rude about it.’

‘I’m not being rude, Tarek. But I can’t fix your head with all that smoke blowing in my eyes.’

‘Okay. Come now. You sort this, please.’

Reluctantly he stubs the fag out in the sink and then tilts his head back so I can get a better look. With a wet gauze ready to put on the wound, I take the towel away. It’s not as bad as advertised, but it’s bad enough: Tarek has a long cut running from his hairline to his left eyebrow. It’s bleeding still, without any glass sticking out that I can see. I gently press the gauze onto the cut whilst Rae preps some more and a non-conforming bandage to keep it all in place.

‘You’ll need stitches I’m afraid.’

‘Stitches? Okay. Do it.’

‘I’m afraid not. It needs a trip up the hospital. How did it happen?’

He shrugs, then catches his girlfriend’s eye, and they both laugh.

‘I not lie to you, my friend. I turn around quickly and I caught it on open window.’

‘What were you doing, then?’

He looks a little embarrassed.

‘Honestly? I was sleepy, okay? It was busy, busy night, and I get out of bed late. I go to window to look out, to see the world, the sunshine and all the pretty people and such things. This window is very old, and open inside like shutter, you understand? Yes? I open this window, and I lean out to see everything and take breath of air and be cool and so on and so forth. But my watch it catch on hook and it make me spill my orange juice. It fall down in street on man’s head, and he’s all shouting and swearing and tapping his head like this and shouting: My God! Who did this? and Rargh! Rargh! Rargh! like this, and then suddenly he looks up. I duck back inside so he not see me. And that’s when I put my head through window.’

He laughs, then wipes his eye clear of blood with a flannel. His girlfriend has found a pair of flip-flops and drops them down at his feet. Once he has a clean t-shirt, his phone and a fresh pack of cigarettes, Tarek follows us back down the stairs, past the waiter and out into the street, crowded now with lunchtime shoppers and office workers.

‘Look what these ambulance do!’ he shouts, reaching out to people with his bloody hands. ‘They beat me! They beat me! Call the police!’

I walk a little further ahead, and try not to make eye-contact with anyone.