This night had no beginning, has no end.
We no longer drive. We climb in the cab and let the city move around us. It rolls past the window like a dodgy model city on an off-centred plate, crowds of tiny figures toppling against each other and calling out beneath the great grey lamp of the moon.
And the work keeps coming, job after job after job.
Falls.
They rise up and link arms, fifty bingo-winged Tiller girls advancing arm in arm, sequined support stockings, diamante slippers, feathery alarm pendants, high kicking an inch then falling in a line, left to right.
Anxiety attacks.
They scramble over each other, all hands on deck, a freaked crew of foundering sailors scrambling up the steps of the ambulance as the bulkhead bursts and the windows crack and the tail lift spits rivets along its seam.
Drunks.
They surf out of the bars and clubs on boards made from crushed fast food cartons, ATM cards and hair gel, crouched low, arms spread wide atop great breakers of blood and vomit, whilst their friends shout encouragement from the taxi stands: he’s never been like this before; her drink’s been spiked; he’s only had a glass or two; she’s got asthma.
Assaults.
They run in to each other, merge, rise up roaring as an unconvincing creature from the deep, suckered with weapons, smashing a bottle over its head with one tentacle, poking a beer glass in its eye with another, pushing itself over, slapping its beak, strangling itself, calling 999 on one mobile phone, filming itself on another, whilst we stand off yawning, watching the sou’westered police wade in with landing hooks.
But then, just when I realise my head has been twisted off and stuck back on upside down, the shift is over. In the space of an extended blink, someone has reached up, switched off the moon, wound up the night. Suddenly – unaccountably – instead of the Third Urban Circle of Hell, I’m on a charming country road, with plasticine trees tottering past the window of my little red and yellow car, and choruses of cheerful birds looping and fa-lah-lahing in the blue.
A hedgehog doffs his cap.
And stands there, smiling and stuffing his pipe, as the sleepy little ambulance figure gets kissed good morning, and carefully tucked away in a matchbox.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
soundtrack
Ray’s wife Anne meets us at the top of the steps.
‘He’s lying on his side. I can’t move him. I think there’s something wrong with his breathing.’
‘Where is he?’
‘In the kitchen. But he’s big …’
We hurry in to the flat. Ray is lying on his left side on the floor of a narrow, galley kitchen, a pool of yellow vomit around him on the vinyl tiles. He is gasping spasmodically like a landed fish, his hands and nose and lips already a mottled grey blue. I feel for a pulse at his neck.
‘Nope. Agonal. We need to get him on his back.’
‘You be careful,’ Anne says, peering in over Frank’s shoulder. ‘He must be eighteen stone.’
I’d guess at least twenty-two. I grab his belt with one hand and guide his head with the other whilst Frank reaches in and uses Ray’s crooked legs as leverage. We manage to turn him on to his back in one haul, then reposition our grips and slide him a couple of feet away from the mess to a clearer space near the entrance. I pull his shirt up and start chest compressions; his eighty year old chest immediately snaps and cracks, giving beneath my hands like an old wicker basket.
‘Anne? When was the last time anyone saw Ray on his feet?’
‘I should say about half an hour ago.’
‘So he’s been down at least twenty minutes or so.’
Frank sticks the pads on and sparks up the defib.
‘Off’ he says, then after a moment: ‘PEA – on you go.’
‘Is he going to be all right?’ Anne says, one hand abstractedly plucking at the loose folds of skin beneath her chin.
‘He’s very poorly at the minute, Anne. His heart’s not working properly. This’ll be difficult for you to see. Why don’t you go out into another room whilst we do what we can? Is there anyone around who can sit with you?’
Just then a deep male voice sounds from along the corridor.
‘Stanley Green! says Frank, looking up from the head end where he takes care of ventilations. ‘I didn’t know you lived round here.’
A thick set guy with electric white hair and Fifties sideburns shows his face around the corner.
‘I live upstairs, Frankie. It’s Ray, is it? I saw the ambulance.’
Stanley watches me working on him for a second or two. Then he takes Ray’s wife by the shoulder. ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘Let’s go next door for a bit.’
‘Just before you go – Anne? What’s Ray’s medical history? What does he suffer with?’
‘Oh you name it,’ she says. ‘Do you want me to fetch you his appointment card? He’s supposed to be going in for a check-up in a couple of days. I suppose I’ll have to cancel that now.’
‘And how was his health today? Was he complaining of anything particularly?’
‘No. He was in a good mood. We were going out later.’
She frowns, watching me compress her husband’s chest but not seeming to connect with the desperate nature of my actions.
‘I’ll have to have a ring around,’ she says absently.
‘Come on, Anne. Let’s go and wait outside and let these guys do what they do.’
‘Do you want to know anything else? Towels? Water?’
‘No. Thanks. We’re fine. You go with Stanley and we’ll carry on. There’ll be another crew arriving in a moment to help us out. Maybe you could talk to one of them and give them all Ray’s details.’
‘Will do,’ she says, and Stanley leads her off.
***
An hour later and we all agree there’s nothing more to be done. Ray had a brief moment when it looked like his pulse might make a comeback, but it proved to be a false, adrenalized dawn (as they often are). We stand back from his body and begin to organise a clear-up. Frank goes to speak to Anne. After a few seconds I hear an agonised howl from a room out back. After a moment Frank re-appears.
‘I told her she could come in after we’ve cleaned him up,’ he says.
We drag him out of the kitchen and onto the carpet. It looks more comfortable than lying on the bare lino. We wipe his face, adjust his clothes, lie him neatly, place a clean white blanket over his length.
‘Are you going to extubate?’ I say to the paramedic.
‘No. I’ve got to leave it in situ for the coroner.’
‘Fair enough.’
But it seems a shame. Stanley comes in to the room and blanches when he sees his friend lying on the floor. But then he motions behind him for Anne to come in, and she takes her place by his side. After a moment she says weakly:
‘What’s that sticking out of his mouth?’
‘That was a tube to help him breathe. We’ve had to leave it in, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh.’
‘For the post mortem.’
‘Oh.’
We start to ferry our kit out of the way, discretely moving around Ray as he lies there, massive, motionless, jarringly out of place, run aground on the threshold of his kitchen. As I retrieve a scattering of drug packets from just the other side of him I notice the small bookcase, a CD player on the top shelf, rows of neatly stacked CDs beneath it. There is a tall, faded looking CD box leaning against the player where Ray left it: Dean Martin, posing in an open-necked, black silk shirt and rumpled cream jacket. Memories are Made of This.
‘He’s lying on his side. I can’t move him. I think there’s something wrong with his breathing.’
‘Where is he?’
‘In the kitchen. But he’s big …’
We hurry in to the flat. Ray is lying on his left side on the floor of a narrow, galley kitchen, a pool of yellow vomit around him on the vinyl tiles. He is gasping spasmodically like a landed fish, his hands and nose and lips already a mottled grey blue. I feel for a pulse at his neck.
‘Nope. Agonal. We need to get him on his back.’
‘You be careful,’ Anne says, peering in over Frank’s shoulder. ‘He must be eighteen stone.’
I’d guess at least twenty-two. I grab his belt with one hand and guide his head with the other whilst Frank reaches in and uses Ray’s crooked legs as leverage. We manage to turn him on to his back in one haul, then reposition our grips and slide him a couple of feet away from the mess to a clearer space near the entrance. I pull his shirt up and start chest compressions; his eighty year old chest immediately snaps and cracks, giving beneath my hands like an old wicker basket.
‘Anne? When was the last time anyone saw Ray on his feet?’
‘I should say about half an hour ago.’
‘So he’s been down at least twenty minutes or so.’
Frank sticks the pads on and sparks up the defib.
‘Off’ he says, then after a moment: ‘PEA – on you go.’
‘Is he going to be all right?’ Anne says, one hand abstractedly plucking at the loose folds of skin beneath her chin.
‘He’s very poorly at the minute, Anne. His heart’s not working properly. This’ll be difficult for you to see. Why don’t you go out into another room whilst we do what we can? Is there anyone around who can sit with you?’
Just then a deep male voice sounds from along the corridor.
‘Stanley Green! says Frank, looking up from the head end where he takes care of ventilations. ‘I didn’t know you lived round here.’
A thick set guy with electric white hair and Fifties sideburns shows his face around the corner.
‘I live upstairs, Frankie. It’s Ray, is it? I saw the ambulance.’
Stanley watches me working on him for a second or two. Then he takes Ray’s wife by the shoulder. ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘Let’s go next door for a bit.’
‘Just before you go – Anne? What’s Ray’s medical history? What does he suffer with?’
‘Oh you name it,’ she says. ‘Do you want me to fetch you his appointment card? He’s supposed to be going in for a check-up in a couple of days. I suppose I’ll have to cancel that now.’
‘And how was his health today? Was he complaining of anything particularly?’
‘No. He was in a good mood. We were going out later.’
She frowns, watching me compress her husband’s chest but not seeming to connect with the desperate nature of my actions.
‘I’ll have to have a ring around,’ she says absently.
‘Come on, Anne. Let’s go and wait outside and let these guys do what they do.’
‘Do you want to know anything else? Towels? Water?’
‘No. Thanks. We’re fine. You go with Stanley and we’ll carry on. There’ll be another crew arriving in a moment to help us out. Maybe you could talk to one of them and give them all Ray’s details.’
‘Will do,’ she says, and Stanley leads her off.
***
An hour later and we all agree there’s nothing more to be done. Ray had a brief moment when it looked like his pulse might make a comeback, but it proved to be a false, adrenalized dawn (as they often are). We stand back from his body and begin to organise a clear-up. Frank goes to speak to Anne. After a few seconds I hear an agonised howl from a room out back. After a moment Frank re-appears.
‘I told her she could come in after we’ve cleaned him up,’ he says.
We drag him out of the kitchen and onto the carpet. It looks more comfortable than lying on the bare lino. We wipe his face, adjust his clothes, lie him neatly, place a clean white blanket over his length.
‘Are you going to extubate?’ I say to the paramedic.
‘No. I’ve got to leave it in situ for the coroner.’
‘Fair enough.’
But it seems a shame. Stanley comes in to the room and blanches when he sees his friend lying on the floor. But then he motions behind him for Anne to come in, and she takes her place by his side. After a moment she says weakly:
‘What’s that sticking out of his mouth?’
‘That was a tube to help him breathe. We’ve had to leave it in, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh.’
‘For the post mortem.’
‘Oh.’
We start to ferry our kit out of the way, discretely moving around Ray as he lies there, massive, motionless, jarringly out of place, run aground on the threshold of his kitchen. As I retrieve a scattering of drug packets from just the other side of him I notice the small bookcase, a CD player on the top shelf, rows of neatly stacked CDs beneath it. There is a tall, faded looking CD box leaning against the player where Ray left it: Dean Martin, posing in an open-necked, black silk shirt and rumpled cream jacket. Memories are Made of This.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
wrists
Half past four in the morning and the music in the emptying club has been set to chill. Smoke and a densely sweated heat roll out through the double chrome doors, past the two bouncers standing with their hands respectfully cupped in front of them, professional mourners at the end of the world. The forecourt is a fisheye of tragedy, eerily pale in the light misting down from the lampposts on the road above, the patterned brickwork of the beachside walk, the dark, railway sleeper kerb and the cobbles on the beach beyond them, ghosting through a screen of smoky blues and greys. A tragic scene, from the litter of overturned chairs, scattered plastic pints and bodies draped over tables, to the groups of guys staggering off, pushing each other, climbing stuff, jumping down, and girls holding on to walls, walking barefoot with shoes in their hands, whilst around us from the deeper reaches of the night, wild screams and shouts and cries. The epic scale of it reminds me of a print on my mother-in-law’s wall: Napoleon’s retreat from Russia. I wouldn’t be surprised if I had to step over a fallen horse.
A couple of guys wave over to us from beneath the prow of a beached fishing boat further along. One of them is holding the arm of a man who lies face down at his feet, dipping and struggling, his enormous mop of curly hair thrashing about. He laughs as he struggles to hold on to the man, like a fisherman who’s somehow caught a live sheep in his nets.
‘He’s out of it,’ he says. ‘Rich is really out of it.’
I shine a torch down on to him whilst Rae squats down to ask him who he is and what might be wrong with him.
The man grips his t-shirt, pulling it away from his throat, gargling like an actor in a bad death scene.
‘Rich. Slow down, mate. Tell us what’s happened to you.’
As far as we can tell he had come out of the club and lain down on the beach. He hasn’t had any drugs; he hasn’t hurt himself.
‘So what’s the problem, Rich?’
‘My throat,’ he rasps. ‘My neck. My chest. I can’t breathe.’
Rae manages to calm him down sufficiently to establish that his life isn’t actually in danger at the moment. We can’t assess him properly here, though. There are too many people around, too many distractions. It’s cold, too, with a freshening wind coming in off the sea. We help Rich to his feet and take a slow, faltering walk back up the ramp to the ambulance parked up on the top road. His friends wave us off, leave him to it.
Up on the vehicle we get Rich on the stretcher where he rolls about groaning and complaining that his throat hurts. I slam the door shut. It feels good to be in the ambulance. Now and again as someone walks by they slap their hands on the side and shout taxi! or help me, I’m dying!, but inside the heater whirrs along, the light is bright and everything feels well-lit and safe and to hand in the best tradition of sanctuaries the world over.
‘Let’s start over, Rich,’ says Rae. ‘What has happened to you tonight? Why are we here?’
‘I came out of the club and fell over,’ he says, holding his neck.
‘You fell over? Where did you fall over?’
‘Just outside. I whacked my head on a bollard.’
‘You hit your head on a bollard?’
He nods, and winces.
‘Don’t nod. Just say yes or no.’
‘Yes. No. What?’
‘Were you knocked out?’
He shrugs.
‘Rich, we have to be clear about what happened to you. Let me feel your neck. Does that hurt?’
He yelps before Rae even gets a hand to him.
‘You have to be braver than this, Rich. Let me feel your neck.’
‘Be careful. I hurt it in Rugby last year and I can’t do anything more to it.’
‘So you have an old neck injury and you fell over tonight and banged your head. Is that right? Don’t shake your head, Rich.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Then we’ve got to put a collar on you, and put you on a board for the ride in.’
‘You can’t put me on a board. Last time I was left on it for six hours.’
‘That won’t happen tonight.’
‘And I feel sick.’
‘How much have you had to drink tonight?’
‘Nothing. Hardly anything. Four cups of whisky and Red Bull.’
‘Cups? What do you mean, cups? How big’s a cup?’
‘I don’t know. A cup.’
‘Had any drugs tonight?’
‘No. I don’t touch drugs.’
We both lean over him and shine a light in his eyes. They stare back at us, large and clear.
‘I’ll get the board,’ I tell Rae.
‘Shit. My mum’ll kill me,’ says Rich, then clears his throat with a ghastly retching sound. Rae grabs a bowl.
***
At the hospital the doctor feels down Rich’s back, working methodically along the spine as a team of us hold him on his side.
‘Does that hurt? Don’t nod, Rich, just say yes or no.’
‘Yes. Yes! No. Yes!’
‘Okay.’
We lower him back down.
‘We’ll send you for an x-ray, just to be safe, but I don’t think there’s anything going on, really. We’ll sort some pain relief whilst we’re about it, too.’
‘You won’t inject me, will you?’ he says, struggling to meet the doctor’s eye without turning his head.
‘No. It’ll just be a pill.’
‘Because I have a dreadful phobia.’
‘A phobia? Of needles?’
Rich blinks and looks straight up at the ceiling. ‘No,’ he says. ‘Wrists.’
A couple of guys wave over to us from beneath the prow of a beached fishing boat further along. One of them is holding the arm of a man who lies face down at his feet, dipping and struggling, his enormous mop of curly hair thrashing about. He laughs as he struggles to hold on to the man, like a fisherman who’s somehow caught a live sheep in his nets.
‘He’s out of it,’ he says. ‘Rich is really out of it.’
I shine a torch down on to him whilst Rae squats down to ask him who he is and what might be wrong with him.
The man grips his t-shirt, pulling it away from his throat, gargling like an actor in a bad death scene.
‘Rich. Slow down, mate. Tell us what’s happened to you.’
As far as we can tell he had come out of the club and lain down on the beach. He hasn’t had any drugs; he hasn’t hurt himself.
‘So what’s the problem, Rich?’
‘My throat,’ he rasps. ‘My neck. My chest. I can’t breathe.’
Rae manages to calm him down sufficiently to establish that his life isn’t actually in danger at the moment. We can’t assess him properly here, though. There are too many people around, too many distractions. It’s cold, too, with a freshening wind coming in off the sea. We help Rich to his feet and take a slow, faltering walk back up the ramp to the ambulance parked up on the top road. His friends wave us off, leave him to it.
Up on the vehicle we get Rich on the stretcher where he rolls about groaning and complaining that his throat hurts. I slam the door shut. It feels good to be in the ambulance. Now and again as someone walks by they slap their hands on the side and shout taxi! or help me, I’m dying!, but inside the heater whirrs along, the light is bright and everything feels well-lit and safe and to hand in the best tradition of sanctuaries the world over.
‘Let’s start over, Rich,’ says Rae. ‘What has happened to you tonight? Why are we here?’
‘I came out of the club and fell over,’ he says, holding his neck.
‘You fell over? Where did you fall over?’
‘Just outside. I whacked my head on a bollard.’
‘You hit your head on a bollard?’
He nods, and winces.
‘Don’t nod. Just say yes or no.’
‘Yes. No. What?’
‘Were you knocked out?’
He shrugs.
‘Rich, we have to be clear about what happened to you. Let me feel your neck. Does that hurt?’
He yelps before Rae even gets a hand to him.
‘You have to be braver than this, Rich. Let me feel your neck.’
‘Be careful. I hurt it in Rugby last year and I can’t do anything more to it.’
‘So you have an old neck injury and you fell over tonight and banged your head. Is that right? Don’t shake your head, Rich.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Then we’ve got to put a collar on you, and put you on a board for the ride in.’
‘You can’t put me on a board. Last time I was left on it for six hours.’
‘That won’t happen tonight.’
‘And I feel sick.’
‘How much have you had to drink tonight?’
‘Nothing. Hardly anything. Four cups of whisky and Red Bull.’
‘Cups? What do you mean, cups? How big’s a cup?’
‘I don’t know. A cup.’
‘Had any drugs tonight?’
‘No. I don’t touch drugs.’
We both lean over him and shine a light in his eyes. They stare back at us, large and clear.
‘I’ll get the board,’ I tell Rae.
‘Shit. My mum’ll kill me,’ says Rich, then clears his throat with a ghastly retching sound. Rae grabs a bowl.
***
At the hospital the doctor feels down Rich’s back, working methodically along the spine as a team of us hold him on his side.
‘Does that hurt? Don’t nod, Rich, just say yes or no.’
‘Yes. Yes! No. Yes!’
‘Okay.’
We lower him back down.
‘We’ll send you for an x-ray, just to be safe, but I don’t think there’s anything going on, really. We’ll sort some pain relief whilst we’re about it, too.’
‘You won’t inject me, will you?’ he says, struggling to meet the doctor’s eye without turning his head.
‘No. It’ll just be a pill.’
‘Because I have a dreadful phobia.’
‘A phobia? Of needles?’
Rich blinks and looks straight up at the ceiling. ‘No,’ he says. ‘Wrists.’
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
no biscuits
Two o’clock in the morning and the entrance to the residential home for troubled teenagers is all lit up. I buzz the warden and after a moment the latch clicks. Once inside we walk over to a serving hatch set into the wall overlooking the lobby. The man sat in the office there has a slack look to him, grey and poorly focused, like the security monitors mounted on the wall behind him.
‘Room 113. I’ll take you through. Sorry to drag you out. I’m sure it’s nothing.’
He leads us along corridors, through fire doors.
‘I expect you get a lot of this,’ he says, twirling and un-twirling the master key on a long piece of cord. ‘I couldn’t do your job.’
‘I’m not sure I could do yours,’ I say.
‘Don’t feel too sorry for me. There are benefits, you know.’
‘Same with us. All the bandages you can eat.’
‘Yeah – but all that blood and guts ...’
‘Yeah – but all those teenagers…’
He grunts, then breaks off to knock a couple of times on a partially open door, pushing it aside with a knuckle.
‘It’s the ambulance, Cheryl.’
A young guy opens the door.
‘I did my best but nothing worked,’ he says.
‘Let’s have a look.’
He stands aside and we move into the room, a utilitarian cube with a sink and shelf in one corner, a single bed along one side and a plain armchair opposite. Cheryl is lying the wrong way up on the bed, face up at the end, her feet on the pillow. She breathes quickly, holding her hands lightly on her belly, the pale fingers curled over into her palms like two strange creatures washed up on a rock.
Cheryl is having an anxiety attack. She’s had them before, she knows what to do. Except this time it’s gone on for longer, and she can’t break out of it.
‘My name’s Gary. I’m Cheryl’s friend from next door,’ the young guy says, squatting down and leaning back against the wall. He rubs his hands briskly with his face. ‘Jesus Christ. I’m supposed to be at work at eight. But I can’t bunk off. It’s my first day and I can’t screw this one up as well.’
‘We can handle things here okay. Why don’t you go and get some rest?’
‘Nah. I’ll stick around and make sure everything’s good. I’m used to going without sleep.’
It doesn’t sound an idle boast. He is long and pale, his bleach blond hair spiked upright like the shoots of something forced in the dark; even the tattoos on his arms have a shadowy quality, as if a sleepwalking tattooist inked-in the patterns by moonlight.
Gary reaches up and pats Cheryl on the shoulder. ‘I’m here for you, girl,’ he says.
Half an hour later Cheryl is sitting upright, breathing more slowly, looking exhausted.
‘She’s got to move out today,’ says Gary.
He stands up. ‘Shall I make some tea?’
‘That’d be great.’
When he’s out of the room Cheryl reaches under the pillow and pulls out a letter. She hands it to me without saying anything. I scan it quickly – something about internet grooming, a court case abandoned, a professional expression of support, a wish that things go well, keep in touch, and so on.
‘That sounds pretty tough,’ I say, handing her back the letter. ‘And you’ve got to move out today?’
She nods.
‘Are you getting all the help you need? Have you got a social worker?’
She folds the letter up and pushes it back under the pillow as Gary comes in with a tray of tea.
‘No biscuits I’m afraid,’ he says, looking around in vain for a clear space to put the tray down. ‘I had a fresh packet this morning but someone’s gone and scoffed the fucking lot.’
‘Room 113. I’ll take you through. Sorry to drag you out. I’m sure it’s nothing.’
He leads us along corridors, through fire doors.
‘I expect you get a lot of this,’ he says, twirling and un-twirling the master key on a long piece of cord. ‘I couldn’t do your job.’
‘I’m not sure I could do yours,’ I say.
‘Don’t feel too sorry for me. There are benefits, you know.’
‘Same with us. All the bandages you can eat.’
‘Yeah – but all that blood and guts ...’
‘Yeah – but all those teenagers…’
He grunts, then breaks off to knock a couple of times on a partially open door, pushing it aside with a knuckle.
‘It’s the ambulance, Cheryl.’
A young guy opens the door.
‘I did my best but nothing worked,’ he says.
‘Let’s have a look.’
He stands aside and we move into the room, a utilitarian cube with a sink and shelf in one corner, a single bed along one side and a plain armchair opposite. Cheryl is lying the wrong way up on the bed, face up at the end, her feet on the pillow. She breathes quickly, holding her hands lightly on her belly, the pale fingers curled over into her palms like two strange creatures washed up on a rock.
Cheryl is having an anxiety attack. She’s had them before, she knows what to do. Except this time it’s gone on for longer, and she can’t break out of it.
‘My name’s Gary. I’m Cheryl’s friend from next door,’ the young guy says, squatting down and leaning back against the wall. He rubs his hands briskly with his face. ‘Jesus Christ. I’m supposed to be at work at eight. But I can’t bunk off. It’s my first day and I can’t screw this one up as well.’
‘We can handle things here okay. Why don’t you go and get some rest?’
‘Nah. I’ll stick around and make sure everything’s good. I’m used to going without sleep.’
It doesn’t sound an idle boast. He is long and pale, his bleach blond hair spiked upright like the shoots of something forced in the dark; even the tattoos on his arms have a shadowy quality, as if a sleepwalking tattooist inked-in the patterns by moonlight.
Gary reaches up and pats Cheryl on the shoulder. ‘I’m here for you, girl,’ he says.
Half an hour later Cheryl is sitting upright, breathing more slowly, looking exhausted.
‘She’s got to move out today,’ says Gary.
He stands up. ‘Shall I make some tea?’
‘That’d be great.’
When he’s out of the room Cheryl reaches under the pillow and pulls out a letter. She hands it to me without saying anything. I scan it quickly – something about internet grooming, a court case abandoned, a professional expression of support, a wish that things go well, keep in touch, and so on.
‘That sounds pretty tough,’ I say, handing her back the letter. ‘And you’ve got to move out today?’
She nods.
‘Are you getting all the help you need? Have you got a social worker?’
She folds the letter up and pushes it back under the pillow as Gary comes in with a tray of tea.
‘No biscuits I’m afraid,’ he says, looking around in vain for a clear space to put the tray down. ‘I had a fresh packet this morning but someone’s gone and scoffed the fucking lot.’
Monday, May 10, 2010
drama club
Imogen is lying across her boyfriend in the back seat of the car, thrashing her legs and arms around, reaching up to grasp the hand grip above the door, pulling herself up and then letting herself go again, kicking the back of the passenger chair, slapping the ceiling, kicking the door. But as we approach the car in the dark, the whole performance seems just that – a controlled, intermittently hysterical display; her boyfriend and her boyfriend’s father look out at us by the interior light of the car, pale-faced, in need of rescue.
‘Asthma. Imogen’s having an asthma attack.’
Frank leans in, long and slow as an old-hand detective sniffing a crime scene.
‘This isn’t asthma,’ he says after a second or two, then: ‘Sit yourself up, love, and let’s have you on the ambulance.’
She had paused for a moment, but suddenly launches in to another bout of thrashing.
‘I’m serious now, Imogen. It’s cold out here. We can’t be all night.’
The hard edge seems to drop from her distress. She lets her boyfriend sit her up, then after a few fluttery passes of her hand across her face, slips out of the car and stands in the sharp night air, swaying impressively but not falling down, breathing quickly into the top of her chest.
‘Just slow that breathing down for me, would you, Imogen? And then let’s have you on the truck.’
She scuffs her feet as she walks, but makes it to the ambulance without us having to carry her.
‘That’s it,’ says Frank, offering a hand to get her up on to the truck. ‘There we go. Let’s have a seat and a chat.’
Imogen grips the handrails of the chair and breathes deeply, strange gasping respirations. She is a frail seventeen, the fringe of her long straight hair overhanging her eyes.
I go to put the SATS probe on her finger but she pulls it away as if I was going to pinch her finger in a clothes peg.
‘Don’t worry. Look. It goes on quite easily.’
I show her by putting it on my finger.
‘I need to do your blood pressure as well.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m perfectly fit,’ she says, then grips the arms of the chair and kicks her legs forwards. ‘For the love of God!’ she screams.
‘Where is the pain, Imogen?’
‘In my back. In my fucking goddamned back. Excuse me swearing.’
‘Is this new pain?’
‘No. Yes. I don’t know what you mean.’
‘It’s quite simple, Imogen. Have you had this pain before?’
‘I fell off a bench in drama class last month and they said I strained my back. Oh dear God!’
‘Did you go to hospital?’
‘Yes. D’ur. They took x-rays and everything.’
‘And what did they find?’
‘They just said it was a strain.’
‘Did they prescribe any medication?’
‘No. Look – stop talking. Do something.’
‘We can’t do anything until we know what’s the matter. Look – your SATS are perfect, your blood pressure is fine.’
‘Call yourself doctors?’
‘But we’re not doctors, Imogen. We’re the ambulance.’
‘Well do something ambulance-y, then.’
She takes traumatised gulps of air, her head craning up like a distressed baby bird, for all the world like a person in the very last extremity of pain. But nothing leads us to believe that she is in fact in pain. Her obs are fine, nothing we do or ask leads us to believe anything different, and her boyfriend, when he looks in at the door, is calmly playing his DS.
'Is she going in, then?’ he says, not looking up.
‘We’re just trying to establish that,’ says Frank. ‘Do you have pins and needles in your hands Imogen?’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘You know. Your hands go all tingly.’
She looks straight at Frank – as far as we can tell, the fringe so completely covers her eyes.
‘Who do you think I am? Fucking Tinkerbell?’
‘Less of the attitude, young lady,’ says Frank, leaning back against the bulkhead and fixing her with a stern look. ‘We’re here to help you.’
She laughs.
‘You remind me of my teacher.’
But then she seems to remember where she is and what she’s about.
‘For the love of God!’ she screams, arching back in the seat and slapping the arm rest.
She seems to have learned her expressions of distress from the pages of a Victorian novel.
‘What were you doing tonight?’ says Frank, ploughing on.
‘I was at drama club.’
‘So. You did your back in at drama club a month ago, and now you’re having breathing problems at drama club. It all sounds very – dramatic.’
‘Ha bloody ha. Oh – dear God!’
This flip-flop behaviour is extraordinary. One moment extravagant expressions of agony, the next the kind of sassy street shapes you’d expect from a twenty-first century teenager. If I had to make a differential diagnosis it would be either anxiety attack or intermittent possession by Nancy from Oliver Twist.
‘Let’s review the situation. You hurt your back a month ago but nothing was found, you’re not on any medication for it and you’ve been back to normal since. Your back started to hurt tonight in drama club, and then later on when you got in the car to be taken home it started to affect your breathing. Since you’ve been with us your breathing has calmed down a lot, and all of your observations are normal.’
Frank studies her for a moment.
‘Is your mum at home?’
‘No. She’s on her way back from holiday.’
‘Is there anyone else at home?’
‘My older sister.’
‘Do you two get on?’
‘No. I hate her guts. Oh my sweet God! Jesus!’
‘You see, Imogen. Normally I’d be happy to let you go back home, but every now and again you still seem ready to tip back into another panic, and that can’t go on, can it? So the only other option is to take you to hospital.’
Imogen says she doesn’t want to go to hospital. She doesn’t want to wait for hours to be seen by a doctor.
‘At least you’ll be safe there. I think I know what the problem is, but there’s always a chance it could be something else.’
‘I’m not going to no hospital.’
We confer with the boyfriend, who sighs when he has to prematurely finish his game and put the DS back in his pocket.
‘Don’t worry, Immie. I’ll come with you.’
The boyfriend’s father, a benign, slightly worn down character with a pair of thick glasses, a scraggy beard and a walking stick that could all be part of a kit, seems happy to let him.
***
We park Imogen and her boyfriend in the waiting room. In front of this more substantial audience – one without the same investment or interest in her condition – Imogen calms down, and sits perfectly happily in the wheelchair, looking over her boyfriend’s shoulder at the DS.
We’re asked to take a transfer to another hospital, but there’s a delay as the patient is stabilised. We’re still at the desk half an hour later when a harassed woman in a crumpled black suit hurries up to the nurse’s station.
‘My daughter Imogen was brought in by ambulance and I’ve come to take her home.’
‘Yes. I know the girl. But she hasn’t been assessed by the medical team yet.’
‘Yes. Yes. It’s okay. I know all about it. I’ll just take her straight home, thanks.’
The nurse pulls a wise but tough, Robert de Niro face – a sub-text something like: If you’re sure that’s what you wanna do, then by all means. Go right ahead.
‘Through there,’ is all she actually says. The woman hurries through.
‘Asthma. Imogen’s having an asthma attack.’
Frank leans in, long and slow as an old-hand detective sniffing a crime scene.
‘This isn’t asthma,’ he says after a second or two, then: ‘Sit yourself up, love, and let’s have you on the ambulance.’
She had paused for a moment, but suddenly launches in to another bout of thrashing.
‘I’m serious now, Imogen. It’s cold out here. We can’t be all night.’
The hard edge seems to drop from her distress. She lets her boyfriend sit her up, then after a few fluttery passes of her hand across her face, slips out of the car and stands in the sharp night air, swaying impressively but not falling down, breathing quickly into the top of her chest.
‘Just slow that breathing down for me, would you, Imogen? And then let’s have you on the truck.’
She scuffs her feet as she walks, but makes it to the ambulance without us having to carry her.
‘That’s it,’ says Frank, offering a hand to get her up on to the truck. ‘There we go. Let’s have a seat and a chat.’
Imogen grips the handrails of the chair and breathes deeply, strange gasping respirations. She is a frail seventeen, the fringe of her long straight hair overhanging her eyes.
I go to put the SATS probe on her finger but she pulls it away as if I was going to pinch her finger in a clothes peg.
‘Don’t worry. Look. It goes on quite easily.’
I show her by putting it on my finger.
‘I need to do your blood pressure as well.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m perfectly fit,’ she says, then grips the arms of the chair and kicks her legs forwards. ‘For the love of God!’ she screams.
‘Where is the pain, Imogen?’
‘In my back. In my fucking goddamned back. Excuse me swearing.’
‘Is this new pain?’
‘No. Yes. I don’t know what you mean.’
‘It’s quite simple, Imogen. Have you had this pain before?’
‘I fell off a bench in drama class last month and they said I strained my back. Oh dear God!’
‘Did you go to hospital?’
‘Yes. D’ur. They took x-rays and everything.’
‘And what did they find?’
‘They just said it was a strain.’
‘Did they prescribe any medication?’
‘No. Look – stop talking. Do something.’
‘We can’t do anything until we know what’s the matter. Look – your SATS are perfect, your blood pressure is fine.’
‘Call yourself doctors?’
‘But we’re not doctors, Imogen. We’re the ambulance.’
‘Well do something ambulance-y, then.’
She takes traumatised gulps of air, her head craning up like a distressed baby bird, for all the world like a person in the very last extremity of pain. But nothing leads us to believe that she is in fact in pain. Her obs are fine, nothing we do or ask leads us to believe anything different, and her boyfriend, when he looks in at the door, is calmly playing his DS.
'Is she going in, then?’ he says, not looking up.
‘We’re just trying to establish that,’ says Frank. ‘Do you have pins and needles in your hands Imogen?’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘You know. Your hands go all tingly.’
She looks straight at Frank – as far as we can tell, the fringe so completely covers her eyes.
‘Who do you think I am? Fucking Tinkerbell?’
‘Less of the attitude, young lady,’ says Frank, leaning back against the bulkhead and fixing her with a stern look. ‘We’re here to help you.’
She laughs.
‘You remind me of my teacher.’
But then she seems to remember where she is and what she’s about.
‘For the love of God!’ she screams, arching back in the seat and slapping the arm rest.
She seems to have learned her expressions of distress from the pages of a Victorian novel.
‘What were you doing tonight?’ says Frank, ploughing on.
‘I was at drama club.’
‘So. You did your back in at drama club a month ago, and now you’re having breathing problems at drama club. It all sounds very – dramatic.’
‘Ha bloody ha. Oh – dear God!’
This flip-flop behaviour is extraordinary. One moment extravagant expressions of agony, the next the kind of sassy street shapes you’d expect from a twenty-first century teenager. If I had to make a differential diagnosis it would be either anxiety attack or intermittent possession by Nancy from Oliver Twist.
‘Let’s review the situation. You hurt your back a month ago but nothing was found, you’re not on any medication for it and you’ve been back to normal since. Your back started to hurt tonight in drama club, and then later on when you got in the car to be taken home it started to affect your breathing. Since you’ve been with us your breathing has calmed down a lot, and all of your observations are normal.’
Frank studies her for a moment.
‘Is your mum at home?’
‘No. She’s on her way back from holiday.’
‘Is there anyone else at home?’
‘My older sister.’
‘Do you two get on?’
‘No. I hate her guts. Oh my sweet God! Jesus!’
‘You see, Imogen. Normally I’d be happy to let you go back home, but every now and again you still seem ready to tip back into another panic, and that can’t go on, can it? So the only other option is to take you to hospital.’
Imogen says she doesn’t want to go to hospital. She doesn’t want to wait for hours to be seen by a doctor.
‘At least you’ll be safe there. I think I know what the problem is, but there’s always a chance it could be something else.’
‘I’m not going to no hospital.’
We confer with the boyfriend, who sighs when he has to prematurely finish his game and put the DS back in his pocket.
‘Don’t worry, Immie. I’ll come with you.’
The boyfriend’s father, a benign, slightly worn down character with a pair of thick glasses, a scraggy beard and a walking stick that could all be part of a kit, seems happy to let him.
***
We park Imogen and her boyfriend in the waiting room. In front of this more substantial audience – one without the same investment or interest in her condition – Imogen calms down, and sits perfectly happily in the wheelchair, looking over her boyfriend’s shoulder at the DS.
We’re asked to take a transfer to another hospital, but there’s a delay as the patient is stabilised. We’re still at the desk half an hour later when a harassed woman in a crumpled black suit hurries up to the nurse’s station.
‘My daughter Imogen was brought in by ambulance and I’ve come to take her home.’
‘Yes. I know the girl. But she hasn’t been assessed by the medical team yet.’
‘Yes. Yes. It’s okay. I know all about it. I’ll just take her straight home, thanks.’
The nurse pulls a wise but tough, Robert de Niro face – a sub-text something like: If you’re sure that’s what you wanna do, then by all means. Go right ahead.
‘Through there,’ is all she actually says. The woman hurries through.
Saturday, May 08, 2010
travel plans
There are two people under section at the hospital to go to Southview. One of them needs a police escort, and as a unit still hasn’t been assigned to the job, Control have asked us to take the quieter one. As we walk through into the unit a nurse jumps out, almost throwing us onto a bed in her eagerness to know who we’ve come for.
‘Please say Aleksandr,’ she says. ‘He’s such a problem and we can’t get anything done. Please, please, please say you’ve come for Aleksandr.’
‘Actually we’ve come for Nigel.’
‘No!’
‘Nigel’s easy,’ says Frank.
‘I’ve got chocolates! Look! I’ll even make you some tea whilst you wait.’
‘I’ll get Control and lean on them.’
I call them up on the radio as the nurse leads us round the corner to her station. Just across from it there is a bare chested young man being held in a wheelchair. His arms are out to the side, firmly gripped by two security guards, who nod at us as we take up position in two office chairs.
‘All right?’
‘Not bad. You?’
‘Yep. Good thanks. Busy night?’
‘So so. You?’
‘Not so much.’
Control say it’s okay to wait for the police escort, but to keep them updated.
‘Thank god for that,’ says the nurse. ‘Thank god.’
Aleksandr has been looking ahead, inert but intensely focused, the muscles of his chest and abdomen defined. He looks sprung, acutely aware, but his face is passive.
The nurse hands me and Frank a chocolate each, and then sits above us on the desk to whisper his story.
‘Aleksandr’s a language student. A few weeks ago he was doing fine, nothing untoward, quite happy, but then for no apparent reason started acting strange and withdrawn, not going to lessons, talking to himself and the rest of it. Eventually he flipped. Smashed up the host family’s house, ran into the sea, picked up by the lifeboat. Treated for hypothermia, and everything else checked out physically. He’s been sedated for a while now, but we can’t really give him too much more before you take him. He does need an escort, though. He’s been a nightmare, a real handful.’
At that moment, as if to illustrate the point, Aleksandr struggles to his feet and starts wresting his arms from side to side like a wild cat in chains, but all completely silently. The guards hold him firm.
‘Come on, Aleksandr.’
‘Easy there.’
‘Just calm it right down, fella. We’re not letting you go.’
After a few seconds he relaxes again, slumping back into the wheelchair and resuming the same, passive posture.
As things settle down again an inflated, raw-faced man suddenly appears from nowhere, tottering across to sit down with us at the station. The way he smiles identifies him as Nigel before he even speaks – oblivious, mildly amused, like an indulgent friend who knows the real reason behind the visit.
‘I just couldn’t stop the drinking,’ he says, slapping his belly. ‘Blew me right up. Organ failure. The shits. Voices and headaches. I don’t suppose you’ve ever been to Scotland?’
I smile at him. ‘Me? I’d love to go to Scotland. Overnight sleeper train. Pile of books, bottle of whisky. Or maybe orange juice. All the way to the top and fall off. All the way to the Orkneys.’
Frank flicks his chocolate wrapper over to a bin, but it bounces off the rim.
‘You’d need a boat for the Orkneys,’ he says.
Nigel laughs. ‘A boat!’ he says. ‘Classic.’
Aleksandr struggles some more, but the guards maintain his position.
Pilar, a Spanish nurse, comes over.
‘Do you know if the planes’ll be back in the air at the weekend?’
‘Where are you off to, then?’
‘Home. Gran Canaria.’
‘Gran Canaria? Is that Spain?’
Frank puts his hands behind his head.
‘Well, mate, yes, it is Spain, but really it’s Africa. An island off the coast of Morocco, if you must know.’
‘Let’s have a look.’
I spin round on the chair and call up Google Maps. In a few clicks I have the satellite version, the cobalt blue of the North Atlantic ocean ruffled with deep water mountain ranges. I use the hand tool to drag the picture so the bottom half of the UK shares the screen.
‘There you go, Pilar. That’s where you’re headed.’
‘I hope,’ she says, checking her fob. ‘I wish.’
‘Please say Aleksandr,’ she says. ‘He’s such a problem and we can’t get anything done. Please, please, please say you’ve come for Aleksandr.’
‘Actually we’ve come for Nigel.’
‘No!’
‘Nigel’s easy,’ says Frank.
‘I’ve got chocolates! Look! I’ll even make you some tea whilst you wait.’
‘I’ll get Control and lean on them.’
I call them up on the radio as the nurse leads us round the corner to her station. Just across from it there is a bare chested young man being held in a wheelchair. His arms are out to the side, firmly gripped by two security guards, who nod at us as we take up position in two office chairs.
‘All right?’
‘Not bad. You?’
‘Yep. Good thanks. Busy night?’
‘So so. You?’
‘Not so much.’
Control say it’s okay to wait for the police escort, but to keep them updated.
‘Thank god for that,’ says the nurse. ‘Thank god.’
Aleksandr has been looking ahead, inert but intensely focused, the muscles of his chest and abdomen defined. He looks sprung, acutely aware, but his face is passive.
The nurse hands me and Frank a chocolate each, and then sits above us on the desk to whisper his story.
‘Aleksandr’s a language student. A few weeks ago he was doing fine, nothing untoward, quite happy, but then for no apparent reason started acting strange and withdrawn, not going to lessons, talking to himself and the rest of it. Eventually he flipped. Smashed up the host family’s house, ran into the sea, picked up by the lifeboat. Treated for hypothermia, and everything else checked out physically. He’s been sedated for a while now, but we can’t really give him too much more before you take him. He does need an escort, though. He’s been a nightmare, a real handful.’
At that moment, as if to illustrate the point, Aleksandr struggles to his feet and starts wresting his arms from side to side like a wild cat in chains, but all completely silently. The guards hold him firm.
‘Come on, Aleksandr.’
‘Easy there.’
‘Just calm it right down, fella. We’re not letting you go.’
After a few seconds he relaxes again, slumping back into the wheelchair and resuming the same, passive posture.
As things settle down again an inflated, raw-faced man suddenly appears from nowhere, tottering across to sit down with us at the station. The way he smiles identifies him as Nigel before he even speaks – oblivious, mildly amused, like an indulgent friend who knows the real reason behind the visit.
‘I just couldn’t stop the drinking,’ he says, slapping his belly. ‘Blew me right up. Organ failure. The shits. Voices and headaches. I don’t suppose you’ve ever been to Scotland?’
I smile at him. ‘Me? I’d love to go to Scotland. Overnight sleeper train. Pile of books, bottle of whisky. Or maybe orange juice. All the way to the top and fall off. All the way to the Orkneys.’
Frank flicks his chocolate wrapper over to a bin, but it bounces off the rim.
‘You’d need a boat for the Orkneys,’ he says.
Nigel laughs. ‘A boat!’ he says. ‘Classic.’
Aleksandr struggles some more, but the guards maintain his position.
Pilar, a Spanish nurse, comes over.
‘Do you know if the planes’ll be back in the air at the weekend?’
‘Where are you off to, then?’
‘Home. Gran Canaria.’
‘Gran Canaria? Is that Spain?’
Frank puts his hands behind his head.
‘Well, mate, yes, it is Spain, but really it’s Africa. An island off the coast of Morocco, if you must know.’
‘Let’s have a look.’
I spin round on the chair and call up Google Maps. In a few clicks I have the satellite version, the cobalt blue of the North Atlantic ocean ruffled with deep water mountain ranges. I use the hand tool to drag the picture so the bottom half of the UK shares the screen.
‘There you go, Pilar. That’s where you’re headed.’
‘I hope,’ she says, checking her fob. ‘I wish.’
Friday, May 07, 2010
touching heads
‘Wait a minute, now. Just a minute.’
Mrs Burrows fishes around in the pocket of her dressing gown, and eventually pulls out what looks like a massive pink plastic ashtray. She picks off the fluff with the tips of her fingers, then sets it in her lap.
‘Pass me down that tube, would you?’
There is a semi-circular glass shelf just above her head, covered with chintzy porcelain figurines; I find the tube at the feet of a startled shepherdess.
‘Thank you.’
She unscrews the top, and squeezes gunk all over the ashtray. Then she spreads her mouth wide and slowly inserts it – a dreadful sight, like watching a python swallow a snooker table. It’s impossible that she could fit that thing in there, but somehow she manages it. It must be some mistake. The dentures are so huge they seem to push the entire side of her face outwards; they must be the wrong teeth. But Mrs Burrow’s husband, the only other person whose teeth they could be, seems happy enough. He looks on sleepily, fumbling with his dressing gown cord.
‘Would you like some tea?’ he says.
‘Let’s get your wife up first. Now then. Have you hurt yourself?’
She smiles, and the teeth loom forwards through the opening.
‘Just a minute,’ she clacks. Then very methodically, item by item, she begins checking herself, turning each hand from side to side, extending her legs, nodding her head and wriggling from side to side. She looks up again.
‘I’m all right,’ she says.
We get her up and holding her hands, lead her through into the kitchen.
Mr Burrows is shuffling around the tatty kitchen, his dressing gown cord still trailing behind him, his hair sticking up in tufts like a duckling.
‘Sixty three years we’ve been married,’ he says. ‘That’s us in the picture.’
He swings the kettle dangerously in the direction of a large black and white wedding photo, a bustling crowd of people at the doors of a church, a young man in uniform leaning in and touching heads with a round faced young woman in an upturned veil, both of them laughing at the camera through a storm of confetti.
‘I drove steam engines after that,’ he says, setting the electric kettle on the hob.
Mrs Burrows taps me on the shoulder. When I turn to look at her she leans in and starts to whisper: dementia, but on the slippery third syllable her teeth seize their chance and try to leap out at me from her mouth.
Mrs Burrows fishes around in the pocket of her dressing gown, and eventually pulls out what looks like a massive pink plastic ashtray. She picks off the fluff with the tips of her fingers, then sets it in her lap.
‘Pass me down that tube, would you?’
There is a semi-circular glass shelf just above her head, covered with chintzy porcelain figurines; I find the tube at the feet of a startled shepherdess.
‘Thank you.’
She unscrews the top, and squeezes gunk all over the ashtray. Then she spreads her mouth wide and slowly inserts it – a dreadful sight, like watching a python swallow a snooker table. It’s impossible that she could fit that thing in there, but somehow she manages it. It must be some mistake. The dentures are so huge they seem to push the entire side of her face outwards; they must be the wrong teeth. But Mrs Burrow’s husband, the only other person whose teeth they could be, seems happy enough. He looks on sleepily, fumbling with his dressing gown cord.
‘Would you like some tea?’ he says.
‘Let’s get your wife up first. Now then. Have you hurt yourself?’
She smiles, and the teeth loom forwards through the opening.
‘Just a minute,’ she clacks. Then very methodically, item by item, she begins checking herself, turning each hand from side to side, extending her legs, nodding her head and wriggling from side to side. She looks up again.
‘I’m all right,’ she says.
We get her up and holding her hands, lead her through into the kitchen.
Mr Burrows is shuffling around the tatty kitchen, his dressing gown cord still trailing behind him, his hair sticking up in tufts like a duckling.
‘Sixty three years we’ve been married,’ he says. ‘That’s us in the picture.’
He swings the kettle dangerously in the direction of a large black and white wedding photo, a bustling crowd of people at the doors of a church, a young man in uniform leaning in and touching heads with a round faced young woman in an upturned veil, both of them laughing at the camera through a storm of confetti.
‘I drove steam engines after that,’ he says, setting the electric kettle on the hob.
Mrs Burrows taps me on the shoulder. When I turn to look at her she leans in and starts to whisper: dementia, but on the slippery third syllable her teeth seize their chance and try to leap out at me from her mouth.
Thursday, May 06, 2010
viewpoint
The last drag of light along the horizon. Dusk doesn’t sound right as a word - or maybe it sounds exactly right: dust, musk, dark – a fragile composite, a material thing, ghosting the landscape, reducing these isolated farm houses to a yard light, a tractor beam, a smudge of tree or hedgerow, wall or gate, a mirror of sky in a ditch, a scattering of shapes in a field. The higher we get the more it feels like flying. But the ambulance pitches and rolls, and finally the long road to the top of the escarpment turns us up onto the forecourt of the pub there.
It's been a warm and busy day, but the coming night is sorting the last visitors into those that stay for a pint and those that don’t. Car boots are open and people are sitting in them changing their boots; a man tips a bottle of water into the upturned mouth of a dog; a kitchen porter lounges round the bins and smokes as he watches us; shadows of late walkers on the footpath coming in; the interior lights of the pub blazing through its acres of glass; and from all around the sensation that we’re the focal point of an unfolding drama.
A man steps up to the window and plays his part.
‘The car park at the far end, mate, as far as you can go. There’s a load of police there. You can’t miss it.’
But you could. It’s surprising how the police van and the ambulance car are subsumed in the general confusion of shapes at the edge. A stand of Scots Pine rise up on the right; on the left, a great vacancy of dark, smelling of height and distance. The road surface is unmetalled rock.
A group of three or four police officers chatting and kicking around. We say hello, they point us over to a dark saloon car parked with its bonnet to the edge of the car park. The off-side rear door is shut, but every other one stands open. The lights are off, and all we can see as we walk over is the shape of a paramedic kneeling by the driver’s door. The window of the passenger door behind it is partially open, the gap stuffed with shredded paper. The driver is still behind the wheel, the seat pushed back, his filthy hands resting in his lap. A battered looking guy in his thirties. It looks as if he’s been living in the car.
‘Hi guys. I’ve only just got here myself. But anyway - this is Simon. Simon has tried to gas himself, unfortunately. He ran a pipe from the exhaust and kept the engine running for – how long, would you say, Simon?’
Simon speaks with his face pointing forwards, like an astronaut stunned by the curve of the earth through his windscreen.
‘An hour? I lost track.’
‘So. About an hour then. Maybe unconscious, not sure. Simon’s also took a bit of heroin, so he’s got a few things going on. A member of the public found him.’
Between us we help him out of the car, discreetly making sure he doesn’t have anything on him that he might suddenly use against himself, or us. But he walks calmly and steadily to the ambulance, and we sit him on a chair. I go to swap the oxygen spigot from the far side to the outlet nearest to him, but some reason it won’t click in.
‘Here. Give it to me. I’m an engineer.’
With his powerful, filthy hands he turns the spigot around until it snaps into place. He tests the flow, then relaxes his hands again. ‘I’m good at that shit,’ he says.
I put the mask on him and run through a set of obs whilst my crewmate negotiates with the police. At one point Simon raises his arms out to the side, turns his hands from side to side and flexes his fingers. He looks like a man coming out of a deep freeze.
‘I’ve fucked this up as well,’ he says. ‘I wasn’t supposed to wake up.’
Then he opens his eyes and studies me glassily.
‘I don’t even have any money to pay the fine when the police take the car.’
‘Don’t worry about that,’ I say, and then: ‘Try not to worry about that. These are special circumstances. I’m sure we can work something out.’
Simon closes his eyes again, and then the only sound for a while is the oxygen, steadily hissing into the mask.
It's been a warm and busy day, but the coming night is sorting the last visitors into those that stay for a pint and those that don’t. Car boots are open and people are sitting in them changing their boots; a man tips a bottle of water into the upturned mouth of a dog; a kitchen porter lounges round the bins and smokes as he watches us; shadows of late walkers on the footpath coming in; the interior lights of the pub blazing through its acres of glass; and from all around the sensation that we’re the focal point of an unfolding drama.
A man steps up to the window and plays his part.
‘The car park at the far end, mate, as far as you can go. There’s a load of police there. You can’t miss it.’
But you could. It’s surprising how the police van and the ambulance car are subsumed in the general confusion of shapes at the edge. A stand of Scots Pine rise up on the right; on the left, a great vacancy of dark, smelling of height and distance. The road surface is unmetalled rock.
A group of three or four police officers chatting and kicking around. We say hello, they point us over to a dark saloon car parked with its bonnet to the edge of the car park. The off-side rear door is shut, but every other one stands open. The lights are off, and all we can see as we walk over is the shape of a paramedic kneeling by the driver’s door. The window of the passenger door behind it is partially open, the gap stuffed with shredded paper. The driver is still behind the wheel, the seat pushed back, his filthy hands resting in his lap. A battered looking guy in his thirties. It looks as if he’s been living in the car.
‘Hi guys. I’ve only just got here myself. But anyway - this is Simon. Simon has tried to gas himself, unfortunately. He ran a pipe from the exhaust and kept the engine running for – how long, would you say, Simon?’
Simon speaks with his face pointing forwards, like an astronaut stunned by the curve of the earth through his windscreen.
‘An hour? I lost track.’
‘So. About an hour then. Maybe unconscious, not sure. Simon’s also took a bit of heroin, so he’s got a few things going on. A member of the public found him.’
Between us we help him out of the car, discreetly making sure he doesn’t have anything on him that he might suddenly use against himself, or us. But he walks calmly and steadily to the ambulance, and we sit him on a chair. I go to swap the oxygen spigot from the far side to the outlet nearest to him, but some reason it won’t click in.
‘Here. Give it to me. I’m an engineer.’
With his powerful, filthy hands he turns the spigot around until it snaps into place. He tests the flow, then relaxes his hands again. ‘I’m good at that shit,’ he says.
I put the mask on him and run through a set of obs whilst my crewmate negotiates with the police. At one point Simon raises his arms out to the side, turns his hands from side to side and flexes his fingers. He looks like a man coming out of a deep freeze.
‘I’ve fucked this up as well,’ he says. ‘I wasn’t supposed to wake up.’
Then he opens his eyes and studies me glassily.
‘I don’t even have any money to pay the fine when the police take the car.’
‘Don’t worry about that,’ I say, and then: ‘Try not to worry about that. These are special circumstances. I’m sure we can work something out.’
Simon closes his eyes again, and then the only sound for a while is the oxygen, steadily hissing into the mask.
Sunday, May 02, 2010
easy on the vegetables
The high street is so busy and bright I have to screw up my eyes to look at it. We cut a path through the muddle, our siren a madman’s rant in the market place. A young mother reaches over the back of her buggy to press her hands over her baby’s ears; a decrepit old man gets pulled back by the shoulder as he steps out at the pedestrian lights; a cyclist wobbles, puts a foot down, casts a look back, and on and on through a hundred scattered scenes, from balconies and shop doorways, car windows and the opened backs of vans, from the railings along the pavement and the groups of friends stopped like rocks in the river of lunchtime shoppers – amongst all this a sudden unexpected convergence of attention, a yellow truck, and its dramatic progress along the street.
But we’re hardened to the fuss. We have to get there quickly, to the thirty year old male collapsed, unconscious, life status questionable, on a pavement outside a bookshop.
‘There’s the patrol car.’
I press on scene as Frank pulls over to the side.
One officer is holding up a crumpled looking man by the collar. He has a disdainful set to his arm, looking out over his audience like a puppeteer about to stuff an unstrung marionette in the bin.
His colleague strolls over to the ambulance. I wind the window down.
‘Not sure about this one, mate. Sorry to drag you out. This guy – Gary, I’ve not met him before – apparently he collapsed on the pavement. Seems all right now, though. Bit pissed – might have something to do with it. Anyway, see what you think.’
Gary has that stubbed out vacancy you see in drunks. When I introduce myself he smiles, pushes out his bottom lip when I ask him how he is. It’s a strangely disconnected movement, like watching the bottom drawer of a cupboard slide out by itself.
‘I’m all right.’
‘Did you hurt yourself when you fell?’
‘I’m all right.’
‘Okay, Gary. Let’s get you in the back of the truck and give you the once over.’
‘Fair enough, chief.’
Shouting words of encouragement and guiding his arms and legs as best we can, we corral Gary up the steps into the ambulance, his hooves scrabbling and clattering on the steps; about the only thing we don’t use to help him along is a lasso. He dumps himself in a chair. The police officers step away, stripping off any further involvement with a snap of their surgical gloves.
‘See you later. No doubt.’
On the ambulance Frank settles himself at the far end of the trolley, draping one leg over the other and lacing his fingers round one knee, bouncing a foot up and down like a benevolent history teacher settling down in a disappointing class.
I begin.
‘Now then. Gary. Tell us what happened.’
Gary puts his hands in his pockets and looks up at me. He tries to gauge how level I am by closing one eye, and the action almost has him off the chair.
‘I had something to eat.’
‘What did you have to eat, Gary?’
He thinks about it.
‘An onion – and a parsnip.’
‘What did he say?’ says Frank. ‘An onion and a parsnip? Fantastic.’
I raise my eyebrows.
‘So – you had an onion and a parsnip. Anything with that? Any drugs, for example?’
‘Ten milligrams of Valium.’
‘Okay. Anything else?’
‘Some lager.’
‘Can you open your eyes for me, Gary, so I can get a look at your pupils?’
He raises his chin up, but the eyes remain closed. I reach over and prise it open. The pupil rolls back at me, fat and black.
‘Okay. So you had a few cans, some Valium cut with root vegetables. Anything else?’
He gives me a boneless smirk and shakes his head.
‘Not a thing, sir.’
He seems to pick up a bit with that. He stands up – a hideous procedure, his fingers spread wide, his sense of balance swarming round his head like so many bees.
‘Are you a straight crew?’ he says as he struggles to maintain his position.
‘What’s that?’
Frank uncrosses his legs.
‘A straight crew? What’s that got to do with the price of fish?’
‘A straight crew. You know what I mean. Especially you.’
‘I have no idea what you mean. What are you asking us?’
‘I want you to take a look at this.’
He starts fumbling with the belt of his trousers, a pair of jeans so shiny with dirt they could have been cut from the granite walls of a sewer.
They sag to his ankles.
I don’t want to look, but I’m morbidly drawn against my will. Even Frank has stood up from the trolley and is peering round.
‘What are we supposed to be…’
‘Look.’
He reaches round, tugs his pants halfway down, lifts the tail of his shirt, exposing the kind of scraggy arse you might see on a bear with mange.
‘See?’
‘Well – no, not really. What?’
‘I fell over.’
‘I can’t see any damage there.’
‘Look closer,’ says Frank, but I don’t.
‘Honestly, there’s not a mark there.’
Gary turns round and lifts his shirt.
‘What about here?’ he says, making a vague sweep of his torso with the flat of his hand. ‘I fell over.’
‘So you keep saying, but there’s not a mark on you. Gary, this is all a bit of a waste of time, don’t you think? Just pull your trousers up and let’s see what we’re to do.’
He manages to straighten his clothes in that vaguely magical way drunks have of remaining upright despite the odds.
‘It seems to me that you’re a bit the worse for wear, but it’s difficult for us to say exactly what the matter is. I don’t think you need to go to hospital, but we’re duty bound to offer it. The other thing is we can release you back into the wild and you can enjoy the rest of the day. What would you like to do?’
Gary pushes his bottom lip out again.
‘Go home,’ he says at last.
‘Good. Let’s help you out.’
At the bottom of the ambulance steps he turns and offers his hand.
‘I want to thank you for all you’ve done.’
‘No problem, Gary. Just go easy on the vegetables.’
He does a mock salute, and almost pitches backwards into a pile of rubbish bags.
But we’re hardened to the fuss. We have to get there quickly, to the thirty year old male collapsed, unconscious, life status questionable, on a pavement outside a bookshop.
‘There’s the patrol car.’
I press on scene as Frank pulls over to the side.
One officer is holding up a crumpled looking man by the collar. He has a disdainful set to his arm, looking out over his audience like a puppeteer about to stuff an unstrung marionette in the bin.
His colleague strolls over to the ambulance. I wind the window down.
‘Not sure about this one, mate. Sorry to drag you out. This guy – Gary, I’ve not met him before – apparently he collapsed on the pavement. Seems all right now, though. Bit pissed – might have something to do with it. Anyway, see what you think.’
Gary has that stubbed out vacancy you see in drunks. When I introduce myself he smiles, pushes out his bottom lip when I ask him how he is. It’s a strangely disconnected movement, like watching the bottom drawer of a cupboard slide out by itself.
‘I’m all right.’
‘Did you hurt yourself when you fell?’
‘I’m all right.’
‘Okay, Gary. Let’s get you in the back of the truck and give you the once over.’
‘Fair enough, chief.’
Shouting words of encouragement and guiding his arms and legs as best we can, we corral Gary up the steps into the ambulance, his hooves scrabbling and clattering on the steps; about the only thing we don’t use to help him along is a lasso. He dumps himself in a chair. The police officers step away, stripping off any further involvement with a snap of their surgical gloves.
‘See you later. No doubt.’
On the ambulance Frank settles himself at the far end of the trolley, draping one leg over the other and lacing his fingers round one knee, bouncing a foot up and down like a benevolent history teacher settling down in a disappointing class.
I begin.
‘Now then. Gary. Tell us what happened.’
Gary puts his hands in his pockets and looks up at me. He tries to gauge how level I am by closing one eye, and the action almost has him off the chair.
‘I had something to eat.’
‘What did you have to eat, Gary?’
He thinks about it.
‘An onion – and a parsnip.’
‘What did he say?’ says Frank. ‘An onion and a parsnip? Fantastic.’
I raise my eyebrows.
‘So – you had an onion and a parsnip. Anything with that? Any drugs, for example?’
‘Ten milligrams of Valium.’
‘Okay. Anything else?’
‘Some lager.’
‘Can you open your eyes for me, Gary, so I can get a look at your pupils?’
He raises his chin up, but the eyes remain closed. I reach over and prise it open. The pupil rolls back at me, fat and black.
‘Okay. So you had a few cans, some Valium cut with root vegetables. Anything else?’
He gives me a boneless smirk and shakes his head.
‘Not a thing, sir.’
He seems to pick up a bit with that. He stands up – a hideous procedure, his fingers spread wide, his sense of balance swarming round his head like so many bees.
‘Are you a straight crew?’ he says as he struggles to maintain his position.
‘What’s that?’
Frank uncrosses his legs.
‘A straight crew? What’s that got to do with the price of fish?’
‘A straight crew. You know what I mean. Especially you.’
‘I have no idea what you mean. What are you asking us?’
‘I want you to take a look at this.’
He starts fumbling with the belt of his trousers, a pair of jeans so shiny with dirt they could have been cut from the granite walls of a sewer.
They sag to his ankles.
I don’t want to look, but I’m morbidly drawn against my will. Even Frank has stood up from the trolley and is peering round.
‘What are we supposed to be…’
‘Look.’
He reaches round, tugs his pants halfway down, lifts the tail of his shirt, exposing the kind of scraggy arse you might see on a bear with mange.
‘See?’
‘Well – no, not really. What?’
‘I fell over.’
‘I can’t see any damage there.’
‘Look closer,’ says Frank, but I don’t.
‘Honestly, there’s not a mark there.’
Gary turns round and lifts his shirt.
‘What about here?’ he says, making a vague sweep of his torso with the flat of his hand. ‘I fell over.’
‘So you keep saying, but there’s not a mark on you. Gary, this is all a bit of a waste of time, don’t you think? Just pull your trousers up and let’s see what we’re to do.’
He manages to straighten his clothes in that vaguely magical way drunks have of remaining upright despite the odds.
‘It seems to me that you’re a bit the worse for wear, but it’s difficult for us to say exactly what the matter is. I don’t think you need to go to hospital, but we’re duty bound to offer it. The other thing is we can release you back into the wild and you can enjoy the rest of the day. What would you like to do?’
Gary pushes his bottom lip out again.
‘Go home,’ he says at last.
‘Good. Let’s help you out.’
At the bottom of the ambulance steps he turns and offers his hand.
‘I want to thank you for all you’ve done.’
‘No problem, Gary. Just go easy on the vegetables.’
He does a mock salute, and almost pitches backwards into a pile of rubbish bags.
Friday, April 23, 2010
out on the edge
When the sun set it dragged all its heat down with it, and the night rushed in deep and cold. The main streets leading down to the seafront, the promenade and the beach front walkway are suddenly massing with people, gangs of men shouting out, jumping up, running across, climbing up, smoking and walking tough; girls with arms folded against the chill high-heeling it across the road in threes and fours like raw, bare-legged birds wading out to feed.
We park up and take a torch down with us onto the beach.
The blaze of the seafront lights eases off the further out we walk. The creamy white lace of the breakers as they move in to shore are picked out in the moonlight, and the generalised roar of the traffic and crowds away up behind us on the promenade merge down into the sussurant rush and pull of the waves. Right up on the tideline Frank’s torch picks out the fluorescent stripe of a jacket, so we turn that way. We meet a group of clubbers standing back in a group.
‘She’s over there,’ a guy says, so quietly it’s hard to catch what he says. ‘We stopped her going in.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Do you need us for anything else?’
‘Not unless the police do?’
‘We’ll be off then.’
‘Thanks for helping out.’
‘No problem.’
Two female police officers are crouching next to a seated figure. The waves are almost at the feet of one of the officers; every time another one comes in, she stands up and shifts her feet fractionally, but still she keeps between the woman and the sea.
Three torch beams light the scene erratically, swinging about as people change their positions, but they’re enough to show us a well-dressed woman in her forties, her long blond hair expensively mussed, diamond flashes on her fingers, fitted skirt and black patent slingbacks. If it wasn’t for the fact that it’s just past midnight, and both her arms are held by the officers, she could be a business woman taking a post-conference break on the beach before her train leaves for the shires.
‘Madeleine was seen acting rather distressed, and then those guys stopped her running into the sea.’
She shivers and shakes her head.
‘I was not running into the sea. I’m fine. Will you let me go?’
‘You’re obviously not fine, Madeleine. We’re all a bit concerned, to be perfectly honest.’
‘But why? There’s nothing wrong. I just want to go on my way, thank you. What have you done with my purse?’
‘It’s just here look.’
The officer momentarily lets go of her arm to reach for the purse. Madeleine immediately launches herself up, hurling herself forward in the direction of the water.
‘Hey! Hey!’
The other officer has a strong enough grip to stop her making the distance. They both retake their hold, just as another wave rushes up and slops over the first officer’s boots.
‘Let’s all move further up the beach or we’re all going in the drink.’
We half lead, half drag Madeleine up the beach. Up on the beach walk there is a raucous cheer, but it may not be for us.
‘Come on, Madeleine. Let’s get you up to the ambulance and have a chat.’
‘I’m fine, honestly. This is all a misunderstanding. I just want to go home.’
‘Where’s home, Madeleine?’
‘Please. Let me go.’
‘I’m afraid we can’t.’
‘Please.’
‘No, Madeleine. Come on up with us to the ambulance and we’ll all have a chat.’
She sobs – and then makes one last desperate heave back in the direction of the sea. But the officers have a firm hold, and she quickly exhausts herself.
‘Just walk nicely now,’ one of them says. ‘We can’t let you go. You know that. We wouldn’t be doing our job if we did. So let’s just walk quietly and calmly to the ambulance, Madeleine. The alternative is we carry you there, and that won’t look great in front of all these people now, will it?’
She looks up and around at us all, her face porcelain white in the moonlight.
‘You don’t know what you’re taking me back to,’ she whispers.
We park up and take a torch down with us onto the beach.
The blaze of the seafront lights eases off the further out we walk. The creamy white lace of the breakers as they move in to shore are picked out in the moonlight, and the generalised roar of the traffic and crowds away up behind us on the promenade merge down into the sussurant rush and pull of the waves. Right up on the tideline Frank’s torch picks out the fluorescent stripe of a jacket, so we turn that way. We meet a group of clubbers standing back in a group.
‘She’s over there,’ a guy says, so quietly it’s hard to catch what he says. ‘We stopped her going in.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Do you need us for anything else?’
‘Not unless the police do?’
‘We’ll be off then.’
‘Thanks for helping out.’
‘No problem.’
Two female police officers are crouching next to a seated figure. The waves are almost at the feet of one of the officers; every time another one comes in, she stands up and shifts her feet fractionally, but still she keeps between the woman and the sea.
Three torch beams light the scene erratically, swinging about as people change their positions, but they’re enough to show us a well-dressed woman in her forties, her long blond hair expensively mussed, diamond flashes on her fingers, fitted skirt and black patent slingbacks. If it wasn’t for the fact that it’s just past midnight, and both her arms are held by the officers, she could be a business woman taking a post-conference break on the beach before her train leaves for the shires.
‘Madeleine was seen acting rather distressed, and then those guys stopped her running into the sea.’
She shivers and shakes her head.
‘I was not running into the sea. I’m fine. Will you let me go?’
‘You’re obviously not fine, Madeleine. We’re all a bit concerned, to be perfectly honest.’
‘But why? There’s nothing wrong. I just want to go on my way, thank you. What have you done with my purse?’
‘It’s just here look.’
The officer momentarily lets go of her arm to reach for the purse. Madeleine immediately launches herself up, hurling herself forward in the direction of the water.
‘Hey! Hey!’
The other officer has a strong enough grip to stop her making the distance. They both retake their hold, just as another wave rushes up and slops over the first officer’s boots.
‘Let’s all move further up the beach or we’re all going in the drink.’
We half lead, half drag Madeleine up the beach. Up on the beach walk there is a raucous cheer, but it may not be for us.
‘Come on, Madeleine. Let’s get you up to the ambulance and have a chat.’
‘I’m fine, honestly. This is all a misunderstanding. I just want to go home.’
‘Where’s home, Madeleine?’
‘Please. Let me go.’
‘I’m afraid we can’t.’
‘Please.’
‘No, Madeleine. Come on up with us to the ambulance and we’ll all have a chat.’
She sobs – and then makes one last desperate heave back in the direction of the sea. But the officers have a firm hold, and she quickly exhausts herself.
‘Just walk nicely now,’ one of them says. ‘We can’t let you go. You know that. We wouldn’t be doing our job if we did. So let’s just walk quietly and calmly to the ambulance, Madeleine. The alternative is we carry you there, and that won’t look great in front of all these people now, will it?’
She looks up and around at us all, her face porcelain white in the moonlight.
‘You don’t know what you’re taking me back to,’ she whispers.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
his name
A fifty year old man has died after a fire at a sheltered housing block.
The man sustained serious burns when the fire broke out in his fourth floor flat in the early hours of yesterday morning. He was pulled from the flat by fire crews, treated at the scene by paramedics and taken to the local hospital, but died from his injuries a few hours later.
Police and fire investigation teams are working at the scene to determine the cause of the blaze.
***
The long and narrow car park of the block is crowded with fire trucks and police cars, the blue flashes of all the lighting racks skimming around the steep sides of the scene, making the building windows seem to flicker and move.
We park as near as possible on the street.
‘I think I’ll put the old yellow jacket on,’ says Frank.
I grab the resus and obs bags out of the back, but for some reason I don’t go all the way inside and get my jacket.
We’re half way to the heart of the scene when we see a firefighter high up on a cherry picker put in a window with an axe and then lean back as a great coil of black smoke rushes past him out through the jagged hole and away up the face of the building. Despite being perched high up on the white metal platform, every detail of his breathing apparatus, the heavy jacket and boots, the grip of his gloves on the shaft of the axe – the smallest detail is caught in sharp relief by the emergency scene lighting.
I have a change of heart.
‘This looks bad,’ I say to Frank. ‘I gonna nip back for my jacket and some more stuff. Won’t be a minute.’
Back at the truck I hurriedly put my jacket on and then grab the burns kit, carry chair and a couple of blankets.
I pick my way across a maze of swollen hoses that run out across the tarmac. A torrent of water gushes from underneath one fire truck. Fire crews are tightening up breathing gear and passing ahead of me into the lobby and on into the upper reaches of the building. Police officers talk urgently into radios, or lead residents hunched over and coughing through the melee and out onto the patio on the other side of the building.
A fire officer in a chequered tabard waves to me.
‘In the lobby, mate.’
‘How many patients so far?’
‘One coming down. Nothing else so far.’
‘We’ve got more ambulances en route.’
‘Excellent.’
I hurry into the lobby.
The last time I was here I was picking up a resident who’d fallen down drunk in front of the inner set of doors. Apart from the drunk and the warden kneeling alongside him, the lobby had been deserted. Rows of brand new, pressed-wood chairs quietly arranged along the walls, magazines of local interest lined up on the table tops, even the clay bead dressing of the potted plants seemed counted out and perfect. The warden had been so clipped he could have been shaken from the pages of a brochure.
But now the lobby is utterly transformed. Water slops around the laminate flooring. The air smells cool but tainted, drawn down low in a mist of grey and black, like something caught on the stove in a flooded kitchen. Back outside, the roar of the diesel engines rises and falls as the demand constantly changes for water pressure. Then I see Frank. He is standing over the blackened figure of a man on the floor supported from behind in a seating position by a fireman who holds an oxygen mask to his face. Another fireman stands in front of them, dousing the man with a fine spray.
‘Hey guys,’ I say, unzipping the burns kit. My hands shake as I pull some shears out of my pocket and rip open a large burns blanket. Frank has already cut away what he can of the man’s clothes; what’s left are pendant strips of scorched cloth and flesh. His burns are so extensive it’s hard to know where to begin. His abdomen seems to have split vertically above and below the navel, a mottled layer of fat extruding along the line. The man is conscious, but his only response is to follow us with his eyes. Around his nose and mouth the skin is blackened by the smoke he has breathed in, but other than that his face seems untouched by the fire.
I tuck the burns blanket the length of his body and up round his neck, then immediately fish around for any other burns dressings I can find. I use a couple of face dressings on each thigh. Frank has the chair open and ready to go.
‘On three … ‘
We lift him onto the chair with the firemen.
Another crew arrive in the lobby.
‘Any others?’
‘Just this one so far. Can you take the equipment?’
‘Yep.’
They carry the bags as we hurry outside. It’s an obstacle course of hoses and trucks. In our haste to get back to the vehicle we roughly manhandle the chair, but the patient stays strapped in position, utterly passive. He doesn’t appear to be in any pain, though. He breathes regularly through the oxygen mask and his eyes follow his own progress with ominous detachment.
At the vehicle Frank puts the lift down and we load up. We transfer him onto the trolley. He seems fixed in a seated position, his legs crooked at ninety degrees and his arms held stiffly along by his side. We don’t even bother to fold the chair away; we kick it to one side into the stairwell.
‘Good to go?’
‘Yep.’
As Frank climbs out to take us off, and I give the man a nebuliser. When he’s breathing that, I tip a bottle of saline over the areas of his lower legs that I couldn’t cover with burns sheets. I look for some cling film but can’t find any. The ambulance is filled with a cloying mixture of tea tree oil and burned flesh. As it rocks violently from side to side I put my face near to the man’s ear.
‘What’s your name?’ I shout.
He tries to speak.
I pull the mask a little away from his mouth.
‘What?’
He looks up into my eyes and his voice when it comes is rasping and faint.
‘Pe-ter.’
I replace the mask.
‘Peter – my name’s Spence. We’ll be at the hospital before you know it, okay? Just hang in there, mate.’
I touch him gently on the shoulder as we scream away along the road. I try to estimate the burn area. It has to be in the nineties. His eyes stare out over the mouthpiece of the mask, grey and glistening.
The hospital is just two minutes from here.
‘Almost there,’ I say into his ear. ‘Almost there.’
At the resus room a team of medics is there to meet us. The shock on their faces as we bring him alongside their bed is unmistakeable. As we slide him across on the sheet I shout out what I know, his name, what we’ve done. It isn’t much.
‘I used as many burns sheets as we had,’ I tell the consultant.
‘Good boy,’ he says. ‘Well done.’
The team closes around him as we withdraw with our filthy trolley.
He lives another two hours.
The man sustained serious burns when the fire broke out in his fourth floor flat in the early hours of yesterday morning. He was pulled from the flat by fire crews, treated at the scene by paramedics and taken to the local hospital, but died from his injuries a few hours later.
Police and fire investigation teams are working at the scene to determine the cause of the blaze.
***
The long and narrow car park of the block is crowded with fire trucks and police cars, the blue flashes of all the lighting racks skimming around the steep sides of the scene, making the building windows seem to flicker and move.
We park as near as possible on the street.
‘I think I’ll put the old yellow jacket on,’ says Frank.
I grab the resus and obs bags out of the back, but for some reason I don’t go all the way inside and get my jacket.
We’re half way to the heart of the scene when we see a firefighter high up on a cherry picker put in a window with an axe and then lean back as a great coil of black smoke rushes past him out through the jagged hole and away up the face of the building. Despite being perched high up on the white metal platform, every detail of his breathing apparatus, the heavy jacket and boots, the grip of his gloves on the shaft of the axe – the smallest detail is caught in sharp relief by the emergency scene lighting.
I have a change of heart.
‘This looks bad,’ I say to Frank. ‘I gonna nip back for my jacket and some more stuff. Won’t be a minute.’
Back at the truck I hurriedly put my jacket on and then grab the burns kit, carry chair and a couple of blankets.
I pick my way across a maze of swollen hoses that run out across the tarmac. A torrent of water gushes from underneath one fire truck. Fire crews are tightening up breathing gear and passing ahead of me into the lobby and on into the upper reaches of the building. Police officers talk urgently into radios, or lead residents hunched over and coughing through the melee and out onto the patio on the other side of the building.
A fire officer in a chequered tabard waves to me.
‘In the lobby, mate.’
‘How many patients so far?’
‘One coming down. Nothing else so far.’
‘We’ve got more ambulances en route.’
‘Excellent.’
I hurry into the lobby.
The last time I was here I was picking up a resident who’d fallen down drunk in front of the inner set of doors. Apart from the drunk and the warden kneeling alongside him, the lobby had been deserted. Rows of brand new, pressed-wood chairs quietly arranged along the walls, magazines of local interest lined up on the table tops, even the clay bead dressing of the potted plants seemed counted out and perfect. The warden had been so clipped he could have been shaken from the pages of a brochure.
But now the lobby is utterly transformed. Water slops around the laminate flooring. The air smells cool but tainted, drawn down low in a mist of grey and black, like something caught on the stove in a flooded kitchen. Back outside, the roar of the diesel engines rises and falls as the demand constantly changes for water pressure. Then I see Frank. He is standing over the blackened figure of a man on the floor supported from behind in a seating position by a fireman who holds an oxygen mask to his face. Another fireman stands in front of them, dousing the man with a fine spray.
‘Hey guys,’ I say, unzipping the burns kit. My hands shake as I pull some shears out of my pocket and rip open a large burns blanket. Frank has already cut away what he can of the man’s clothes; what’s left are pendant strips of scorched cloth and flesh. His burns are so extensive it’s hard to know where to begin. His abdomen seems to have split vertically above and below the navel, a mottled layer of fat extruding along the line. The man is conscious, but his only response is to follow us with his eyes. Around his nose and mouth the skin is blackened by the smoke he has breathed in, but other than that his face seems untouched by the fire.
I tuck the burns blanket the length of his body and up round his neck, then immediately fish around for any other burns dressings I can find. I use a couple of face dressings on each thigh. Frank has the chair open and ready to go.
‘On three … ‘
We lift him onto the chair with the firemen.
Another crew arrive in the lobby.
‘Any others?’
‘Just this one so far. Can you take the equipment?’
‘Yep.’
They carry the bags as we hurry outside. It’s an obstacle course of hoses and trucks. In our haste to get back to the vehicle we roughly manhandle the chair, but the patient stays strapped in position, utterly passive. He doesn’t appear to be in any pain, though. He breathes regularly through the oxygen mask and his eyes follow his own progress with ominous detachment.
At the vehicle Frank puts the lift down and we load up. We transfer him onto the trolley. He seems fixed in a seated position, his legs crooked at ninety degrees and his arms held stiffly along by his side. We don’t even bother to fold the chair away; we kick it to one side into the stairwell.
‘Good to go?’
‘Yep.’
As Frank climbs out to take us off, and I give the man a nebuliser. When he’s breathing that, I tip a bottle of saline over the areas of his lower legs that I couldn’t cover with burns sheets. I look for some cling film but can’t find any. The ambulance is filled with a cloying mixture of tea tree oil and burned flesh. As it rocks violently from side to side I put my face near to the man’s ear.
‘What’s your name?’ I shout.
He tries to speak.
I pull the mask a little away from his mouth.
‘What?’
He looks up into my eyes and his voice when it comes is rasping and faint.
‘Pe-ter.’
I replace the mask.
‘Peter – my name’s Spence. We’ll be at the hospital before you know it, okay? Just hang in there, mate.’
I touch him gently on the shoulder as we scream away along the road. I try to estimate the burn area. It has to be in the nineties. His eyes stare out over the mouthpiece of the mask, grey and glistening.
The hospital is just two minutes from here.
‘Almost there,’ I say into his ear. ‘Almost there.’
At the resus room a team of medics is there to meet us. The shock on their faces as we bring him alongside their bed is unmistakeable. As we slide him across on the sheet I shout out what I know, his name, what we’ve done. It isn’t much.
‘I used as many burns sheets as we had,’ I tell the consultant.
‘Good boy,’ he says. ‘Well done.’
The team closes around him as we withdraw with our filthy trolley.
He lives another two hours.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
the green fuse
We step outside to give the family time alone with Bill.
The house is part of a long and steeply-banked estate cut into the side of a valley. Way off in the distance, the last of the farms that used to dominate the landscape stand hard against the sky on the valley rim, horses roaming the high-sided fields, scatterings of sheep, smoke from a brush clearance. The day has risen with dizzying clarity. You can almost hear the fizz of sap rising in the hedges and trees and shrubs, filaments of green springing from the dark networks of branches; intense bursts of colour from the daffodils, anemones, forsythia, camellia. The edge of everything, every nick and stretch, from the flick of a pigeon’s eye to the splinters on the rough cut timbers being delivered next door, everything hangs with a clarity of focus as bright as the ringing sky above us.
‘Everything all right?’ says the delivery guy, wiping the back of a gloved hand across his forehead.
‘Not all that great, to be honest.’
‘Oh. Is the van all right up there or d’you want it moved?’
‘You’re fine. Thanks anyway.’
‘Give us a shout if you need a hand.’
He walks back up the steep steps to grab another timber.
The police arrive. We meet them at the top of the path.
‘Thanks for coming. Nothing suspicious. What it is – we’ve got a seventy seven year old – Bill. Got up at six as usual to make the breakfast. His wife Ellen didn’t hear anything more from him, went down about seven thirty or so and found him lying on his side in the kitchen, not breathing. She says he opened his eyes when she shook him, but didn’t say anything. Couldn’t move him or do any CPR. We got here and did what we could, another crew backed us up, but it wasn’t any good. Asystole throughout. The rest of the family – son and daughter in law – came by about five minutes after we got here. They’re all in the sitting room, pretty upset. Come on in. I’ll introduce you.’
One of the officers stays with the family whilst I take the other into the kitchen to inspect the body. We’ve tidied our clutter away, put back the oven gloves I used to kneel on when I did the compressions, mopped up the bile-stained vomit, wiped Bill’s face clean and closed his eyes. He lies on his back with a blanket under his head and another stretched over his length. Only his face is visible, waxy and slack, and the tips of his slippers poking out from the bottom of the blanket, angled left and right.
‘He was in hospital a few months ago about some breathlessness and fluid retention, discharged with query heart failure and an upcoming heart appointment, but other than that his health was pretty good. Apparently Bill had complained of some chest pain last night but he’s always been a stubborn so-and-so and just wanted to go to bed with a hot water bottle. Was out all day yesterday on his bike, up town buying flowers.’
I hand the officer copies of the paperwork, and leave him to it. We say goodbye to the family as we pass by the sitting room on the way out.
As we step onto the patio, I’m struck full on again by the force of colour and light outside. It feels as if I’ve been given a pair of x-ray specs, so dreadful in their scope that every hidden network, from the water pipes running under the path to the tiniest capillary bed in my nail; from the sapwood in that laurel tree to the spidery crystalline threads in the granite; from the red blood cells drifting down and pooling in Bill’s veins to the molecules of chlorophyll hustling light in the cells of the grass - an infinite, unremitting network of being and becoming, reaching out, growing and connecting, breaking up and then blindly making good again.
We pick up our bags, walk back up to the ambulance, and I radio control to tell them how things stand.
The house is part of a long and steeply-banked estate cut into the side of a valley. Way off in the distance, the last of the farms that used to dominate the landscape stand hard against the sky on the valley rim, horses roaming the high-sided fields, scatterings of sheep, smoke from a brush clearance. The day has risen with dizzying clarity. You can almost hear the fizz of sap rising in the hedges and trees and shrubs, filaments of green springing from the dark networks of branches; intense bursts of colour from the daffodils, anemones, forsythia, camellia. The edge of everything, every nick and stretch, from the flick of a pigeon’s eye to the splinters on the rough cut timbers being delivered next door, everything hangs with a clarity of focus as bright as the ringing sky above us.
‘Everything all right?’ says the delivery guy, wiping the back of a gloved hand across his forehead.
‘Not all that great, to be honest.’
‘Oh. Is the van all right up there or d’you want it moved?’
‘You’re fine. Thanks anyway.’
‘Give us a shout if you need a hand.’
He walks back up the steep steps to grab another timber.
The police arrive. We meet them at the top of the path.
‘Thanks for coming. Nothing suspicious. What it is – we’ve got a seventy seven year old – Bill. Got up at six as usual to make the breakfast. His wife Ellen didn’t hear anything more from him, went down about seven thirty or so and found him lying on his side in the kitchen, not breathing. She says he opened his eyes when she shook him, but didn’t say anything. Couldn’t move him or do any CPR. We got here and did what we could, another crew backed us up, but it wasn’t any good. Asystole throughout. The rest of the family – son and daughter in law – came by about five minutes after we got here. They’re all in the sitting room, pretty upset. Come on in. I’ll introduce you.’
One of the officers stays with the family whilst I take the other into the kitchen to inspect the body. We’ve tidied our clutter away, put back the oven gloves I used to kneel on when I did the compressions, mopped up the bile-stained vomit, wiped Bill’s face clean and closed his eyes. He lies on his back with a blanket under his head and another stretched over his length. Only his face is visible, waxy and slack, and the tips of his slippers poking out from the bottom of the blanket, angled left and right.
‘He was in hospital a few months ago about some breathlessness and fluid retention, discharged with query heart failure and an upcoming heart appointment, but other than that his health was pretty good. Apparently Bill had complained of some chest pain last night but he’s always been a stubborn so-and-so and just wanted to go to bed with a hot water bottle. Was out all day yesterday on his bike, up town buying flowers.’
I hand the officer copies of the paperwork, and leave him to it. We say goodbye to the family as we pass by the sitting room on the way out.
As we step onto the patio, I’m struck full on again by the force of colour and light outside. It feels as if I’ve been given a pair of x-ray specs, so dreadful in their scope that every hidden network, from the water pipes running under the path to the tiniest capillary bed in my nail; from the sapwood in that laurel tree to the spidery crystalline threads in the granite; from the red blood cells drifting down and pooling in Bill’s veins to the molecules of chlorophyll hustling light in the cells of the grass - an infinite, unremitting network of being and becoming, reaching out, growing and connecting, breaking up and then blindly making good again.
We pick up our bags, walk back up to the ambulance, and I radio control to tell them how things stand.
Thursday, April 08, 2010
the afternoon of the third day
Danny’s boyfriend Ahmed meets us at the door and leads us through.
She sits crouched on the edge of the sofa, her arms folded over her stomach, jiggling her legs up and down, looking pale and distracted. The room itself is sparsely furnished, as sharp as the sunlight that cuts through the foliage of the plants on the window ledge.
‘What’s up, Danny?’
‘I’ve been bad.’
‘In what way, bad?’
‘Stomach cramps, throwing up.’
‘Any pain?’
‘Not really. Just cramps.’
‘Any diarrhoea?’
‘Some.’
‘Since how long?’
‘Three days.’
I look over at Ahmed, a silhouette leaning up against the window, the light dissolving his outline. I give him a nod and a smile, but however he looks is lost in the glare. I turn back to Danny.
‘Any other symptoms?’
‘No.’
‘Any health problems?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Heart, breathing problems, that kind of thing.’
‘No.’
‘Are you on any medication?’
‘Fluoxetine.’
‘For depression?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well. Let’s do a quick health screen, your blood pressure etcetera. Then we’ll have a think what’s best to do.’
But I already know what’s best to do. Danny has D&V. Danny has a bug. We can’t take Danny to hospital. She’ll pass the bug on, more wards will close. Why can’t people see this? Why aren’t they more - aware?
‘Everything’s fine so far, Danny. Just a few more questions. Any chance you might be pregnant?’
She looks up.
‘No.’
‘Sure?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And these cramps come and go? And they’re not too bad?’
‘No.’
‘Okay. And is this your address?’
‘No. It’s Ahmed’s house.’
‘Where do you live?’
‘Nowhere. Mum threw me out yesterday. I’m getting back in touch with Dad, but it’s difficult. I haven’t seen him in a while.’
‘Okay.’
I finish writing the report form, then put the clipboard on my lap and fold my hands on top of it.
‘I think you have a stomach bug, Danny. It’s horrible, it’s a nuisance but it is what it is, and the only thing to be done is ride it out at home. If we take you to hospital you’ll end up passing it on to people there, and some of them are so ill already it’ll finish them off. Plus they’ll have to close the ward down to prevent it spreading through the rest of the hospital. So all in all they’re really reluctant for us to take a case of D&V into hospital unless there’s some other serious medical problem, or it’s been going on for ages and you’re dehydrated. So the only thing to be done is tough it out here. Drink plenty of fluids, then when it all dies down – which I think it will pretty soon for you – start eating again, plain and simple food in small amounts.’
Danny nods, and folds her arms more tightly around her stomach.
‘Still getting cramps?’
She nods.
‘Taken any pain killers?’
She nods again. ‘Some paracetamol.’
‘Good. When did you take them?’
‘Three days ago.’
‘And how many?’
‘Forty.’
The room seems to brake, and everything lurch forwards.
‘Forty?’
‘Maybe more.’
‘Why did you take forty paracetamol, Danny?’
She shrugs.
‘Do you know how dangerous that is?’
She nods.
‘Did you take them deliberately?’
She nods again.
‘Okay. Phone, keys, jacket – we’re off to hospital.’
She stands up and brushes her forehead lightly with the fingers of her right hand, as if she’d forgotten something important and was trying hard to remember what it was.
Ahmed steps over and takes her arm.
We leave the house. As we step beyond the porch the afternoon crashes down upon us, hard and bright and blue.
She sits crouched on the edge of the sofa, her arms folded over her stomach, jiggling her legs up and down, looking pale and distracted. The room itself is sparsely furnished, as sharp as the sunlight that cuts through the foliage of the plants on the window ledge.
‘What’s up, Danny?’
‘I’ve been bad.’
‘In what way, bad?’
‘Stomach cramps, throwing up.’
‘Any pain?’
‘Not really. Just cramps.’
‘Any diarrhoea?’
‘Some.’
‘Since how long?’
‘Three days.’
I look over at Ahmed, a silhouette leaning up against the window, the light dissolving his outline. I give him a nod and a smile, but however he looks is lost in the glare. I turn back to Danny.
‘Any other symptoms?’
‘No.’
‘Any health problems?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Heart, breathing problems, that kind of thing.’
‘No.’
‘Are you on any medication?’
‘Fluoxetine.’
‘For depression?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well. Let’s do a quick health screen, your blood pressure etcetera. Then we’ll have a think what’s best to do.’
But I already know what’s best to do. Danny has D&V. Danny has a bug. We can’t take Danny to hospital. She’ll pass the bug on, more wards will close. Why can’t people see this? Why aren’t they more - aware?
‘Everything’s fine so far, Danny. Just a few more questions. Any chance you might be pregnant?’
She looks up.
‘No.’
‘Sure?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And these cramps come and go? And they’re not too bad?’
‘No.’
‘Okay. And is this your address?’
‘No. It’s Ahmed’s house.’
‘Where do you live?’
‘Nowhere. Mum threw me out yesterday. I’m getting back in touch with Dad, but it’s difficult. I haven’t seen him in a while.’
‘Okay.’
I finish writing the report form, then put the clipboard on my lap and fold my hands on top of it.
‘I think you have a stomach bug, Danny. It’s horrible, it’s a nuisance but it is what it is, and the only thing to be done is ride it out at home. If we take you to hospital you’ll end up passing it on to people there, and some of them are so ill already it’ll finish them off. Plus they’ll have to close the ward down to prevent it spreading through the rest of the hospital. So all in all they’re really reluctant for us to take a case of D&V into hospital unless there’s some other serious medical problem, or it’s been going on for ages and you’re dehydrated. So the only thing to be done is tough it out here. Drink plenty of fluids, then when it all dies down – which I think it will pretty soon for you – start eating again, plain and simple food in small amounts.’
Danny nods, and folds her arms more tightly around her stomach.
‘Still getting cramps?’
She nods.
‘Taken any pain killers?’
She nods again. ‘Some paracetamol.’
‘Good. When did you take them?’
‘Three days ago.’
‘And how many?’
‘Forty.’
The room seems to brake, and everything lurch forwards.
‘Forty?’
‘Maybe more.’
‘Why did you take forty paracetamol, Danny?’
She shrugs.
‘Do you know how dangerous that is?’
She nods.
‘Did you take them deliberately?’
She nods again.
‘Okay. Phone, keys, jacket – we’re off to hospital.’
She stands up and brushes her forehead lightly with the fingers of her right hand, as if she’d forgotten something important and was trying hard to remember what it was.
Ahmed steps over and takes her arm.
We leave the house. As we step beyond the porch the afternoon crashes down upon us, hard and bright and blue.
Wednesday, April 07, 2010
legion
Frank throws himself down in the chair.
‘How are you mate?’
‘Good. I’m good, thanks.’
But he’s not. He hinges his glasses up onto his forehead, then massages his face with the vigour of someone washing something away.
‘Did you go to that one off the cliff?’
‘Yep.’
He finishes, takes his glasses off his head and starts cleaning them on his shirt. ‘It’s weird, you know. Apparently she sat in the car half an hour before she drove over. Not much for us to do when we got there.’ He mimes someone peering through a hole: ‘Yep. She’s dead.’
The TV in the rec room is constantly on. Now it’s showing a nature programme, life in the rain forest. Some kind of monkey, hurling itself from branch to branch, falling, gliding, hundreds of feet in the air. David Attenborough explains in sonorous tones exactly what the monkey hopes to achieve.
‘Easy money,’ says Frank, holding his glasses up to the light, then putting them back on his nose.
Rae gets up to make tea.
I think about all the suicides I’ve either been to myself or heard discussed back on base. In just three years, enough to make up a small army, a legion of the damned. I imagine them rising up and coming together from their scattered scenes of death, linking arms, marching forwards out of the chaos. Such a lot of people – and every one of them so desperate they would hang themselves in a cupboard, in a hospital toilet with the light pull, set themselves alight in an orchard, tie a bag around their head, or lie down on a railway track. A lost and bloody host, arm in arm in solidarity, new additions straggling after, a scattering of notes carried off behind them on the wind.
The red phone rings.
‘Frank, mate. You’re on break.’
‘Ah. Yep. Thanks.’
With one practised motion he flicks out the padded footrest of his easy chair, crosses his legs, puts his hands behind his head, and closes his eyes.
‘Lovely.’
‘How are you mate?’
‘Good. I’m good, thanks.’
But he’s not. He hinges his glasses up onto his forehead, then massages his face with the vigour of someone washing something away.
‘Did you go to that one off the cliff?’
‘Yep.’
He finishes, takes his glasses off his head and starts cleaning them on his shirt. ‘It’s weird, you know. Apparently she sat in the car half an hour before she drove over. Not much for us to do when we got there.’ He mimes someone peering through a hole: ‘Yep. She’s dead.’
The TV in the rec room is constantly on. Now it’s showing a nature programme, life in the rain forest. Some kind of monkey, hurling itself from branch to branch, falling, gliding, hundreds of feet in the air. David Attenborough explains in sonorous tones exactly what the monkey hopes to achieve.
‘Easy money,’ says Frank, holding his glasses up to the light, then putting them back on his nose.
Rae gets up to make tea.
I think about all the suicides I’ve either been to myself or heard discussed back on base. In just three years, enough to make up a small army, a legion of the damned. I imagine them rising up and coming together from their scattered scenes of death, linking arms, marching forwards out of the chaos. Such a lot of people – and every one of them so desperate they would hang themselves in a cupboard, in a hospital toilet with the light pull, set themselves alight in an orchard, tie a bag around their head, or lie down on a railway track. A lost and bloody host, arm in arm in solidarity, new additions straggling after, a scattering of notes carried off behind them on the wind.
The red phone rings.
‘Frank, mate. You’re on break.’
‘Ah. Yep. Thanks.’
With one practised motion he flicks out the padded footrest of his easy chair, crosses his legs, puts his hands behind his head, and closes his eyes.
‘Lovely.’
Monday, April 05, 2010
the spirit of acopia
‘Cecily. Cecily. Look. You need to pinch your nose - here. Just here.’
‘I can’t! I can’t! You do it!’
‘Come on, Cecily. There’s no reason why you can’t. Just pinch your nose here, go on.’
‘Make it stop!’
‘Pinch, pinch. That’s it.’
‘Make it stop!’
‘How long’s your nose been bleeding?’
‘An hour.’
‘And this is the third time today?’
‘Make it stop!’
‘Cecily. If we can’t get it to stop by pinching, we’ll have to take you to hospital.’
‘I’m not going up the hospital.’
‘No-one likes to go to hospital, but sometimes there’s nothing else for it. If we can’t stop the bleeding by pinching, we have to take you to hospital.’
‘I’m not going up the hospital.’
‘I don’t understand, Cecily. Why did you call the ambulance if you didn’t want to go to hospital?’
‘Make it stop!’
‘You have to come, Cecily. We can’t leave you here like this.’
‘I’m not going up the hospital.’
‘There are nurses and doctors at the hospital – special doctors, with special … nose equipment. They’re good with noses. It’s what they do. They know exactly how to make it stop. All we can do here is pinch it and see if it stops of its own accord. If not – well, you just have to go to hospital.’
‘I’m not going up the hospital.’
‘There’s nothing else for it, Cecily.’
‘I’m not going up the hospital.’
‘Don’t drink that, Cecily. That’s a cup of bloody water.’
‘I’m not going up the hospital.’
‘Come on.’
‘No.’
Five am.
A thin blue light lays against the French windows, flowing up around the dark elements of the garden, bringing it into focus. Cecily sits by the window, her image doubled up in the glass. On her high backed chair, in her blood splotched terry towelling bathrobe, clutching the handle of her dirty aluminium walking stick and surrounded by a scattering of bloodied tissue blooms, she sits on her throne, firm and immoveable, a hologram of the Spirit of Acopia caught in the glass, Divine Angel of Anxiety, Blessed Mother of the Hopeless, the Confused, the Blindly Afraid.
‘Cecily. Come on. What are you going to do if we leave you here?’
She looks at me for a moment, running the tip of her tongue backwards and forwards across the blood stains on her lips.
‘Call an ambulance?’ she says.
‘I can’t! I can’t! You do it!’
‘Come on, Cecily. There’s no reason why you can’t. Just pinch your nose here, go on.’
‘Make it stop!’
‘Pinch, pinch. That’s it.’
‘Make it stop!’
‘How long’s your nose been bleeding?’
‘An hour.’
‘And this is the third time today?’
‘Make it stop!’
‘Cecily. If we can’t get it to stop by pinching, we’ll have to take you to hospital.’
‘I’m not going up the hospital.’
‘No-one likes to go to hospital, but sometimes there’s nothing else for it. If we can’t stop the bleeding by pinching, we have to take you to hospital.’
‘I’m not going up the hospital.’
‘I don’t understand, Cecily. Why did you call the ambulance if you didn’t want to go to hospital?’
‘Make it stop!’
‘You have to come, Cecily. We can’t leave you here like this.’
‘I’m not going up the hospital.’
‘There are nurses and doctors at the hospital – special doctors, with special … nose equipment. They’re good with noses. It’s what they do. They know exactly how to make it stop. All we can do here is pinch it and see if it stops of its own accord. If not – well, you just have to go to hospital.’
‘I’m not going up the hospital.’
‘There’s nothing else for it, Cecily.’
‘I’m not going up the hospital.’
‘Don’t drink that, Cecily. That’s a cup of bloody water.’
‘I’m not going up the hospital.’
‘Come on.’
‘No.’
Five am.
A thin blue light lays against the French windows, flowing up around the dark elements of the garden, bringing it into focus. Cecily sits by the window, her image doubled up in the glass. On her high backed chair, in her blood splotched terry towelling bathrobe, clutching the handle of her dirty aluminium walking stick and surrounded by a scattering of bloodied tissue blooms, she sits on her throne, firm and immoveable, a hologram of the Spirit of Acopia caught in the glass, Divine Angel of Anxiety, Blessed Mother of the Hopeless, the Confused, the Blindly Afraid.
‘Cecily. Come on. What are you going to do if we leave you here?’
She looks at me for a moment, running the tip of her tongue backwards and forwards across the blood stains on her lips.
‘Call an ambulance?’ she says.
Monday, March 29, 2010
old bones
Mrs Wilkinson, ninety-six next week, lies on her side by the door, her head resting on the carpet between the dark corner of an ancient chest of drawers and a wicker wastepaper basket.
‘Am I dying?’ she says.
‘No. You’re okay for the minute. Let’s get you up and more comfortable.’
Around her on the walls are paintings she did in her youth – a champagne bottle and a watering can, a pot of African violets, a serious young woman standing in three quarter pose with her arms folded, staring back at the painter with a level expression of surety.
‘I loved to dabble,’ she says. ‘But not any more. I get so tired, and anyway I lost the knack.’
Mrs Wilkinson has hurt her arm; it’s as if someone has gently pierced the skin of a rice pudding and dragged it aside.
‘It’s a trip up the hospital, I’m afraid,’ says Frank. ‘You need this looking at, and then there’s the business of why you fell in the first place.’
‘You’re the boss,’ she says. ‘I don’t care what happens.’
The staff at the home form a guard of honour, waving and halloing and touching her arm as we carry her down the stairs and out through the kitchen.
*
Mrs Wilkinson sits comfortably on the trolley as we travel to the hospital. With her hands neatly folded in her lap, she could be a dowager duchess riding in a carriage to a social event. Her eyes are squeezed almost shut, and the fleshy corners of her mouth drawn back and upwards. She looks like someone about to cry – or burst into laughter, it’s difficult to tell. But when she speaks, the tone of her voice is clear and warm.
‘I was sure I was going to die, but if you say not – well, another time soon, I expect.’
‘Did you drink the champagne before you painted it?’
‘Did I … oh, yes. Of course. Why would you not? Any old excuse.’
She seems to sniff the air, and then pulls the blanket more closely around her.
‘I thought I might take up painting again but you know I get so tired and really I just can’t be bothered anymore.’
The ambulance jolts and I put out my hand to steady her.
‘Thank you,’ she says. And then: ‘You know, there’s not a soul left alive I know. Isn’t that strange? Who’d have thought it? Who’d have thought I would’ve made such old bones?’
‘Do they run in your family?’
‘Do what, sorry?’
‘Old bones. Do old bones run in your family? Although that sounds strange now I say it.’
‘I know what you mean dear. And no, they don’t. I had one older sister and she’s gone. She had a daughter, but poor Agnes died when she was just two. Fancy that. Two. And here’s me, ninety-six. How absurd. My father lived till he was sixty. So no, I can’t say as old bones do run in the family. Except for me, of course. But I’ll be off soon. I really can’t understand how I’ve made it this far. I thought it might be today, but you seem adamant, so there we are.’
‘Am I dying?’ she says.
‘No. You’re okay for the minute. Let’s get you up and more comfortable.’
Around her on the walls are paintings she did in her youth – a champagne bottle and a watering can, a pot of African violets, a serious young woman standing in three quarter pose with her arms folded, staring back at the painter with a level expression of surety.
‘I loved to dabble,’ she says. ‘But not any more. I get so tired, and anyway I lost the knack.’
Mrs Wilkinson has hurt her arm; it’s as if someone has gently pierced the skin of a rice pudding and dragged it aside.
‘It’s a trip up the hospital, I’m afraid,’ says Frank. ‘You need this looking at, and then there’s the business of why you fell in the first place.’
‘You’re the boss,’ she says. ‘I don’t care what happens.’
The staff at the home form a guard of honour, waving and halloing and touching her arm as we carry her down the stairs and out through the kitchen.
*
Mrs Wilkinson sits comfortably on the trolley as we travel to the hospital. With her hands neatly folded in her lap, she could be a dowager duchess riding in a carriage to a social event. Her eyes are squeezed almost shut, and the fleshy corners of her mouth drawn back and upwards. She looks like someone about to cry – or burst into laughter, it’s difficult to tell. But when she speaks, the tone of her voice is clear and warm.
‘I was sure I was going to die, but if you say not – well, another time soon, I expect.’
‘Did you drink the champagne before you painted it?’
‘Did I … oh, yes. Of course. Why would you not? Any old excuse.’
She seems to sniff the air, and then pulls the blanket more closely around her.
‘I thought I might take up painting again but you know I get so tired and really I just can’t be bothered anymore.’
The ambulance jolts and I put out my hand to steady her.
‘Thank you,’ she says. And then: ‘You know, there’s not a soul left alive I know. Isn’t that strange? Who’d have thought it? Who’d have thought I would’ve made such old bones?’
‘Do they run in your family?’
‘Do what, sorry?’
‘Old bones. Do old bones run in your family? Although that sounds strange now I say it.’
‘I know what you mean dear. And no, they don’t. I had one older sister and she’s gone. She had a daughter, but poor Agnes died when she was just two. Fancy that. Two. And here’s me, ninety-six. How absurd. My father lived till he was sixty. So no, I can’t say as old bones do run in the family. Except for me, of course. But I’ll be off soon. I really can’t understand how I’ve made it this far. I thought it might be today, but you seem adamant, so there we are.’
punch bag
The last time I was here the hostel was being refurbished, a building site, covered in snow. The access road, a steep driveway fenced high up on either side and difficult to navigate at the best of times, had disappeared beneath a thick covering, so we left the ambulance on the top road and continued on foot. It was late at night, everything was hunkered down; the only sound was the crumping of our boots in the snow.
But that was six months ago, and the season has flipped on its head. The sun is up, the snow has long gone, and with it the security fences and portakabins, the temporary lighting and hulking steel containers. In its place is a quadrangle so new it could have dropped fully formed from the sky. There is a glittering crust on the limestone paving slabs that crackles as we walk on it. Either side, grass lies in unsettled slabs on the earth, the shrubs in the freshly chipped beds are tied with white tags, the timber of the bicycle rack and refuse point is raw and untainted, and the pond in the centre of it all, flat and lifeless, pea green with an algae bloom, has been planted with lilies, their new leaves just visible as faint shadows curling up from the black plastic planters on the bottom.
The site manager had no idea anyone had called for an ambulance.
‘Eddie? I think he’s in. Why? Is he ill – well, of course he must be ill. Here, I’ll go in with you.’
She seems too young for this; she swaps the handheld radio about between her hands as if she doesn’t know how to carry it all, the clipboard, the radio, the large bunch of keys.
‘Sorry.’
At Eddie’s room she knocks gently and puts her ear to the door.
‘Eddie? Are you okay? Did you call an ambulance?’
There is a faint noise from behind the door, so the warden puts the key in the lock and lets us all in.
Eddie has pulled all three blinds down, and the room is lit only by the thin strip of bright daylight that underscores each of them, and by the light that spills in around us from the corridor. The man himself is lying on his back on the sofa, one muscular arm crooked up to partially cover his face, the other gripping a coverless duvet to his chest.
The room looks ransacked. Family photos scattered around the floor, a laptop and cables, DVDs and CDs lying out of their cases, cans of beer, letters from the council, bank statements, free magazines, an upended ashtray. The only order in the room is along the far wall, behind the sofa, where Eddie has stacked a number of tool boxes around an angle grinder and a canvas bag of clothing. Dominating the room, standing between the door and the sofa, is a metal gantry from which a red leather Lonsdale punch bag hangs. The bag has words scrawled on it in black marker pen: Louise XXX, My Girl, I heart Shelley.
‘Eddie? We had a call from a third party who said they were worried about you. They said you’d been talking strangely, threatening to hurt yourself.’
He drops his arm from his face and studies us.
‘Who?’
‘Eddie. Have you hurt yourself?’
‘No.’
‘Have you taken any pills, for example?’
‘No. I said I would but I didn’t.’
‘So – it’s just alcohol?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And you haven’t cut yourself, or anything like that?’
‘No.’
The three of us stand quietly for a moment.
The scheme manager shifts her weight, and taps the aerial of her radio on her leg.
Eddie suddenly sits up, puts his bare feet flat on the carpet, and then presses his eyes with the heels of his hands. When he lowers them again he looks at us and seems to see us for the first time. He says: ‘God. Why are you here?’
The punch bag hangs between us all, perfectly still.
But that was six months ago, and the season has flipped on its head. The sun is up, the snow has long gone, and with it the security fences and portakabins, the temporary lighting and hulking steel containers. In its place is a quadrangle so new it could have dropped fully formed from the sky. There is a glittering crust on the limestone paving slabs that crackles as we walk on it. Either side, grass lies in unsettled slabs on the earth, the shrubs in the freshly chipped beds are tied with white tags, the timber of the bicycle rack and refuse point is raw and untainted, and the pond in the centre of it all, flat and lifeless, pea green with an algae bloom, has been planted with lilies, their new leaves just visible as faint shadows curling up from the black plastic planters on the bottom.
The site manager had no idea anyone had called for an ambulance.
‘Eddie? I think he’s in. Why? Is he ill – well, of course he must be ill. Here, I’ll go in with you.’
She seems too young for this; she swaps the handheld radio about between her hands as if she doesn’t know how to carry it all, the clipboard, the radio, the large bunch of keys.
‘Sorry.’
At Eddie’s room she knocks gently and puts her ear to the door.
‘Eddie? Are you okay? Did you call an ambulance?’
There is a faint noise from behind the door, so the warden puts the key in the lock and lets us all in.
Eddie has pulled all three blinds down, and the room is lit only by the thin strip of bright daylight that underscores each of them, and by the light that spills in around us from the corridor. The man himself is lying on his back on the sofa, one muscular arm crooked up to partially cover his face, the other gripping a coverless duvet to his chest.
The room looks ransacked. Family photos scattered around the floor, a laptop and cables, DVDs and CDs lying out of their cases, cans of beer, letters from the council, bank statements, free magazines, an upended ashtray. The only order in the room is along the far wall, behind the sofa, where Eddie has stacked a number of tool boxes around an angle grinder and a canvas bag of clothing. Dominating the room, standing between the door and the sofa, is a metal gantry from which a red leather Lonsdale punch bag hangs. The bag has words scrawled on it in black marker pen: Louise XXX, My Girl, I heart Shelley.
‘Eddie? We had a call from a third party who said they were worried about you. They said you’d been talking strangely, threatening to hurt yourself.’
He drops his arm from his face and studies us.
‘Who?’
‘Eddie. Have you hurt yourself?’
‘No.’
‘Have you taken any pills, for example?’
‘No. I said I would but I didn’t.’
‘So – it’s just alcohol?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And you haven’t cut yourself, or anything like that?’
‘No.’
The three of us stand quietly for a moment.
The scheme manager shifts her weight, and taps the aerial of her radio on her leg.
Eddie suddenly sits up, puts his bare feet flat on the carpet, and then presses his eyes with the heels of his hands. When he lowers them again he looks at us and seems to see us for the first time. He says: ‘God. Why are you here?’
The punch bag hangs between us all, perfectly still.
Friday, March 26, 2010
a following wind
The address has crashed the satnav, its blue line disappearing then reappearing, throwing loops, changing direction, the chequered flag switching from one side to another, and even though the volume is turned down, I can just hear the voice patiently demanding we make a u-turn. But I know this close – a stub of bungalows tucked discretely away above the run of the main road, each with a concrete ramp and a white metal rail. We turn up onto it, and park outside the number at the far end.
A pale woman in bright red lipstick and a tightly belted black raincoat opens the door, but when I smile and say hello, instead of making any response she simply ducks her head and turns away, walks quickly and quietly into a room off down the hall, and carefully shuts the door behind her.
There are voices in the front room, so we push the door open and step inside.
‘Oh. You’re here. Good. Now – Peter? – do you have my bag? Do not lose that list of numbers. And I’ll need my medication. Oh. I feel so awful. Where are my shoes?’
David’s voice is as brittle and dusty as his hair. He sits on a simple wooden chair in the middle of the room, hands placed either side on the curved armrests and his slippered feet just-so, looking as poised as a King in his robing room.
‘Peter? Where are you Peter?’
‘Over here, David.’
‘Have you packed everything I asked you to pack, Peter? I don’t want these gentlemen taking me to hospital without my essentials. And don’t go losing that list of numbers. Or my prescription.’
‘Yes, David. It’s all there.’
‘Where?’
‘Here. In your bag.’
Peter quietly and quickly unzips a battered old suitcase, flips open the lid and takes a step back to let David inspect the jumbled contents. He sneaks me a confederate smile as he does it; with his stooped posture and rapid, fussy movements, there is something insectivorous about him, like a giant woodlouse in a corduroy jacket.
‘So, David. Before we deal with all that, let’s just see what the problem is and why we’re here.’
David turns his head to look at me, but closes his eyes at the same time.
‘I’m not well,’ he whispers. ‘The doctor insists I be taken to hospital immediately, but not to the local hospital. I can’t go there. Last time I was there they put me with dead people. So if you try to take me there I shall simply get up and leave. I can’t walk so you’ll have to carry me. And don’t lose my bag or my papers. They are extremely important and I must have them with me at all times. And Peter. Peter?’
‘Yes, David.’
‘Make sure the heating is switched down to three, do you understand, Peter? Three. And lock the front door securely.’
‘Yes, David.’
I try to understand exactly what the problem is, but every question I ask, no matter how blunt, simply acts as a stimulus for another fretful account of his last admission to hospital, or domestic instructions to Peter, who all this time scuttles around the edges of the room, patting down the curtains or rummaging through a composting pile of underwear. As an alternative source of information, Peter is as hopeless as his friend. When I try to ask him for information, he momentarily stops his scavenging, spreads his lips in a ghastly approximation of a smile and nods at David.
‘I must have my work with me,’ David says, sensing that the focus had shifted away from him. ‘I’m in the middle of important filing.’
There is no doctor’s letter, no indication that the doctor had been there at all. Other than an existing heart condition, nothing David can tell us and nothing we can deduce from his signs and symptoms or bubble pack of medication suggest an acute reason for David to go to hospital.
‘Excuse me just a moment,’ I say, and leave the room to radio control. But before I press the button, I knock on the door of the adjoining room. The white faced woman opens it and then stands sideways on to me, as if she were trying to make herself as narrow a target as possible.
‘Hello. Sorry. I just wondered if you’d be able to shed any light on the situation with David,’ I ask her. ‘Can I ask – what’s your relation to the patient?’
‘Relation?’ she says, with a start. ‘I’m not a relation. I just came round for lunch.’
She digs her hands deep into her raincoat pocket and stares at the floor.
‘Okay. Thanks anyway. Sorry to bother you.’
I close the door quietly again.
*
Control confirms that the doctor has given instructions for David to be taken to a hospital out of district. Apparently he absconded half way through his last admission.
‘To Scotland,’ they say. ‘On the train.’
Control tell me that the doctor has made this unusual arrangement purely on the phone, concerned that David had prematurely ducked out of a series of cardiac tests. They give me the doctor’s name so I can check with him directly, but when I try to make contact he’s unavailable.
‘Come on then, David. Let’s get you onto the ambulance.’
I wonder how patient Howard Carter would have been if Tutankhamen had given a running commentary on the exhumation. I’m sure given the same provocation he would’ve ended up throwing the casket on the back of the truck and knocking off early. But we have a more valuable load; we let David’s endless monologue blow about our shoulders as we help him onto the chair and wheel him outside to the ambulance.
*
‘I’m currently writing another accountancy book. It’s part of a series on the international flow of money, the money markets, price differentials, that sort of thing. An examination of the euro zone, currency conversions, exchange rate movements and the like. Accountancy studies, economic and socio-political evaluations of the current state of affairs. Simple stuff, really. A matter of formulae.’
The road noise and David’s voice are fantastically enervating, an endless rolling on of sound. The sun flashes through the blinds and the truck gently pitches from side to side. I give a sudden duck of the head and sit upright, wondering if I had fallen asleep. I look at David to see if he has noticed, but his eyes are closed as he talks. He doesn’t need any encouragement from the audience, or any sign of consciousness.
In an effort to wake up I try to find out more about him.
‘So you’re an author, David? Academic books?’
‘No, no, not just academia. Action books, too. A group of Texans escape the slaughter of the Alamo and have a series of adventures as they attempt to fight their way back home. I called that one: ‘Lucky Star’. A book about a brigantine in the Napoleonic Wars that escapes capture by the French near Mauritius and has a series of adventures as it attempts to sail back home. I called that one: ‘A Following Wind.’
I feel completely thrown by this, but before I can respond he says: ‘Now listen to me. Where’s my case? Have you lost it? If you’ve lost it I shall be furious. It has everything I need in it. It has a contact list with all my numbers. And why is this taking so long? If you think you can take me back to that hospital you’re very much mistaken. I refuse to be put with dead people. I shall simply walk out.’
*
Inevitably, when we get to the hospital, they have no record of the request.
The charge nurse on the desk drops the phone back down on its hook.
‘Well!’ she says with a smile. ‘The Bed Manager isn’t happy. What did you say that doctor’s name was?’
A pale woman in bright red lipstick and a tightly belted black raincoat opens the door, but when I smile and say hello, instead of making any response she simply ducks her head and turns away, walks quickly and quietly into a room off down the hall, and carefully shuts the door behind her.
There are voices in the front room, so we push the door open and step inside.
‘Oh. You’re here. Good. Now – Peter? – do you have my bag? Do not lose that list of numbers. And I’ll need my medication. Oh. I feel so awful. Where are my shoes?’
David’s voice is as brittle and dusty as his hair. He sits on a simple wooden chair in the middle of the room, hands placed either side on the curved armrests and his slippered feet just-so, looking as poised as a King in his robing room.
‘Peter? Where are you Peter?’
‘Over here, David.’
‘Have you packed everything I asked you to pack, Peter? I don’t want these gentlemen taking me to hospital without my essentials. And don’t go losing that list of numbers. Or my prescription.’
‘Yes, David. It’s all there.’
‘Where?’
‘Here. In your bag.’
Peter quietly and quickly unzips a battered old suitcase, flips open the lid and takes a step back to let David inspect the jumbled contents. He sneaks me a confederate smile as he does it; with his stooped posture and rapid, fussy movements, there is something insectivorous about him, like a giant woodlouse in a corduroy jacket.
‘So, David. Before we deal with all that, let’s just see what the problem is and why we’re here.’
David turns his head to look at me, but closes his eyes at the same time.
‘I’m not well,’ he whispers. ‘The doctor insists I be taken to hospital immediately, but not to the local hospital. I can’t go there. Last time I was there they put me with dead people. So if you try to take me there I shall simply get up and leave. I can’t walk so you’ll have to carry me. And don’t lose my bag or my papers. They are extremely important and I must have them with me at all times. And Peter. Peter?’
‘Yes, David.’
‘Make sure the heating is switched down to three, do you understand, Peter? Three. And lock the front door securely.’
‘Yes, David.’
I try to understand exactly what the problem is, but every question I ask, no matter how blunt, simply acts as a stimulus for another fretful account of his last admission to hospital, or domestic instructions to Peter, who all this time scuttles around the edges of the room, patting down the curtains or rummaging through a composting pile of underwear. As an alternative source of information, Peter is as hopeless as his friend. When I try to ask him for information, he momentarily stops his scavenging, spreads his lips in a ghastly approximation of a smile and nods at David.
‘I must have my work with me,’ David says, sensing that the focus had shifted away from him. ‘I’m in the middle of important filing.’
There is no doctor’s letter, no indication that the doctor had been there at all. Other than an existing heart condition, nothing David can tell us and nothing we can deduce from his signs and symptoms or bubble pack of medication suggest an acute reason for David to go to hospital.
‘Excuse me just a moment,’ I say, and leave the room to radio control. But before I press the button, I knock on the door of the adjoining room. The white faced woman opens it and then stands sideways on to me, as if she were trying to make herself as narrow a target as possible.
‘Hello. Sorry. I just wondered if you’d be able to shed any light on the situation with David,’ I ask her. ‘Can I ask – what’s your relation to the patient?’
‘Relation?’ she says, with a start. ‘I’m not a relation. I just came round for lunch.’
She digs her hands deep into her raincoat pocket and stares at the floor.
‘Okay. Thanks anyway. Sorry to bother you.’
I close the door quietly again.
*
Control confirms that the doctor has given instructions for David to be taken to a hospital out of district. Apparently he absconded half way through his last admission.
‘To Scotland,’ they say. ‘On the train.’
Control tell me that the doctor has made this unusual arrangement purely on the phone, concerned that David had prematurely ducked out of a series of cardiac tests. They give me the doctor’s name so I can check with him directly, but when I try to make contact he’s unavailable.
‘Come on then, David. Let’s get you onto the ambulance.’
I wonder how patient Howard Carter would have been if Tutankhamen had given a running commentary on the exhumation. I’m sure given the same provocation he would’ve ended up throwing the casket on the back of the truck and knocking off early. But we have a more valuable load; we let David’s endless monologue blow about our shoulders as we help him onto the chair and wheel him outside to the ambulance.
*
‘I’m currently writing another accountancy book. It’s part of a series on the international flow of money, the money markets, price differentials, that sort of thing. An examination of the euro zone, currency conversions, exchange rate movements and the like. Accountancy studies, economic and socio-political evaluations of the current state of affairs. Simple stuff, really. A matter of formulae.’
The road noise and David’s voice are fantastically enervating, an endless rolling on of sound. The sun flashes through the blinds and the truck gently pitches from side to side. I give a sudden duck of the head and sit upright, wondering if I had fallen asleep. I look at David to see if he has noticed, but his eyes are closed as he talks. He doesn’t need any encouragement from the audience, or any sign of consciousness.
In an effort to wake up I try to find out more about him.
‘So you’re an author, David? Academic books?’
‘No, no, not just academia. Action books, too. A group of Texans escape the slaughter of the Alamo and have a series of adventures as they attempt to fight their way back home. I called that one: ‘Lucky Star’. A book about a brigantine in the Napoleonic Wars that escapes capture by the French near Mauritius and has a series of adventures as it attempts to sail back home. I called that one: ‘A Following Wind.’
I feel completely thrown by this, but before I can respond he says: ‘Now listen to me. Where’s my case? Have you lost it? If you’ve lost it I shall be furious. It has everything I need in it. It has a contact list with all my numbers. And why is this taking so long? If you think you can take me back to that hospital you’re very much mistaken. I refuse to be put with dead people. I shall simply walk out.’
*
Inevitably, when we get to the hospital, they have no record of the request.
The charge nurse on the desk drops the phone back down on its hook.
‘Well!’ she says with a smile. ‘The Bed Manager isn’t happy. What did you say that doctor’s name was?’
Sunday, March 21, 2010
watching for a mouse
The door is thrown open so vigorously it crashes into the wall and the stippled glass rattles in its frame. A heavy girl stands there, vacuum-packed in shiny PVC leggings and a gypsy top. She is so preoccupied with her phone we could be two bears come to dinner and she wouldn’t react. Instead, she steps to one side, flaps one hand in the air for us to come in, whilst with the other carries on jabbing about on the keypad with her thumb.
‘Are you the patient?’
She looks up, astonished to see me there, then laughs, nods in the direction of a battered door behind her, then jumps back onto the phone.
We squeeze past.
Charlene is sitting with her legs hugged up on the sofa, her sharp white chin digging into her knees. Another girl, as big and emphatic as the girl who let us in, waves at us from across the room where she sprawls on a bean bag on the floor like a stricken parachutist.
‘Oh my God! You were proper quick!’
‘So. Yep. Hello. What’s been going on?’
Charlene directs her tiny black eyes up a fraction, and looks at me.
‘Show them the rash, Charley,’ says her friend, struggling to sit more upright. And then: ‘She’s got this mad rash.’
Charlene sighs, unfolds herself from the sofa and pulls her t-shirt up. She has raised, blotchy red patches here and there on her tummy and her back. It started last night, she says from behind the t-shirt. She rang a helpline. They said take anti-histamine tablets, whatever they are, see the doctor in the morning. But she’s phobic about taking tablets, she says, so she rubbed cream on it instead, then called us when it was still there the following day.
She lowers the t-shirt and resumes her perch on the sofa.
We give her the once over, then tell her that in the absence of any other symptoms we think it’s probably urticaria, possibly caused by a reaction to something but it’s difficult to say. We tell her we’d better take her down the hospital to make sure it’s nothing more serious.
Charley’s expression remains unchanged through all of this - the poised watchfulness of a barn owl sitting in a tree; I have the feeling if I move too suddenly, speak too quickly, reveal my position in any way, she’ll swoop.
‘Got any slippers?’ I say.
Back out on the vehicle, Charley hugs her knees on the trolley whilst her friends take up positions north and west. North girl seems to be the radio operator of the outfit, fielding all communications, keeping her friends updated.
‘Carl says should he come up.’
‘No. I don’t want that numpty around. He’ll only get me worked up.’
‘Billie says Hi. Carl says are you sure? He’s not got nothing else on.’
‘No. I don’t want him.’
Charley studies me.
‘How’ve things been recently?’ I ask her.
‘Okay,’ she says. ‘Why?’
‘It all helps to figure out what’s going on now.’
West girl turns round in her chair, hugs the back of it as she says breathlessly: ‘Was it you who came out to me last year? I broke my ankle in four places.’
‘I don’t remember. I don’t think so. How did you do it?’
‘Fell off a garage roof.’
‘What were you doing on a garage roof?’
She pauses, then says: ‘Sunbathing.'
‘Oh my god!’ says North girl suddenly.
I think it must be a particularly bad message, but she looks up and says: ‘I’m getting claustrophobia.’ She pushes her heavy black fringe aside and puffs out her cheeks, but the strands fall back into position when she takes her hand away, like those heavy chain curtains in warehouses that swing straight back into place after the forklift has passed through. ‘But it’s not as bad as that time in the police van,’ she says loudly. ‘I got so freaked I started head butting the sides. It took four of ‘em to calm me down.’
The memory seems to reassure her; she begins happily stabbing away at the phone again.
‘Gary says when are you back?’
‘Tell him whenever.’
‘Ricky says if we carry on making so much noise in the flat we’ll be out.’
‘Yep.’
Charley continues to stare at me.
‘So. Would you say you’re feeling more stressed than usual today, Charley?’
She gives a single upward twitch of her shoulders, an intensely wide awake, hungry little barn owl flicking its feathers into line, watching for a mouse.
‘No.’
‘Are you the patient?’
She looks up, astonished to see me there, then laughs, nods in the direction of a battered door behind her, then jumps back onto the phone.
We squeeze past.
Charlene is sitting with her legs hugged up on the sofa, her sharp white chin digging into her knees. Another girl, as big and emphatic as the girl who let us in, waves at us from across the room where she sprawls on a bean bag on the floor like a stricken parachutist.
‘Oh my God! You were proper quick!’
‘So. Yep. Hello. What’s been going on?’
Charlene directs her tiny black eyes up a fraction, and looks at me.
‘Show them the rash, Charley,’ says her friend, struggling to sit more upright. And then: ‘She’s got this mad rash.’
Charlene sighs, unfolds herself from the sofa and pulls her t-shirt up. She has raised, blotchy red patches here and there on her tummy and her back. It started last night, she says from behind the t-shirt. She rang a helpline. They said take anti-histamine tablets, whatever they are, see the doctor in the morning. But she’s phobic about taking tablets, she says, so she rubbed cream on it instead, then called us when it was still there the following day.
She lowers the t-shirt and resumes her perch on the sofa.
We give her the once over, then tell her that in the absence of any other symptoms we think it’s probably urticaria, possibly caused by a reaction to something but it’s difficult to say. We tell her we’d better take her down the hospital to make sure it’s nothing more serious.
Charley’s expression remains unchanged through all of this - the poised watchfulness of a barn owl sitting in a tree; I have the feeling if I move too suddenly, speak too quickly, reveal my position in any way, she’ll swoop.
‘Got any slippers?’ I say.
Back out on the vehicle, Charley hugs her knees on the trolley whilst her friends take up positions north and west. North girl seems to be the radio operator of the outfit, fielding all communications, keeping her friends updated.
‘Carl says should he come up.’
‘No. I don’t want that numpty around. He’ll only get me worked up.’
‘Billie says Hi. Carl says are you sure? He’s not got nothing else on.’
‘No. I don’t want him.’
Charley studies me.
‘How’ve things been recently?’ I ask her.
‘Okay,’ she says. ‘Why?’
‘It all helps to figure out what’s going on now.’
West girl turns round in her chair, hugs the back of it as she says breathlessly: ‘Was it you who came out to me last year? I broke my ankle in four places.’
‘I don’t remember. I don’t think so. How did you do it?’
‘Fell off a garage roof.’
‘What were you doing on a garage roof?’
She pauses, then says: ‘Sunbathing.'
‘Oh my god!’ says North girl suddenly.
I think it must be a particularly bad message, but she looks up and says: ‘I’m getting claustrophobia.’ She pushes her heavy black fringe aside and puffs out her cheeks, but the strands fall back into position when she takes her hand away, like those heavy chain curtains in warehouses that swing straight back into place after the forklift has passed through. ‘But it’s not as bad as that time in the police van,’ she says loudly. ‘I got so freaked I started head butting the sides. It took four of ‘em to calm me down.’
The memory seems to reassure her; she begins happily stabbing away at the phone again.
‘Gary says when are you back?’
‘Tell him whenever.’
‘Ricky says if we carry on making so much noise in the flat we’ll be out.’
‘Yep.’
Charley continues to stare at me.
‘So. Would you say you’re feeling more stressed than usual today, Charley?’
She gives a single upward twitch of her shoulders, an intensely wide awake, hungry little barn owl flicking its feathers into line, watching for a mouse.
‘No.’
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
stasis
Tennyson Court. But surely even the Lady of Shallot, distracted as she is, wouldn’t mistake the dark, shuttered Bingo hall off in the distance for Camelot. And if, cursed as she is, she felt driven to jump in a boat and cast off, I reckon she’d only get about halfway through her death song before she ran aground somewhere between the probation offices and the off licence.
I park by some bins. The board with all the numbers on has been ripped up, so it’s a guess this is the right place. The blocks rise around us square and squat, more like military emplacements than domestic accommodation. The planners have been bold, lopping off the top of the hill and putting in its place a stack of housing units, a health centre and what looks like a multi-coloured assault course. Tennyson Court guards the approach, and a single rack of concrete steps leads up to its entrance like a mounting block for the scaffold.
The sun comes out.
A psychiatric social worker meets us at the door. He’s leaning on a stick, but by the look of him I guess it belongs to the patient.
‘Thanks for coming,’ he says, and leads us inside, pausing in the echoing corridor to give us a briefing.
‘Jack isn’t doing so well. He was discharged from Southview a couple of months ago, but he’s really gone down hill in the last couple of weeks. Not coping, very low, not compliant with his meds, general self-neglect, not eating and so on. He’s got a UTI and a bit of a chest infection going on at the moment, to add to his woes. That’s about it. Flat’s a state, as you can imagine. Says he won’t go in, but I think we can persuade him and frankly he’s got no choice. Okay?’
With his battered brown leather jacket and scrubby ginger beard, he has the demeanour of a charismatic young Captain describing a mission. I expect him to tap a map on the wall with the stick. We’re here, the other chaps there.
But instead he turns round smartly and uses it to prod open the door to the flat.
‘Jack?’ he says. ‘Jack, the ambulance people are here.’
The lino floor that tacks hold of our feet as we walk inside, the junked-up furniture, the curtains, cornicing – even that cuckoo clock – everything seems coated in a soft brown sludge. It’s like walking into a neglected fish tank; even the air has a honey-sick, unfiltered heaviness to it.
‘Jack?’
There’s a framed poster on the facing wall: Muhammad Ali standing over the body of Sonny Liston. First round, first minute, it says.
On the next wall, there’s a spread of family photographs, leached of colour, curling at the corners, all of them taped together into a patchwork of smudged faces, ghostly poses.
The cuckoo clock suddenly tries to mark the hour, giving out a jarring, wheezy kind of clunk. The bird door remains closed though, and the leaping deer at the bottom that presumably makes a circuit, gives a little jerk of the head and stays where it is.
‘Time to get up, Jack.’
The CPN pulls back a curtain that looks to be woven out of old tobacco strands, to reveal a darkly shadowed alcove and the etiolated figure of a man lying on top of a foetid divan.
‘Time to go,’ he says.
I park by some bins. The board with all the numbers on has been ripped up, so it’s a guess this is the right place. The blocks rise around us square and squat, more like military emplacements than domestic accommodation. The planners have been bold, lopping off the top of the hill and putting in its place a stack of housing units, a health centre and what looks like a multi-coloured assault course. Tennyson Court guards the approach, and a single rack of concrete steps leads up to its entrance like a mounting block for the scaffold.
The sun comes out.
A psychiatric social worker meets us at the door. He’s leaning on a stick, but by the look of him I guess it belongs to the patient.
‘Thanks for coming,’ he says, and leads us inside, pausing in the echoing corridor to give us a briefing.
‘Jack isn’t doing so well. He was discharged from Southview a couple of months ago, but he’s really gone down hill in the last couple of weeks. Not coping, very low, not compliant with his meds, general self-neglect, not eating and so on. He’s got a UTI and a bit of a chest infection going on at the moment, to add to his woes. That’s about it. Flat’s a state, as you can imagine. Says he won’t go in, but I think we can persuade him and frankly he’s got no choice. Okay?’
With his battered brown leather jacket and scrubby ginger beard, he has the demeanour of a charismatic young Captain describing a mission. I expect him to tap a map on the wall with the stick. We’re here, the other chaps there.
But instead he turns round smartly and uses it to prod open the door to the flat.
‘Jack?’ he says. ‘Jack, the ambulance people are here.’
The lino floor that tacks hold of our feet as we walk inside, the junked-up furniture, the curtains, cornicing – even that cuckoo clock – everything seems coated in a soft brown sludge. It’s like walking into a neglected fish tank; even the air has a honey-sick, unfiltered heaviness to it.
‘Jack?’
There’s a framed poster on the facing wall: Muhammad Ali standing over the body of Sonny Liston. First round, first minute, it says.
On the next wall, there’s a spread of family photographs, leached of colour, curling at the corners, all of them taped together into a patchwork of smudged faces, ghostly poses.
The cuckoo clock suddenly tries to mark the hour, giving out a jarring, wheezy kind of clunk. The bird door remains closed though, and the leaping deer at the bottom that presumably makes a circuit, gives a little jerk of the head and stays where it is.
‘Time to get up, Jack.’
The CPN pulls back a curtain that looks to be woven out of old tobacco strands, to reveal a darkly shadowed alcove and the etiolated figure of a man lying on top of a foetid divan.
‘Time to go,’ he says.
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