‘He must have run,’ said Ben, gleefully.
‘Yes, he has gone off at a sprint. I didn’t think he had it in him,’ said Barry.
When the group was about half down the road, Barry suddenly got the feeling that he was being watched and lo and behold, there was Mark, walking on the other side of the road.
‘Well, look at him,’ said Barry. ‘Cheeky devil!’
Mark ran across the road.
‘Hi,’ he said breezily.
‘We thought that you had run off to The Rose,’ said Ben, a little niggled at being outmanoeuvred.
‘Oh you boys oops - and Beverley’ said Mark. ‘I knew you had drunk too much to just disappear so I waited behind a tree over the road. And there you were thinking ‘Oh where’s that Mark gone?’ Ha, ha, ha!’
Mark was pleased to have got his own back and the group were pleased with the initial gag so they were all square. The Rose came and went and they just struggled into The Coronet as the last orders bell was rung.
‘Made it,’ said Ben. ‘Well, I’ve raised £11.60 for the charity today. How much have you got Barry?’
‘Oh, I haven’t worked it out yet, but it must be in the region of £15 - a fine day out all round. I’ll celebrate with a final pint,’ declared Barry.
Pete was leaving the pub at the same time as the group. ‘What do you think then? Am I going to be safe on the way home?’ asked Pete, with a certain amount of scorn.
‘Listen, remember you’re talking to one who has passed the toughest test in the land,’ said Barry, with an air of superiority.
‘Yes, well, just watch it,’ said Pete. They all got back to school and had their papers signed by a member of staff.
They walked to the bikes and put on their helmets. Don had raced ahead on the final stage and was waiting to escort Barry home. Barry started his machine and revved it up menacingly.
‘Hop on Pete and we’ll be there in a flash,’ said Barry.
Pete got on and the bikes were away, up the hill and along the straight to the roundabout - three hundred and twenty degrees round - down a stretch, and then a left turn onto the back roads. Barry was leaning the bike over quite a lot to cope with the high speed and when he went right over, the bike did seem to feel a little unstable. It was reputed to be one of the safest to handle on the roads so Barry just passed it off and concentrated on his driving. He tended to forget that it had been in a severe accident with its previous owner and had been almost written off. The repair shop had not renewed the frame because, if they had, the insurance company would have declared it a write-off and they wanted to make money on the repair. So, was the frame bent?
They arrived at Pete’s safely with Don bringing up the rear. Pete jumped off the machine like his bottom was on fire!
‘Err, thanks Barry’ he said and rushed indoors. Barry looked after him enquiringly, thinking that it had been a good drive. He forgot that when you are not in control of something, you do worry about being driven as recklessly and fast as Barry had driven, but, as usual, Barry just shrugged his shoulders and started off up the road, heading for home.
Don was still buzzing his machine for all it was worth to keep up with Barry.
They reached the crossroads where the traffic lights were at red. They were waiting to turn right when they saw a Rolls Royce cross over in front of them going in their direction. Barry’s eyes lit up. He could not ever remember hacking past a Roller and revved up the engine in anticipation.
The lights were just changing to amber when the Rolls Royce disappeared around a corner. There were no cars coming towards them and so they immediately turned right and started off in pursuit. The road was a long shallow incline, coming to the top of a small hill about a third of a mile away, then dropping down into a slight dip and around a curve to the straight, leading to a roundabout, Barry opened the throttle to the maximum in each gear and the engine roared gleefully. In no time, Barry was travelling at sixty - five, leaving Don in the distance and, just before the top of the lull, he shot past the shining Rolls Royce.
Barry was in his element for he had just shown an expensive Rolls Royce what he could do. He slowed down slightly for the hill and had just got over the top when he caught sight of a car just sitting in the middle of the road, about 200 yards away. What on earth is he doing? thought Barry, but he didn’t slow down whilst having those thoughts. In a split second, Barry was almost upon the car. He was travelling on the inside of the road and so was unable to swerve to the outside to overtake. The car was just sitting there, not indicating, so Barry decided - as he’d seen other bikes do in traffic jams - to whip past on the inside. As soon as he’d made that decision, the car, driven by an old-age pensioner, abruptly turned left to go into a drive.
Barry slammed the brakes on instinctively. The bike’s wheels locked and it went skidding towards the car. The brakes could never have stopped the bike in time at that speed and Barry smashed into the car with a sickening crunch. He flew over the car, landed in the garden and rolled over and over.
Thud! Barry came to an immediate halt. His helmet had been pushed forwards over his face. Rocks were jutting out in the garden beside the drive and the thud came as Barry’s head hit the largest rock and he lay there, unconscious.
Chapter Three
As Barry lay there on the ground, the old boy driving the car was so shocked, he didn’t put the brakes on and crashed into the garage doors.
‘What have I done?’ he wailed and his wife tried to console him. His son, who owned the house, rushed outside when he heard the commotion and when he saw Barry lying unconscious on the ground, he immediately told his wife to call an ambulance.
‘Don’t worry, Dad,’ said the man. ‘An ambulance is on its way.’ He helped the old couple out of the car and went to see if he could do anything for Barry.
‘All I was doing was turning the car to come into your drive,’ said the old man.
‘But dear,’ said his wife. ‘You weren’t indicating. The boy should have slowed down and stopped but you were partially to blame.’
‘We’ll discuss this later,’ said their son. ‘But if you ever admit to some of the blame, you will never be insured by any company again. The lad looks close to death anyway so we’ll see what happens.’
The witnesses in the Rolls Royce didn’t stop. They saw the accident, clearly, but did not want to get involved so they just sped on. Don hadn’t seen the accident as he was still on the other side of the hill when it had happened and there was nothing to see in the road as the bike, car and Barry were all in the garden. He reached his home and looked around for Barry. He could not see him so he retraced his journey and saw a crowd gathering outside the house.
‘What the bloody hell happened?’ shouted Don, as he rushed over to Barry.
‘He’s had an accident - he just drove straight into the side of my father’s car as he was turning it to come into the drive,’ said the son.
‘But there must have been another reason,’ puzzled Don. ‘He’s just passed his driving test.’ Don knew that Barry could have been over the limit but didn’t mention it as he thought it could harm Barry’s case if he recovered.
The ambulance’s siren sounded in the distance.
‘Here they come. Look, don’t touch him - let the ambulance man deal with it,’ said the son, as Don went over to Barry and looked as if he was going to try to turn him over.
The ambulance arrived and two men rushed over with a stretcher. They carefully put Barry onto the stretcher and put him in the ambulance.
‘Which hospital are you taking him to?’ asked Don.
‘He’ll go to the emergency ward in the General,’ said the driver, as he went to get into his seat. Don wanted to go with them in the ambulance, but knew that he would not be able to get back so he followed them down on his bike. By the time Don got there, Barry wa
s being taken to the casualty department and he knew that he had to get word to Barry’s family as soon as he could so he went and told the Sister-in-charge who he was and that he wanted to use a telephone.
‘Hello Mrs Connors,’ said Don. ‘I’ve got some bad news - Barry’s had an accident. He is being looked at by doctors in the General right now.’
‘Oh no, not again,’ said Barry’s mother.
She recalled the last accident where Barry had been travelling behind a small van on an underpass and, suddenly, for no reason, the van had braked sharply in the outside lane and Barry had driven into the back of it. Then, he was extremely lucky as the bike had fallen over but slid sideways down the road in a straight line. No vehicle was following closely, so Barry could get up and push his bike to the kerb. He had only been scratched then.
‘Is it like the last time he had an accident?’ asked Patricia, nervously.
‘I think you had better come down - he’s in a worse state,’ said Don, trying to break the news as gently as possible.
Patricia rushed out to her car with Barry’s younger brother, Anthony, and went to the hospital. She had left a note for Ivan, Barry’s older brother, telling him to get down there when he could. She went into the reception area.
‘Oh Don, thank you for staying with him,’ said Patricia. ‘Where is he?’ At that moment - before Don could answer, the Sister on the ward went up to her.
‘You must be Mrs Conners,’ said the Sister. ‘Please will you come with me?’ She took Patricia into her office at the end of the ward. ‘I’m afraid I have some rather bad news for you,’ she said, soothingly. ‘Barry has been taken to intensive care and is being treated there, he’s had a nasty road traffic accident and is deeply unconscious. Is your husband coming?’
‘I’m divorced from my husband’ said Patricia with tears in her eyes. ‘I’m here with my son.’ She cried uncontrollably for some time and the Sister went out to get Anthony, and asked him to comfort his mother. Anthony hated hospitals, but tried to forget this as he put his arms around her.
‘Try not to cry,’ said Anthony. ‘He’ll need all our support when he wakes up.’
‘If he wakes up,’ sobbed Patricia.
‘Oh, he’ll be all right - he’ll be fighting with Ivan again next week.’ Anthony tried as hard as he could to cheer up his mother but it was an impossible task.
Just then, a doctor came in with the Sister.
‘Mrs Conners,’ he said firmly but softly. ‘We have been looking at your son but, unfortunately he is not responding to any treatment. I’m afraid that the damage he has done to his head is impossible to repair. We can do nothing more for him so we have decided to put him in Ward 4 in a room at the end.’
‘But, can’t you do anything,’ pleaded Patricia. ‘You must have all the machines to keep him alive in intensive care - is there nothing you can do?’
‘Please try to understand,’ said the doctor. ‘He has hit his head against a rock when travelling at about twenty mph and the part of his skull that he hit covers a very important part of the brain. We cannot hold out any hope for him and we have just had another patient admitted to the hospital who we can definitely save but he needs Barry’s bed. We’ll do our best on Ward 4 and his transfer will not significantly harm his chances of survival.’
Patricia did not know whether to believe the doctor fully for this was her son.
‘Come on, Mum,’ said Anthony. ‘The doctor knows best.’
At that moment, Ivan ran into the ward.
‘There is he, what’s he done this time?’ he asked. He had brought Don’s brother, Phil, along with him and had driven down to the hospital like a mad thing in half the usual time.
‘Come with me,’ said Anthony. ‘I’ll tell you what has happened.’
Ivan’s face dropped as Anthony recounted the words and Phil and Don listened in silence.
‘Good grief said Don. ‘I didn’t know it was as bad as that.’
They were standing in stunned silence as Patricia went over to them.
‘They are going to take him to Ward 4 now, so we shall go and wait outside,’ said Patricia.
They all walked quietly along the high, straight corridors, each realising just what Barry meant to them. It was Phil who had sold Barry the bike and so he couldn’t help ruing the day that he had let the machine go into such wild, young hands.
Patricia, as it happened, had been through it all before. Just after she had got married, she had left England with her husband, to live in Scotland. Whilst there, her husband had been travelling on a road around a mountain and, as it was late at night, had become sleepy and had driven the car off the side of the mountain. The car had rolled over and over until it had stopped on its roof. He had banged his head and was unconscious in hospital for five days but he had recovered fully so Patricia had some hope at the back of her mind.
The medical team appeared, pushing Barry on a stretcher. Many drips were feeding medicines into his body but his face was uninjured. They went past the group and put Barry into the side ward and a doctor gave instructions to a nurse, a little Indian girl, who was listening intently.
‘Make sure that the levels of medicine remain adequate and keep him cool,’ Patricia overheard. Soon the doctors left the nurse alone to cope with the dying young man. Could she manage?
‘I don’t think there’s much more we can do, at the moment,’ said Anthony.
‘Yes, you’re right,’ said Patricia, sensing her youngest son’s wish to leave. ‘I will stay so you’d better look after yourself for the time being until I get back. Keep things in order, Ivan, and I’ll tell you if anything happens here.’
Patricia was all alone as all the young men filed out of the hospital and left her standing in the corridor. One of the doctors came out of the ward and walked over to her.
‘Things don’t look too good. Do you think you can stay at the hospital in case we need to speak to you urgently?’ asked the doctor.
‘Yes, I’d rather he near him. Can I go into the room and look at him?’
‘Yes, of course’. The doctor took her to the room and put a chair into the corner. She sat and watched as the nurse went about her tasks, keeping him cool by constantly renewing flannels filled with ice which were placed on his injured head. Hospitals can be very depressing and boring but Patricia didn’t feel the time passing as she watched her son - she was just trying to will him to live.
Suddenly, a junior doctor came into the room.
‘Mrs Connors, my name is Dr Jenkins,’ he started. ‘As you know Barry is in a bad way. He is very unlikely to recover consciousness and we would like your permission to give others the chance of life by using his organs. He looks a healthy lad and we could use many of his body parts to cure other people.’
Patricia sat there, her eyes wide open with shock. She was completely alone with no one to talk to or to take advice from and help her with the worst question she could possibly be asked at this moment. She sat there in silence for a moment and then:
‘No,’ she said. ‘No - you can’t kill my son. He is alive and you can’t take his life.’
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Connors, you mustn’t think that I would ever harm anyone unnecessarily but I just wanted your views on the situation,’ said Dr Jenkins, slightly perturbed at the reaction to his question.
‘No - no, I’m sorry but I’m going to make sure my son has every chance possible,’ said Patricia with a stubborn tone in her voice.
Ivan went home and spent the next two hours on the telephone. He couldn’t get hold of his father so just spent time telling all Barry’s friends and other relations. His grandparents on his mother’s side were really horrified, not wanting to believe that this could happen. They used to see Barry a lot when he was younger. They used to visit their only daughter and her family every week on a Tuesday and B
arry’s school was on the route between the two houses, so they picked him up each week and took him home. Ivan didn’t tell his grandmother on his father’s side - she was alone and possibly couldn’t have coped as well.
The most distraught people who Ivan phoned were, his girlfriend, Susan, of course, and strangely enough, his previous girlfriend, Sally, who had never really stopped loving him. Sally and Barry had been good for each other. They had been happy together and saw each other for a year or so and they only split up when Barry had made a bad mistake - he had listened to his father. His father’s advice was, ‘you’re young - don’t get tied down to one girl, see other girls. When I was young, I saw many - and when I was not so young also.’
Barry had thought that his father was cynically indicating his affairs with other women whilst married to Barry’s mother but he was really trying to influence him by sounding big and brash, trying to make Barry want to live up to this ideal. As a result, Barry chucked Sally and went with Susan, whom he thought was more sexually accommodating and had a crush on him.
Sally was extremely sad when she was ditched by Barry, but when she heard about the accident, she was so shocked that she had to be given a sedative to calm her down. Susan, on the other hand, was not as badly affected. She cried a lot, at first, but then made sure of going to see Barry as soon as she could. Sally didn’t go to see him - she would have felt out of place so she just had to live with her grief.
During the next week Barry’s condition stabilised. Slowly many people visited him, the school mentioned him in prayers at assembly and the local vicar included him in his prayers at a church service. Something was working. With all the doctors’ prophecies of doom, Barry was making a fight of it and even a little of his stubbornness was visible. When he felt uncomfortable with the tube that relieved his bowels, he ripped it out, which was silly really, because it was held on with a clasp and caused pain and bleeding when incorrectly removed. He was lucky that he was flat out but his subconscious mind told him that he must not do it again!
Would You Believe Him? Page 3