by Shari Low
I hadn’t told her about the impending split because she adored Nate and I knew she’d insist we should stay together. She and my dad had been married until the day he died ten years ago, although I was sure there must have been bumps in the road. Ida’s insatiable need to be centre of attention could be absolutely infuriating. And my dad… well, he loved a drink and wasn’t one for grand gestures or articulating his emotions. But they’d stuck with each other, and right up until he passed away, they’d still held hands while they were wandering round Marks and Spencer on a Saturday afternoon. Although, that was probably because my dad was just trying to keep one of my mum’s hands occupied because it slowed down her shopping speed. Ida could hold an Olympic record for purchases attained in a 100m dash.
Nope, I couldn’t call Ida. And I couldn’t trust my own bank of worldly experience either. My job as a palliative care nurse was to be with people at the end of their lives. How many times had I heard someone say that they wished they hadn’t left someone they loved, wished that they’d tried harder? It was probably just as often as I’d heard someone say that they regretted not leaving a situation that made them unhappy, so those two arguments cancelled each other out.
Bravery. That’s what I needed. Unfortunately, my current emotional reservoir was experiencing a severe drought of courage, so I settled for cowardice. I made a sharp detour and headed for the ballroom exit, finding it difficult to walk in my fishtail dress and crippling heels. Whoever designed these items clearly hadn’t thought through trivial practicalities like walking, bending, and making swift detours to avoid tense conversations with your husband.
The light in the bathroom was so bright it made me squint for a second. That’s probably why I noticed it – the shoe slightly sticking out at a weird angle under a door. Someone else with sore feet feeling the need to kick off their pain-inducing footwear. I used the bathroom, washed my hands, looked again. Puzzled, I crouched down to check it out, and realised that it was still attached to a leg and presumed the owner of both was sitting on the floor.
‘Hello? Are you okay in there?’
No answer.
‘I don’t want to bother you if you want to be alone, but just let me know you’re okay?’
Still no answer.
I pushed gently on the door and realised it was open, but it was stuck against something.
Another nudge on the door. It still wouldn’t budge, but more importantly there was no reaction from the person inside.
I kicked off my shoes, and planked on the floor, getting a better angle of vision. Definitely someone lying behind there, and for the first time I noticed a couple of spots of very red blood.
Bugger.
I darted into the toilet next door, stood on the seat, then the cistern and pulled myself up higher so my weight was supported by my arms with one foot on the toilet roll holder. Ironic, since I couldn’t do a pull-up at the gym to save my life. Apparently, my biceps had an extra store of strength for emergency situations.
My aching arms held me long enough to peek over the partition and see the top of a head, auburn hair, blood everywhere. Bugger. Bugger. Bugger.
I jumped down, just as two giggling women, wearing at least half of the free world’s sequins, barrelled into the room.
‘Call an ambulance!’ I blurted, ‘There’s someone in here who’s hurt. Tell them her head’s bleeding and she’s unconscious.’
‘Oh Christ, Edna, you’ll need to do it – I can’t see ma phone without ma specs. I’ll go get help.’
At that, Sequins Number One about-turned and dashed back out, while Edna Sequins punched 999 into her phone. ‘Ambulance!’
While she was giving details, I scanned the room. This kind of shit may happen regularly on Casualty, Grey’s Anatomy and Holby City, but I can honestly say that apart from the occasional call from my overdramatic mother claiming her latest dose of the cold could be morphing into a sure-fire case of Ebola, I’d never been thrust into an emergency situation while off-duty. Now wasn’t the time for contemplation – it was the time for getting in there and holding something on the wound that was currently oozing blood at a really worrying rate.
Paper towels. Thankfully this hotel was the upmarket classy kind that had a basket of thick, good quality paper towels beside each sink.
Edna Sequins ended the call. ‘They’re on the way.’
‘Okay, I’m going to climb over,’ I said, entirely unsure as to how exactly I was going to achieve that. I’m the woman who’s knackered after five minutes in a step class.
First things first. There was no way this dress was going to allow any form of flexibility. I unzipped it and dropped it to the floor, revealing my all-in-one, suck-it-all-in, control underwear, then jumped back up on to the barrier separating my cubicle from the neighbouring toilet.
‘Do you know what you’re doing, hen?’ Edna asked.
‘Yes. I’m a… nurse,’ I gasped, mid-climb. I didn’t add that I worked in palliative care and it had been years since I’d done my rotation in A&E during my training. This didn’t seem like the time to give a run-down of my CV.
Eventually, I dragged myself to the top of the cubicle partition, pushed my upper body over, then swung my legs across, somehow managing to get one foot on the cistern. It gave me enough balance to climb down, squeezing into the space not already filled by an unconscious woman. An unconscious woman whose head and face I could now see were saturated in blood. This didn’t look good at all.
It took me a few moments to detect a pulse in her neck. It was there, but it was faint and irregular. With this amount of blood loss, she needed to get to a hospital soon.
At least she was breathing, and I was managing to stem the blood with the posh paper towels. As I kept up the pressure on her wound, I could see that it was just her left leg that was blocking the door. Without letting go of her head, I managed to play some kind of Emergency First Aid Twister, move her leg, then climb over her to make enough space to yank open the door.
‘Oh Mother of God!’ Edna Sequins exclaimed as soon as she got full view of the situation and the poor woman on the floor.
She didn’t get a chance to react further, as the door flew open and in rushed Sequins Number One followed by a paramedic crew. Wow that was quick.
‘They were already here,’ she blurted. ‘They’d been called ’cause some eejit had passed out but he was just pissed… Oh my God!’ she exclaimed as she took in the scene, echoing her friend.
‘That lassie’s a nurse,’ Edna announced.
‘Aye well she’s clearly no’ a model in that outfit,’ her pal retorted. Only in a fifty-mile radius of Glasgow could I be dealing with a life-threatening emergency and still be subjected to pass-remarkable comments about my sartorial appearance. Although, granted, it wasn’t my best look.
The paramedics, a male and female, swiftly moved past her and took charge. They fired a ton of questions at me and I answered them all. There wasn’t enough room to fit us all in the cubicle, so I maintained pressure on the wound, while the paramedic who’d introduced herself as Jenny, attached a blood pressure monitor and took her readings. She then applied a dressing to the wound and set up an IV, while her partner shot back out the door, returning with a stretcher. As he came back in, I heard him ordering someone outside to keep everyone out of here.
In what felt like a week, but was probably only a few minutes, the paramedics had lifted her on to a stretcher and were heading out the door.
‘Well done, love,’ Jenny the paramedic said as they raced towards the door.
‘What do you think?’ I asked.
She knew exactly what I meant.
‘Blood pressure is on the way up, pulse is getting stronger. Barring complications, I think she’ll be okay. She’s lucky you found her when you did.’
And then they were gone.
Lucky? If Nate hadn’t been waiting for me at the table, and I hadn’t bottled out of telling him that I didn’t want to change my mind about separating, then
I wouldn’t have detoured, and I wouldn’t be slouched on a toilet floor in my underwear, covered in blood.
But much, much more importantly, I wouldn’t have discovered an unconscious woman with a serious head wound.
I didn’t much believe in spooky stuff like cosmic messages and signs from the universe. But even a sceptic like me would have to acknowledge that, in some weird way, the forces of serendipity were definitely, absolutely, proving to me that I was doing the right thing.
It was time to go my own way. Whether Nate agreed or not.
Chapter Two
Sasha’s 30th Birthday
October 2000
‘I know I’m supposed to be doing the whole “supportive boyfriend” thing, but I’m seriously considering feigning tuberculosis to get out of this party tonight.’
I laughed as I pulled his tie to bring him closer to me, then kissed him on the lips. He automatically scanned the surrounding area to make sure no one could see us. Relationships between doctors and nurses were frowned upon by the hospital, by many of the staff, and – prior to the moment that I clapped eyes on Dr Richard Campbell – by me.
I’d met him on the 4th of January, my first day back at work after the millennium. The hangover had subsided, but I was still feeling tender and a bit emotionally bruised and battered. Statistically, I was still at least ninety per cent sure that I’d done the right thing in refusing Nate’s plea to try again. Okay, maybe seventy-five per cent. Once reality set in, it, my confidence had definitely wobbled.
I’d already moved out and into Chloe’s spare room, previously inhabited by her shoe collection and an exercise bike that doubled as a clothes-horse.
Oh, and I’d faced the toughest challenge of all, the family equivalent of tossing an emotional grenade into a volatile situation and then feeling the full effects of the world-ending turbo-blast. Yep, I’d told my mother.
When I’d called to break the news – cowardly, I know, but a call had less potential for dramatic reactions than doing it in person – she’d sobbed for a full five minutes, then wailed, ‘But how am I supposed to live without him?’ I suspected she’d been listening to her Michael Bolton Best Of The Eighties collection. She’d followed that up with, ‘He was the son I never had!’
I’d let her rant and weep for another ten minutes before I told her I had to get to work, which invoked a large sniff and a disapproving, ‘Well, if you haven’t got time to deal with my pain…’
Once again, her disappointment at my career choice oozed from every word. She was beyond devastated that a childhood of acting classes, dancing lessons, vocal training and preparation for a star slot on Top Of The Pops hadn’t resulted in me becoming a performer. Or an actress. Or Madonna. Stand by someone’s side as they took their final journey? Meh. Specialise in pelvic thrusts, have millions of fans, occasionally flash your tits in order to stir up publicity? Now there would be a daughter to be proud of.
Still, I loved her and she was the only mum I had, so Glasgow’s Cilla Black and I were in it together. Even if she was in a big fat huff with me.
I’d rung off and headed into work early for my first shift of the New Year – I’d worked Christmas to let the nurses with children be with their families, and had a day shift on Hogmanay, so I’d managed to wangle three days off in a row. It sounded good, but it was just three whole days to ponder whether I’d made a huge mistake. I’d rather have been in work.
I was hoping to catch Chloe down in General Surgical before I started. She’d been on this ward since she’d finished her training, but she was waiting for news on her transfer request to A&E.
‘Hey honey,’ I greeted her, coming out of one of the private rooms. ‘Here’s your keys. You left them this morning and I’m double shift so I won’t be home until late.’
‘Ah, thanks. I’ll come find you at lunchtime and see if we can get our breaks together.’ We both knew the chances of this were slim. There was no such thing as a fixed schedule when it came to hospital wards. I was about to turn and go, when she stopped me. ‘Listen, that woman you helped at the hotel the other night. The head wound…’
‘Yes?’
‘Did she have auburn hair? About twenty-five?’
I nodded. ‘Why?’
‘I think I’ve got her here.’
‘Really?’ It hadn’t even crossed my mind to check if she’d come here, because I’d assumed that she would go to the nearest hospital to the hotel. We were miles away – however, we were the West of Scotland centre of excellence for neuro, so on reflection it probably wasn’t so much of a stretch.
‘Yep, cerebral haemorrhage, so she was transferred over here for emergency surgery. There are no free beds in neuro, so they brought her up here an hour ago from ICU.’
‘Holy crap, that’s a tough week. Is she okay?’
Chloe nodded. ‘I think she’s going to be fine. She’s got a mother of a headache, but she’s pretty much out of the woods. Do you want to see her?’
‘Of course.’
I followed Chloe to the last ward on the left. Four beds. Two of them inhabited by elderly women who were deep in conversation. In the bed nearest the window, there she was, looking much better than last time I saw her, despite a heavily bandaged head, drains, and some bruising on one side of her face. I hung back, just outside the doorway.
‘Is that her?’ Chloe asked.
‘It is.’
‘Okay, wait here.’
She went over to the bed and spoke to the patient, and I knew she was asking her if she wanted to meet me. It was absolutely the right thing to do because it was entirely possible that revisiting any aspect of her trauma could upset her. Thankfully, her face immediately broke into a grin, followed by a couple of very definite, but gentle nods.
Chloe beckoned me over.
‘Francine, this is Liv.’
‘Hi,’ she answered, with no sign of recognition at all, which was only to be expected given that last time I saw her she was out cold. ‘Nurse says you’re the one who found me in the toilets.’
‘I did.’
‘Thank you so much. I’ve been told that if I hadn’t been found when I was that the outcome could have been very different and I could have… have….’ She didn’t finish the sentence and she didn’t have to.
‘You’re very welcome. I’m just glad that you’re okay. Can you remember what happened?’
‘Not really,’ she answered. ‘But I think it was my shoes.’
‘Your shoes?’
‘Yeah, they were brand new and way too high. I couldn’t walk in them. I’d already gone over on my ankle twice, so I think it was down to the heels, combined with a few glasses of champagne and some really bad luck. I’m guessing I fell over and my head met with the cistern.’
Just one of those completely random fluke accidents. If Ida were here, she’d be harrumphing her breasts and coming out with some morbid cliché like, ‘Aye, you just never know the minute…’
‘They told me you climbed over the cubicle to help me?’ she said, her grin even wider now.
Ah, so she had full facts. She was, in truth, surprisingly alert and sharp for someone who had brain surgery three days ago. ‘Yep, I did that too,’ I said, returning her smile.
‘That’s amazing.’
‘You wouldn’t be saying that if you’d seen me. Did they mention that I did it in my extra large knick-knacks because I couldn’t climb over in my fishtail frock?’
Her chuckle interrupted the conversation between the two elderly dears in the next beds, who were now listening intently… as was a new arrival to the scene.
‘Well, there’s a mental picture that may stay with me for the rest of the day.’
A man’s voice. My face-flush was instant, and deepened when I turned to see a doctor, standing directly behind me. I’ve always maintained that real-life doctors don’t look like the strapping hunks on medical dramas, and generally that’s true. Richard didn’t have the chiselled jawline or the piercing blue eyes that would m
ake patients and staff melt at his surgical shoes, but he did have slightly unkempt black wavy hair that curled over the stethoscope that was slung around his neck, somewhat tired, potentially intoxicating green eyes, and a cheeky grin.
If this guy was in Grey’s Anatomy, he’d be the tall, medium-attractive one who played the heart-throb’s sidekick, but who always got the girl because he had a twinkling eye, a great smile and the kind of charm that could take a patient’s mind off most non-life-threatening ailments.
His comment was perfectly delivered, more amused than leery, bringing much hilarity to everyone in earshot, and much mortification to me.
‘Richard Campbell, neurosurgeon,’ he said.
‘Liv Jamieson,’ I replied. ‘Palliative care. Late for work and about to dash off,’ I added, before turning back to Francine. ‘I’m so glad you’re okay – and that I got to meet you.’
Her infectious smile was back. ‘You too.’
Over the next few weeks, Francine made it back to full health and was discharged. Meanwhile, the good doctor and I would bump into each other with slightly suspicious regularity, until Chloe confessed that she was trying to set me up with him because I ‘needed a happy distraction to stop me moping about Nate’. She was right. After Francine had been taken to hospital in the early hours of New Year’s Day, I’d told him I definitely wanted to go through with the split. It was the right thing to do. We’d agreed not to call each other for the first couple of weeks and we’d both stuck to that. So far. The seventy-five per cent certainty about my decision had dropped to sixty per cent, and if it went below fifty I was calling him.