Calling All Services (Calling All... Book 1)

by Tara Ford

  “I don’t bloody know – they didn’t get home till this morning. I haven’t had a chance to talk to them, have I?” Grant sounded pretty stressed and angry.

  “All right, calm down you two, for goodness’ sake. What has got into the pair of you?” I asked in a low voice.

  The room went quiet and all I could hear was the click-clack footsteps of people outside in the corridor.

  POP!

  Simultaneously, both Grant and I looked at Emma and said, “Stop it!”

  “Argh Dad! Oh no – argh,” she screeched from the left-hand side of the bed.

  Jumping from the sudden burst of noise, Grant leapt up from his chair and stared in panic at Emma.

  Turning and arching my body to see over Emma’s shoulder I looked in horror at the hand basin.

  “Dad, I’m stuck. Mum, help me!” Emma cried as tears burst from her eyes.

  Edging himself quickly around the room to Emma’s side, Grant grabbed her hand and pulled.

  “Dad!” she screamed, “You’re hurting me.”

  “For Christ’s sake, I bloody well told you not to do it,” he uttered angrily, looking around to me for help.

  “What can I do?” I exclaimed.

  The fact that Emma’s thumb was wedged firmly in the overflow hole was a horrifying, humiliating hassle and I struggled to cope, seated helplessly on the bed.

  Crying profusely, Emma wiggled and wriggled her hand in the sink, desperately trying to loosen her thumb from the hole.

  Reaching for the liquid soap dispenser on the wall, Grant pumped the lever repeatedly and rapidly, filling his hands with copious amounts of slimy gel.

  A useless spectator, I tried to calm Emma with harmonious, reassuring words that everything would be okay and that her dad would sort it out.

  The gel seeped from his hands onto the floor as Grant attempted to carry it over, to cover Emma’s thumb knuckle in the lubricant. Stepping closer, Grant moved his feet, which landed straight in a puddle of gel and twisted around as he lost his footing in the sliminess on the floor. A split second later he grabbed hold of the basin as his right leg departed and splayed out sideways. Gooey hands desperately holding onto the edge of the ceramic sink, Grant’s grasp loosened and he slid uncontrollably downwards, doing the splits as he went down to the floor with a thump and a ripping sound.

  “Oh no, Grant, are you okay?” I called out, peering over the edge of the bed.

  In a crumpled heap on the tiles, Grant looked up with moist eyes.

  Surely he wasn’t going to start crying too, I worried as I lay completely motionless.

  The sight of her dad performing a rather perfect gymnastics split pose instantly stopped Emma from crying, as she sat on the chair holding her phone in one hand and the sink in the other, with her jaw hanging open in shock. Her thumb appeared to be swelling by the second under the pressure of the small hole it was wedged in. Gel lay everywhere as the tumultuous scene seemed to freeze momentarily.

  At the very moment of Grant’s artistic departure to the floor, the commotion and crying had alerted members of staff working on the main ward, who hurriedly came running into the room. The chaotic situation they found caused them to halt in the doorway, as they watched Grant’s downfall materialise.

  Covering my face with my hands, I stared through fingers at the visitors frozen in the doorway, their jaws hanging open wide.

  “Please can you help?” I pleaded, suppressing tears.

  Welling up again, Emma started to sob and placed her mobile onto the cabinet next to her. This was a serious situation, as she’d relinquished her prosthetic limb, as we often called her mobile phone.

  Scrambling through the door, the male doctor and his assistant, a trainee doctor, attempted to lift Grant from the slippery floor. Calling for assistance, the trainee beckoned a nurse into the room to quickly scoop up as much of the gel as possible. Appearing extremely puzzled, the nurse briskly pulled paper towels from the dispenser and mopped the floor around Grant’s contorted body, as the two men supported him in rising and hobbling around to the comfy chair.

  Looking ashen faced and shocked from his fall Grant limped and stumbled whilst holding onto his groin and moaning. He sat curled up in the chair and winced like a little boy that had fallen off his bike.

  Moving hastily back to Emma, the doctors stared disbelievingly at her swollen thumb protruding from the hole. Mumbling quickly and incoherently, the two doctors reacted to the situation with great professionalism and then the trainee left the room to collect supplies.

  Sitting perfectly upright on the bed, I stared from one side to the other, not knowing what to say or what to do, although the ‘what to do’ was rather limited as I couldn’t move. Deciding that Emma was far needier of my support, I stretched across and could just reach her other hand as the doctor began to twist and manipulate her thumb.

  Moaning and groaning in severe discomfort, Emma looked around the back of the doctor as we held hands. Her puffy brown eyes were full of sorrow and remorse as she flinched and twitched from her affliction.

  After several attempts to free Emma’s thumb from its captive state, a prescribed dose of anti-inflammatory medication and copious amounts of lubricating gels, the doctors decided their only option was to call in the maintenance staff to carefully chip away the ceramic bowl from the retaining ring which held Emma’s thumb securely. Once this had been achieved, Emma would be left with a metal ring around her thumb which could be removed with a ring cutter.

  Still holding our sweaty hands together, I squeezed gently and smiled at her, sensing her fear and anxiety.

  Ten minutes later, under the watchful eye of the trainee doctor, the senior maintenance man skilfully chipped away the ceramic around the hole, loosening the metal ring.

  Emma couldn’t watch him and turned her head towards me as the sharp tool was precisely lined up and steadily knocked to eventually release her.

  Grant had hobbled from the room like a pregnant penguin five minutes earlier, in a desperate need to have a cigarette, and he hadn’t cared who heard him as he said he was going for a smoke.

  A few minutes later, Emma was free from the basin. The maintenance man looked in surprise at the tiny hole that Emma had managed to wedge her thumb into. The back of the sink was millimetres from the hole and somehow Emma’s thumb had bent around the back, in between the two layers of ceramic. Her ballooned, purple thumb continued to pulsate as the doctor quickly organised a wheelchair to take her down to the accident and emergency department to have the metal ring removed.

  “Where’s my dad?” Emma cried in terror.

  “He’s just coming darling, don’t worry, it’s nearly all done now,” I said softly as a wheelchair was pushed through the door by a nurse.

  “I don’t want to go on my own,” cried Emma, looking to me with pleading eyes.

  “Your dad will be back in a minute, I’ll send him straight down to you.” As I said it, Grant limped back in and smiled with relief to see his daughter free.

  A thin metal shield protector was pushed underneath the ring on Emma’s thumb, and the cutting wheel was attached to its holder.

  Crying again, Emma held onto her dad’s hand as he stroked the top of her head tenderly.

  The cutter sounded like a drill as it slowly went through the metal ring, stopping every few seconds, so the doctor could check that the ring hadn’t got too hot on Emma’s thumb. A nurse standing next to Grant held a syringe of cold water, ready to cool the ring should it heat up during the cutting.

  A few minutes later, Emma suddenly felt the pressure relieve as the doctor inserted a spreader under the ring and prised the metal apart.

  Further floods of tears followed as Emma looked at her distended thumb and the realisation of the trouble she had caused dawned on her.

  “I’m so sorry, Dad,” she sobbed as Grant put his arm around her and cuddled her tightly.

  After many apologies and even more thank-you acknowledgements, Emma and Grant returned to my
room.

  The hand basin had already been dismantled and the water pipes shut off, while the evening staff called around the hospital trying to locate a spare room for me. Due to the unknown nature of my illness I had to be segregated from the main wards, and unfortunately, unoccupied individual rooms were a rarity.

  Sporting her new giant-sized thumb, Emma came straight to the bed and leant over to hug me.

  “I’m sorry Mum,” she whispered and kissed me on the cheek.

  “It wasn’t too bad was it?”

  “No, it was okay,” she sighed, and moved back around to the chair where she’d sat previously. “Where’s my phone?”

  Emma soon learnt how to text speedily using only one thumb, while Grant and I filled in accident forms and discussed the situation with the hospital staff, who wrote down lots of notes.

  Feeling stressed and worried, Emma was quizzed as to how she actually got her thumb through the hole and then bent it around the back. “Don’t know,” was the only explanation she could come up with, which left the mystery open for debate by the clerical staff, Grant and myself.

  News arrived that there would not be an available room until the following morning, but I would be going to the top level of the hospital tomorrow. Relieved to be moving, I knew I could put up with the dishevelled-looking room for one more night.

  Constantly complaining about his groin strain and moaning like a strangled hyena, as he clutched his manhood discreetly, Grant decided it was time for them to leave. He needed to go home and attempt to sew the small tear in his trousers, just below the zip.

  The accident paperwork had been completed to everyone’s satisfaction and we had all sat in stunned silence for what seemed like forever once we were left alone in the room. None of us knew what to say to each other and we immersed ourselves deep in our own thoughts about the extraordinary events that had just taken place. Practically speechless, I agreed with Grant that they should go home and Emma could get some sleep after her traumatic experience. I too needed to evaluate what had occurred and try to get some sleep, in between the regular and annoying nightly interruptions and observations. It would then be decided the following morning as to whether Emma would go to Grandma’s or have a day at home to recover.

  As they left I felt sadness rise up again, but not because they were leaving. This time it was because I felt that we hadn’t had any time together to talk about home and family. There were so many questions I hadn’t asked and so many things I wanted to know.

  Although Grant took the bag of erroneous items that Emma had packed, I hadn’t explained clearly just what I needed. Fearing a repeat of the last package, I could only hope and pray for the best. If only Grant had remembered my phone, I wouldn’t feel quite so isolated and useless. I could have text him a list of the things I needed and that way at least he would remember. I could have also sent a message to Jack, welcoming him home, and I could have called my parents quickly to assure them that I was all right. What a mess this evening had been. What a mess this whole mystery illness was. Maybe I should have been thanking my lucky stars that things weren’t any worse than this. From this low point, surely everything could only get better.

  Grant

  “You didn’t tell Mum about the fire,” said Emma as they drove away from the hospital.

  The parking meter had been kind, bearing in mind that it was not as late as previous nights had been. The evening visit was relatively shorter due to the emotionally sapping, unbelievable catastrophe.

  “I didn’t get a chance to, did I? I’ll tell her tomorrow, when I go back,” replied Grant, feeling irritable and condemned. “The night was taken up with you and your irresponsible behaviour,” he barked.

  Sliding down into the passenger seat, Emma wished she hadn’t spoken as she recognised her dad’s anger building.

  They drove the rest of the way home in silence while Grant mulled over his failings to tell Alex anything about the last 24 hours. Surely it should have been the first thing on his list. On the other hand, shouldn’t he have found out how she was feeling first? Or should it wait until she was feeling much better, so she could cope with the bad news? He really didn’t know what would be the best way to do it. Realising he was rubbish at these sorts of tricky decisions, Grant pushed them aside and tried to forget about the whole bloody mess.

  The tranquillity on the outside of the house hid a menacing turmoil of chaos inside. As Grant and Emma entered, the burning smell clung to their nostrils, it had not gone away. The almost empty kitchen looked dismal and dirty although it had been scrubbed with bleach earlier in the day.

  Through the open patio doors, Grant could just make out the figure of Jack sitting in the darkness.

  Rushing out to the garden, Emma stood directly in front of him and proudly displayed her sausage-shaped thumb.

  “What have you done, sis?” Jack asked quietly, sipping from a glass of Jack Daniels and Coke.

  “Well—” She stopped suddenly as Grant clumped onto the patio.

  “Well? Go on then, tell him exactly what you’ve done,” said Grant, noticing the drink in Jack’s hand and acquiring a strong urge to get one for himself.

  Hours later, after Emma had gone to bed, Jack and Grant remained seated in the garden in the cold April air, drinking and talking about the weekend and Alex’s hospitalisation. Everyone had been putting on brave faces, for some unknown reason, about Alex’s sudden illness, but just under the surface they all feared her rapid downfall.

  The bed sheets lay on the lawn where they had been left, and several pots and pans still rested upside down, having been washed thoroughly by Dot earlier.

  The boys had spent some of the evening collecting most of the kitchen equipment and returning it to its rightful place. However there were a lot of items stacked up on the dining table as the cupboards they lived in were of no use anymore. Five of the cupboards needed replacing and Grant had decided that it would be wiser to buy the new kitchen that Alex wanted now, rather than later.

  Drunk, weary and chilled out, Grant said goodnight to Jack, patted him on the shoulder and went indoors to the living room, his other favourite place. Flicking the television on, he settled down into his comfy recliner and skipped through the channels. Before he had even chosen a suitable programme to watch, he’d drifted into a heavy sleep.

  A short while later Jack stumbled through the living room, switched off the TV and turned out the lights, leaving his father snoring and dribbling, as he too went to get some much needed sleep.

  With a thudding headache, Grant woke as dawn was breaking. Shuffling into the kitchen with bleary eyes and an aching groin, he halted abruptly as he saw and remembered what had happened. It hadn’t been a terrible nightmare. It was all real, but on this bank holiday Monday morning it all seemed so surreal. He wished it was a normal day: he goes off to work, then the kids go to school and college and Alex leaves last, after she has frantically whizzed around the house, tidying up and put the washing machine on. But this was unlike any Monday morning he had ever known, and to make it worse he felt ill and battered.

  Tea was the only cure, and in abundance, he thought as he switched on the new kettle. A plan of action was the only way he was going to get through the day and he had to do it Alex’s way, he conceded. She would have known what to do today, how to do it, when to do it, which way to do it and who to do it with! Grant smiled inwardly and limped through to the office, an extension on the side of the house which he had built some years ago. Picking up a notepad and pencil from the drawer, he returned to the dining room and found a space on the table amongst the bleach-cleaned kitchen equipment.

  Returning to the table, mug of tea in hand and two headache tablets swallowed, Grant decided to make a list of jobs to do as it was too early in the morning to do anything else yet.

  The first thing would be to text Jeff and tell him to cancel his appointments for the rest of the week. He wasn’t due back until Wednesday anyway, but Jeff and his wife Ali should know about Ale
x. His business partner would understand, but he’d hardly believe the story of Grant’s weekend of hell. It was very unlike Grant to take any more days off than was absolutely necessary. His work and the success he had achieved meant so much to him, and the accolades that came with it made all the long hours worthwhile, but this was a situation that truly warranted his absence.

  Grant and Jeff, the directors of a quantity surveying company, were good friends as well as business partners. They had met a long time ago at university, but upon successfully completing the course, Jeff went his own way while Grant continued to qualify for professional accreditation and became a member of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors. This gave him the highest rank of Chartered Surveyor.

  Then ten years ago, Jeff and Grant met up again and decided to start a business together, which had always worked very well.

  Grant’s next job would be to check that Emma was all right to go to Grandma’s for dinner, and possibly Joe too (at least that would keep Dot quiet, and off his back). Realising it was very thirsty work, thinking and writing lists; Grant made another mug of tea before continuing his list proudly.

  Thinking for a moment about his next plan, Grant suddenly realised he had to speak to Dot! He’d have to explain to her that he hadn’t been able to tell Alex about the fire. If she heard it from her mum he’d be in big trouble. It would look like he was being efficient and responsible if he called Dot first, before she could get to him. Now that was a plan, he decided as he started to enjoy writing his list, while the world awoke outside and the sun shone, again, in a cloudless sky.

  Stopping suddenly, Grant thought he should call Dot right now. She usually got up before the sun at this time of the year, and knowing how she worked and what she thought, Grant realised that she’d call very soon.

  Painfully walking into the living room he reached for the phone and grabbed it from the base, fearing that it would ring at any moment.

  “Good morning Dot.”