One Day, Someday

by Lynne Barrett-Lee

  ‘Oh, am I invited?’ I point at the card. ‘Joe will want to go, won’t he?’

  ‘Oh, we won’t worry about that, lovely! They’re hardly going to refuse to let us in, are they? They’ll want us to sign up for aerobics, won’t they? Let me see, next Wednesday. Not long, then. There. Something to look forward to. Isn’t that nice?’

  She goes back to her office, and when I hear the phone ring five minutes later I take little notice. There are three lines coming into the JDL offices - two that ring in the main office, where I am, and a third, with a different number, that goes straight through to Iona’s room. It’s the number the engineers use to call in on. About work schedules, pay queries, parts and so on.

  It’s only when I hear Iona’s sudden exclamation that it occurs to me something might be wrong. I get up and walk through. She is sitting at her desk staring into space, and the colour has drained from her face. Both of her hands are clamped to her mouth, and the receiver is back on its rest. Something is obviously very wrong, and for one horrified moment I imagine Joe in another pile-up on the motorway. ‘Iona? What’s the matter?’

  She looks at me vacantly. Then at the phone, then back at me again. She takes her hands from her mouth and balls them into fists.

  ‘Oh, cariad,’ she whispers, her face crumpling in distress, ‘it’s Dai. It’s my Dai. He’s collapsed. He’s in an ambulance on his way to hospital. They think it’s his heart. Oh, cariad, my Dai!’

  I move quickly around the desk and put my arm around her shoulders. I can feel her body trembling through the fabric of her blouse. ‘Right, then,’ I tell her, while I try to gather my thoughts. ‘Then we must get you down there as soon as we can. He’s on his way to the Heath, then, is he?’

  ‘Er … I think. Yes. Yes, the Heath.’ She rises, looking distractedly around her.

  ‘Right,’ I say. ‘You wait there while I go and get your coat. Then we’ll go down and get the car and I’ll drive you there, yes? In fact, no. It’ll take too long to walk down to the car. We’ll pick up a cab on St Mary Street.’

  By the time I have found her coat for her, she is still deathly pale, but her expression has pulled itself together somewhat.

  ‘I’ll be all right,’ she says firmly, as she takes it from me. She pushes her arms into the sleeves. ‘You can’t leave the office unattended. There’s things to get done. There’s the wages and everything. I’ll be fine, lovely, really. You stay here and … and …’

  Then she folds into an ungainly heap on the floor.

  ‘Joe? It’s me.’

  ‘Oh,’ he says. ‘I’m in the middle of a meeting. Can it wait?’

  In other circumstances I’d be dismayed by his tone. But there is no time for my piffling disappointments right now. ‘No,’ I tell him. ‘It can’t, I’m sorry. Look, I’m in the back of a cab, on my way to hospital with Iona. Dai’s—’

  ‘What? Slow down. I can’t hear you.’

  ‘On my way to the Heath. Dai’s had some sort of collapse and he’s gone by ambulance, so I’m taking Iona down there. I just wanted to let you know that there’s no one in the office at the moment. And I didn’t know how to put the phones on divert, and poor Iona’s fainted.’ I squeeze her hand as I say this. ‘And, well, anyway - what?’

  ‘I said, is she all right?’

  ‘She’s OK, Joe. She’s just shaken up, aren’t you, Iona? I don’t know how long we’ll be, but I’ll call you and keep you posted, OK?’

  ‘Oh dear,’ he says. ‘Oh dear.’ He is beginning to sound like me. ‘Right. Yes, OK. I’m leaving here about two so I should be back by four-ish. Let me see. I’ll go straight back to the office, then, shall I? Yes. I’ll see you there. Let me know what’s happening, won’t you? Oh, and Lu? Give her a hug for me, will you? Tell her I’m sure everything will be OK.’

  I don’t know how old Dai is - I have never met him - but I assume he must be in his fifties or sixties, and as we arrive at the Accident and Emergency entrance all I can think of is my father’s death. And how swiftly - how cruelly quickly - he went. And how here we were, Del and I, right here at this very hospital, standing, shell-shocked and uncomprehending, while they wheeled him inside. We had both travelled in the ambulance with him, and he’d already gone. DOA. Dead on Arrival. Oh, please, God, don’t let Dai be already dead.

  I pay the driver and help Iona out of the taxi, then take her inside through the floppy double doors and up to the desk. The woman behind the plastic partition looks up, smiling yet incurious, at me.

  ‘Dai Williams,’ I say. ‘Came in recently, by ambulance? I’ve brought his wife. Iona Williams.’ I watch while her finger moves smoothly down her list.

  Her expression changes to one of professional concern and I brace myself for the worst. Iona, too, is rigid against my arm.

  ‘Ah,’ she says, nodding. ‘All right, lovely. He’s in with the medics now. If you’ll just take a seat I’ll go and find someone who can look after you. Won’t be a tick.’ She slides off her swivel stool and heads off out of the back of her office, while I pull my arm tighter around Iona’s shoulders. Not dead then. Not dead. My relief is so immense I feel like crying too.

  ‘There,’ I say, growing anxious at Iona’s increasingly disconnected expression. ‘Everything is going to be fine. Come on, let’s sit you down, shall we? I’m sure someone’ll be with us in a moment.’

  ‘Mrs Williams?’ A young female doctor has appeared in the waiting area. ‘Do you want to come with me?’

  Iona, who has just lowered herself into a chair, begins to rise. I rise with her, but she puts a restraining hand firmly on my arm. “S all right, lovely. I’m all right,’ she says.

  ‘I’ll stay here, then, shall I? I’ll be right here, OK?’

  As I watch her being led away round the corner and out of sight, I wonder again at the admissions clerk’s words. She said all right. She didn’t say he’s all right. I wonder fearfully what Iona is about to find. As I gaze unseeing into the middle distance, I become aware that a man is approaching me. He’s short and bearded, with a grim expression, and has an identity tag swinging from a clip on his jacket pocket.

  ‘Hello,’ he says, proffering a large hand. ‘You Lu, by any chance? Bill Keeley. Came in the ambulance with him. You bring Iona in, then?’

  I nod. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Heart-attack, by all accounts. They’ve got him on a monitor at the moment. And help with his breathing, like.’

  All of which sounds serious. I stand up. ‘Is he going to be OK?’

  He shrugs. ‘OK for the moment, they said. Hanging on in there. But I don’t suppose they’ll know for a while yet, will they? Thank Christ he wasn’t on the road, eh?’

  I nod again. ‘Where was he, then? With you?’

  ‘Back in the office. He’d just finished taking a fare out to Penarth and he said he needed to take a bit of a breather. Wouldn’t get off home, God love him. But he’s not been right for a couple of weeks, truth be known. Tired, like. Not himself. Works all hours, does Dai, love him. But he’s not been himself. We’ve all said.’ He shakes his head sadly. ‘A bad business.’ He glances at the clock on the wall. There is a poster beside it which says, ‘Don’t go breaking your heart.’ ‘Anyway, I’d best get back, now you’re here. You all right for getting Iona home, are you, lovely?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course. I said I’d stay.’

  ‘Anyway, she said to ask if you could let their Nick know what’s happening. You know. Sooner rather than later, like?’

  ‘Of course. Yes, I’ll do that. I’ll get on to it now.’

  But I don’t have Nick’s number. And I’m not sure how to go about finding it either, because I can’t even think of anyone I could ask. But find it I must. Find him I must. I presume Iona thinks I have it. If she’s thinking at all, which is doubtful. I’m just considering whether I should ask one of the nurses if perhaps I could have a quick word with Iona herself, when the theme from Star Wars starts tootling gaily from my bag. I use my phone so infreque
ntly that it’s a moment or two before I even register what the noise is. That and the fact that Leo’s always changing the ring tone. Last time it rang it was ‘Boogie Nights’. Which might have been marginally worse.

  Conscious of the looks I am attracting, not to mention the large signs informing visitors that mobiles in hospitals should be turned off at all times, I hurry outside to fish it out and answer it. It’s Joe. No preamble. ‘What’s the latest?’ he asks me. His voice is accompanied by a low thrumming sound, which I assume means he’s now on the train coming home.

  ‘He’s had a heart-attack,’ I tell him, ‘and that’s all I know at the moment. Iona’s in with him. I said I’d wait. She’s been gone, let me see, about three-quarters of an hour or so.’

  ‘That sounds bad,’ he decides, ‘though not entirely unexpected. He had one a couple of years back. Jeez,’ he says. ‘Nothing like something like this happening to remind you why you gave up smoking, is there?’

  ‘Joe, I—’

  ‘Lu,’ he interrupts me, ‘I wasn’t being flippant, if that’s what you were about to tell me.’ I wasn’t. I wasn’t. ‘Just making an observation. Poor guy. Poor Iona. God, life’s a bitch sometimes, isn’t it? Makes you realize just how precious … Anyway, I’m just coming into Worcester now, so I should be back in Cardiff a little earlier than I thought. I’ll see you back at the office, shall I?’

  ‘Actually, Joe, I was just about to call you. You don’t have their son’s number, by any chance, do you? I said I’d call and let him know what was happening but I don’t have it, and I - oh, hang on. I think I can see her now. I’ll call you later, OK?’

  I push the swing doors open and see Iona casting about anxiously for me. Her expression tells me little other than the amount of pain she is going through.

  As if it has seeped in through her pores. She looks suddenly older. Suddenly smaller.

  ‘I’m here, Iona,’ I call, threading my way towards her through the sea of anxious people. So many crises for one ordinary Wednesday. So many traumas and tragedies going on. She scans the room to find my voice, and makes her way across to me.

  ‘Oh, cariad, thank you so much for staying.’ Her voice is small, too.

  ‘How’s he doing?’ I ask, steering her to an empty chair.

  She shakes her head. ‘Not good. They’ve got him stable. But they don’t know. The first forty-eight hours. That’s the thing.’

  ‘They told you that, did they?’

  ‘Didn’t need to, my lovely. We’ve been here before. I know the drill.’ She clasps my hand and grips it. ‘Oh, cariad, what’ll I do? What’ll I do if I lose him?’

  ‘Come on,’ I tell her. ‘Let’s try to be positive. He’s in good hands. In the best place. I’m sure everything will be OK. Come on, let’s get you a cup of tea, shall we?’

  She nods, her eyes brimming with the tears she’s fighting so hard not to shed in front of me, and I feel suddenly so aware of how little we know one another. A few weeks, that’s all. Barely three months. I’m not the person she needs right now. I wish Joe was here to comfort her instead. ‘We need to get hold of Nick, don’t we?’ I suggest, while we wait in the queue for the tea.

  ‘I just remembered. He’s in Bristol this week,’ she tells me. ‘A conference or something. I can’t remember. We’re supposed to be driving down at the weekend to see him. Oh, Lu …’

  I put my hand firmly on hers. ‘But he’ll have a mobile, surely?’

  Hers is shaking. ‘I don’t know the number. It’s at home. It’s in my book. I don’t have it with me or anything.’ She looks panicky.

  ‘So we’ll go home and get it. Or I’ll go home and get it for you. How about that? Or - hang on - what about his boyfriend? What about Howard? He could tell us. Do you know where I can get hold of him, maybe?’

  I pay for our teas and find a vacant table.

  ‘He’ll be at work,’ she says, sitting down heavily. ‘We’ll have to wait till he gets home. Oh, why didn’t I put Nick’s number in my bag? I’m so stupid. And now his dad’s … Oh, I’m so stupid. And now he might …’ The tears start swimming in her eyes again, spill over and track down her cheeks. I move round the table and sit down beside her, gathering her into my arms.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispers. ‘I’m terribly sorry … ‘

  ‘Sssh,’ I murmur. ‘Sssh. It’s OK. It’s all right.’ Her hair smells of peaches. I rock her against me for ten minutes, her sobs gentle shudders against my chest.

  Finally, spent, she pulls away a little. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she tells me, hauling her handbag on to her knees and pulling out a packet of tissues. ‘What must you think of me, Lu? I don’t know what came over me. I’m all right now. Sorry.’

  I want to tell her that she doesn’t need to be sorry. That there’s nothing wrong with needing a cuddle in a time of crisis. I want to tell her that I’m sorry it’s only me. That I feel for her, having to share her distress with someone who knows her so slightly. With whom she feels awkward about crying. Most of all I want to get her son here, and quick. ‘Right,’ I say briskly, conscious that I mustn’t crack the veneer of control she’s managed to reassemble. ‘Come on, Iona. Think. Where does Howard work? He’s a teacher, right? So what school does he teach at? Is it a secondary or a primary?’

  ‘Primary,’ she confirms. ‘Near where they live. Except I can’t think - he did tell me. Oakridge? Oakdale? Oh, I wish I could remember. Or was it Beech something?’

  I pull some paper and a pen from my bag and write down the list of possibilities, as well as his surname, which is Ringrose.

  ‘Drink your tea,’ I command. ‘Then we’ll get you back to Dai. And I shall go outside and call Directory Enquiries and track him down, OK?’

  She nods at me mutely and does as instructed. And the steam from the tea makes her glasses mist up.

  There must be any number of primary schools in Hemel Hempstead, I imagine, but after a couple of attempts, I manage to get the number of one that sounds hopeful - an Ashdale Primary, on the outskirts of the town. I thank the operator and dial the number, and am rewarded by a voice that confirms Howard does indeed work there, but that he’s out on the field taking PE right now. So I explain why I’m calling and give the woman there my number. She promises she’ll call him in and have him ring me back.

  It’s chilly, standing outside A and E. The area is covered - it runs under the building - and what little light’s shed there is reflected off grey. Grey concrete pillars that hold up the roof, grey roadway, grey pavement, grey trolleys, grey faces. The only colour is the yellow of the criss-cross road markings, and the startling neon of the paramedics’ jackets as they come and go, cutting through the damp air with their chatter. I remember those most. It’s not a nice place to be.

  But it’s only a few minutes before my phone rings again, and not much longer before I’m talking to Nick himself, who sounds reassuringly calm when I tell him the news. ‘OK. I’m on my way,’ he says. ‘Shouldn’t be more than an hour. Tell Mum I’m coming, OK? Tell Dad.’

  It’s a strange hour, one way and another, because sitting alone in the draughty A and E waiting room it’s like the whole of the past year has melted away, and that I’m enveloped once again in the undiluted horror that was the morning when my own father died. I remember the wail of the ambulance siren, the charcoal-tinted world that streaked, uncaring, past the windows, the clatter as the wheels of the stretcher were lowered, and the terrible emptiness that cloaked itself around me as we waited for someone to tell us what to do. I remember us clinging together like children under the patient ticket machine, but not needing a number. No longer requiring a place on the list. But most of all I recall that sense that nothing would ever be quite right again, because I never had time to say goodbye to my dad. I feel suddenly vulnerable. Suddenly so mortal. Every time someone walks into the waiting room I expect it to be Iona, face contorted with distress, to tell me it’s too late. That Dai has gone too.

  But by the time the hour has passed, I m
ust, in fact, have travelled miles from this place, because I’m alerted to Nick’s arrival only belatedly, when I hear him say his name to the woman on the admissions desk. He is tall and tanned, with dark wiry hair, and the sort of effortless good looks gay men often seem to have. I hurry across to greet him.

  Thanks so much for getting in touch,’ he says, shaking my hand rather formally, which reminds me again that I’m only an onlooker in this particular drama. That my own is done and gone now. ‘And for waiting with Mum,’ he adds. There is hardly a trace of Iona’s Welsh lilt in his voice. ‘That was really kind of you. Where is she?’ He glances around. ‘With Dad?’

  I gesture to the stairwell. ‘You’ll need to go upstairs. They’ve transferred him to ITU now,’ I tell him. ‘I didn’t want to go till you arrived, but now you’re here I’d really better get back to the office. Will you let her know that if there’s anything I can do, well, just to call?’

  I watch as he hurries off to find his family, feeling suddenly claustrophobic in these woe-flecked surroundings. That I need to escape. I’m just grabbing my bag when a hand slips over my shoulder. ‘Hello, you,’ says a voice.

  It’s Joe’s.

  And I’m so glad to see him.

  He is ruffled and train-weary and has taken off his tie. His overnight case is standing to attention beside him, and in the curve of his plaster is clamped a rather heavy-looking basket of fruit.

  ‘Oh,’ I say, reaching to take it for him. The action has become almost automatic, I notice. ‘I thought you were going back to the office.’

  ‘Changed my mind,’ he tells me, nodding at the basket. I wonder how he has managed to procure such a thing at such short notice. ‘Thought I’d cab it straight up here and see how he’s doing. Plus I guessed you’d still be here. So not much point in me schlepping back to the office - anyone needs me that badly they can get me on the mobile, can’t they? Get hold of Nick in the end?’

  He looks tired and pale against the still-red stripe of his scar. I wish I could read something warm in his expression. ‘He’s just arrived,’ I tell him, ‘so I was about to head back. I’ll do that, then, shall I, while you go up and see them? And see you back at work later?’