tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-276911112024-03-14T06:12:55.889+00:00Siren VoicesSpence Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11183848895584919812noreply@blogger.comBlogger1003125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27691111.post-54807937948329796042016-04-27T18:42:00.002+00:002016-09-12T17:22:20.307+00:00trees<span style="text-align: justify;">Mary’s son,
Ethan, has come straight out of the shower.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
‘She’s upstairs in bed,’ he says, one hand holding the door, the other the
towel round his middle. ‘Excuse me whilst I finish off.’</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The commotion in the hall has woken Mary.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
‘I’m normally a bit more with it,’ she says, struggling to push herself upright. ‘But you see I had a restless night last night and I feel all...’ She
smacks her lips drily and waggles her fingers in the air to illustrate.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I explain who I am and what I’ve come to do.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
‘Be my guest,’ she says. ‘Only first let me get my plate in. I’ll make more
sense.’</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I work through the obs. Ethan brings in a tray of tea and then sits down in a
low, fabric armchair to drink a cup. He’s the polar-opposite of naked now, wearing
a heavy-knit, patterned sweater now, khaki trousers and sandals, all perfectly in
keeping with the general, Nordic style of the place: wooden carvings of dragons,
masks and heroic figures, prints and sketches, framed academic scrolls. Mary
has a bearskin over the bed. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
‘I was younger then, very little observable conscience,’ she says, gently
stroking the fur. ‘Poor thing. I feel guilty as hell now, of course, but there
you are, the deed was done.’</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
‘Did you kill the bear yourself?’</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
‘May as well have.’</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
When it comes to having blood taken she’s not quite so sanguine.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
‘I have a bit of a phobia,’ she says. ‘It doesn’t help that I’m difficult. My
veins dive for cover whenever they see a needle. See what you think – but
please, not the hands!’</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
‘I can’t believe you’re ninety-five,’ I
tell her, tapping around for anything remotely usable.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
‘Nor can I. Do you know – I distinctly remember when I was seven years old. I’d
come down to visit my grandmother, and she’d taken me for a stroll by the sea.
Well, we came across all these ancient folk, on a day out from the local
hospital. Being wheeled along the promenade in what amounted to giant baskets
on wheels. You see at that time I was
mad about climbing trees. If I saw a tree, I was up it! No better than a
squirrel. No <i>bigger</i> than one, I
should think. I remember my grandmother solemnly pointing to the old folk’s parade,
and saying <i>If you carry on climbing
trees, that’s how you’ll end up. </i>It didn’t do any good, of course. I didn’t
agree with her then and I don’t now. I think climbing trees and the rest of it is
what kept me fit. Up until now, of course. Any luck with the ... you know what?’</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
‘No. I’m afraid not. You’re going to need a specialist.’</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
‘Bad luck, mother,’ says Ethan, draining his cup and springing to his feet. ‘More
tea?’</div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
* * * </div>
<br />
<i>(For more stories like this, why not come over to <a href="http://www.jimclayton.net/" target="_blank">www.jimclayton.net</a> ? t'd be great to see you there!)</i>Spence Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11183848895584919812noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27691111.post-21544968887949230892016-04-24T16:23:00.001+00:002016-04-24T16:23:30.043+00:00gloria & the robot<div style="text-align: justify;">
When Lionel smiles it’s like the friendly gape of a wet-mouthed hound, the fleshy corners of his mouth a little sad and down.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
‘Do come in!’ he says, but he doesn’t make quite enough room in the vestibule, especially as there’s another, inner door to open, and as I’m laden down with obs bag, weighing scales, folder and other things, we’re forced to do a little dance in the limited space available.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
‘If you could just…’</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
‘Sorry…’</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
‘I tell you what, if you…’</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
‘Of course….’</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
‘That’s it!’</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
We manage to get the door closed, and stand together in the main hallway, an impressive room, with a geometrically tiled floor, an ornamental fireplace, and a chandelier hovering above our heads like some elaborate, crystalline spaceship.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
‘If you’d like to come this way,’ he says. I follow him through into the living room.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
‘You have a lovely house, Lionel.’</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
‘Thank you. That’s so kind. It’s just me now, of course. I rattle around somewhat. I’m thinking of downsizing.’</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
‘Really?’</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
‘Thinking about it! It’s hard to move when you’ve been in a place as long as we have. Sixty years, this autumn. But Gloria passed last year, so now it’s just me.’</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
‘Yes. Well.’</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
He sits in his armchair, and begins turning his wedding band round and round.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
‘It’s supposed to get easier,’ he says. ‘Time the great healer and all that guff. But you know, I don’t think it does. If anything, it gets harder.’</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
‘In what way?’</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
‘Well you see, to begin with I was so busy. There was lots to do. People kept coming round, family and so on. How are you coping, Lionel? Do you have everything you need, Lionel? Taking me places and so on and so forth. But that can’t go on forever. People have their own lives. So it all falls away rather, and you’re left to your own devices. It’s the little things that take you by surprise. I’d just finished reading this…’</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
He picks up a book on Hollywood from the side table. ‘And it just happened to mention The Day the Earth Stood Still. Have you heard of it?’</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
‘Absolutely! It’s famous.’</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
‘Oh! Then you may be interested to know that Gloria knew the robot.’</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
‘Really?’</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
‘Or the man who played the robot, at least. When she was a student in California back in the fifties, she had a job selling tickets at Grauman’s Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard, and the doorman there, a really tall chap, got hired to play Gort. I remember she said they were jealous as anything at first, but as it turned out, he didn’t have a nice time of it. Half suffocated to death in the rubber suit, by all accounts.’</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
He puts the book back on the table and folds his hands on his lap.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
‘Now it’s just me, sitting on my own, thinking about robots.’</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<br />
<i>(For more stories like this, why not come over to <a href="http://www.jimclayton.net/" target="_blank">www.jimclayton.net</a> ? t'd be great to see you there!)</i><br />
<br />Spence Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11183848895584919812noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27691111.post-12304058365871610222016-02-20T14:01:00.000+00:002016-02-20T14:01:07.907+00:00Follow the dog!Hi!<br />
<br />
Thanks very much for visiting <i>Siren Voices</i> again.<br />
<br />
I thought I'd put one last post up in a shameless attempt to persuade you to come over to <a href="http://www.jimclayton.net/">www.jimclayton.net</a>. It's much the same kind of thing - character studies (carefully anonymised), anecdotes, happy / sad vignettes... I think you might like it!<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.jimclayton.net/" target="_blank"><img alt="www.jimclayton.net" border="0" height="89" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghsllhFgaBSuwt5OhMYSNm0Nj53stwJwGPNZmtkaCNcdWI45p2aqxxm8YJjI8xM-vGpiEQiyuUBRIyFPppO5Xc8xHXnnPjKgJ61KvD2tmIfenFKJDbdJEeG6ZyJ8rOM3rPk6VFng/s200/lola+header.gif" title="" width="200" /></a><br />
<br />
with thanks & best wishes,<br />
<br />
Jim (Spence, as was)Spence Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11183848895584919812noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27691111.post-7729937841239669022015-05-06T09:32:00.000+00:002015-05-06T17:35:37.281+00:00the last post<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">So that’s it!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Nine years and one thousand posts later, I’m writing my last item as
Spence Kennedy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">When I started <i>Siren Voices</i>
I had no other ambition than to make a diary record of the people and
situations I found myself in, to report what happened each time as
sympathetically and non-judgementally as I could, and most importantly, to get
myself into a routine of writing. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">For a long time no-one outside the family read the blog, which
wasn’t surprising, because I didn’t do a thing to promote it. But I kept going,
and it was gratifying to see the word-count build up. I fiddled around with
the style a few times, experimented with the voice. <a href="http://innismcallister.photoshelter.com/portfolio" target="_blank">Innis</a>, a good friend of
mine (and a brilliant photographer), let me use some of his photos in the
header. My writing style changed, and I started to feel easier about confronting
the blank screen each time. The whole thing began to feel quite solid.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Still, nothing else would’ve happened if my wife, Kath, hadn’t
emailed <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nee-Naw-Dispatches-Ambulance-Control/dp/0141044373" target="_blank">Suzi Brent</a> at <i>NeeNaw</i>. Suzi
recommended <i>Siren Voices</i>, and
suddenly I started getting comments! </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I was quite worried to begin with. I felt uneasy about writing under
a pseudonym (‘Spence Kennedy’ because my mum’s dad’s middle name was Spence,
and Kennedy because I was reading The Big Picture by Douglas Kennedy at the
time). I knew how important it was to protect patient confidentiality, but I couldn’t
think how I’d be able to maintain the degree of intimacy that I wanted if I had
to ask a patient for permission each time. The easiest thing seemed to be to
change identifying details and stay anonymous, even though I really wanted to be
honest about who I was. In the end I decided to stay writing as Spence Kennedy.
Years passed. I became two people: Jim Clayton at work; Spence Kennedy on-line.
It all seemed to balance out. I didn’t want to do anything that might jeopardise
the blog.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">When it came to self-publishing my first books, I stuck to Spence
Kennedy because I thought the only people who might feasibly buy & read them
were the followers of the blog. It was frustrating not to publish under my real
name, but then again, I figured that I wouldn’t be in the ambulance service all
my life. When I left, I’d be free to pull off the mask and start writing as
myself.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">So that’s what I’m about to do!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">My day job will be with the Community Rapid Response Service –
working alongside Occupational and Physiotherapists, District Nurses and so on,
helping patients avoid hospital and stay at home. I won’t be blogging about my
work with the CRRS, although if I come across some interesting stories I might
conduct a more open interview and get permission from the patient before I
publish. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The <a href="http://www.jimclayton.net/" target="_blank">new blog</a> will be much more general, I think. A collection of sketches,
poems, stories – anything that occurs to me. I’ll try to make it as
entertaining and interesting as possible, with more pictures and clips than
before. I look forward to hearing what you think.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I won’t be posting on <i>Siren
Voices</i> any more, but I will keep the site open for people to read and
comment on if they want. I’ll certainly publish any comments that come in, and
make a few of my own. I’m proud of what <i>Siren
Voices </i>represents: as true a picture of life on a front-line ambulance as I
could make it. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">There are so many people I need to thank, I hardly know where to
start. My wife, Kath, for reading everything and editing it into some kind of
meaningful order. Blogger has been a great platform and I recommend it
thoroughly. But most of all I’d like to thank everyone who’s ever read,
followed, commented or Tweeted about <i>Siren
Voices </i>over the years.<i> </i>I really couldn’t
<i>ever</i> thank you enough. I hope you all
stay in touch, because I feel like I’ve made some good friends over the years.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Here’s to the next nine years!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<i><span lang="EN-GB">Jim Clayton<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">(feels good to type
that...)</span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Check out the new site: <a href="http://www.jimclayton.net/"><b>www.jimclayton.net</b></a></span>Spence Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11183848895584919812noreply@blogger.com59tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27691111.post-66468413623617673642015-05-06T08:36:00.000+00:002015-05-06T08:36:19.996+00:00nora, nine years on<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I remember Nora.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Early summer, a high blue day in May, bright and full of hope.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Which made me feel worse, of course.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I’d been in the ambulance service a year, working the non-emergency
side of things, ferrying elderly patients to and from day centres, outpatient
appointments. I liked the work. It was therapy after training to be an English
teacher in a secondary school and crashing out in my second year. I was a
failure, on the run from myself, from the Smoking Ruins of my One Last Chance at
a Career. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Something like.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I’d taken the whole teaching disaster particularly badly because I’d
always thought of it as my Ace, the one, sure-fire card I could play if things
got tough. When it turned out to be the Joker, I panicked.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">To begin with, the regularity of patient transport helped me feel
less anxious about things. It was simple, practical, obviously useful. I was in
amongst an entertaining bunch of patients who eased my bruised sense of
connection with the world. If I was hopeless at everything else, at least I
could drive a bus, chat to people, wheel them about. I had plenty of time to read.
I stared out of the window as the world flew by: pylons, houses, trees.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">After a while I started to feel restless. I wondered what it would
be like to work on a frontline ambulance. Maybe I could turn myself into the
kind of person you got when you dialled 999, the kind of person who’d Be Cool
and Sort Things Out.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I applied for the EMT course but there were delays. It was a
frustrating process. Administrative snarl-ups, rules that changed overnight, interviews
that went well but led nowhere – bureaucracy rising up like thorns round an
enchanted castle.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">In the meantime I started this blog. I’d always loved reading, and
for many years I’d fancied I could write something. Every time I’d tried in the
past, though, the project had fallen apart. I didn’t seem to have the tenacity
to see it through.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">A lack of sticking power. Someone said that about me once. Were they
right? Was that the common denominator in my ho-hum working life so far? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Maybe writing a blog would help. A useful distraction at least, a
way of cultivating a more objective view of the world. Focusing on other people
was patently a good thing. I was too self-obsessed. I was like that guy in <i>An American Werewolf in London</i>, except
when I fell screaming to the floor I wasn’t turning into a monster but a moany
old git.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The other thing was that blogging felt like a useful way of sneaking
up on writing, doing it without it being a <i>thing</i>.
Blogging was endless. It was practical. It was audience-less, too, for a while,
but at least it was ‘out there’. People could take it or leave it – comment, in
time, if they wanted. I could desensitise myself to criticism. And I’d be
spared the terror of the finish line, the crashing moment when something would
be done, judged, found wanting. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I decided to blog about ambulance work. And as it turned out, Nora was
my first subject.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I remember walking alongside her as she shuffled with sticks from
the day centre to the ambulance. I was intrigued by her accent, by the aura of
contrariness that bound her as tightly as her scarf. The nurses were scared of
her. They smiled when I said goodbye, but I half-expected to see them cross
themselves as they turned away.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">An interesting case, I thought. I bet she’s got some stories.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I was attending, so I had plenty of time to grill her in the back.
I’d get to hear all about it, the country she came from, the love affairs and
hazardous escapes, the heartbreaking family break-ups, the inspirational
recoveries. It was a long way back to her house. I’d get a comprehensive life
history.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I made myself comfortable. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I made sure she was. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I was ready to be the chatty ambulance man, innocent, open,
inquisitive. Ready to memorise the good stuff.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Nora was as brutal as a hip replacement.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Why do you want to know these things about me?’ she said.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">'I'm just curious.'</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">'Well maybe I won't satisfy your curiosity.'</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">And that was that. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The rest of the journey I was back to staring out of the window. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Pylons, houses, trees. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">When I got home that evening and sat down to write my first blog
entry, I stared at the blank screen and rubbed my face. I reviewed the day,
moment through moment, trying to visualise each patient, what they looked and
sounded like, where we picked them up from – any angle I could think of. But the
one who really stood out was Nora. For want of anything else to write about I
gave in and wrote a short paragraph about what had happened. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Later, when I read it back, I saw that the reason she’d made such an
impact was because she’d subverted my expectations. She hadn’t behaved like I
wanted her to behave. Despite my best efforts she was simply Nora. Crotchety,
complaining, cussed old Nora: headscarf, two-sticks, murderous demeanour. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I carried on and wrote a few more, one a day. And when I felt brave
enough, I posted them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">There were no comments, of course, but I didn’t mind. I’d made a
start. I was getting myself into a habit of writing, a habit of <i>thinking</i> about writing, and it felt good.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Nine years on, I can still feel Nora’s eyes on me in the back of that
ambulance, the icy pause before she said: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Well maybe I won’t satisfy your curiosity.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I suppose as a first subject, it’s ironic that Nora was so flatly
uncooperative. But like it or not she’s there at the beginning, a quirky kind
of guardian, perhaps. Cerberus in a Headscarf, focusing her fury, challenging
me to get past with what little I had, to struggle on regardless and <i>get something written</i>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<br /></div>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">I suppose, as
figureheads go, that’s actually not too bad.</span>Spence Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11183848895584919812noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27691111.post-23877074406537086392015-04-25T12:31:00.000+00:002015-04-25T12:31:14.543+00:00moro reflex<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">We’re on our way to a routine job when we spot them: two men,
struggling to help up an elderly man who’s sitting on the pavement. They’re
looking around for help, presumably to ask someone to phone for an ambulance. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">We pull up alongside. I open the cab door and climb out.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘What’s happened?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The first guy takes a moment to register who I am, stunned by the
fact he’s only had to think about an ambulance for one to show up.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Can you help us?’ he says, struggling with the guy, an old man in a
khaki cap and shiny overcoat. There’s an unzipped holdall beside him on the
pavement, the neck of a bottle of whisky poking out of the middle, conveniently
to hand. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Did you see him fall?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘No. He was just lying there. No-one else seemed that bothered.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Can you take over?’ says the other guy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Sure! We’ll be fine, now. Thanks for your help.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘No worries,’ says the first. I thought they were together, but after
exchanging a brief, rather surprised look, they walk off in separate directions.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">After we’ve reassured ourselves the old guy hasn’t hurt himself, we
help him up and, guiding his legs giant-puppet-style, we walk him up the
ambulance steps and land him safely on our trolley.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Rae fetches in the holdall.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘There! That’s better! Now then. My name’s Spence. This is Rae. Can
I ask what your name is?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">His head lolls from side to side, his eyes open but unfocused.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘What do we call you?’ I ask him again. ‘Hey?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He turns his face in the approximate direction of my voice and opens
his mouth to talk – or rather, he tips his head back and releases a gargle of
unshaped sounds, floating out on a cloud of vapours. Once he’s decided enough
noise has been made to satisfy the request for information, he stretches his
lips a little more to reveal a motley collection of stumps, and laughs. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Harr harrrrrrr!’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Even if it wasn’t for the bottle of whisky you’d guess he was drunk.
A distillery would smell sweeter.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘George!’ says Rae, who’s found a bus pass in the holdall.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘S’it,’ says George, his head wobbling so dangerously if it wasn’t
for the roll of blanket behind him it’d be in danger of falling right off his
shoulders. ‘Orrargh!’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The effort of saying his own name exhausts him. He deflates into sleep,
slides a little down the trolley, his cap pushed forwards across his face. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘George?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I give him a pinch and take his cap off, and he’s suddenly awake again,
paddling his arms in the air like the Moro reflex in a baby.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Marrghm!’ he cries out, his eyes wide open again, staring up at me.
</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">If he thinks I’m his
mum, no wonder he’s surprised. Given his age, she must have been dead these
past twenty years.</span>Spence Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11183848895584919812noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27691111.post-3013731493084820002015-04-20T14:58:00.000+00:002015-04-20T14:58:51.865+00:00so far so good<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘They wanted to call an ambulance but I said no, don’t bother, I don’t
want one.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘You didn’t want one?’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘No. I didn’t want the fuss.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I must admit I’m surprised.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘What – that I didn’t call an ambulance?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘No. That the gym didn’t call one anyway. I mean, there you are, collapsed
on the treadmill, vomiting everywhere. How did they know you weren’t having a
heart attack or something?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I didn’t have any chest pain, Spence.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘But still...’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I knew what it were. I just overdid it.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Moira looks fine now. A vivacious, middle-aged woman, dyed orange
hair, purple sunglasses, as confiding and friendly as a counsellor or
librarian, but dressed for action in a yellow tracksuit top, red jogging
bottoms, and a t-shirt that says: <i>Pain is
temporary; victory lasts forever.</i> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Let me tell you a little bit more,’ she says, shifting in the chair.
‘I had the gastric by-pass a month ago.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘A month!‘And you’re down the gym already?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Yes. Well. I wanted to crack on, Spence.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘What was the guidance they gave you about exercise post-op? If you’d
had a caesarean you wouldn’t even be <i>driving
</i>for ten weeks, let alone pounding away on a treadmill.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I weren’t <i>pounding </i>nothing,
Spence. I was taking it relatively easy. It’s a clever machine, you know. You
get to pick the incline, the speed and all the rest of it. It’s not like I were
running a marathon.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘But still...’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘You see, Spence, once I’d decided to lose all this weight, once I’d
<i>set my mind to it</i>, I just wanted to
get on and do it. Look!’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">She stands up, takes off her tracksuit top, and holds her arms out.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Five feet tall and seventeen stone, I was. Well, I’m <i>still</i> five feet, but look! Look how much
has come off already!’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">With her right hand she waggles the loose flesh below her left arm.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I’ve got the bingo wings from hell, but don’t worry, I’ll get advice
on them in a bit. I’ve got some photies somewhere, Spence. I was proper big.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I think you’re doing an amazing job, Moira. I’m just a bit worried you’re
taking it too fast.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Yeah, but when you want something, you <i>want</i> it, don’t you?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Didn’t you have an induction at the gym? Did they know about your
surgery?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Well, they did and they didn’t. I told them I’d had some abdominal
surgery, but I were too embarrassed to tell them what it was. I just said it
was personal. Something that meant I had to have internal stitches. So they
said fine, no worries, it just means you can’t go on the rowing machine or them
ones where you work up and down like this, with weights on the end and all
that.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Because at the end of the day they don’t want to get sued.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Exactly.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">She sits back down and has another sip of water.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I have to say they’re a nice bunch, Spence. It’s not one of them
places stuffed full of mirrors and glamorous bodies in stringy nightmares
making you feel like a bloody fail whale. They’re pretty good.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I finish writing the paperwork.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Can I get you anything?’ she says. ‘Some yoghurt? I’ve got yoghurt
coming out of me ears.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘That’s kind of you, Moira, but I’m good. Well, look. You seem fine
now, your blood pressure, blood sugar, temperature, ECG and the rest.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I know. That’s why I didn’t call the ambulance at the gym. I knew
if I got home I’d be okay. Lucky I had a change of clothes, though. The taxi
would’ve taken one look at me and driven off at speed.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I think it’s probably a good idea to make an appointment to see
your GP, Moira. Just to review where you’re at, give you some advice about
exercise and diet. I’m no expert, but I think you should probably go at this a
little more gently. You don’t want to set yourself back.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I’m sorry to have dragged you out for nothing, Spence. It weren’t
me that called. It was my son. He rang that advice line, and they said they’d
be sending an ambulance.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I’m not surprised.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Sam’s a good boy. He’s a bit shy, though. That’s why he hasn’t come
out of his room.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Will Sam go with you to the doctor’s?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘No. He’s got to go stack shelves at the supermarket. The graveyard
shift. Just till he gets himself sorted.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I hand her the patient report form.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘You can show that to the doctor if you like.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Thanks, Spence.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘So I’ll say goodbye now. Good luck with the diet. And take it easy.
Don’t set yourself back.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I won’t.’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">She laughs, and flexes her arm.</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">‘So far so good!’</span>Spence Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11183848895584919812noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27691111.post-81323950582517787972015-04-20T11:13:00.002+00:002015-04-20T11:13:56.476+00:00come with a net<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Agnes is lying on the floor where she slipped out of bed sometime in
the morning. She hasn’t hurt herself. There’s plenty of room and she has some
strength in her arms and legs, so it’s an easy thing to use the inflatable
cushion and get her up. She stands, stiffly but well enough, walks unaided into
the front room where she sits in her chair with an appreciative sigh. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘That’s better!’ she says. ‘I’ve landed!’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Ian, her PA, watches from the doorway. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘This can’t go on!’ he says. ‘You didn’t have your alarm on again. What
have we said? Why didn’t you have your alarm on?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Agnes looks at me and winces. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<i><span lang="EN-GB">He’s off again! </span></i><span lang="EN-GB">she says.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Ian folds his arms.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘It’s all very well you saying this stuff but it’s not going to make
things better is it? I’ve been on and on at the daughter but she won’t listen.
Agnes has been falling a lot lately. She won’t use her frame properly, she
forgets to wear her button. Her memory’s shot and I don’t get any extra help. I’ve
had endless arguments with her but it doesn’t do any good...’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He steams on in this vein. I ask him to fetch in Agnes’ medication,
just to get some space to ask Agnes if everything’s all right.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Don’t mind him,’ says Agnes. ‘He gets a bit worked up sometimes.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">It’s a strange situation. The flat is neat and tidy. Agnes seems
happy enough in herself, and we haven’t seen any signs of bruising that might
indicate physical abuse. She’s warm, well-fed. There are rails on the walls, a wet
room, toilet surround, walking aids. The daughter’s already been on the phone.
She sounded caring, interested, in touch. Ian’s stress seems completely disproportionate.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He comes back in with the blister pack and hands it to me. His face
is taut, waxy; his expression guarded. I wonder for a minute if he’s about to
cry, but he launches into another bitterly intense description of the state of
affairs. I have to speak over him to have a chance of asking specific
questions, or finding out how things stand.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘What’s the difference between a Personal Assistant and a Carer?’ I
ask him.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Nothing. Nothing at all. It’s exactly the same job, for what that’s
worth, except it’s a private arrangement between me and the daughter. I used to
work for an agency, but they took me on full time, <i>shoot me now</i>. It’s just me, doing everything. The daughter comes
round now and again and gets in the way. Quite honestly it’s a miracle I get
anything done. I don’t think she realises...’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘It must be very stressful for you,’ I tell him. ‘You’ve obviously
got a lot on your plate.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He launches into a long, scattershot complaint, covering everything from
shopping arrangements to difficulties with the new bed, missed appointments, misunderstandings,
unsatisfactory consultations with the doctor – and at every point, standing at
the margins of his unhappiness like some malign shadow, the figure of the
daughter. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Ian must at one point have been a good match for them as a family.
There’d be no other reason why they’d take him on as the single carer for the
mother. But it’s hard now to see why that would have been the case – and equally
hard to understand why he’s still there. Surely the daughter can’t be unaware
of his level of discontent? Or is this new today? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I suggest to Ian that we make a Falls Referral. I tell him I’ll make
a note that the level of care also needs looking at.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Good luck with <i>that</i>,’ he
says. ‘It’s not as if I haven’t tried.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Well it can’t hurt if we add our voice.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">We say goodbye to Agnes and head out.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Ian follows.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I need a smoke,’ he says.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He goes as far as the grass verge, then lights up and starts pacing
around, shooting us glances, smoking furiously, intermittently checking his
phone.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Oh my God!’ says Rae. ‘What’s he <i>like</i>?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Maybe I should phone the daughter?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘It’s difficult, isn’t it?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Or do a Vulnerable Adult report? But that gets social services
involved, and she doesn’t seem all that bad.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘The Falls Team are pretty good, though.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I’ll make sure I put some notes on the job.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Yeah – like come with a net.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I make the referral. I’m a little uneasy about the whole thing, but
at least <i>someone’s </i>coming in. After
all, maybe this is just a particularly bad day for Ian, and we don’t want to
stir things up unnecessarily. It’s never clear cut. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">When I’m done I put the clipboard on the dash, glance over to Ian
again and wave.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He nods, takes one last drag of his cigarette, flicks it away into
the road and then exhales such a cloud of smoke it looks for a moment as if his
head has exploded.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Then he turns and marches back inside.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Spence Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11183848895584919812noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27691111.post-90051897584535736772015-04-19T16:32:00.000+00:002015-04-19T16:32:28.957+00:00sign your name<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Ken’s heart is skipping like a syncopated jazz score. It’s almost certainly
the reason he collapsed. For some reason the on-demand pacemaker he had fitted
just a couple of months ago hasn’t kicked in, so we’re taking him to hospital
to have it checked.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Ever since Ruth died I’ve been treading water,’ he says. ‘I don’t
want to drag on too much longer. Sixty years we were married. And that’s a very
long time.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He lifts his head from the pillow, lowers his chin and stares at me
over the rim of his silver glasses. ‘Sixty!’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He rests back, laces his fingers across his belly, and closes his eyes.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I met her at a dance when I was on leave. There were three of them
and I went straight for the pretty one in the middle. I said <i>Are you dancing? </i>and she said <i>Well I suppose I better had</i>. And that
was that. She was the most wonderful woman you could ever meet. I knew a good
thing when I saw it. We got married a couple of months later. Well – you didn’t
hang around in them days. And after the war, we were never apart. Not once.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He flexes his jaw, like he’s testing the shape of the words he’s about
to say.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I can’t believe she’s gone. Still – I won’t be far behind.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Sunlight flickers in through the slatted ambulance windows. There’s
a warm and boxy feel to the afternoon, closed-in, sleepy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I ask him about all the paintings back in his house. Watercolours of
harbours, fishing boats, country scenes, churches.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I used to teach painting,’ he says. ‘Adult education, art clubs,
that kind of thing. And then I’d be off with my easel somewhere, and sometimes
there’d be a little crowd gather, and I’d end up putting the picture aside and
giving a lesson instead. I remember one time, I taught a group of kids who’d
been getting into trouble. They weren’t bad kids. They just needed something to
do. So I took them outside in the fresh air and I sat them round this big old oak
tree and I got them to paint what they saw. There was this one kid, the
roughest of the lot, a real scrag-end. And he did a marvellous picture, full of
energy and colour. And I said to him “Is it finished now?” and he looked at it
for a minute or two and he said “Yep”. And I said “Are you sure about that?”
and he said “Yep”. And I said “Are you absolutely, one hundred per cent,
positively sure there’s nothing else at all you could add to this picture to
finish it off?” So he looked at it for another minute. And eventually he says “I
said it’s finished so it’s <i>finished</i>,
all right?” “Okay, then” I said. ‘Right!’ So I leaned over and I wrote my name
in the corner of it and I said “Well you won’t mind me doing <i>that</i>, then, will you?” He knew what I
meant. We had a good laugh about it.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Ken shakes his head, then turns and gives me another stern look.</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">‘Sign your bloody name!’
he says. ‘Always! It’s yours and no-one else’s!’</span>Spence Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11183848895584919812noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27691111.post-30403756937111050382015-04-19T09:35:00.000+00:002015-04-19T09:35:30.644+00:00tea<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Cara, Jake’s support worker, is waiting for us in the lobby of the
health centre. As soon as she sees us walking up the path she brings him out to
meet us. They’re a curious pair, both middle-aged, but whilst Cara is neatly
dressed, bright and sharp, clipping along in a hacking jacket, ethnic scarf and
pixie boots, Jake is rolling beside her, morbidly obese, covered rather than
dressed, everything black – black t-shirt, black tracksuit bottoms, black
anorak, the striking blackness of it all emphasising the pallor of his face. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I can’t go there,’ says Jake. ‘It’ll be ten o’clock soon. I have to
have my cup of tea at ten o’clock. How am I going to get back in time?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Don’t worry about it,’ I tell him. ‘They’ve got plenty of tea at
the hospital. They’re good for that.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I’ve got OCD,’ says Jake. ‘Anxiety and panic attacks. I’m going to need
a Diazepam or I’ll lose it, I know I will,’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘One step at a time,’ says Cara. ‘We’ve really got to get your leg
sorted out.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I don’t care about my leg,’ says Jake. ‘I want to go home.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Jake seldom goes outside his flat, or even out of his chair. On top
of all his other health problems he’s suffered a DVT. The doctor has ordered
him straight into hospital for a scan, but even though Jake’s left calf is as
tight as a red balloon, covered in a pruritic rash he’s scratched into a scabby
mess, he’s still reluctant to come with us. We have to tempt him onto the
ambulance with a string of blandishments, keeping him talking whilst we quietly
put on his seatbelt and gently pull away. With me one side and Cara the other,
we keep him in a cross-fire of reassurance for the short journey in.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘How long will I be up there?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘It’s hard to say. It’s not too bad at the moment so it’s a good
time to go.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I can’t sit around and wait for hours. Will they see me straight
away?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘They’ll certainly do their best to sort you out as quickly as they
can. They need the space!’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I can’t be waiting for hours and hours. It’s too much for me. I want
to go home. Why can’t you take me home?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘You’ve done really well getting this far, Jake. Just try and take
it a little step at a time. You made it to the doctor’s, which was brilliant.
And now you’re on the ambulance going to the hospital, which is fantastic. One
step at a time.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I think you’re doing brilliantly, Jake.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Yeah but I don’t want to go to the hospital. Take me home.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘We can’t take you home, Jake.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Why not?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Because your leg’s in a pretty bad way. If you don’t get it treated
today you could suffer complications.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘What do you mean, complications?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘A clot could go up into your lungs and stop you breathing.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I don’t care if it does.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘But we do, Jake.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Just take me home.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘We’re not allowed to.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Okay. Drive me to a cliff and throw me over.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘We care about you too much to do that.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I don’t, and I don’t care about my leg. Why would I care about my
leg when I don’t want to live?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I’m sorry you feel like that, Jake. I know this is difficult for
you. But if you come to the hospital we can get your leg sorted and then find
you someone to talk to about your low mood and how things are generally.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I don’t care about any of that. Just take me to a cliff, throw me
off and be done.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘We’re not going to do that.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Why not?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Jake. Try not to worry. Look – I’ll make you a nice cup of tea when
you get to the hospital. How about that?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘It’s not the same. I need my special cup. I need to be home.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Getting your leg sorted isn’t something we can do at home, though.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Why not?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Because of all the special machinery, the ultrasound scanners and
what have you. All the specialist staff that are involved.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The ambulance rocks violently as we turn up the ramp into the
A&E car park.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘We’re here!’ I tell him. ‘Well done!’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘But I don’t want to <i>be</i>
here,’ he says.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Come on, Jake,’ says Cara, holding out her hand to him at the
bottom of the steps. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Eventually he gets up and moves to the back of the ambulance. He
stands in the doorway with his hands either side, staring out, massive,
bloodless white, taking in the horrifying activity of the ambulance bays, the fuss
and clamour of it all, like an albino Orang-utan being coaxed out of the forest
into the city.</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">‘I want my tea,’ he says. </span>Spence Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11183848895584919812noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27691111.post-21581732973240749462015-04-18T11:37:00.001+00:002015-04-18T11:37:30.081+00:00the house at the end<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Rae is sitting on the arm of the sofa, one hand pinching Irene’s
nose just above the nostrils. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘A couple more minutes then we’ll see if it’s stopped,’ she says.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Righto,’ says Irene. She obviously wants to chat despite her
predicament, the wad of tissue she’s pressing underneath her nose, and the claggy
effect of the blood and saliva in her mouth. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I’m in your hands,’ she says.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘<i>Hand</i>,’ says Rae.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">There’s not much else to do but wait. I’ve taken some obs, written
out the paperwork, cleared away the small mountain of bloody tissues that Irene
had piled up on the coffee table in the hours before she phoned. The Warfarin
she’s taking is a factor. She was only up the hospital a week ago with the same
thing. They didn’t cauterize then, but warned her it might need doing if it
happened again.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘It’s such a bloody nuisance,’ says Irene, then grunts and gestures
with her free hand to the tissues on the coffee table. ‘As you can see.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘This is a lovely house,’ says Rae, swapping hands to give herself a
break, turning to face the window, motes
of dust floating in and out of the bright lines of sunshine. ‘How long’ve you
lived here?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Oh, I should think about sixty year,’ says Irene, breathing through
her mouth, her teeth outlined in red. ‘Just after we got married.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Amazing!’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I was born in this street. Well – the house at the end.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Oh yes?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘It’s not there now, course. We got bombed out in the war. I don’t
remember all that much about it. I was in bed at the time. Everyone else was
killed. Mum, my sister Joan, the neighbours either side. I went to bed one
night and woke up in hospital. I was there for months, but they fixed me up. I
was all right in the end.’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Oh my god! What about your Dad?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Dad? Oh - he died just after the first war. I never really knew
him.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘What happened when you came out of hospital?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Irene shrugs, glancing up at Rae through her blue-gloved fingers.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I got a job in a laundry,’ she says.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘That’s terrible,’ says Rae, shaking her head. ‘Not the laundry job.
I mean the rest of it. Now then – shall we see how we’re doing.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">She releases her grip and kneels down in front of Irene, who tentatively
lowers the tissue. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Unfortunately, the clot that had formed in Irene’s nose has bonded
with the tissue. It extends in a bloody string then flops out into her hands,
followed by a steady stream of drips that I staunch with some gauze.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I’m afraid it’s the hospital,’ says Rae, tying on a nose bolster.</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">‘I thought so,’ says
Irene. ‘Look at me. What a two and eight!’</span>Spence Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11183848895584919812noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27691111.post-59195006667963454492015-04-14T09:16:00.001+00:002015-04-14T09:16:21.812+00:00faux pas<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Please don’t do anything. It’s not what she would have wanted.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Is there a DNAR?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘A what?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘A Do Not Resuscitate order. Without that I’m afraid my hands are
tied.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Oh...no.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Sheila is in cardiac arrest, and the paramedic doesn’t have the
luxury of debate. Sheila’s daughter Rachel is too elderly herself to help, so she
leaves the room and he sets about getting Sheila onto the floor by himself.
Luckily she doesn’t weigh much. He’s able to gather the bottom sheet and slide
her out of bed in a controlled way. As soon as she’s on the floor he starts
chest compressions. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">When we arrive a few minutes later Angus has cut Sheila’s nightie
off and put the defib pads on. She’s in asystole, and stays that way despite
all our efforts. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">We stop the resus after half an hour. Tidy her up. Put her back to
bed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Rachel is sitting on the sofa with her husband Geoff when I go in to
tell them that Sheila has died. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I knew she’d gone,’ she says. ‘We live in the flat just below. I
should’ve known something was wrong.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Her husband squeezes her hand.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I’ll make us all some tea,’ he says, and goes off into the kitchen.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘She always said she didn’t want a long illness, in and out of
hospital like Grandma,’ says Rachel. ‘She was a stubborn old thing. She had a
habit of getting her way in the end.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I tell her about the next stage, how the police always attend an
unexpected death – ‘...purely routine, nothing to worry about. They’re only
here as representatives of the Coroner’s Office. They’ll talk you through the
next stage.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">It’s still early. Rachel and Geoff are in their dressing gowns. When
he comes back into the room with a tray of tea things he sets it down on the
table and says they’d better go back downstairs and get dressed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘You’ve got plenty of time,’ I tell them as they leave. ‘The police
will probably take half an hour or so.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Whilst they’re gone we tidy up some more, drink our tea, finish the
paperwork. We swap gossip with Angus, then he leaves us to it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">As situations go it’s pretty perfect. The elderly mother in the
upstairs flat, independent but still a daily part of things; the daughter and
her family just below. It’s a bright and tidy place, filled with family
pictures, from the slick-haired young pilot standing by a Spitfire with his
arms folded, through black and white baby photos, prams in parks, faded colour
scenes of weddings, graduations, increasing family groups in gardens so bright
the colour has faded almost to white, outings, Christmas gatherings, parties in
crowded halls, all the faces turned towards the camera.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Rachel comes back in – a little hesitantly, like it’s not quite the
room it was.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Thanks for everything you’ve done,’ she says. ‘Can I ....go in and
see her now?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Of course.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘How’s the tea?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">‘A lifesaver,’ I say,
immediately regretting the faux pas. Thankfully she doesn’t hear me, though.
She’s already turned and headed back across the hallway. She hesitates by the
bedroom door, gently opens it in the way that you would if you wanted to go
into a room without waking someone, then goes inside.</span></div>
Spence Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11183848895584919812noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27691111.post-32622140526260428692015-04-13T09:56:00.000+00:002015-04-13T09:56:19.362+00:00the patio<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Eddie was forty-one. Life had been a struggle, well, since he was
discharged from the Navy some years ago. He hadn’t been looking after himself.
He had PTSD, back pain. He smoked too much, didn’t take exercise. Didn’t drink alcohol,
which was something, but abused his pain meds and went long periods without
eating or drinking. Recently he’d become quite emaciated. Found it difficult to
motivate himself in the morning. Spent long periods lying in bed, smoking, staring
at the TV that was permanently on. Going through to the lounge became a major
event. His family – particularly his elderly mother – did what they could. They
were local, so that was handy. In fact, someone was able to look in on Eddie
every day. Took it in turns to bring him cooked dinners, sausage casseroles and
chicken pies in dishes covered in foil, which, despite their best efforts, went
largely untouched. They turned up to take him to various appointments. Practically
had to carry him out. His brother Chris decorated the flat. Even Eddie’s
ex-wife popped round when she could. Everyone was worried. Things were getting
worse, not better.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">It was Eddie’s mum who found him. She’d come round to see that he’d
got up that morning. He had a follow up appointment at the chest clinic and the
way things were going he couldn’t afford to miss it. She was pleased to see his
bed was empty. The bathroom door was shut so she guessed that’s where he was.
She rapped on the door and said hello as she passed through to the kitchen to
make a pot of tea. There was no reply, but he wasn’t chatty in the morning so
she didn’t think too much of it. She clattered around getting the tea things
ready, shouting out to Eddie about the appointment and this and that. She
thought it was strange he didn’t say <i>anything</i>,
though, not even a grunt. She stopped what she was doing and knocked on the
door again. When he didn’t answer she pushed it open. It didn’t have a lock. You
had to sing if you didn’t want company.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Eddie was collapsed on the toilet, a dreadful grey colour, slumped
to the side across a low table, bottles of shampoo and conditioner, razors and
cotton buds scattered around him.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">She shook him by the shoulder, even slapped his face. Then phoned
for Chris. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">As soon as Chris saw his brother he knew he’d died. He dragged him
off the toilet onto the floor, rang 999, and began pressing up and down on his
chest, following instructions that the operator was giving him on the phone he
had crooked between his ear and his shoulder. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">When we arrived we knew it was hopeless, but Chris was doing CPR and
the body was warm so we set to work. We dragged Eddie out of the bathroom into
the hallway to give ourselves more room. A back-up crew arrived. Between us we did
everything we could, but nothing changed. Eventually we had to take the decision
to end the resus. We turned off the monitor and began tidying him up for the
family. I went through to the bedroom to tell the mother and Chris that Eddie
had died. The mother howled and tried to break past me, to do something, <i>anything</i>. But Chris hugged his arms
round her, sat down with her on the bed, and let her sob the worst of it out. I
said how sorry I was, and quietly left the room.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">*</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Later, I’m standing with Chris on the landing whilst the other
paramedics finish ferrying the equipment out to the trucks. Chris has to go to
the front door now and again to meet the next relative to arrive, telling them
more than he could on the phone, preparing them as best he can, before showing
them inside to where Eddie is lying in the hallway, a blanket over him up to
his chin. Chris then takes them through to the bedroom where his mother is
being comforted by the others who’ve arrived, then he comes back out onto the
landing.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I’ve finished the paperwork. There’s nothing else to do but wait for
the police to arrive. Every time I hear a car I glance out of the window, but
mostly I devote my attention to Chris, who wants to talk about what’s happened,
the past, the family, anything that comes to mind. He’s pale and tense but seems
to be bearing up well. Chatting about his early retirement, the plans he’s made
to give himself some space to think about the next move, that kind of thing. At
one point there’s another terrible wail from inside the flat. He stiffens as if
he’s about to go back in, but then takes a breath, folds his arms and leans
back against the wall. He smiles, and shakes his head.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Well. At least it gets me out of steam-cleaning the patio,’ he says.
But then he glances at me. ‘Sorry. That sounds terrible.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Don’t worry. I know what you mean,’ I tell him. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">And it’s true, I do.</span></div>
Spence Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11183848895584919812noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27691111.post-26528298125581515942015-04-12T11:10:00.000+00:002015-04-12T11:10:10.304+00:00acceptance<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">It looks like Pieter died in his sleep.
He’s lying on his front on the floor with his face turned to the side, a duvet
beneath him, a blanket on top. The window is open, warm air stirring the
curtains. The radio is plays softly. I reach over and turn it off.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘He often slept on the floor because of his
back,’ says Abla, one of Pieter’s flatmates. ‘It was more comfortable for him.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">He stares down at his friend and then
shakes his head sadly.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Ah, Pieter!’ he says. ‘You were like a
brother to me.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Then he turns and leads us back down the
stairs.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The house has a warm and generous feel.
Brightly painted walls crowded with photos, guitars propped up in corners, a
piano in the sitting room, drapes and pictures and mementoes from a hundred
gigs and parties. The long kitchen overlooks a patio garden with a miscellany
of iron and wood chairs round a tatty wooden table. There’s a plump ginger cat
draped on the far wall. A blackbird singing in an apple tree by the back door.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Can I make you some tea?’ says Abla. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Thanks. That’s kind.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">We take a seat at the kitchen table. Rae
starts the paperwork. I call Control to request police to scene.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Nothing to worry about,’ she says. ‘It’s
just what happens when there’s an unexpected death anywhere. They take over
from us.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I understand,’ says Abla. ‘Sugar?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘No thanks.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">He pauses for a moment by the cups, like he’s
momentarily forgotten what it was he was supposed to be doing. But then he
takes a breath and carries on.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I would not have believed this could
happen,’ he says. ‘It is so unexpected. Pieter! Ah – man!’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">He puts the cups in front of us, then joins
us at the table, resting his chin on his hands and staring out of the open door
at the apple tree. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘A brother. He was like a brother to me,’
he says.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The house is something like a commune.
Stefano, one of the other residents, is already busy on the phone to anyone he
can reach, telling them the awful news. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Pieter works till late,’ says Stefano,
between calls. ‘He came back in the early hours and went to bed. I heard the
radio playing this morning but when I knocked and he didn’t answer I just
thought he was sleeping. God! Why didn’t I go in?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘You must not worry about that,’ says Abla.
‘Why would you go in? This is so unexpected.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘But I might have made a difference?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">He turns back into the living room and
blows his nose before making another call.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">After a pause I talk to Abla about the
house.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Yes. It is a wonderful, wonderful place,’
he says. ‘We have been together for many years. It is like a family. Some years
ago we played in a band, and then we ended up staying here.’ He smiles and
shrugs, gesturing with his hands. ‘Some people stay, some go, but it is always
a big, happy place.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The front door opens and Ken comes in,
struggling sideways with two shopping bags. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘What’s happened?’ he says, putting them
down and looking at me and Rae with alarm.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Pieter has died,’ says Abla. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘He’s <i>died?’</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Yes. I found him lying dead on the floor.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘<i>Pieter?’<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Yes.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Ken looks at us again.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘There’s no sign of anything,’ I tell him. ‘I’m
really sorry.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘What did he die of, d’you think?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘It’s impossible to say. Was he complaining
of feeling unwell lately?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Ken puts one of the shopping bags on the
counter and starts to unpack – sliced bread, milk, butter, tangerines.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Just his back. He said his back was
playing up. But he’s been having trouble with his back for years.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">He turns to look at us with a jar of
pickles in his hand.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘<i>Dead?’<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I’m afraid so.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">He stands motionless for a second or two.
Looks at Abla, who is shaking his head sadly.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I thought we could try these,’ he says,
holding out the jar to him. ‘I thought they looked interesting.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘They do look good,’ says Abla.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Hmm,’ says Ken, puts them in a prominent
place on the side, then carries on unpacking.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Wanda’s going to take this very hard,’ he
says from over by the vegetable rack. ‘She’ll go crazy,’ he says.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘How many people live here?’ I ask Abla.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘At the moment we have ten. All
nationalities. French, American, Tanzanian, Lincolnshire.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Lincolnshire?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘That’s me,’ says Ken, filling the potato
bin. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Behind him on the main window ledge is a
line of glass Buddhas, half a dozen colours, radiant in the sunlight. Just in
front of them is another, plastic version. This one must have a solar cell,
because he’s busy nodding his head and waving a little fan that busily
click-click-clicks against his rounded belly.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘That one, he is busy saying yes to life,
to anything that may happen,’ says Abla. ‘Whatever that may be.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Stefano comes back into the kitchen.</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">‘Wanda’s on her way,’
he says.</span>Spence Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11183848895584919812noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27691111.post-23554315975572077822015-04-09T10:49:00.000+00:002015-04-09T10:49:56.484+00:00the gist<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Michael has fallen in the garden of his house. His neighbours saw
the whole thing and called for an ambulance. Luckily it’s a fine day, because we
have some distance to travel. Meanwhile, the neighbours fetch out whatever they
can, half a dozen pillows, a duvet, one of those big, curved cushions to help
with breast-feeding, so he’s pretty comfortable, all things considered.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">At first I think that Michael must be a war veteran. He has a
devastating facial wound, missing much of the right side of his upper jaw, the
lips distorted around the hole. But the neighbours tell us it was actually cancer,
twenty years ago, and how well he’s managed since.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">It’s something of a miracle he can talk at all. That he <i>can </i>is more akin to ventriloquism than
anything else. Without teeth, an upper palate and fully mobile lips, he has to
produce the sounds deep in the well of his throat, like gargling air. It’s
difficult to understand him, but I find that the more I relax and go for the
gist, the easier it is. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He hasn’t hurt himself. We help him up; he weight bears, walks okay
with a stroller. Says he doesn’t want to go to hospital. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The neighbours give their thanks and carry all their cushions and
things back inside whilst we walk with Michael into his house.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">It’s a bare, functional place, more like a hobbyist’s office than a
residence. There’s a tiny sitting room with an upholstered chair, television and
coffee table; a kitchenette with a blue Formica cupboard neatly stacked with
tins and packets of cup-a-soup; a boxy bedroom with just enough space for a
single bed, a single wardrobe, a single lamp, and a roll-top bath in the
bathroom, whose drip stains could probably date the place as accurately as tree
rings. Everything else, every wall-space and alcove, is given over to books – shelves
and shelves of them, cricket almanacs and biographies, books about the war, old
train timetables, stamp albums, Goon show scripts.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Good insulation’ I say. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He stops, swipes his hand in the air, then carries on shuffling
forwards again.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">We help him off with his coat and then sit him down in his chair. He
spreads his fingers, running them over the worn curve of the armrests, resting
his head back on the headrest and closing his eyes.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">A moment or two later he opens them again.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Ud oo ah a ha o hee?’ he says</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I look at him for a few seconds before I say: </span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">‘That’d be great,
Michael. Do you want one?’</span>Spence Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11183848895584919812noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27691111.post-54983750778346501882015-04-08T14:40:00.000+00:002015-04-08T14:40:57.278+00:00help arrives<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">There are six people round the figure in the recovery position at
the bus stop, arranged in height order, from the woman crouching at the head, the
two kneeling along the back, one leaning over at the hips, and two standing
guard at the feet. When I climb out of the response car, their faces turn
together to point in my direction. It’s such a definite move it almost makes me
stop in my tracks. All it needs is some Dutch master to paint the scene. And
call it: <i>Help Arrives.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I’m a doctor,’ says the young woman crouching at the head-end.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘We’re pharmacists says the next, nodding to her right and left.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I’m an undercover police officer,’ says one of the serious-looking
guys at the feet. He pulls out a police baseball cap and puts it on. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘And so am I,’ says his colleague. If he has a cap, he leaves it
off.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">They all deliver the next lines, overlapping and anticipating each
other. I listen to it all whilst I crouch beside the doctor, my hand at the
patient’s wrist for want of anything else to do.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘...we were passing when we saw him slide off the bench...’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘...not an injurious fall...’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘...he appeared to suffer a generalised seizure...’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘...which lasted approximately two minutes...’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘...good colour throughout...’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘...perhaps a little congested...’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘....definitely not cyanotic...’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘...we guided him through that and then put him in the recovery
position...’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘... no signs of incontinence. We think the dampness is alcohol...’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘...GCS no better than fourteen...’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘....He’s known to the police. Usually wears one of those rugby-type
caps. I’ve got his name and address when you’re ready...’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘...He’s a user. I think the fits are alcohol related...’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘...Perhaps you’d like to do a blood sugar...?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I get the kit out, and a bottle of oxygen and mask.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Could you put that on whilst I jab his finger?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘...allow me...’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I’ll call for a truck. He needs somewhere private to do more of an
exam.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘...of course.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Blood sugar five point four. So that’s good.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘That <i>is </i>good.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Lovely.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Okay.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Great.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">They watch me as I radio for back-up.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Shouldn’t be long,’ I tell them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘...well <i>you </i>were pretty
quick...’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Don’t get used to it!’ I say. They laugh. There’s a lull.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Well I must say - it’s pretty handy, having you lot on scene,’ I
tell them, to make conversation if nothing else. ‘I’ll be okay here now if you
need to get off.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘...we should really be going...’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘...we’re at a health conference...’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘...just down the road...’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘...at the conference centre...’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The two police officers look more circumspect.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘...ahm... we just happened to be passing....’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘...we were.. ahm... on our way to work...’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I nod appreciatively. Give the patient another pinch. He moans, but
he seems pretty stable. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I can hear sirens in the distance. A moment later, an ambulance negotiates
the intersection and parks up behind my car.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Thanks for your help,’ I tell the group, looking from person to
person. ‘You’ve been amazing.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘...glad to help...’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘...business as usual, really...’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘...a bit of excitement to get the juices flowing...’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘...better than tea and biscuits...’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<br /></div>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">I turn to wave at the
two paramedics strolling up onto the pavement in my direction; when I look
back, I’m surprised to find that the good Samaritans have already dispersed,
fluidly and anonymously, into the early morning crowd.</span>Spence Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11183848895584919812noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27691111.post-48026603775787902092015-04-07T09:15:00.000+00:002015-04-07T09:15:43.940+00:00the oldest boozer in town<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Cross Keys is in a maze of alleyways so confusing I want to be
running a ball of twine to find our way out again. It’s an ancient, tucked-away
drinking hole, stone arched windows of gilded glass, a stone step smoothed flat
as a pat of butter, the timbers low and black. Even I have to duck for the door
beam, but once we’re inside the place opens out. The snugs and parlours and tap
rooms have all been removed to create one big drinking hall, with a long,
curving bar radiant with bottles and chrome and glass, and a brass pipe running
along the bottom.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Jack is in one of the window seats with one of the bar staff
standing next to him, a hand resting on his shoulder.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Jack’s one of our regulars,’ she says, giving him an encouraging
squeeze. ‘He’s been coming in since forever.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">To be fair to Jack, the light through the window’s not all that
flattering, giving everyone a slightly jaundiced complexion. But the glass isn’t
responsible for the tideline of dirt on Jack’s scalp, his tattered, unwashed clothes,
and a yeasty fug of neglect about him as rich as the golden patina of nicotine
on his fingers.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘In fact I think when Jack started coming in the landlord was still technically
a pirate,’ she says. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Jack gives her a sorry little nod, but he’s not in the mood for
banter. He’s stuck in the chair with pains in his right and left flank, no
doubt a recurrence of the kidney infections he says he’s prone to. He says he
doesn’t want pain relief. The girl tidies the table, putting his newspaper,
glasses and huge mobile phone into a carrier bag whilst we help him into our
carry chair. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">She holds the doors. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">We wheel him through.</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">‘That’s a shame,’ says
someone outside, one of two passers-by who stand aside as we come out. I think he
means us, carrying a man out of a pub, but as I wheel Jack away along the bumpy
flags, I suppose there’s a chance he was actually commenting on the fact that
the little boutique shop opposite had a sign in the window: <i>Closing Down. Final Reductions.</i></span>Spence Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11183848895584919812noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27691111.post-5710960096323434402015-03-30T17:46:00.002+00:002015-03-30T17:46:58.283+00:00pressure<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Mark flinches when I wrap the blood pressure cuff round his arm.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Sorry it’s cold,’ I tell him.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘It’s fine. It’s fine,’ he says. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He’s holding his arm straight out in front of him. I rest my hand on
his wrist to ease it back down; he’s so tense it’s like positioning the arm on
one of those jointed artist’s dolls. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Just relax it on your lap, Mark. Like that.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Okay. Yep. Right.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He stares at me as I work the bulb of the sphyg – so intensely it
feels as if it’s not just the cuff I’m pumping up. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Is it high?’ he says.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘It <i>is</i> high, yes. Do you
suffer with that?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘No. Is it dangerous, do you think?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I think you’re stressed at the moment and that’s putting it up.
We’ll do it again in a little later and see if it’s come down.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘What if it doesn’t?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Let’s just see how it’s doing ten minutes from now. I’m sure it’ll head
south again.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘If you think.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Absolutely. Yes.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Along the corridor in the kitchen I can hear Rae talking to Mark’s
wife, in low, serious tones. I know the kinds of things she’ll be asking. I
wonder if he can hear them, too.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I understand you called the police earlier, Mark?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Yes. Yes, I did. Earlier, yes.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Why? What was that about?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘It was stupid, really. I know it was stupid. I had a bad night. I
was restless. I’ve got a lot on my plate. What with the redundancy and one
thing and another. I just couldn’t settle. My mind – my mind was whirring round
and round. I couldn’t make sense of it all.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘So you called the police?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Yes.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘What about?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘The dog. I called them about the dog. I know it sounds stupid. But
I got it into my head the dog was in danger.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">His jaw trembles and I know he’s about to cry.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I can see it’s been really stressful for you lately, Mark.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He nods, wets his lips.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I think a lot of people get fixated on odd things when their mind’s
in turmoil like that – especially in the early hours.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I don’t want to worry anyone. I don’t want to worry my wife. Things
are difficult for her, too.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Are you looking after yourself, Mark? Eating, drinking okay?
Getting enough exercise? You seem in pretty good shape.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I cycle a lot. Run. Walk the dog.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Where is the dog? She’s very well behaved, considering all the
strange voices in the house.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘She’s upstairs in her crate. She’s a good girl.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Why don’t you let her down? We’re fine with dogs.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He goes out of the room. A few moments later there’s a thundering
sound on the stairs and a Springer Spaniel charges in, wagging her tail,
clambering over my bag, shoving her nose into it, then up into my face, leaping
onto the sofa and immediately off again, overwhelmed by it all.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Meg! No!’ shouts Mark, following her into the room. He strides over
to the sofa and she slinks after him, plumping herself down at his feet and then
staring up at him, panting. He sits next to her, slowly, stiffly, holding his
eyes closed for a moment or two, then taking a breath, and flicking them open
again. </span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">‘Do you want to check
my blood pressure?’ he says, holding out his arm.</span>Spence Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11183848895584919812noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27691111.post-70128541782219848562015-03-29T15:00:00.000+00:002015-03-29T15:00:05.887+00:00wound care<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Despite the late afternoon sunshine, all the curtains and blinds in
the Baxter’s flat are drawn. Mrs Baxter is standing in the hallway as we come
in, her arms down by her sides, strands of hair frizzling out around her head
like static. She doesn’t respond to <i>hello
</i>or <i>through here? </i>but watches us
as we walk into her son’s bedroom.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">John is sitting on the edge of his bed in the greasy, airless room.
A heavy man in his late twenties, as inert and fleshy as a mushroom, he has a disconcerting
habit of closing his eyes when he looks at me, and then opening them again when
he looks away, like he was using some other, deeper sense to gauge any
response.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">His left leg is markedly swollen, tightly bound in a discoloured
bandage, his foot covered in a filthy sock. He obviously hasn’t changed anything
in weeks. Unwrapping his leg is an appalling prospect.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Basically what I want is some advice,’ he says, his voice rapid and
flickering. ‘Because I have to say thus far I’ve had conflicting information. Let
me explain. Basically, and for reasons that haven’t been satisfactorily
explained to me thus far, I developed a pain in my left calf muscle, which gradually,
over-time turned into some kind of blister. Eventually, this blister grew
bigger, burst, and left me with something of a crater, which then proceeded to
grow wider. I was quite concerned, so I went to my doctor. My doctor told me
that it was a venous ulcer, gave me some cream to use, and emphasised the
importance of keeping the wound clean, all of which I have done. Unfortunately,
after a week or two, the ulcer became quite a bit deeper and wider. I really
was quite concerned by this point, so I saw another doctor, who said the ulcer would
almost certainly start to heal soon, and that I should carry on keeping the
wound clean and dry. I didn’t mention the cream, he didn’t say anything, so I
wasn’t sure whether I was supposed to use it or not. Anyway, I’ve left it alone
for a week or so, now, but last night I started feeling quite unwell, so I
phoned for further advice. Things are a little complicated at the moment. We’re
between surgeries, and I wasn’t sure who to turn to. What do you think I should
do now? Use the cream? Or carry on keeping it clean and see what happens?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">There’s such a disparity between what he’s saying and the evidence
of our eyes – and noses - it’s hard to know how to begin.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘So no-one’s had a look at your leg in a week or so, John?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘No-one. I thought it best if I let it rest for a while.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘When did you last change your socks?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘My <i>socks? </i>Well – I would
say about the same time.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Your leg looks quite swollen.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Yes. Yes, I suppose it does. It’s not painful anymore though. I
just feel quite sick and dizzy most of the time. I do suffer with acid reflux,
but this feels more like the flu.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Would you mind if we cut the bandage off and had a look?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘If you feel you must,’ he says.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">We dampen the bandage with saline to stop it sticking to the wound.
Even so, cutting it is like breaking the skin of some malign fruit. Of course,
the ulcer beneath it is horribly infected, a palm-sized crater so vibrantly coloured
and textured you could be looking at the aerial photo of a coral island, blooms
of scarlet and black in a darkening sea of green.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">John looks down at it, too.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Is that good?’ he says.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Not really,’ I tell him. ‘It’s badly infected. We need to take you
to hospital.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘To <i>hospital?’<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Absolutely.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘That’s not what I was expecting,’ he says. ‘I just wanted advice.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I finish re-dressing the leg. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">When I turn round to throw the waste in the bag I see Mrs Baxter,
standing in the doorway, staring at me. She has the same expression as before,
but this time she has her hand up to her mouth and nose.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Are you coming with us?’ I ask her, as brightly as I can. ‘We’ll be
a little while getting John settled on the ambulance, so you’ve got five
minutes or so to get whatever you need together.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span style="text-indent: 7.1pt;">She doesn’t say anything, but turns, and quietly walks away.</span></div>
Spence Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11183848895584919812noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27691111.post-6263980588748267982015-03-28T11:31:00.000+00:002015-03-28T11:31:39.353+00:00happy wednesday<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Ralph is sitting
on a bench in the garden, his hand raised in the air, wrapped in a bloody
tea-towel.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Hey! I think I
hit an artery,’ he says, lowering his hand and starting to pull the towel free.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Just a minute.
Keep it up until we’re ready.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘It was
squirting all over the place. I’ve made a right old mess.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘How did you do
it?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I was slicing
up the chicken and I slipped and did my hand instead.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Show me on my
hand where you cut yourself.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I hold out my
gloved hand. He traces a line from the base of my thumb to the root of the
index finger.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘It’s deep,’ he
says. ‘I got a new knife out of the packet and it was sharper than what I
thought.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Are you on any
medication for anything, Ralph?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He shakes his
head. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Fit and well?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I wouldn’t go
that far.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Let’s have a
look at this hand, then.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Rae unwraps the
towel whilst I stand by with a dressing.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">It’s a deep
wound. Blood starts running out so I wrap it quickly and supplement the
dressing with a few gauzes, tying the whole thing off to apply pressure.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘We need to keep
it elevated, Ralph. So look – we’ll use this triangular bandage... There! Can
you feel me touching your fingers? Give them a wiggle. Excellent. Okay. I think
we’re good to go. How much alcohol have you had this afternoon, Ralph?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Dunno. About
seven pints.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Is that a
normal amount for you?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Depends what
you call normal.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Special
occasion?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Yep.
Definitely.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘What were you
celebrating?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Wednesday.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He trudges up
the steps and sits down in the seat we’ve made ready.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘It really
stings,’ he says.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I bet.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I can’t afford
to lose my hand.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘No. Are you
right or left handed?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He holds up the
good hand.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘That’s
something, then.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Yeah,’ he
sighs. ‘That’s something.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">A quick round of
obs and we’re ready to go. Rae shouts the leaving scene time back through the
hatch and we set off.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘What were you
cooking?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Chicken.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Fresh or
frozen?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Well I weren’t
chasing it round the yard or nothing.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He pulls an
angry face – <i>Yargh! – </i>and raises his
good hand like he’s waving a cleaver. Then laughs, and settles back again.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Nah, mate. I
just got it out the freezer. I was slicing it up for a stir fry.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Alcohol and
cooking. A deadly combination.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Tell me about
it.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I cut the top
of my finger off, once.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Did ya?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I was showing
my eldest daughter how to make an omelette. I was chopping the bacon and she
was breaking the eggs. I just glanced over to say <i>careful you don’t get egg on the floor </i>when I sliced the tip of my
finger off.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He laughs.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘So you know all
about it, then?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Yep.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He blinks, thickly,
with the buffered precision of several pints, then rests his head back on the
seat.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">After a while he
says: ‘Am I gonna die, d’you think?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Well. Yep. One
day, Ralph. But probably not from this.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He turns his
head and glares at me.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Great. Thanks,
mate. Cheers for that,’ he says. ‘I hope I get better treatment at the
hospital. Although knowing my luck, they’ll probably mix me up with someone
else and cut me leg off.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Only if they’ve
been drinking, too, Ralph.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Yeah. Well,’ he
says, closing his eyes again. ‘Like I say. I was celebrating.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Happy
Wednesday, Ralph.’</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">‘Happy Wednesday to
you, too. Wake me up when we’ve landed.’</span>Spence Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11183848895584919812noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27691111.post-23415625189119569702015-03-23T15:58:00.000+00:002015-03-23T15:58:47.399+00:00urban fairy story<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘What did you
use to cut yourself?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘A knife I got
from the kitchen.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Have you still
got it on you, or...?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I chucked it.
Listen to me, yeah? You don’t understand what it’s like. I’m having a mental
breakdown. I just can’t cope with it no more. If I don’t get some help, trust
me, I’m going to do something. I’m going to throw myself under a bus.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I can see
you’re under a lot of stress.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Stress? Jesus
Christ! You don’t understand what it’s like. I mean, I can’t.... I haven’t....’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Cherie chokes
down on her tears, sobbing uncontrollably by the side of the road for a moment.
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘If you think
you’ll be all right in the car...’ I say to her.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">She presses a
wad of tissue to her eyes.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘...I can drive
you to the hospital where you can talk to someone about how you’re feeling. How
does that sound?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">She nods, picks
up her handbag, and follows me to the car.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘’Scuse the
mess,’ I say, grabbing the box of gloves, lunchbox, spare sheets, the clipboard
from the front seat, and throwing them all in the back.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Don’t worry
about it,’ she says.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I shut her door,
and climb in the other side.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I’m not a bad
person, yeah?’ she says. ‘They’re trying to make out I am but I’m not. I’ve
tried, you know? I’ve tried so hard. My mum says I do too much for him and she’s
right. But I wanted to make a home for us both. I shouldn’t have given up what
I did and now I’ve got nothing. I let my friends go ‘cos he was jealous. I let
my place go in town. You don’t understand what it’s like. And now he’s gone off
down the gym, and he’ll be drinking with his mates, and I won’t see him till
later, all pissed up. And we haven’t even got a telly.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Cherie is
strikingly pretty, with long, auburn hair and dark eyes. If Disney ever thought
of casting a gritty, urban version of <i>Aladdin</i>,
she’d be a shoe-in for Princess Jasmine. With Jeremy Kyle as Jafar.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I pass her more
tissue.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘D’you know
what?’ she says, blowing her nose and then sighing – a deep and shuddering
thing – before tearing the damp tissue into shreds. ‘His family, yeah? His
family have got it in for me, <i>big</i>
time. Ever since my Dad came round and punched him in the mouth. That’s when my
Mother-in-Law jumped on top of me and bit my arm. She took such a chunk out they
had to do skin grafts. So she goes down for ABH, yeah, and then his brothers go
round and put my Dad in hospital. So now he’s cut me off, and I ‘aint got
no-one. You don’t understand what it’s like. I’m stuck in that flat with no electric,
no friends, no money. No family anymore. I’m going out of my head. Do you know
what I’m saying? If I don’t get some help today I’m going do something. I want
to get that knife, stick it in my chest and let all the pressure out. It’s all too
much. I can’t bear it. I can’t.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">She starts
crying again. But whether it’s the movement of the car, the feeling that
something is finally happening, or the fact she’s been able to vent some of her
frustration, she seems to calm down, and her tears gradually subside.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Suddenly she
sits up straight and slaps me on the shoulder.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Have a look. Over
there,’ she says, leaning forward, her voice hard and glittering. ‘<i>That’s</i> where I live.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">She follows it
as we pass, then settles back in the seat and flicks her hair back.</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">‘What a fakkin’ dump,’
she says. ‘Scuse the language.’</span>Spence Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11183848895584919812noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27691111.post-394503491148465332015-03-23T11:52:00.000+00:002015-03-23T11:52:05.440+00:00the invisible man strikes again<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">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 <i>back given out. <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">It’s Ricky again.
A different part of town, but just as public.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">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.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Ah! Here we
are!’ says the one with the notebook, putting it away.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Hello!’ I say,
dropping my bags down. ‘Hello, Ricky!’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘You know this
one?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Yep. I met him
yesterday. Similar deal. Although he’s looking a bit brighter this morning. How
are things, Ricky?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He ignores me,
and concentrates on the cigarette.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘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. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘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.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Is that right,
Ricky? Is it back pain today?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He shrugs, lights
his fag.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Do you normally
suffer with that?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I’ve got
complex mental health needs,’ he says, spitting a strand of tobacco off to the
side.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘How did you get
on at the hospital the other day?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘They kicked me
out.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The second PCSO
leans in.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I understand
that Ricky was asked to leave by security. Isn’t that right?’ </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He looks in the
other direction.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘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...’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I point it out.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘...so what you
could do is walk over there and talk to someone about your back. How’s that
sound?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘You haven’t
checked me over or anything. You don’t know me.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘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?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I’m not going
there. It’s full of <i>people</i>. I’d have
to wait.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘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.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He closes his
eyes and carries on smoking.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘We can deal
with this if you need to get off,’ says the first PCSO.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">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.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">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 <i>everything</i>
– 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. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">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.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Of course, he
brings me crashing back to pavement level, leaning over and grinding out my
empathy as ruthlessly as his cigarette.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11pt;">‘I’m gonna have you
struck off for not caring,’ he says.</span></div>
Spence Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11183848895584919812noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27691111.post-26570460694891369152015-03-23T10:23:00.000+00:002015-03-23T10:23:01.563+00:00the twenty pound stand<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">It’s lunchtime,
and the square is filling up. A company has set up an advertising display in
one corner, with a car and banners and beautiful women in heels and smiles handing
out leaflets. Office workers are emerging into the bright sunshine to forage
for lunch, but the place many of them would sit to eat their wraps and crisps,
the curvy public artwork that usefully doubles as a bench, is curiously empty.
The reason is obvious, though. An NFA is
sitting and smoking on one end; at the other, stretched out on his back on the
floor, is Ricky.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I’m on the car,
so I’m relieved to see it’s not a resus. An ambulance has also been dispatched
to this, so I shouldn’t be on my own for long.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Hello? Ricky?
Open your eyes for me.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I pinch his
shoulder. He snarls.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Don’t. All
right?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He closes his
eyes.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Come on, Ricky.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Another pinch.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘What’re you
doing that for?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘I need you to sit
up and talk to me.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He shuts his
eyes again and lies still. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">A thick-set guy
in his early twenties with a full, black beard and a pair of Beats headphones, he
looks like a monk DJ who hit the skids.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Come, on,
Ricky. You can’t just lie here all day.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Why?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘People will
think you’re ill and call the ambulance.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He ignores me. I
poke him again.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Fuck off!’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Sorry, Ricky. All
you have to do is sit up. We’ll have a chat and then I’ll leave you alone.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The other NFA
grins and nods and shouts out drunken advice. I give him a wave and then help
Ricky sit up, propping him back against the sculpture. But no sooner is he
upright than he starts slumping forwards again.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Have you taken
anything today, Ricky?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He slurs
something that sounds like the name of an anti-epileptic medication.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Have you taken
more than you should?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I have to prod
him for an answer. He jerks awake and sneers at me, his eyes half-closed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Meanwhile, the other
NFA has come over. He stands in front of me, hardly able to stay upright himself.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘He’s a dead
fucking loss, that one,’ he says. ‘Aint you, Ricky old son? Hey! D’you want ta
see if he ken stand up?’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘There’s a truck
coming in a minute so we’re good till then, I think.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Nah! I know how
ta do this. S’easy. Watch me.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He leans in to
Ricky.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘Hey! Ricky, me
ol’ mate. See there – that twenty pound note? Is that your’n? I think it’s come
out o’ yer pocket! Look! A twenty pound note, son.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Ricky frowns and
waggles his head from side to side.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘A twenty pound
note, man! Jes’ there, hanging out ya pocket! Yer sittin’ on it.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Ricky jerks
upright, hauls himself to a stand, then sways hopelessly from side to side,
like a marionette with its strings in a muddle.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">‘There ya go!’
says the NFA. ‘The twenty pound note test.’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He taps the side
of his nose, winks and then points to me.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 11pt;">‘That one’s on the
house,’ he says. Then laughs, and staggers off.</span></div>
Spence Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11183848895584919812noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27691111.post-89243861863502246032015-03-20T15:15:00.002+00:002015-03-20T15:16:42.767+00:00belts and biscuits<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">‘What’re
<i>you</i> doing here?’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Michael
leans forward on the hospital bed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">‘I
thought you was dead,’ he says. Then he settles back again, finishes off the
biscuit he was eating and slaps his hands crumb-free. ‘Maybe you are. Maybe you
aren’t. That’s for another day. Now then. Who’s had it away with my tea?’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">‘Here
you are, Mike.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">‘I thang’yor.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The
nurse comes in with Michael’s notes and gives us a handover. Referred to the
vascular team query TIA. History of dementia, CVA, a few other things. Plenty
of medication. Social history.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Michael
pulls a face.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">‘I hope
you’re paying attention’ he says to me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">‘Oh
yeah.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">‘Good. ‘Cos
I’m not.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">He has
an early-onset form of dementia, which, judging by his neatly-clipped, silver goatee
and moustache, seems to involve a gradual transformation into Colonel Sanders –
at least, a Cockney music hall version of the chicken magnate, whose schtick involves
making anything you say sound ridiculous.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">‘Look at
that!’ he says, leaning forwards again
and pointing to my middle.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">‘I know.
I’m carrying a little holiday weight…’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">‘No! <i>That!</i>’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">‘What d’you
mean – my belt?’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">‘Ye-es!
Your <i>belt</i>. And now look at that.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">He
points to Rae’s belt.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Hers is
ambulance issue, with a decorated buckle.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">‘M&S’
finest,’ I say, slapping mine, and then taking the opportunity to tuck my shirt
in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">‘Say
who?’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">‘Marks
& Spencer.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">‘<i>Marks and Spencer</i>. Of <i>course. </i>Tsch, tsch, tsch.’ <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">He raises
his eyebrows and stares at me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">‘Well it’s
better than string,’ I say, shrugging. ‘It gets the job done.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">‘What
job?’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">‘Keeping
my trousers up.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">‘Oh! Your
<i>trousers!</i>’ He shakes his head, like
this is the craziest thing he’s ever heard, and then he turns his attention to
the table again, and carefully extracts the second biscuit from the packet of
three.</span></div>
Spence Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11183848895584919812noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27691111.post-48578208033930717602015-03-19T09:45:00.000+00:002015-03-19T09:45:03.727+00:00henry's war<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">‘We had this new Captain take
over ‘cos the other one got killed. My mate said “Have you seen him? He’s an <i>old</i> fucker”. D’you know how old he was?
Forty! Goes to show how young we all was then.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Henry laughs, not an active
thing, more like the gentle release of a deep bubble of humour. It’s a cold
night, so we’ve bundled him up on the ambulance trolley under a pile of white
blankets, the grave and liver-spotted bulk of his head vividly illuminated under
the bright cabin lights. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Henry’s accent is so strong, his
mouth so toothless and collapsed, the journey in to hospital so noisy, I have
to lean in to hear him – and even then there’s a delay between Henry speaking
and the sense of it percolating through.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">‘I went through the lot. D-Day. I
was there. It didn’t start all that good. We went aground in our landing craft.
Bullets and bombs flying all over the place. So they says “Jump out quick lads.
We’ll hev’ to walk the rest of the way.” Which would’a been fine ‘cept we were
in about five foot o’ water. Carrying about seventy-five pound a kit. ‘Course,
quite a few drowned. How I made it in I’ll never know. ‘Cept I was young then,
and when yer young you can do a thing as soon as think it, eh? Anyways, a day
or so later, when we was all set-up on the beach, like, they had these tractors
with forks going up and down. And Billy says: “What’re they havin’ now, d’you
think? A ploughin’ match? But it weren’t that. They was collecting all the
drowned lads, you see? Scooping ‘em up and dumping them in a pile. A’ter that
they put us on a forced march. D’you know what a forced march is? Five miles
you run, five miles you walk. No change of clothes. Yer pockets and your boots
full of water. Full of blood half the time. But you dried out, course. And you
took yer ease where you could.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">‘I met ‘em all. The Belgians. The
Poles. The Dutch were all right. The French were grateful but you couldn’t trust
‘em. The Russians were just fixed on revenge. The Americans were fine in ones
and twos but when you got ‘em in a crowd they was a blasted nuisance. We used
to hev’ fights with ‘em now and again. Depends where we was and what else there
was to do. And the funny thing was, d’you know who we got on the best with? The
Germans. You know where you are with your German. It’s all there and out in the
open, if you know what I mean. Personally I don’t think Hitler was as bad as he
was made out. I think he had some good ideas – and he certainly got the country
going again, didn’t he? Trouble was, he was surrounded by some <i>very</i> strange characters. Goering,
Himmler, Hess – they was all a bit weird. I don’t think Hitler was strong
enough to resist what they was saying to ‘im.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">‘Anyway. Difficult days. A long
time ago. I lost a lot of mates. And you know what?’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">He turns his misty eyes in my
direction.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 7.1pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; text-indent: 7.1pt;">‘I wouldn’t ‘a missed it for the
world.’</span></div>
Spence Kennedyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11183848895584919812noreply@blogger.com4