The next day –
the second of two car shifts – I’m called to a twenty-three year old male collapsed
in the street with a presenting complaint of back given out.
It’s Ricky again.
A different part of town, but just as public.
He’s sitting in
the middle of a pedestrian precinct, calmly rolling a cigarette whilst two police
community support officers in yellow jackets stand over him, one on the radio,
one writing in a notebook.
‘Ah! Here we
are!’ says the one with the notebook, putting it away.
‘Hello!’ I say,
dropping my bags down. ‘Hello, Ricky!’
‘You know this
one?’
‘Yep. I met him
yesterday. Similar deal. Although he’s looking a bit brighter this morning. How
are things, Ricky?’
He ignores me,
and concentrates on the cigarette.
‘It was a call
from a member of the public,’ says the first PCSO. The other one has finished
on the radio, and stands there with her arms folded, on guard, looking around.
‘Ricky wasn’t
seen to fall or anything. He just decided to sit down. We were only round the
corner. When we asked him what was wrong he said his back had given out.’
‘Is that right,
Ricky? Is it back pain today?’
He shrugs, lights
his fag.
‘Do you normally
suffer with that?’
‘I’ve got
complex mental health needs,’ he says, spitting a strand of tobacco off to the
side.
‘How did you get
on at the hospital the other day?’
‘They kicked me
out.’
The second PCSO
leans in.
‘I understand
that Ricky was asked to leave by security. Isn’t that right?’
He looks in the
other direction.
‘Well. I don’t
think you need go to hospital today,’ I tell him. ‘There’s a Walk-In Health
Centre just around the corner – I mean, literally, fifty yards...’
I point it out.
‘...so what you
could do is walk over there and talk to someone about your back. How’s that
sound?’
‘You haven’t
checked me over or anything. You don’t know me.’
‘Do you want
checking over, then? I’d have to call an ambulance again. Or do you think the
Walk In centre might be better?’
‘I’m not going
there. It’s full of people. I’d have
to wait.’
‘Yes – well – I’m
afraid that’s a bit of a national problem, Ricky. It’s been in all the papers. It’s
no different at A and E. In fact, I’d say it’s worse.’
He closes his
eyes and carries on smoking.
‘We can deal
with this if you need to get off,’ says the first PCSO.
Our group is a
little island of incident in the centre of the busy precinct. The crowd flows
around us, anonymous, unstoppable, hardly giving a second look. You’d think we’d
be safe in our yellow jackets, but still a woman almost crashes into us. She’s
talking on her phone, not watching where she’s going. The second PCSO sees her
coming, though, and gently guides her round. For a moment the woman looks up,
as shocked as if the air had unexpectedly crystallised in front of her. Ricky
isn’t bothered. He carries on smoking, as calmly as before.
I’m squatting
down next to him. And just for a second I can see things from his angle. Despite
everything, despite the wild, Rasputin beard, the extravagant headphones and the
filthy parka jacket, despite the over-stuffed rucksack and the tatty bedroll, despite
the focused and hostile detachment, plumped down here on the pavement in the middle
of the day, in the middle of everything
– despite all this, Ricky is effectively invisible. He just doesn’t figure. No
one meets his eye – and if by accident they do, they quickly look away.
And it strikes
me that Ricky’s high-profile collapses are just a crude way of testing the limits
of his invisibility, a way of proving to himself he still exists.
Of course, he
brings me crashing back to pavement level, leaning over and grinding out my
empathy as ruthlessly as his cigarette.
‘I’m gonna have you
struck off for not caring,’ he says.
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