the cowardly leopard

It snowed so heavily last night even the washing line has a covering; it sags across the garden in a delicately-bladed curve of ice. Every detail has been re-modelled by the blizzard, every feature fattened and made strange, from the stone bird bath in the middle of it all to the tangle of vegetation through the empty frames of the tumble-down greenhouse. Track lines of animals and birds criss-cross in the snow, this one clearly a cat; that one strangely melted and then re-frozen, so you’d think some kind of bear had been out foraging.

Mrs Leppard has slid out of her chair. The carer found her and called us to get her up. And even though she says she’s frightened of going back to hospital, really we have no choice, because none of the arrangements that should have been in place before her discharge – the commode, the rails, the bed with sides, the hoist – nothing has been done. Maybe the snow has slowed these things up. Even the heating is ineffective.

The carer hands me a folder.

‘They discharged her yesterday after an admission for decreased mobility. She was offered a stay at an intermediate care facility but Mrs Leppard turned it down because she was scared it meant she was being put in a home.’

‘I’m not going in no home!’ says Mrs Leppard. She grips the sides of her chair as if she’s getting ready to jump up and sprint away. But her sprinting days are long gone. The only real animation about her now is in an exaggerated facial expression of anxiety, her chin bobbing up and down as if her jaw muscles had been replaced with elastic bands.

‘I’m a coward,’ she moans. ‘I’ve always been a coward.’

‘You’re not a coward, Mrs Leppard. Anyone would be worried – it’s quite natural.’

‘They said they didn’t want to see me again.’

‘Who did?’

‘Them at the hospital.’

The carer kneels down and drapes a young hand over Mrs Leppard’s liver-spotted claw.

‘I think you’ve taken it the wrong way, Sheila. I think they meant they didn’t want to see you back in hospital because that would mean you were sick, and they want you to be well.’

‘They’ll be so cross if I go back.’

‘No they won’t. Honestly they won’t.’

We set up our carry-chair, lift her across and swaddle her in blankets. ‘It’s cold, Mrs Leppard,’ which is true, of course, but we’re also mindful of the treacherous route out to the ambulance. We don’t want Mrs Leppard tipping us over with a panicked grab.

***

We settle her onto the ambulance trolley and stow the chair.

‘They’ll be angry,’ she says.

‘No they won’t, Mrs Leppard. Everyone just wants you to be safe and well.’

‘I’m such a coward. Not like my husband. He was too good for this world. He died twenty years ago. Twenty years! He was sick though. He had problems. With his heart.’

‘Oh yes? What kind of problems?’

‘You know. Whasisname.’

Her jaw bobs up and down as she casts her rheumy eyes about the ambulance interior.

‘Ischemic heart disease,’ she says, suddenly. ‘Ischemic heart disease, and erm... something else...’

I wait a moment.

‘Angina?’

‘China?’ she says, appalled. ‘He never went to China.’

Rae slams the door shut. A shouted goodbye to the carer, then the slushy trudge of her boots as she goes round to the cab. She calls the leaving time through. I write it down. We start to move.

‘They’ll be angry with me. They said they didn’t want to see me back there again.’

‘Try not to worry yourself, Mrs Leppard. Everything’s absolutely fine. The doctors will check you over, and then if everything’s okay – as I’m sure it is – maybe you’ll still be able to stay in that intermediate care place for a little while – not long, but just so you can properly get back on your feet. And then whilst you’re in there, the team can make your house ready with all the equipment you need.’

Her mouth springs open again and she struggles to sit herself up on the trolley.

‘I don’t want no-one in my house!’ she shrieks. ‘They’re not to go in without my say-so. I’ve told my solicitor. He knows all about it. He’ll stop them. I won’t have it. I won’t have it. There’s all my things there. My private things. I won’t have them going in there.’

‘Try not to worry about it, Mrs Leppard.’

‘No-one’s allowed in without my say-so.’

‘Okay, Mrs Leppard. Okay. I’m sure you can talk to the doctors at the hospital about it. They’ll be able to put things right. No-one’s going to do anything you don’t want to do. Okay? Everyone’s just trying to help.’

She eases back into the trolley, and begins plucking at the blankets.

‘That’s all my things,’ she mutters. ‘My things. I don’t want no-one touching them.’

Her jaw bobs up and down, gradually slowing. She doesn’t say anything else.

The ambulance heater powers up.

Mrs Leppard closes her eyes and passes the rest of the journey in a fitful kind of sleep.

I read through my notes.

The radio plays quietly through the hatch.

We hiss and splash along smoothly, making good time. Even though the side-roads are almost impassable this morning, the main routes are pretty much clear. 

marla

After a couple of minutes, Marla the live-in carer opens the door.

‘Come in, come in befah you freet to det,’ she says, then throws the door wide and shuffles back. Generously packed into slacks and slippers, one bra strap halfway down her arm, she waves a cloth in front of her like she’s cleansing the air of nuisance.

‘Ya nah, Papa Jones he fell in the bat room but I can nat git him up by myself,’ she says cheerfully, leading us through the close and creaking old cottage to the extension out back. ‘I do nat think he has hart himself.’

We can see the figure of Mr Jones sitting on the bathroom floor, his trousers around his ankles, his catheter bag off to one side. ‘Amb’lance come, Papa Jones,’ she calls ahead, and goes to sit on the toilet facing him whilst we check him over, her massive legs planted wide apart. ‘I will pull up your trousers when you upright again,’ she says.

Marla’s right; it doesn’t look as if he’s done any damage. Dementia is obviously one of his problems, but we need to know more. Michael, the new paramedic I’m working with tonight, asks her questions about Mr Jones’ past medical history.

‘Wait just a minute and I will get the foldah,’ she says. She stops to stroke Mr Jones’ face gently as she rolls past us all into the living room. ‘You be good for me, nah,’ she says.

I fetch a chair in so Mr Jones can rest for a moment before we move him through to the lounge. Michael takes some observations whilst I start in on the form.

The phone rings.

Marla picks it up.

Yes? Yes. He fell in the bathroom but he has not hart himself. The paramedics are with him now and they will tell you more, but Papa Jones is fine. Ye-es. Okay then. Bye then.

She hands the phone down to Michael.

‘Who is it?’ he asks.

‘It is the doctor,’ she says. ‘She wan talk wit you.’

‘Oh hi doctor,’ says Michael, taking the phone, making a gesture for me to pass him the clipboard. ‘Well it would appear Mr Jones has had a mechanical, non-injury fall. We’ve checked him over and there’s nothing remarkable about any of his observations ... (he lists them all). Weight bearing, no new pain, GCS fourteen but of course that’s quite normal for this patient. We’re just about to settle him in his chair, then all things being equal we’ll finish the paperwork and go. Okay?’

He looks at me as he listens to the reply, raising his eyebrows slightly.

‘Really? Well – fine!’ he says. ‘Great! I’ll let them know to expect you. Okay then. Bye. Bye. Bye.’

He hands me the phone; I pass it on to Marla, who goes away again.

‘That’s a good service,’ says Michael taking one side of Mr Jones whilst I take the other. ‘The doctor says she’ll be round in half an hour. I’m not sure why, but there you go.’ He thinks about it. ‘I mean - why would you?’ he says.

 We shuffle through together. Marla has been busy making Mr Jones’ chair ready.

‘Can I get you all something to drink, boys?’ she says. ‘Tea, coffee. A nice cup of Bavril.’

‘Yes!’ says Michael. ‘Bovril would be great. I can’t remember when I last had Bovril.’ 
He thinks about it. 
‘Scouts,’ he says.

‘And Papa Jones? Tea for you, too? I know just how you like eet.’

He looks at her and then says Bovril, too.

‘Well – that Bavril sure is pap’lar tonight,’ says Marla, heading into the kitchen.

We settle Mr Jones into his chair, then sit either side of him, Michael finishing the paperwork, me glancing round the room. An ancient black and white photo of a little boy in a tin pedal-car; a wedding photo; fine pencil drawings of various houses; a collection of family pictures in a procession of fading colours and fashions from the sixties onwards. An upright piano. Death in Paradise playing mute on the TV.

Mr Jones has one leg draped over the other. He kicks it up and down gently, humming under his breath. Dum de dum dum de dum he sings. Then sighs and says Oh well.

Marla comes back into the room with a tray and passes us our drinks.

‘Thanks,’ says Michael. ‘You know, I still can’t get over the doctor. That’s what you might call the personal touch. Who called her, anyway?’

‘Doctor? What doctor?’ says Marla.

‘The doctor. On the phone. It must have been Lifeline. But then she says she’s coming round in half an hour. At this time of night.’ He sips his Bovril. ‘You’ve got to admit, that’s good service,’ he says.

‘That no doctor!’ shrieks Marla, pulling the cloth off her shoulder and wiping her hands. ‘Dor – tah. Dee Oh Ar Tee Ay. Raquel, Papa Jones dor-tah!’

‘Oh. Right,’ says Michael. ‘Well. That explains it.’

He smiles and raises his mug to Marla.

‘Papa Jones?’ she says. ‘How yah liking the Bavril?’

He looks up at her.

‘I wanted tea,’ he says.

cocktails by the pool

It’s only been a month since I was last here, and I’m surprised to see Avocet Court under wraps. In fact, everything – Plover, Curlew and Sandpiper, the four cutely named concrete blocks of this estate, along with the shuttered newsagent and community centre in the hard-bitten little precinct between them -  everything has disappeared behind a vast network of metal poles, wooden walkways, yellow bucket rubble chutes and ragged, blue nylon mesh.

Peter is waiting for us at the end of the ramp that leads to Avocet.

‘I’m afraid it’s not pretty,’ he says.

‘Who’ve we come to see?’

‘My mum. She fell sometime last night and she’s been on the floor ever since. There’s blood and shit everywhere. I’m embarrassed, to tell you the truth.’

‘Don’t be embarrassed. That’s what we get paid for, to deal with things like this.’

‘Yeah, but still. It’s pretty bad.’

‘Tell us what happened.’

He walks ahead of us to the lift. The door slides open, and we step into a chill metal box, a single, reinforced light in the ceiling and a burnished metal mirror at the back.

‘We only got back from holiday yesterday. I was straight on the phone to let mum know, but she didn’t answer. I didn’t think much of it to begin with ‘cos she often goes out shopping. But I knew something must be up when she still wasn’t answering by lunch, so we came round. The chain was on the door and I had to kick it in. Lucky I used to be in the SAS.’

He smiles at me. I can’t figure out if he means it or not. It could be true, looking at him.

‘She’s lying on the hall floor. We haven’t moved her. We called you as soon as we were in, so we haven’t had time to clean her up. Sorry.’

‘What’s your mum’s name?’

‘Annie.’

‘Does Annie have any medical problems?’

‘She had a stroke a few years back. Apart from that, nothing, really. Her hip. And depression. She’s been threatening to kill herself for years. Ever since I was a kid.’

He smiles at me again, just as the lift door slides back and we step out onto the eighth floor. Number forty stands open, the door frame splintered at the lock.

Inside, it’s difficult to know where to put the bags. There’s a noxiously sweet, faecal drag to the air that the energy-saving bulb in its inverted cone overhead only seems to accentuate. Beneath its dreary light, the carpet is a chaotic pattern of splashed browns and reds, dried pools of matter. There is a wide smear of blood along the nearest wall where Annie must have fallen and then dragged herself back along the hallway. She has come to rest half in and half out of what looks like the bedroom door. A middle-aged woman is kneeling beside her now, cradling her head. She looks up at us as we pick our way further into the hallway.

‘Mind where you tread,’ she says. She looks back down at Annie, and picks a few bloody strands of hair clear of her face. ‘It’s hard to believe,’ she says, to herself more than anyone else. ‘This time yesterday I was sipping a cocktail by the pool.’

treasure island

Meg lies sprawled on the floor against the chair where she fell, the trolley overturned in front of her, the contents of its plastic tray scattered around her across the carpet: pills, inhalers, a TV guide, remote control, an empty glass tumbler, coins, toffees and a couple of sparkling ear rings.

‘Help me up,’ she says, waggling her hand in the air. ‘I’ve been here half an hour.’

We give her the quick once over, then get her back on her feet. She grabs at us when we encourage her to find her balance, pinching the backs of our arms.

‘I’m falling!’

‘We’ve got you, Meg. You’re perfectly safe. Just take a moment to get your balance. Come on. Where do you want to sit?’

But I hardly need ask, judging by the well-worn cushions in the armchair by the fire, everything arranged to hand.

‘Just a minute..’

She moves her swollen legs stiffly, from the hip, strangely up on her toes, like an astronaut in a spacesuit.

‘Just a minute, now.’

She lets out a sigh as we lower her into the chair, and puts her hands out right and left to stroke the armrests.

‘Thank you, thank you, thank you,’ she says, tearfully. ‘I thought I was down for good. I thought I was going to die.’

‘Do you want a cup of tea or something?’

‘No thank you. But make one for yourself, if you like. Go on. I don’t mind. I’m sorry I had to call you out.’

‘Let’s do all your bits and pieces, Meg. Your blood pressure and the rest. Do you think you might want to go to hospital?’

‘Hospital? I’m allergic to hospitals.’

‘Me too. God knows why I’m in this job.’

Rae goes into the kitchen to find the care folder; I kneel down next to Meg’s chair and get the obs kit out.

Hello? Meg? Are you all right?

The door opens and a gigantic man clumps in. With his stump teeth, spade hands and big bass voice, he could play the ogre in a pantomime with very little need for make-up.

‘Hello!’ I say, weakly.

I saw the ambulance he booms. I thought to myself – now I bet that’s Meg. Are you okay, poppet?

He reaches down to pat her on the shoulder; it’s like watching the boom of some massive crane swing into action. Meg drapes a hand over his, and presses her cheek to it.

‘Donald,’ she says. ‘I just want to die.’

Nonsense. Don’t talk like that, Meg. You’ll go when the good Lord’s ready and not a moment sooner.

‘But I am ready, Donald. I’m ninety-four. I’ve had my time. I just want to go to sleep and never wake up.’

Come on, Meg. That’s not like you.

He swivels his bucket head to look at me.

Is she okay? Has she broken anything?

‘Nope. I think she got away with it this time.’

Rae comes in from the kitchen and almost drops the folder.

‘Oh. Hello,’ she says.

I think you guys – and girl, h’ur! – I think you do a wonderful job.

‘Thank you.’

Donald bends down and starts clearing up the mess.

‘He’s so good to me,’ says Meg, holding out her arm so I can unwrap the blood pressure cuff. ‘If it wasn’t for Donald and Flora I wouldn’t be here now.’

‘Who’s Flora?’

Flora’s great, says Donald, scooping the entire contents of the trolley into one massive palm and transferring it carefully to the table. Flora’s her niece. Comes round once a week, even though she’s quite a way away. Not like the others. You never see them from one day to the next. But no doubt they’ll come out of the woodwork in due course. Shout if you need anything.

He sits himself down on a low chair by the sitting room cabinet, and begins flicking through an old copy of Treasure Island.

The phone rings. I pass it to Meg. She starts crying when she tells the person on the other end what happened. Donald catches my eye. Flora he mouths, then raises his eyebrows and goes back to his book.

Meg is too upset to say much more; she hands me the phone.

‘Is that the paramedic?’ says Flora.

‘Yep. Don’t worry about Meg. She’s had a bit of a tumble but everything’s okay. It’s a bit of a shock to the system, that’s all.’

‘Is that damned caretaker with her?’

I glance across at Donald. He looks up and gives me a cavernous, stump-toothed smile. Flora is speaking quite loudly on the phone and I wonder if he can hear me. I press the phone more tightly to my ear.

‘Ye-es.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ she says. ‘He’s always round. Does she smell of drink?’

‘No.’

‘Because that’s what he does. He goes round there and encourages her to drink. That’s why she’s fallen over in the past. Look – I’m coming up the day after tomorrow. I’ve got a meeting with social services because I’m not happy with the way things are going. But you think she’ll be okay tonight?’

‘I think so, yes.’

‘Okay. Thank you.’

I hand the phone back to Meg, who presses it to her face like it’s a gadget for soaking up tears.

Donald stands up, ducking his head at the last minute so it doesn’t extend through the ceiling.

What did she say? Is she coming?

‘Yep. The day after tomorrow.’

That’s grand. I knew she would. Now there’s a woman who knows her mind.

He winks at me, closes the book, caresses it absent-mindedly, then places it back on the sideboard where he found it.

where people go

We’ve come out to the neat sprawl of houses and shops just east of the city. As a money-saving initiative, the council have switched off the residential street lamps – great for star-gazing, but not so great for finding your way about. Still, Rae has parked immediately outside Celia’s little bungalow and left her hazards on, so we know where to go. Making it to the front door is more problematic. We have to use our torches to pick our way along a crumbling concrete strip that the wilderness of the front garden is gradually claiming for itself.

Celia comes to the door. A wizened old lady of ninety-three, she has the rolling gait, wild hair and benign but slightly disappointed expression of an ancient orang-utan.

‘Oh! There’s more of you, is there?’ she says, and then slowly turns to go back inside. Rae is just behind her.

‘Hi guys. This is Celia. Celia called the ambulance tonight because her father had a stroke and wandered off down the road.’

‘Her father?’

Rae widens her eyes and nods.

‘Isn’t that right, Celia?’

‘I don’t know. If you say so.’

‘Where do you think your father may have gone?’

We follow her into the kitchen, where she slowly takes a seat back at the table and puts both hands flat on the surface.

‘Over there. You know. Where those girls live. My sisters. The – um – where he sleeps sometimes.’

Rae sits next to her, tells me she found a number for the care agency, who said that Celia does have some short term memory loss, but nothing on this scale. Frankly, they’re concerned. They also mentioned a neighbour who pops round, but Rae says there was no answer when she knocked.

‘I was just about to do a round of obs when you turned up. It is looking like some kind of acute episode, and there’s the safety issue here, so I’m thinking we might have to go in.’

‘What are you saying?’

‘I’m saying we’re all just a bit worried about you, Celia. You don’t seem yourself tonight.’

‘Don’t seem myself? Who do I seem like, then?’

‘A bit confused.’

Celia bats her hand, tuts and crosses her legs. She is wearing odd slippers.

‘Doesn’t everyone get a bit confused sometimes?’

‘Yes. But...’

Celia looks away, then reaches out and strokes the door of the kitchen cabinet nearest to her.

‘I went all over London looking for that. You can’t get it anywhere else. But that’s how I am – particular about things.’

Next to her on the counter is a pile of old cutlery, stacked precariously, forks on top of knives on top of spoons.

‘When you’re gone I think I’ll get up and give the ceiling a wipe,’ she says. ‘I like to keep busy.’

We check the house to make absolutely sure there’s no-one else there. Many of the rooms are closed up, an abandoned air to them, a bed made-up but untouched, a dusty scattering of photos on a windowsill.

‘He’s a funny chap, my father,’ she says. ‘Very small. Runs a pub in Bethnal Green. You know where the canal is?’ She makes a vague gesture with her hands. ‘Where it goes – straight up? That’s where it is. My grandma had it first, then he took it on.’

She pauses, picks some invisible lint from her trousers, then settles her ancient hands gently in her lap.

‘Don’t know where she is now,’ she says.

dismantled

The night has come down quick and glassy, hard-edged with the lights in the shop windows, a huddled, hectic quality to everything, the restless herds of SALE shoppers and finishing office workers migrating east, west, north and south along the main thoroughfares, buses stacked full of people, their windows steamed, taxis and cars beeping and jostling for position. The store we’ve been called to is so centrally located it’s difficult to find a clear space to park. Luckily, one of the buses is just moving off leaving just enough room for Rae to squeeze the ambulance in. One of the store managers is waiting outside to greet us, shivering a little in his starched white shirt. He waits as we grab what bags we need out of the truck, and then hurries inside with us behind him.

‘It’s a twenty-eight-year-old man,’ he says, holding the door. ‘He came to the pharmacy with a scrip for inhalers of one kind or another, but when he was waiting in the queue he started complaining of chest pain. He’s with my colleagues in our little consulting room. This way.’

He eases us through the crowded store. As always it’s a shock for the shoppers to see us there. They double take as we struggle past with all our bags. Sometimes we have to ask twice to get round; I can only suppose we’re so crashingly out of place it effectively makes us invisible.

Michael is sitting on a chair in the tiny consulting booth, bent in half with both hands crossed flat across his breast, rocking backwards and forwards making a noise that’s a cross between a grunt and a growl. He’s such a skinny guy, my first thought is that he might have had a spontaneous pneumothorax.  Checking his chest with my steth is difficult because he’s making so much noise, but it sounds as if there’s equal air entry. I hesitate for a moment, but his SATS are fine – and then, to reassure me even further, someone opens the door to pass a message to the manager, and Michael suddenly straightens up and looks directly at them.

‘Who’s that?’ he says, clearly and flatly. ‘What the fuck do they want?’

There’s an uncomplicated directness to the way he says this – and certainly not the way you’d expect someone to speak who was struggling to breathe.

The person delivers their message and with one last, appalled glance at Michael, withdraws in a hurry.

‘Thank fuck they’ve gone,’ says Michael, then bends forwards again and resumes his growling.

‘Come on, Michael. Sit up for us. It’ll help with your breathing. And you’ve got to slow it right down. Easy, easy. Like this, look. In through the nose, out through the mouth – blow it out nice and slow. In, two, three – hold and out, two, three...’

Eventually he sits back and stares at me with a skinned expression, like a feral creature trapped in a cage.

‘What’s the matter with me? They said I was having a heart attack. They did this. They wound me up.’

Michael’s partner Julie is in the room with us. A short, dark woman whose blunt expression is only emphasised by the metallic blue of her eyeshadow, she shifts restlessly and picks at her teeth with her scarlet nails.

‘He’s had a lot of stress lately,’ she says. ‘Before he ran over here he was getting himself proper worked up. He came out of the bedroom and just dismantled himself.’

‘Dismantled himself?’

‘Yeah, you know. Dismantled.’

‘Shut up!’ says Michael, shivering a little and jiggling his knees up and down. ‘I’m dying here and what are you talking about?’

‘Have you had any drugs tonight, Michael?’ I ask him.

‘I sniffed some stuff, yeah.’

He bobs his head down again and I can’t quite hear what he says.

‘Sorry? Was that heroin, did you say?’

He looks up again and sneers.

‘Fuck off! Heroin? Who sniffs heroin?’

‘I don’t know. I thought..’

‘Cocaine, mate. I did some cocaine. But so what? I do it all the time. That’s nothing new. I lived in Barbados for years. That’s some proper mad shit there, man. You should try it.’

He laughs, like he’s wasting his time with me.

‘Michael – we need to get you out to the ambulance to do some checks, an ECG and the rest of it. Heavy cocaine use can have an effect on your heart, especially if you mix it with alcohol. But I’m sure you know all this.’

‘No, man. I’m good. I just can’t breathe. Why’ve I got this pain in my chest? They said it was a heart attack. What’s the matter with me, bro?’

 ‘He just needs to get some sleep,’ says Julie. ‘Come on, babe.’

‘Yeah. Sleep. I gotta sleep. I can’t remember the last time I had a good sleep.’

‘Come on then. Let’s take a slow walk out. But I want you to concentrate on keeping your breathing nice and slow for us. Okay?’

We help him stand. The pharmacy manager and his assistant are so relieved to be getting Michael out of the store they do everything with super-brisk efficiency. The manager clicks his fingers and gives directions; his colleagues scatter right and left to make a passage for us through the crowds to the service lift. Michael is still clutching his chest, grunting and groaning and dragging his feet. I feel sorry for the shoppers who watch as we go. They stand appalled, clutching their selections from the Two for One promotions in skin care, suddenly face to face with Michael the crack head, sweating horribly, his prominent teeth glistening, rolling his head from side to side and casting silvery-eyed stares around him. He snarls at a woman.

She shrinks back.

We frog-march him into the lift.

the little ghost

‘Did you sense the ghost?’

Elsie is quite matter of fact about it. She may as well be talking about a touch of damp.

‘There’s a ghost? What ghost?’

I look around.

If there’s one house that should be haunted it’s Elsie’s. An ancient flint-walled cottage squashed shoulder to shoulder with its neighbours these past three hundred years. The builder must have been cross-eyed and in a rush, though, because there’s only one square dimension in the place I can see, and that’s the TV Elsie has put in the corner of the lounge.

Even the name on the ceramic plaque outside has a shiver about it: Rose Cottage  - the euphemism hospitals often use for the mortuary.

‘Yes. A little girl died in a fire here in the eighteenth century. I met a local expert who knows about these things. He told me this is the most haunted cottage in the village.’

‘Doesn’t that worry you?’

‘At first I thought: hmm. But then I thought: Well why not? What can they do? They’re only ghosts!’

‘Yeah, but it’s not like having mice, is it?’

‘Oh no, I think it’s much better. So long as you don’t make a fuss and just get on with your life, you can rub along together quite satisfactorily. You keep out of each other’s way.’

Elsie has her bag packed and ready. She takes one last look around.

‘She was here just a moment ago.’

‘The little ghost?’

‘I was in the bathroom having my shower. It gets quite steamy in there, you know. That whirly thing is a dead loss – all noise and no action. Anyway, I’d got out of the shower and was towelling myself down, when I saw these two tiny little hand prints appear, in the top right hand corner of the bathroom mirror. A darling little child’s hands.’

‘That’s pretty spooky,’ I say. ‘That’s like something out of a film. You know – the steamy bathroom mirror thing.’

‘Oh, she was just messing about. Although I’ve no idea how she got up there. I’d have to stand on a stool to reach.’

Elsie locks the door and drops the key into her purse.

‘I can only suppose she flew. Now then, where are you parked?’

the wind across the fields

I race across town faster than I’ve ever driven before, the back of the car kicking out as I accelerate hard down a clear stretch. The address on the screen for this cardiac arrest – surely it’s Frank’s house? I want to call Control to check, but I figure it’s best if I concentrate on the road and get there as quickly as I can. Another ambulance car appears behind me from a junction and tucks in behind. We drive in mad convoy out of town to the outskirts where Frank lives, falling onto the cars ahead of us like ravening blue devils, scattering everything left and right. We make the street and pull up outside his house. I’m dragging bags out of the boot when Malcolm says:

‘It’s his neighbour.’

There’s a porch light on and the door stands open. I leave a couple of bags for Malcolm to carry and we both hurry down the path towards it.

There’s a woman standing in the lobby, hanging on to the bottom post of the stairs. She’s so upset she can’t talk. Instead she points with her free hand, then gives a guttering sob and collapses on to the bottom step. We squeeze past her and hurry up to the bedroom.

It’s a dreadful scene. Frank is there, standing with his bare arms covered in blood, astride a woman on the floor who has suffered a catastrophic haemorrhage. Her face is a mask of blood, clots where her eyes should be, bloody matter extruding from her nose, a stream of blood running out of the side of her mouth, the tip of her tongue clamped outside of her blue lips. The double bed is liberally splattered, a pool of blood gathered in the central depression, something like finely chopped liver scattered across the bottom sheet, and a sodden trail of blood to the edge where the poor woman was dragged and dumped on the floor.

‘Close the door,’ says Frank, holding his bloodied hands and arms out to the side, touching his nose with the one clear space available to him on the back of his right hand. ‘It’s non-viable,’ he says. ‘Jesus Christ – what a mess.’

The woman is his neighbour. She was diagnosed with lung cancer about a year ago, metastases in the brain and bones. Palliative care, a DNAR in place.

‘Helen came round and got me. Apparently Jean started coughing an hour or so after she’d gone to bed...’ He pauses and we all take in the scene, imagining the horror of that.

‘Arrested soon after. Helen got her on the floor – God knows how – then came to fetch me. I didn’t know about the DNAR to begin with, so I tried a few compressions, but it was never going to work. I may as well have been working a pump handle. Poor thing. I think Helen knew it was hopeless from the start.’

We find some clear space to put our bags down.

‘Let’s do what we can to tidy things up. Then we can put her back to bed and it won’t be so hard on the family.’

We spend the next half an hour making Jean look more presentable. I use some clinical wipes to clear as much of the blood from her face and hair as I can. I talk to her as I do it – as much for my own benefit as hers.

‘There we go...’ (gently easing her tongue back into her mouth)

‘Sorry, Jean....’ (using the corner of a wipe to hook away the congealed blood from her eyes).

‘Let’s just get this... there...’ (rubbing her hair clear of blood, drying it off with a towel).

But Jean’s lungs are so corrupted, the slightest tilt of her head is enough to tip a fresh stream of blood down the side of her face. There’s nothing to be done about that, though. Our only hope is that when she’s lying on her back on the bed, she won’t be moved for a while.

Whilst I finish cleaning Jean up, Malcolm strips the bed, folding up all the spoiled bed linen and putting it in a discrete pile over by the window. He finds a couple of inco pads and we use them to wipe the parquet floor clean. Anything that’s tainted with blood we roll up and put aside with the linen.

There’s a cowbell near the headboard.

‘That was what she used to ring when she needed anything,’ says Frank, turning over the pillows to hide the stains. ‘It was their little joke. It’s such a shame it ended like this.’

When I put it aside I’m careful to hold the clapper so it doesn’t accidentally ring again.

We lift Jean up and settle her back on the bed. I clean her face one last time to catch any new spillages. We arrange her arms by her sides, and then drape one of our own blankets over her.

Frank goes downstairs to comfort Helen whilst I finish the paperwork. Malcolm calls the family undertakers and arranges for collection. We take one last look around, and then carry our bags back down.

Frank is standing in the hallway with Helen.

‘Thanks for all you’ve done,’ she says.

I tell her I’m sorry for her loss – the usual awkwardness – then leave.

Outside, the night has deepened. It comes rushing towards us across miles of open field with a tail of pin bright stars. It’s exhilarating, standing here outside the house like this. Dizzying, like we’re feeling the way the world moves for the first time, the spin, the implacable momentum of it all.

I stow the bags back in the car. We chat a little, make a few cracks, talk about this and that, head back to base.

the tracks

Ted is sitting on the bed in his nightshirt, as poised and watchful as an owl. He’s grown his hair out at the temples, presumably to comb up over his pate; now, it pokes out either side in two large tufts like comedy ears.

‘Have you still got the pain?’

He rubs his breast bone up and down with the knuckles of his right hand.

‘How would you describe the pain, Ted? I know it’s a difficult one – but what’s it like? Sharp, dull, ache? Crushing-type pain? Cramp?’

He shrugs.

‘Burning?’ he says.

‘And does it change at all when you take a breath in?’

He takes a breath in.

‘Not really,’ he says, letting his breath out again with a sigh.

We carry on with our checks as his friends watch from the hallway. It’s a strange household. Downstairs, magazine-supplement tidiness, clear, down-lit spaces polished and neatly laid out; and Ted’s room, a chaotic tumble of clothes, books, boxes, with four sections of a vast model railway track, dismantled and leant against a chest of drawers. Assembled, the track would take up the entire room, sixteen square feet of beautifully constructed embankments, bridges, stations and signal boxes. Meticulously detailed figures, suitcases and newspapers, waiting on the platform. I imagine Ted rising up in the centre of it all, a giant signalman with his hand on a bank of switches, a cap on his head.

‘We need to take you down to our ambulance and do some more checks,’ I tell him. ‘But I have to say, before we do anything, we’ll be recommending you come to hospital. Our ECG can give us a good idea of any problems, but you’ll need a blood test for a definitive result. Is that okay? So let’s get everything you need together now and take it with us.’

He nods, and shuffles forwards off the bed. His friends make way on the landing.

*

‘Any other medical history?’ I ask him as the ambulance splashes on through the night. ‘Operations? Accidents? Hospital admissions?’

He shakes his head. The tufts of hair quiver. Highlighted by the spotlights in the ceiling, they seem finer and more sensitive, two pointy white filaments filtering the air for clues.

I rest the clipboard on my lap and smile at him.

‘I love your model railway,’ I say. ‘It’s amazing. Do you get to lay it out much?’

‘Sometimes. It’s difficult. Ever since I sold the house and moved in with my friends. I don’t have the space I used to.’

‘Pretty impressive, though. Did you make it?’

‘It’s my Dad’s really. We did it together. When he died, I carried it on. It used to be bigger. You know. More trains.’

‘Fantastic! Just looking at the first section – the embankment and everything. All that detail. It looks so real.’

Those comedy ears, trembling.

‘I’ve was in Southview once,’ he says. ‘Sectioned, you know what I mean?’

‘Oh really? When was that?’

He stares at me.

‘Last year.’

I click my pen and make a note.

‘Last year, okay. And why was that, Ted? Why were you sectioned?’

He stares at me.

‘Walking on the tracks,’ he says at last. 

I hope you all have a fantastic holiday!

With a huge thank you for all your support over the past year. 

Here's to 2013! 

SK

talc

Mr Ernest Wakeland is a hundred years old.

‘And nine months.’

Sitting in his favourite chair, something as perfectly fitted to him as his brown corduroy jacket, he has his elbows planted right and left on the armrests, his forearms leaning in, his hands neatly clasped together over the gap, the forefingers of each hand pressed together and then turned back to rest lightly on the point of his chin. He looks like an ancient professor graciously welcoming students into his study. His legs are crossed. The monogrammed slipper on his foot taps out in time to his hundred year old heart. And nine months.

‘Good morning,’ he says. ‘Do have a seat.’

Just across from Mr Wakeland is his younger sister, Mary, ninety-four, poised on the edge of a red velveteen chair, monitoring the situation. Despite her own advanced years, she still has an air of younger sister deference about her.

Jeffrey, Mary’s grandson, busies himself in the background, gathering together the necessaries for Mr Wakeland’s ‘survival bag’ – a notebook, today’s newspaper, mobile phone, wallet, pyjamas, toothbrush.

‘Hairbrush,’ says Mary. ‘Don’t forget the hairbrush, Jeffrey.’

Mr Wakeland separates his hands in a palms-up gesture of forgiveness. ‘I suppose one ought stay on top of these things,’ he says.

The District Nurse has been out to Mr Wakeland this morning. She wasn’t happy with the progress of his chest infection and wants him admitted for further assessment. I read through the notes – an impressive lack of medication, surgery, incident – then help Rae prep the chair ready to go.

Behind his armchair, on a neatly arranged dresser, amongst the family photos and certificates, there’s a signed photo of the queen.

‘Yes – got the telegram in March,’ he says. ‘No-one thought I would.’ But looking at him, I can’t imagine anyone could have doubted it. In fact, Mr Wakeland is so healthy, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that Buckingham Palace has discreetly redrawn its protocols and made arrangements for the two hundredth anniversary.

‘You’ve obviously got the old bone gene,’ I say as I help him into our carry chair.

‘Oh I don’t know,’ he says, settling himself in. ‘Mary and I have done all right, but none of the others made it much past seventy.’

‘My youngest daughter was born in March,’ I say as I tip him back in the chair and wheel him towards the lifts.

‘Oh really? How lovely.’

‘March, two thousand and five.’

‘Well! A little way to go, then.’

Jeffrey hurries after us with the survival bag.

‘It’s odd to think,’ says Mr Wakeland, as the lift doors slide shut, ‘It’s odd to think that three of my birthdays I spent as a prisoner of war in Austria. Working in a talc mine.’

‘Talc?’

‘Talc. The rock, not the powder. But the rock becomes the powder, of course.’

‘I’ve never thought about talc mines before.’

‘Neither had I, but there you are – or there I was. But these things happen in a time of war, I suppose.’

I’m tempted to say that maybe all that talcum powder is one of the reasons his skin stayed soft and young, but I hold back, because I guess three years forced labour in a mine of any description - but especially a German POW mine - would be anything but life-enhancing.

‘So – talcum powder! What did they want talcum powder for, Mr Wakeland?’

 ‘Oh I don’t know,’ he sniffs. ‘Keeping all those delicate Wehrmacht bottoms fragrant and dry.’ He nods and smiles, and gathers the blankets of the chair more tightly around him.

‘But other than that, pharmaceuticals and the treatment of rubber, I expect.’

D'oh!

I'm getting around thirty spam emails a day now. Half get stopped, but half get through - some of them with links to dodgy sites. So reluctantly I've decided to put the comments moderation facility back. I've disabled the 'word verification', though, so it just means a bit of a delay before you see your comment up there.

Sorry! I know it's a pain, but I can't think what else to do. 

the best view in the world

I haven’t been to this custody suite before. It’s situated miles away, on an industrial estate the other side of a neighbouring town. It doesn’t seem right, having to pick our way between the paint supply vehicles, the glazier trucks and paladins, the bored smokers in plastic bonnets standing outside the sandwich-making factory, the fork-lifts loading and unloading pallets of stuff, the beeping of reversing lorries – all to reach the new police custody suite, a low-slung, red-bricked compound with high wire fences and cameras monitoring our approach.

‘I can’t believe the cop cars do this every day.’

‘Maybe they don’t. Maybe it’s like Batman. Maybe there’s a secret entrance somewhere, a cave with hinged trees that flop to the side.

‘Let’s hope so.’

We drive up onto the yellow grid outside the main gates and buzz to enter. When we’ve been approved, a massive plated door shudders and starts to grind slowly upwards. After a couple of minutes there’s room enough to drive the ambulance in. Stop lights, cables, buttons, and a big red sign on the wall saying Please turn off your engine. The door closes behind us. We climb out and buzz again. After a while, just as the main door crashes to, a police officer appears from a hidden door. A bright and friendly guy with an open face topped with a zhuzh of yellow hair, he looks strangely out of place in these austere surroundings, like a children’s presenter playing the part of a prison guard.

‘Come for our boy David?’ he says. ‘Brilliant. This way.’

There must be a company that specialises in these interiors, because the custody suite itself is exactly the same as the one back in Helmstone. The same dirty-blue marmoleum flooring, the same shadowy footprint decals showing the prisoner where to stand, the same hefty circular command desk, imposingly raised on a dais, with its screens and cameras and crew of white-shirted administrators busily inputting, registering, sorting out.

‘This way.’

‘We haven’t been told much.’

‘Okay. So what we have is a twenty-two year old male called David Swift. He was found sitting on the edge of a multi-storey car park yesterday evening threatening to jump. Police arrived on scene and talked him down. He was sectioned, brought here, seen by the Duty Psych. He’s not been violent at all and he’s been cleared to travel with you without any escort. Don’t know why he came all the way out here to kill himself. No-one’s been able to figure that one out. But as he lives in your neck of the woods, they thought it best if he went to Southview. And there we are! That’s it! I’ll go and fetch him out. Nice lad. Very smiley.’

Just before he disappears, he waves across to one of the white-shirted staff, who promptly unlocks a tall metal cupboard and draws out a holdall wrapped in a large, clear plastic sack gathered at the top and sealed with a security tag. He dumps it on the floor at my feet.

‘Sign here,’ he says.

*

David is sitting on his seat, studying his mobile phone. Now and again he slowly shakes his head from side to side, smiling, and sighing and blowing air gently down his nose, as if he were reading a series of texts from someone who amused and disappointed him in equal measure.

‘Okay, David?’ I say. ‘Comfortable?’

He looks up at me, extending his smile in a blandly disconnected way, then immediately drops back into his phone.

He hasn’t said a word since we showed him onto the ambulance. As soon as we’re underway I restore his belongings to him. He watches me rip open the plastic sack and pull out the holdall, smiling the whole while. I make a joke about how impossible it is to break the police seal, but then again that’s probably the whole point. He tilts his chin up to agree, but doesn’t say anything.

As soon as he has the bag he locates his phone and checks his messages, whilst I read through his notes again: two sheets, one handwritten, one typed. The handwritten sheet is barely legible, sketching out David’s presenting condition in a scrawl of dry bullet-pointed descriptions, acronyms, arcane scores. The typed sheet is a formal follow up, referencing the legal aspects of his treatment, the steps that have been taken and must be taken. Signatures and addresses. A list of the contents of his holdall.

‘It shouldn’t take long to get back to Helmstone,’ I say to him.

He smiles again – a bland and strangely coy expression – then gently puts his phone back in its sock, and into his pocket. He folds his arms, and stares through the slatted blinds of the window.

‘Not the best view in the world from that seat, I’m afraid,’ I say.

And then I’m struck by the view he must have had from that other seat, the one he took yesterday evening, high up on the edge of the multi-storey car-park, his legs dangling over the abyss, the terrible blue canyons of the city beneath him.

He looks at me intently – and then flinches a little. For a second I wonder if it’s my comment about the view. But no. He’s already reaching back into his pocket, pulling out his phone again, intently reading the text that’s just come through.

sunflowers

Patient has been violent with a kitchen knife.

Kitchen knife? That sounds even worse than a knife. Bigger, at least.

I make the call.

‘Good morning, Control. Just a few questions. Firstly - just to make absolutely sure – we’re to take this patient fifty miles out of town to Eastwall because they’ve got no beds in Southview? Secondly – it’s half past six in the morning. Wouldn’t it be better to delay things at least until the sun’s risen? More humane. And then, erm , seriously.. a kitchen knife?’

‘Yep. I see what you mean. Just reading the notes on this one. Sorry - I’ve only just taken over. Yep. Erm. I’m afraid we’ve been sitting on this urgent journey for twelve hours or more, and if we don’t do it now, chances are it’ll never get done. With regards the kitchen knife – yep. That does sound dodgy. I’ll get back to you. Stand by one.’

I hang up the radio and sink further into the chair.

‘If you came and woke me up at half past six in the morning I think I might be reaching for something sharp,’ says Rae, folding her arms and staring off down the road. ‘Or blunt.’

There’s a frozen blue depth to the air, frost on everything.

A car crackles past, and the street sleeps on.

The radio buzzes again.

‘Yep – confirming the destination, and yes, if you could make contact, please. I’ve had assurances that the patient has been assessed as safe, so the police won’t be attending. We’re calling the patient now, so he should be expecting you.’

‘Thanks.’

*

Datu Reye’s wife opens the door to us. A delicately pretty Filipino woman in an old silk bathrobe, she nods at me and holds out the house phone.

‘That’s okay,’ I say. ‘You can tell them we’re here now.’

But she continues to hold the phone out, so I take it from her and tell them myself.

Datu is wandering around the dimly lit flat looking for his shoes and things. There is a flat and passive remove to his face, like a child who has been given instructions, and who follows them dutifully but without the least idea to what end.

‘I’m really sorry we can’t go to Southview,’ I say to his wife.

She lowers her chin and stares at me.

‘You do understand we’re not going to the local unit, don’t you? They don’t have any beds. So we’ve got to go to Eastwall?’

She nods and smiles, and hooks some strands of hair back behind her ears. She looks almost as lost as her husband.

‘Don’t worry. We’ll take good care of him,’ I add.

She nods again, then goes to help Datu put some things in a bag.

I don’t see them kiss goodbye.

He follows us out to the ambulance, and when I turn to look the door has already closed.

*

I’ve put on a couple of spot lights in the back, which seems kinder than the full rack. Datu sits in the rear seat, leaning forward at the waist over his crossed arms as if he were trying to fold himself in half. He stares down at his trainers, and accommodates the rocking motion of the ambulance with discrete little counter-movements of his own. I try to chat to him, but he only looks at me once, with dark eyes that seem to sense more than they see. After a while I resign myself to a quiet journey, and settle deeper into my seat. The miles pass away beneath us.

*

‘What name is it?’

‘Datu. His name’s Datu Reyes and he’s a transfer up from Helmstone, a voluntary admission, because they haven’t got any beds in Southview.’

‘And what name did you say it was?’

‘Datu Reyes. I’ve got his other details here...’

‘Just a moment please.’

‘Shall we wait here?’

‘Yes. Just a moment.’

She goes back into the locked ward.

Datu stands with his chin down, his paisley bag resting on the floor.

After a while the nurse comes back.

‘There are three wards here,’ she says. ‘And none of them are expecting Mr Reyes. Are you sure you’ve got the right place?’

‘I don’t know. Are there any other psych wards round here?’

She thinks about it.

‘No,’ she says.

‘I’ll call Control.’

*

‘Sorry Datu. They sent us to the wrong hospital. But don’t worry, the one we want’s only another couple of miles. It won’t take long. Do you need the loo or anything before we go?’

He stares at the floor.

‘Okay. Sorry about this. It won’t take long.’

We lead him back out to the truck. He folds himself back into position on the seat.

*

The other hospital appears to have been built round the back of an enormous housing estate. The SatNav gives up and sticks the flag any old where. We end up down a street that terminates in a row of grim-looking lock-up garages. But with some directions and a little luck, eventually we find ourselves turning onto the forecourt of a low slung series of buildings so anonymous they could equally well be manufacturing PVC windows as offering therapy.

Rae parks up.

‘You can’t stop there,’ says a bearish guy, clapping his hands in the freezing air. ‘The day bus is due along any minute.’

We get back on board and follow his directions to the main entrance. Rae stays with the vehicle as it’s blocking access; I walk with Datu into the main foyer.

The receptionist leans her face nearer to the glass bubble to hear me.

‘Patient Datu Reyes, a voluntary admission all the way from Helmstone,’ I say.

She frowns, then leans away to call across the office.

‘Do you know anything about this, Gill?’

Gill looks up from behind a small hedge of potted plants, stares at us through the glass a moment, shakes her head then ducks back down again.

‘Where did you say you’re from?’

‘Helmstone. South of here. About fifty miles.’

‘Never heard of it.’

‘Erm – did you want a date of birth or anything? Would that help?’

‘Just a minute,’ she says, and makes a call.

Datu is standing over by the wall, beneath a vast watercolour of sunflowers.

‘John’s coming down,’ she says. ‘If you’d just like to wait.’

Over the next few minutes a succession of men appear through the security doors beyond reception. Each time I smile and say Good Morning, but each time it turns out not to be John.

The receptionist must think we’re exceptionally friendly, down in Helmstone I think.

But just at the point when I’m about to go back up to speak to her, the door opens again and another man appears.

‘Good morning!’ I say – and this time he walks towards us. A compact man in a ribbed green cardigan, his expression is as pressed as his clothes. When I hold out my hand he leans forward to take it, but cautiously, like a vet unexpectedly called upon to shake hands with a cat.

‘Ye-es,’ he says.

‘This is Datu. Datu is a voluntary admission all the way from Helmstone. No beds, I’m afraid!’ I laugh, mano a mano, but John’s still too preoccupied with the strangeness of the whole business to respond.

‘Happy to accept?’ I add.

‘And what did you say the name was?’

‘Datu. Datu Reyes. From Helmstone.’

He hesitates, then sighs and, pulling his swipe card out on its extendable line, holds it against a grey plate and gets the green light to go through.

‘This way,’ he says.

Datu follows.

For a moment I wonder if I’m delivering someone to completely the wrong place, but if I am, I’m the only one who seems to mind.

I wave goodbye, but Datu is already disappearing through the door with John.

The receptionist looks up and smiles when I say goodbye.

That friendly Helmstone thing again.

As I walk back out, the sunflowers on the wall seem even bigger and brighter than before.

ancient history

We drive out along the coast road, high above the sea.

I read about these chalk cliffs. How they were laid down over millions of years in the warm, deep waters of the Cretaceous, the skeletons of countless billions of plankton, raining down from the sunlit upper reaches to the dark sea bed. As plesiosaurs and ammonites swam through the water, and pterosaurs flew through the air, and iguanodons and megalosaurs walked on the land, the ooze deepened, the pressure intensified, and the chalk deposits grew. Millions of years of change were gathered into it, a limitless array of fishes and urchins, molluscs and corals, one thing into another, a bustling scrawl of life written into stone. And then the global changes, the great geological events, the boundaries between one aeon and another, the crash of an asteroid, a mass eruption, hot to cold, the rise and fall of oceans, the driving up of mountains, the drag and retreat of ice fields, all living things struggling to adapt, living, thriving, dying, pushing on.

Out there, where those boats are fishing now? It wasn’t so long ago that was fertile land. You could walk from here to France. Our ancestors lived out on the tundra, hunting bison and elk.

From time to time their bones get fetched up the nets.

Things happen, whether we want them to or not.

*

David is waiting for us in his living room, surrounded by the things he has collected over the last sixty years. Japanese netsuke, chessmen and porcelain figures, photographs and carved wooden elephants. His wife Erica shows us in; David is too poorly to move.

‘I just need my pain relief sorting out,’ he says. ‘I’ve got cancer, you see. It started in the lungs, I had an op and a whole load of chemotherapy and whatnot. A horrible business, but it seemed to have done the trick – except, it hadn’t, really. It’s come back, in my liver, maybe a few other places, they’re not sure. They said I could go back on the old chemo but I said no. I’d rather live the last few months feeling more like myself – do you know what I mean? – rather than go down that road again. I just don’t want it. But I woke up with these pains here and here, and some difficulty breathing. I hope you don’t mind me calling you out like this. Only I got a bit panicked by it, d’you know what I mean?’

We do what we can to make him comfortable, sort things out. Erica goes into the kitchen to make some tea. We chat about this and that.

‘I tell you something that happened the other day,’ he says. ‘I was out taking a stroll through town, you know, getting some air, when I felt a bit puffed and had to have a little sit down on a wall outside a petrol station. It was a lovely day, though – d’you remember? – cold, but bright. Anyway, I was sitting on this wall watching the world go by when a group of young girls came out of the petrol station, on their dinner break from the local school. One of them was very striking, lovely blond hair, really shining in the sun, you know? She looked like an angel. Anyway, she had this pack of sandwiches. She unwrapped the wrapper, took the sandwiches out, then tossed the wrapper backwards over her shoulder. So when she passed me I said “There’s a bin just there, love”. And d’you know what that sweet-looking girl said to me? She leant in close, with her hand to the side of her face like she wanted to whisper, and she said: “Shut your mouth you old cunt”. Then carried on walking. Just like that. I was so shocked I didn’t know what to say. But then I thought “What the hell”. So I called out: “And you have a lovely day, too.” So she turned round and gave me the finger.’

He shrugs, and adjusts his position in the chair.

‘I don’t know why I’m telling you all this,’ he says, pinching the bridge of his nose and giving his head a little shake. ‘It’s all ancient history. It just played on my mind a bit, that’s all. It doesn’t really mean anything.’

*

When we’ve sorted David out, we say goodbye and get back into the ambulance.

Control sends us back to base.

We retrace our route along the high cliff road, driving quietly and quickly, the sea shining beneath us, the sky clear and blue above.

machinery

The workshop is round the back of the farmhouse, amongst a ramshackle collection of outhouses and lean-tos. There’s someone to wave us in at the gate, though, a gigantic figure in dirty orange overalls, a  jumper and combat jacket, fluorescent vest, and to top the whole ensemble off, a face boiled red by exposure to the elements. On top of his head is a heavy knitted beanie, squashed down on a mass of wild hair and beard. He looks like a lion press-ganged into working for the council.

‘Round you come,’ he growls. ‘Watch your left there. To me. To me.’

I jump out, straight into a puddle.

‘Mind that,’ he says.

‘So who’ve we come to see?’

‘This way, fella. It’s the damndest thing. I wasn’t even supposed to be working today. Lucky I was or who knows what might have happened. Through here. Mind your head – although you should be all right.’

He leads us into a low-ceilinged building crammed full of machinery – machinery with chains and levers, machinery with blocks and beds and wheels to move them; machinery with great screws and plates to press and raise and separate; machinery that’s been stripped down to sad arrays of wires and switching gear and PCBs; and then stacked precariously in every available space, plastic crates of bits, plugs and sockets, valves, and screws, and brackets, and fixings of every shape and size. There’s scarcely room amongst it all to make your way through to the office at the back – office, in that it has a desk, a computer and shelves of files and directories. They’ve nominally marked out the space by building two breeze-block walls right and left with a curtain of plastic sheeting taped to hang across the opening from the ceiling. There are no heaters that I can see, certainly none working. The air is brutally chill, our breath misting in front of us. It feels more like a cold store than a workshop, despite the insulation of so much stuff, tumbling up incoherently to the pressed asbestos sheets of the roof, where the husks of countless dead spiders hang with their legs frozen in the tucked-up position.  

Malcolm is sitting on a swivel chair at the desk. He’s dressed like his friend, layers of old clothes, great winter boots and socks, a beanie hat. His face looks even redder than his friend, though, clean shaven, lacking that vital layer of animal hair as proof against the cold. The end of Malcolm’s nose is particularly raw, and even in this poor light you can see that it’s been abraded by some violent action.

Lion Man tells us he came in and found Malcolm face down on the floor having a seizure. It lasted a couple of minutes, but he seemed to come round fairly quickly. He told him to lie where he was, but Malcolm ignored him and got himself up again.

‘I’m fine. Honestly. I’m fine.’

He rolls himself a cigarette, scattering tobacco across the papers on the desk as his hands shake.

We ask him a few questions and start to figure out what may have happened – but suddenly his phone goes.

‘Do you mind if I... hello? Yep. Yeah. Okay....’

He turns on the chair, puts the cigarette in his mouth, finds a pen, and starts taking notes.

‘Yep. Three point one? You sure, mate? I think you’ll find that’s usually a point two. Yep. Uh-huh. With the trip? On a nine-fifty? Okay. Let me just check that for you...’

He draws diagrams, makes notes, the ash from his fag drifting down onto his hands.

Lion Man sighs and folds his arms.

‘I keep telling him he’s got to slow down but he won’t listen. He’s driven. Absolutely driven. He was here till three yesterday.’

‘In the afternoon?’

Lion Man snorts.

‘Of the AM variety,’ he says. ‘And that’s not unusual. We’ve got orders to fill, deadlines coming out of our ears. It’s tough, you know. Times is a-hard. You can’t afford to sit around and cry about it. Make hay while the sun shines.’ He glances back through the workshop to the yard outside. It’s just started to rain again.

‘Well – you know what I mean.’

We both look back at Malcolm. I catch his eye as he swivels round on the chair to pull down a directory from one of the shelves. He nods and smiles weakly, then puts the directory on the desk and – crooking the phone between his cheek and his shoulder - starts to thumb through it.

‘The nine-eighty, you say? O-kay. Let me just get a price on that for you...’

magnolia angels

This is our first call to St Germain’s in quite a few months. It’s been closed for refurbishment, and I’m interested to see what’s been done. Ellen, one of the hostel staff, waits for us outside, smoking by the recycling bins. She nods, drops the fag, grinds it out, leads us in the front door – a great stone arch rising impressively over us, its stone steps dipping in the middle from centuries of feet.

‘I don’t know if you know Pete,’ Ellen says, with a sigh as worn as the steps. ‘He can get a bit abusive sometimes but it’s all just blather. Apart from a bit of trench foot and COPD he’s not too bad, though. He’s got pissed up tonight, and now he’s lying half-naked in the corridor. He’s got a head injury, not too bad as far as I can tell but you’re the experts. See what you think. I must admit I’ve about had it with him.’

We follow Ellen through the security doors of the vestibule, then off to the wide, modern stairway. There’s a sign on the lift saying MAY BREAK DOWN. DON’T USE UNLESS YOU HAVE TO.

‘That’s the next thing on our To Do list,’ she says.

The stairs rise up through a series of  mezzanine floors, each floor partitioned off into small, rectangular rooms with just enough space for a wardrobe, side-table and bed. Pete is on the third floor, lying on his side on the narrow stretch of office-grade carpet. There’s another inmate standing over him, a dissolute figure with a scattering of blurry blue tattoos up his arms. He stares at us as we approach, his face slack and reddened with booze.

‘He can’t stay here. I need to get to bed,’ he says. Then he looks down at Pete and toes him speculatively. ‘Get up ya’ drunken bastard.’

‘Hello Pete,’ I say. ‘It’s the ambulance.’

Pete growls and bats at the space between us, making a series of incomprehensible sounds as thick with hostility as his beard is thick with matter.

‘That’s not very nice, Pete. We’ve come to make sure you’re all right. People are worried about you.’

He hugs his arms to his chest and draws his legs up. He looks comfortable enough, were it not for the fact he was naked from the waist down and lying in a hallway.

‘Get up! Get up, will ya?’ says the man. ‘Nobody’s interested in yer wee stubby cock, fella. Trust me on this one.’

I prod and irritate Pete until he opens his eyes and responds sufficiently to assess him. We check him over. He doesn’t appear to have hurt himself. It’s just alcohol.

‘If he sleeps it off in his room, would you be around to look in on him from time to time?’

Ellen nods. ‘There’ll be someone around all night,’ she says.

We help him up and in to his room.

It’s only when we’ve put him to bed I’m aware of the apex of the stained glass window, rising up behind the bed, safe behind a Perspex screen. This is the uppermost floor, right at the very top of the old church.

When we go back out into the corridor, I notice a couple of stone angels poking out through cutaways in the stud walls like they were impatient at being covered over and sawed a hole for themselves with their praying hands. As a reward, they’ve been painted magnolia, the same as everything else.

‘Looks great,’ I say.

They watch over us with their eyes closed as Ellen leads us back to the stairs. 

night wader

We can see the police cars on the promenade, their reflective decals glowing in the light from one of the lamps, but in case we hadn’t, it puts on its blue sparklers for a moment. There’s just enough room between the bollards at the end of the walkway to squeeze the ambulance through. Ahead of us, the vista through the windscreen is a graded banding of colour, black to light – to our right, the great mass of the sea, just a scattering of white points from distant ships; line upon line of creamy white waves moving in as the tide rises; the lighter grey of the empty promenade running on ahead of us, and then the city, piling up to our left, a hectic bank of brilliant whites and yellows. It’s so cold you can hear the stars. A golden moon, rounded at one corner, floats above the whole thing, so low you could reach up and poke it with your finger.

I park next to the police cars. There is one officer waiting there for us. We can see his colleagues down on the beach by the water’s edge, playing their torches out across the surf.

‘He’s walked out to sea,’ the officer says, blowing on his hands and then rubbing them together. ‘Rather him than me. Jesus it’s cold. Anyway, he’s just standing there, up to his shoulders. Been there twenty minutes, maybe? Don’t think he’s been under .Not since we got here. We were going to go in and try to fish him out but the inshore lifeboat’ll be here any minute and that’s probably the safest bet all round. The warmest, that’s for sure.’

I fetch some blankets from the back, switch the heater on, unwrap a foil blanket, then we all jump down onto the beach to meet the others.

The sea is calm and regular, but the noise of the surf as it moves in is a thundering pulse of sound, and with the freezing wind leaning in to us as well, we have to shout to make ourselves heard. The police officers have all got powerful torches. The beams intersect at a point five hundred yards off-shore – the head and shoulders of a young man, standing with his back to us. He doesn’t even particularly react to each wave as it slops up around him. He just stands there, a diminishing point of humanity on a brutally inhospitable canvas.

 ‘Who called us?’ I shout.

‘He did. Made the call from the beach, dropped the phone and walked in.’

One of the officers says: ‘Over there, look’.

One blue and one white light, sliding in from the left towards the figure.

‘Here they come.’

And now the spluttering thug-chug-thug of a marine diesel. A light snaps on from the boat; it turns, and approaches the figure. Even now he doesn’t move. Caught in the brighter light from the boat, I wonder if he’ll suddenly duck under the water. He has that look about him – a curious sea-creature who stays on the surface for just as long as it can, then dives back down to the safety of its own world. But instead he raises up his arms as the boat comes alongside. A bulky orange figure jumps down into the water. The man is gathered onto the boat; after a minute or two, it turns, and slowly rides the waves as it makes its way in to meet us.

New book! Free!

I’ve just published my next book on Amazon. It’s a thriller called Into the Eclipse, and it’ll be free to download for the next 5 days (from morning of Mon 03 Dec – to the end of Fri 07 Dec). I’d love to know what you think of it. It’s quite different from Frank’s Last Call in that it’s entirely fictional, and written as a novel rather than the novelisation of a blog.

Here’s the blurb I put up on Amazon:

***

The solar eclipse.
For many it was a natural spectacle, a beautiful quirk of astronomy.
For Ella, it was one last chance to save her daughter.

When Kate leaves home to go to university, she is recruited by a secretive organisation and severs all links to her family. Ella, her mother, tries desperately to win her back. Eventually she turns to Noah, an anti-cult campaigner. Together they face up to an organisation prepared to do anything to protect itself, as it moves inexorably towards one final, cataclysmic event.

An exploration of faith and redemption, Into the Eclipse follows the paths of several very different lives as they intersect during a solar eclipse.

***

As always, a review on Amazon would be very much appreciated!

With thanks again for all your support and encouragement.

SK