by Steve Low
The pillars and ramparts of the medical school block, towered above me as I .made my entrance. Inside the atmosphere was sombre. The wooden staircase, tinted with dark varnish, was difficult to discern in the subdued lighting. The scent of thick floor polish stung my palate, already dry and rancid from a poor night of sleep. I marvelled at the energy and efficiency of Boatwood. He had managed to get the three lifeless pigs over to the pathology department by nine o’clock. It was quite an organisational feat.
We lifted the first pig onto the dissection table. It was stiff with rigor mortis. Its hind limbs were in full extension, the eyes open but glazed. Boatwood introduced me to Baerwald the pathologist. He was a short middle-aged man, with wild staring eyes, distorted behind wire rimmed glasses. He scarcely acknowledged me. He stood on a broad footstool, clipping away fur from the chest wall. A scalpel blade flashed, as he made a vertical incision. His face was only centimetres above his handiwork, as he carved down upon the bony skeleton. Bone cutters smashed through the ribs. Sharp fragments were scattered about the corpse, as the narrow bones were crunched. Soon the heart and lungs, were liberated from their internal attachments,
“Here’s your trouble Boatwood,” the pathologist announced. He was pointing to a bleb on the surface of the right lung. “The lung has ruptured here.”
“The lung has collapsed?” Boatwood asked.
“Ooh yes. Yes it’s a tension pneumothorax,” Baerwald said, one eyebrow rising sharply.
By the time we had completed the last post mortem, Boatwood’s face betrayed disappointment. Venous blood dripped off the table, forming a pool that ran away across the floor to a gutter. On another table, labelled organs lay dormant on silver trays.
“Experiment go wrong Boatwood?” Baerwald said, after a lengthy silence.
“I think three pneumothoraces speak for themselves, don’t you?” Boatwood said. Baerwald, his wild hair looking uncombed for days, declined to comment.
We left Baerwald to his work, contented amongst the debris. Halfway back along the dank corridors, Boatwood stopped in his stride. “One might conceive of one lung rupture due to hyperPEEP, but not three. Clearly something extraordinary happened here,” he said.
“What sort of thing?” I asked.
“I can only speculate,” he said. “Maybe a power surge upset the ventilators. We must repeat this as soon as possible. I want to have results, to present at a Sydney meeting in May. This time though, we won’t leave the lab unattended. We’ll be in there watching the dials like a hawk” He squinted at me for a second, then recommenced his stride. I surmised that it would be Gerry Davenport watching like a hawk, not Professor Boatwood.
Left to struggle in Boatwood’s wake, I duly arrived at the top of the concrete steps that led down to Great King Street. Boatwood was already halfway across the road. Outside, Sunday had progressed. Although the sky was uniformly overcast, he light was nevertheless sharp. Suffering a boring sensation between the eyes, I sauntered over to George Street. I was hoping to get a coffee and something to eat. Typically though, Sunday morning Dunedin was manifested by empty streets and locked doors. The thought of Eleanor’s matter of factness had little appeal, but there was little option except to go home. Kicking my way through old fish and chip papers, I imagined running into Melanie. I had no idea what she might be doing. Friday night seemed a century ago. So, I had held hands with her under the table. Weird. Somehow its significance seemed in doubt today. Maybe she hadn’t given it a thought since. Or she might now regard the episode as an embarrassing irrelevance. She would put it down to too much alcohol. Soon I was at my car. The dream was surely over. A listless Sunday beckoned.
The medical library slumbered. Journal stacks on coarse green carpet. Vertical slit windows recessed into the walls. I was hunched over books, head in hands. How to distinguish intrinsic from pre-renal failure? I closed my eyes and mentally listed markers of each. Urinary sodium greater than forty, or less than twenty – urine osmolality less than three hundred, or greater than five hundred. Then there was the fractional excretion of sodium to consider. Work however, only intruded sporadically into my consciousness. And that required a concerted effort on my part. Mostly I dreamed of Melanie. Not in any structured sort of way. My vision was a potpourri of images, words and actions. I dwelt on the returning memory of her face. I knew enough of myself, to appreciate I was falling in love. It had happened before. My wife had survived a number of my emotional catastrophes. Mercifully I thought, she remained in the dark about them all. Once again, I didn’t consider walking away from this new emotion. Without it, I faced a familiar void. I clung to the taste of a life force that I knew existed for others.
I opened my eyes. Ahead of me was a long line of desks beside a wall. Heads were bent forward, or tilted to one side, as their owners wrestled with some problem or concept. Papers rustled and pens scratched. Across the room, behind journal stacks, a photocopier toiled. Aware of movement in my peripheral vision, I looked up. Melanie was there! She was between tall stacks, coming towards me. I jumped up and went to meet her. Pulses bounded up my neck. Electrified, I could hardly speak.
“What are you doing here,” I blurted out.
“I thought I recognised you there, slumped over your desk,” she said. We stood awkwardly, just short of each other. “I’ve got some photocopying to do – for an assignment,” she explained. “And I guess I was hoping someone else might be here.”
I felt my body shock to her disclosure. I scrutinised her face – looked into her eyes. I could see tension in her facial muscles. I saw her breathe deeply and sensed her need for me. She was falling for me. It wasn’t myself alone who was affected. I pressed forward. Our hands entwined. My body shook, as her warm palms contacted mine. Her lips, painted and fluctuant, locked onto mine. I delighted in the perfumed warmth of her face and neck.
“Come up to the third floor,” she whispered. “Not straight away – in a minute.”
I staggered back to my desk. I looked for my reflection in the slit window, looking for traces of lipstick. I scanned up and down the line of desks. Everything was as it had been before. Nobody was staring at me, thankfully. My skin throbbed to a thousand pinpricks. My chest heaved, as though its contents might jump up into my throat. When I stood up again, the blood drained from my head and I had to grab at the desktop, to regain some composure.
The third floor housed historical journals and ancient textbooks. Consequently it was less busy than the other floors. I spotted Melanie, pretending to thumb through a dusty old tome. She saw me and gestured that I follow her. We came to some enclosed cubicles, designed for the student who preferred a cloistered environment. My body exalted, as I anticipated the scene chosen for our encounter.
A short while later back between library stacks we talked about the what was happening tentatively. She was now riddled with guilt. She hit me with questions. ‘Why are you doing this? What is wrong with your marriage?’ I said what’s wrong with yours. I said we had both been taken over by something resembling a virulent disease. As we talked an air of gloom descended over us. The complexity of the situation was hitting home.
“I’d better get going. This is dangerous,” Melanie said.
But now that it was time to part, the impending feeling of loss over rode our previous reflective mood. I kissed my way up her arm, inhaling to recapture her fragrance. As she fled the cubicle, she reached out to me, to touch fingertips for one last time. Then she was gone, running for the stairwell.
That night, I was in a ferment. Study was impossible. The company of Eleanor illogical. It was as if she were an innocent bystander, to this fever growing in my head. I took to bed early, light out. I relived all the stolen moments with Melanie, time after time. The new perspective of her, at close proximity, enthralled me. The things that she had said, I recalled. As much as my marriage to Eleanor was inert, I didn’t want to see her hurt. My volatile emotional state and hunger for living were no fault of hers. Eleanor came to bed. Her physical pr
esence seemed almost alien. I rolled against her back, as we often lay, testing myself in this new predicament. Our bodies touched, as I sought to encompass the dichotomy. Her familiar shape against my body felt strange, like a newly transplanted limb. I slept eventually – a blend of clashing images and sounds.
In the following days, I had only time for dwelling on my new obsession – Melanie East. On the kitchen table, my study books lay dispersed and ignored. The desire to pick up the phone and call her, gnawed away at me. I knew when she was working. But who would answer? Could I disguise my voice? I dialled the number. It rang a couple of times before I dumped the receiver. I had nothing prepared - no accent, no line of patter. I practiced speaking like an American, an Indian, an Englishman. I decided the American was the most convincing. I rang through again. Nancy, the charge nurse answered. I had the wherewithal to realize that she, being a genuine American wouldn’t fall for my fake accent and so once again the receiver crashed down onto the telephone. When I did get hold of her, she wasn’t initially in the frame of mind I sought.
“I felt very guilty last night,” she said, interrupting my train of thought.
My enthusiasm shrank with her words. I didn’t want to hear anything negative. Eventually I talked her into meeting in the back bar of the Robbie Burns, a tavern adjacent to the hospital on George St. Gibbs his face set in a frown, was walking towards me as I parked near the hospital. He nodded to me.
“He’s horrible,” Melanie said, in the bar.
“He’s an ape. He’s an ape in a suit,” I said.
“Have you noticed, how medical specialists are often exceptionally unpleasant people?” Melanie said The back bar was deserted. There was only the smell of beer soaked carpet and a rotund barman to greet us. The barman silently prepared a gin and tonic for her and a pint of lager for me.I squeezed in beside her, our adjacent legs jammed together. I took both her hands in mine and we kissed. Our hunger for each other once again exploded. The blood did somersaults in my head.
New custom to the bar, halted our fervent embrace. We fell back against the cushioned seat, our heavy breathing conspicuous in the listless bar-room. Melanie smoothed her dress with the flat of a hand and picked up her glass. I stared at her, feeling dumbstruck. I reached over and ran a hand up onto her face. I lightly traced along her lips, feeling the texture and curve. I whispered into an ear. “I love you,” drawing back to watch the pleasure in her smile.
The following weekend began early when the shrill tone of the telephone cut through the room. I groped for the receiver in the dark. A distinctive voice reverberated in the earpiece. “Golf at eight thirty,” it said. “Be there.”
Eleanor was up on an elbow in the dark. “I didn’t hear you say no,” she said.
“I didn’t say anything,” I said, sliding back under the covers.
“Well, what are you going to do?”
“I haven’t been for ages,” I said, staring at shadows on the ceiling.
Eleanor exploded. When were we going to do something together, she ranted.
Half the day was lost to my study. That was fair enough, she conceded. But the rest of the time, there was always some scheme contrived to take me away from her.
“Well why can’t you get some interests of your own,” I retorted. “Can’t you get passionate about anything?”
Eleanor, stung by my counter-attack, turned away in disgust, hauling the duvet off me as she moved. I started to apologise, but half heartedly, sensing the damage was done.
“Just go,” she screamed. And I went. I bolted. Unshaven and shabbily dressed, I quit the house and drove wearily to the golf course. How often I wondered, had I fled the house with a bad vibe. All too frequently it seemed. Maybe this time though, I didn’t mind the disharmony.
I stopped at a little dairy on Balmacewan Road. A Pakistani man, barely taller than the shop counter, sold me Coke, potato chips and the Otago Daily Times. I arrived at the golf course, half an hour early. I looked in the mirror. Stubble and greasy hair reflected back. I was thankful Melanie couldn’t see me in such a state. Aware of my bladder, distended with the night’s accumulation, I left the car and dropped down onto the first fairway. A large stand of macrocarpa provided some cover. Vapour rose off my stream, as I released. I looked out through a gap in the trees, at the distant suburbs. Was Melanie up and about yet? I visualised her lying with Rikki. The vision was highly distasteful. I turned away and shut my eyes. Back at the car I rinsed my mouth with Coke and attempted to read the sports news.
The sound of a car approaching caught my attention. I surmised it must be Remington, since it was coming at maximum speed. The car, an orange battered Datsun, skidded to a halt beside my Triumph.
“Where are your sticks?” Remington yelled, jumping out of his car. Egg yoke stained one corner of his mouth.
“You haven’t washed properly,” I said, getting out the driver’s door and standing up. Remington wiped his mouth on his black jersey.
“Come on Hyperhead,” Remington yelled, looking back up the road. “The boys are getting impatient.”
“Hey that real-estate agent you had for buying the house – what was he like?” I asked.
“Bit of a buffoon,” Remington said.
At that moment, another car pulled up, this time at a more leisurely pace.
“Arnold” I said by way of greeting.
“Feeling confident,” Arnold said, grappling with his clubs inside the boot.
Typically, Arnold dominated the score card early on, so that by the time we came to the thirteenth hole, he had a substantial lead. First off the thirteenth tee, Arnold had a useful drive up the right hand side of the fairway.
“No wrong,” Remington chanted.
“Pearler,” I said.
A deluge showered us, and we were forced to shelter under some pine trees.
“Dunedin weather,” I said
“No good,” Remington said. Arnold nodded. He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a crumpled paper bag. He rolled a cigarette and lit up. An odour of cannabis pervaded our hide-out. Arnold offered the smoke around, but we declined to partake. With the rain easing, Remington and I got our drives away, a pair of hooks into the left rough.
“The wheels will come off Arnold now,” Remington said, as the tubby one coursed off to his side of the fairway. “That joint will disable his swing.”
“Yeah. And he’ll almost certainly be seeing two balls soon,” I said.
“We had the house of the long faces down on Tuesday,” Remington said.
“Who?”
“The ICU doc’s. Where were you?”
“Day off.”
“It was quite strange really. Nigel Green really lost his rag. He’s normally such a polite guy. It was something Boatwood said. Something about the use of PEEP, in respiratory distress syndrome.”
“That’s Boatwood’s hobby-horse.”
“Yes, well it really got on Green’s goat. What a boil over. Then he apologised. Said he had a headache. Gibbs of course, was loving it. He looked like a dyspeptic camel – a grimace from ear to ear.”
We came upon the golf balls. There was still a fine drizzle. In the southern sky, large thunderheads were billowing up. We both hit reasonable second shots, then crossed the fairway to observe Arnold address his ball. Arnold came at it with a huge swing. His body followed through impressively but he only managed to clip the top of the ball which scuttled away over an embankment, into some thick bracken.
“Head up, ball down.” Remington announced with deliberation.
“The wheels are off Hyperhead,” I said.
Arnold slashed at the grass with his iron, carving out a divot. To the south, the sky rumbled. The drizzle intensified. The bracken was laden with droplets as we forced our way in to look for the ball.
Like a sea breeze dying at sundown, the bustle of the intensive care unit diminished in the evening. The interminable doctors’ rounds were absent. The elective post surgical admissions, with their c
oterie of attending staff, no longer appeared at the double doors. With no emergency admissions impending, I was able to relax at the central station and write some notes. In front of me, the life support systems hissed and purred. Pin point lights, glowed on the front-sides of the electronic equipment. From the ceiling piped music from a local radio station was just audible.
I had a warm flush of satisfaction. Melanie, who was also working that evening, would finish at eleven o’clock. That meant she could join me for a while in my bedroom adjacent to the unit. The thought of her warm flesh up close had me tremulous in anticipation. But simultaneously, I feared that work might come and destroy the opportunity.
As the time drew near, I wandered around all the patients, making sure everyone was stable, and that the written orders were up to date. Knowing how worked up my psyche was, I took special care to avoid making a mistake. I had to avoid spending too much time at Melanie’s patient. The ICU staff, while dedicated to resuscitation, were a ruthless gossip machine.
“Gibbs made a pass at me yesterday,” Jenny McVie declared, when he stopped by her table. She stood up close to him. “I was waiting for the lift, after my night shift, when guess who popped out in front of me?”
“Mm . . . Let me guess. How about Gibbs?”
“Yes, you smart boy. And you know what he said?” She cocked her head to one side. “He said `I want to sleep with you Jenny.’ ”
“Bold as brass, ”I said, scratching my nose.
“Yeah. And guess what I did?” she said, her face boring into mine.
“Said yes I guess,” I said, trying to protect his personal space.
“Funny boy,” she said beaming. “No, I said `No way,’ ” She put her hands on hips with closed fists, and carried on the discourse with transparent satisfaction. “But, can you believe it? He got into the lift with me, and came all the way to the ground floor and all the way out to my car – trying to talk me around.”
“What a pest,” I said
“Yeah. What do you think about all that?”
“You’re a lucky girl.” I said.
Out the back, in one of the single rooms, I regaled the story to Melanie
“Good old Jenny,” she said, bending down to zero an arterial line pressure transducer. “She’d like to think everyone’s after her.”
“Well it sounds like they are,” I said. “Imagine Gibb’s visage poised over you, ready to strike.”
On the other side of the bed, Melanie went cross-eyed.
“Though I suppose his wife must have loved him – once upon a time,” I said.
“Actually, I’d even let him make love to me, if he promised me my fellowship exam.”
At ten to eleven, I went through to the resident doctor’s bedroom. An iron hospital bed, was covered with a drab green eiderdown. An angular stainless washbasin, beneath a smeared mirror, dominated one corner. The taps were controlled by a long swinging arm. When Melanie appeared, shortly after eleven, she absorbed the surroundings with a look of horror. We stood for a while, gazing out the big windows at the vista below. The north city glittered under the starlit night. Headlights wandered on unknown journeys. The hills above North East Valley, were black as ink. In the shadows of the interior, silhouette and shape became almost illusory. As though floating on a warm tide, we swirled around each other, teasing then withdrawing. Her white uniform was almost luminous in the darkness, the shoulders adorned with red epaulets. The image . . . the nurse unveiled . . . heightened my physical urgency. I spoke softly against her lips. The words enhanced the urgency between us. Exalted to fever pitch, we were oblivious to notions of morality, to the nearby ward of illness, to the telephone primed to shrill on the bedside table.
Emerging from the final paroxysms, there was ecstasy in the aftermath of love. But there was again a palpable unease. It was the guilt and the burden of the burning love and desire.
A volley of blows shook the door. We jumped up from their embrace.
“What is it?” I shouted testily.
A voice penetrated the woodwork. “There’s an ambulance arriving at A & E, with a cardiac arrest aboard.”
“O.K, I’m on my way,” I retorted, stepping into my trousers.
“I’ll slip out in a few minutes,” Melanie whispered, hastily retrieving her clothes.
I grabbed her naked figure. “I’m sorry it had to be like this.”
She shook her head. Her eyes were half-lidded and her smile dispelled my concern. One last embrace and then he was gone, out the door, running. Ignoring the lifts, I hit the staircase at speed. Leaping down two or three steps at a time, I tried simultaneously to flatten my shirt and straighten my hair. I arrived in the emergency department, as the vehicle was backing in. An ambulance officer, earnest behind rimless glasses, jumped down as the rear doors burst open.
“It’s an asthma attack - she’s in asystole.” He turned to help extract the stretcher bed. She was large as well. Obese. I took over the top end from a second officer who had been ventilating the lungs with bag and mask. The earnest officer continued with chest compressions.
“E.T. tube,” I called. One appeared immediately at my right hand, while a laryngoscope was placed in my left hand. I ran the blade down the right side of the tongue, sweeping it out of the way. I found the entrance to the larynx and was about to pass the tube through its inlet. Immediately though, my vision was overwhelmed by vomit. It flooded out the mouth - a yellow river of bile, food and acid.
“Suction,” I called.
The vomitis was aspirated away into a glass jar, and I was then able to insert the endotracheal tube. With oxygenation secured, I turned my attention to the ECG. She was still in asystole. “Adrenaline, one milligram,” I said. A figure appeared at his elbow. I was dismayed to see it was Gibbs.
“I was calling by ICU to pick up some papers,” Gibbs said, flashing a row oft teeth. “Christ, she’s a load of blubber,” he sniffed, after surveying the scene. “A real lump of lard.”
“Try atropine now,” I said. I looked at Gibbs “She’s had it, I’d say.”
“What about pneumothorax?” Gibbs snapped. His early smile had vanished.
“What about it?” I said.
“We need to rule it out, that’s what,” Gibbs yelled. He picked up a ten millilitre syringe and needle, and partially filled it with saline. He gestured for the officer doing compressions to move aside, then drove the needle into the chest wall. He aspirated with the plunger. “We’ll get air if there’s a pneumo,” he said to no one in particular. Instead however, blood shot into the endotracheal tube and resuscitation bag.
“Christ, you must have hit an artery,” I shouted, the vivid memory of my night with the pigs flashing through my mind. I squeezed hard on the bag, but there was now marked resistance to my efforts. “She’s virtually impossible to ventilate now.”
“Well squeeze harder, we are obligated to rule out a pneumo,” Gibbs said
“Maybe that needle finished her off,” I said.
“I’m the bloody consultant,” Gibbs roared. “I’ll decide whether she’s had it or not.” Then more quietly, he gave orders for five milligrams of adrenaline and fifty milli-equivalents of bicarbonate. There was no effect on the heart’s rhythm. Blood continued to come up the airway. “O.K you can stop now,” Gibbs said, and he immediately turned and left the room.
I looked at the woman lying naked and bloated on the bed. Blood trickled out one corner of her mouth. Her chest wall was bruised, from aggressive cardiac massage.
“He’s a tough nut,” the ambulance officer said, disconnecting ECG leads.
“Yeah,” I said. “He’s different alright.” I vacated the scene also, leaving the grisly task of the clean up to the nurses.
Back on ICU, there was another problem. A young man, concussed in a motorbike accident, had arrived for observation.
“He’s had internal fixation of leg fractures,” Tucker, a night-shift nurse said. “He’s causing us a few headaches though. He’s bloo
dy obnoxious.”
I walked over to look at him. “Who the hell are you?” the patient spat.
I felt a surge of irritation. I didn’t need this sort of issue after the nihilism of Gibbs. I strode over to the drug cupboard and drew up some valium. “This will fix the bastard,” I said to Tucker. The male nurse raised his eyebrows and nodded. I returned to the patient. I picked up the drip line and began to inject the sedative. It was grimly satisfying for me to hear the volley of abuse become slurred, then incomprehensible, and finally silent. Tucker with a wry smile nodded his approval. “He won’t bother us again tonight,” I said, suddenly conscious of the dampness in my groin. The memory of Melanie flooded back, as I dragged my feet along to the tearoom. Inside I snapped the jug on. The cool night, seemed to sneak in after me and I shivered.
Alana, short and thin, pale, with a dash of freckles, let me in. “Eleanor couldn’t come?” she asked“
Too tired,” I said with a wan smile. How many times had I said that?
Remington and Alana’s house, was similar in many ways to mutual GP friend Arnold’s. An old wooden villa, that was perpetually untidy. However, whereas Arnold’s place was threadbare and unadorned, the Remington villa was embellished with bright colour and exotic artefacts. There were pink walls, juxtaposed with purple carpet. A Van Gogh print, shared wall space with a stolen street sign. Out the back, a home made deck overlooked a lawn, that had not been harvested for several years.
“Have a beer Davenport,” Remington said, gesturing to a carton on the floor.
“How’s your study going Remington?” I said
“He’s always in there now,” Alana said, pointing out the door.
“I’m always bent over those tomes. My back’s got a fixed flexion disorder now,”
Remington said, scratching his knee through a hole in his jeans.
“One of many syndromes I’m afraid,” Alana said, staring at the ceiling.
“What about you Davenport. Putting away a few hours?” Arnold chipped in.
“Bugger all actually,” I said, twisting open a beer. “I’m a bit distracted at the moment.”
“What’s the problem?” Alana asked.
“You don’t want to know,” I said, sliding down into a moth eaten armchair.
“Well that sounds mysterious.”
“Sounds like trouble if you ask me. Your writtens are only two months away, aren’t they?” Remington asked.
“It’s bloody hard to concentrate though isn’t it. Every half hour, I have to get out of the chair for some relief,” I said.
“What sort of relief?” Alana asked.
“To play with his organ,” Arnold crowed.
“Yeah, yeah. No, it’s usually something like playing the guitar or eating. I’m always carrying some treat back to the table, to ease the burden.”
“Remington’s put on alot of weight since he started cramming,” Alana said.
“Yeah, he’s like a bloated frog,” Arnold said.
“Actually, you look like you’ve lost weight Gerry,” Alana said.
“Yeah well, that will be the mysterious distraction,” I said. Nowadays, everything that entered my mind, had to share space with Melanie. But I wasn’t about to tell them all about that particular agony. Instead I stood up. “Well, is it dark enough yet?”
Remington looked out the window. “Yes, we’re underway – just as soon as your sister and Junot arrive.”
“Hopefully they’ll bring more than fireworks,” Arnold said.
“Mmm, with Junot involved that’s a foregone conclusion,” Alana said.
When they arrived, Isobel put an arm around my shoulders. “No Eleanor again?” she said. “What’s to become of you both? We’ll don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Isobel was staggering despite standing with legs braced apart and leaning on me.
“Ok, ok” I muttered, feeling embarrassed
Remington came to the rescue. He reached down beside his chair and picked up a large plastic bag.
“It’s a long time since November the fifth,” Arnold said.
“Never mind, the neighbours will enjoy the spectacle,” Remington said with a grin.
For the next half hour, Remington hurled a great array of fireworks into the sky. The cacophony of sound was relentless. After a while, he got down onto his knees and taped two sky-rockets together – one pointing up – one pointing down. Captivated, the rest of us watched, as he tied the two wicks together. He stood the rocket up in a glass jar and lit the wicks near the upper rocket. The thing blasted into the black sky. Near the top of its arc, the lower rocket ignited and down they came – driving straight at the ground. Enthused by this conception, Junot sent up several more, setting fire to his long hair in the process. As he put out the smouldering locks with his fingers, the last rocket lost its way, and smashed into an adjacent roof. Remington was delighted when his elderly neighbour appeared, gesticulating and shouting over the hedge.
“Have you got choreo-athetosis?” Remington yelled back.
“Easy on,” Alana whispered. “They don’t get on,” she explained to the rest of us.
Back inside, there was Isobel – laid out on a couch – a pile of dreadlocks, hessian skirt and sandals. Junot looked at her benignly, not at all fazed by the chemical coma.
Chapter 5