by Marie Browne
It was still very sad to be leaving the hospital and I was almost continually being stopped by people who said, “Oh, I hear you’re being made redundant, that’s awful, I’m so sorry.” I’d met far more people than I’d thought was even possible. I was really going to miss them all and it made me quite maudlin. I had to accept that although I had to apply for this job I didn’t really want it.
Geoff, happy in his job, had decided that shelves were quite a good idea and was now lining the corridor with bookshelves. He was in his element, happy to be building something and didn’t really give me a lot of sympathy.
“Oh do stop moaning, it’s done and there’s nothing you can do about it.” His voice, coming as it was from under a shelf inside a new cupboard he was building next to the bathroom, sounded hollow and muffled.
I addressed his wavering backside. “I know, it’s just sad. Ever since we’ve been here we’ve just bumbled along and we’d got that bumbling down to a fine art. Oh well, if this is the biggest change this year, I suppose I can cope.
His response was too muffled to understand except for the swearing; that was quite audible. Evidently a piece of his wiring system was playing hard to get. He was trying to pull wires through the new woodwork in an attempt to bring light to the darkness in our grot cupboard. It was taking all his attention.
Feeling unloved and misunderstood, I sighed and wandered off to put the kettle on.
Charlie had been in her new job for about two weeks and was clearly enjoying the freedom. Arriving home with strange books on holistic healing or the powers of crystals she had turned into a sixties hippy and would give me long lectures on the importance of ‘grounding’ on your anger chakra or something like that. I did try to keep up, I really did, but as soon as she suggested laying sparkly stones all over me and humming over them I have to admit I made my excuses and did a runner. Sam however, had completely fallen in love with her feet-eating fish. She had treated him to a foot treatment one Saturday. The shop had eight tanks with a small shoal of Garra Rufa fish in each one. The tanks were placed below plush seats and from the slightly worried looks of the women enjoying their treatments I decided to decline. Sam, after shucking his shoes and socks, shuffled onto one of the seats. He studied the fish that were currently swimming below his quivering toes.
“Don’t think about it,” Charlie instructed. “Just plonk them in.”
Sam swallowed hard and after taking a deep breath pushed his feet into the fish-filled and tepid water. As the little fish fastened themselves to his feet his eyes widened and I could see it was taking all of his self-control to leave them in the water.
“How does it feel?” I watched as the shiny little creatures nibbled away at his toes.
Sam thought for a moment. “Like putting your feet into really bubbly lemonade,” he said. “It’s quite nice actually.” He gave a little giggle as one little fish swam between his toes.
Leaving him to it, I went to have a look around the shop: cabinets full of crystals, books, and jewellery lined the walls. Stands of incense flanked the entrance to the treatment room and huge paintings of Buddha smiled benevolently down on those beneath.
Sam’s giggles grew louder and although he tried to stifle them the tickled laughter kept breaking through the gentle sounds of whale song that were drifting through speakers set high in the ceiling.
A tall woman dressed in white poked her head out from the treatments room with a frown.
Sam ignored her and, gripping the cushion on the chair he was sitting on with both hands, howled with laughter. He rocked backward and forward in an effort to force himself to keep his feet in the water.
Thinking he was a paying customer, the woman shook her head and pulled back into the treatment room.
Sam’s laughter was obviously infectious. The woman with her feet in the tank next to Sam’s also started laughing, then the woman across the room. The sound of people giggling was really quite loud.
The curtain was pulled back with some force and the woman in white stepped into the room. Her lips had thinned and two small red patches marked her cheekbones.
“I’m trying to meditate,” she hissed at Charlie.
Charlie shrugged. “Laughter is the best medicine.”
The tall woman gritted her teeth and glared at my irreverent daughter. “I’m going for a coffee,” she said. “I’ll be back when the hootenanny has ceased.” Turning on her heel she stamped toward the door.
“Sorry.” I waited until the door had swung back with a jangling of distressed wind-chimes before I apologised to Charlie. I didn’t want to get her in trouble.
“Ah, don’t worry about it.” Charlie shrugged and carried on measuring out fish food. “She always acts as though she’s got a big stick up her ar–”
“Mum?” Sam lifted his dripping feet out of the water and studied them. “The fish have stopped eating me, does that mean it’s all finished?”
I glanced at Charlie who nodded. “Get your socks and trainers back on.” I really wanted to be out of there before the healer came back.
Sam shrugged and began to put his socks on. “That was really good, Mum, can we do it again next week?” He thought about it for a moment and then asked. “What would happen if I just dangled my feet in the river outside the boat?”
Charlie gave him her sweetest smile. “That pike that lives under the boat would remove your toes.”
Sam swallowed hard, he’d seen those teeth only once. Last year they’d fleetingly formed a ring around a tiny duckling before snapping shut and dragging it to its watery death. He looked down at the fish swimming slowly around their tank. “Thanks for that mental image, Charlie,” he said. “I’ve sort of gone off the idea now. I think I’ll find some other way to keep my feet healthy.”
Health was obviously on all our minds and Amelia was concerned about hers. As the baby grew she was finding it more and more difficult to dash about and, with her exams coming up and her energy levels dropping, I was definitely getting a lot of moaning phone calls.
One fateful day, around the middle of April, she called to tell me that she was in hospital.
I panicked.
“It’s fine, It’s fine!” she soothed me down the phone as I bombarded her with every question I could think of. “He just isn’t moving too much and they want to put me on some machine that goes ‘ping’ for a while just to make sure he’s doing what he should.”
“Do you want me to come over?” I started listing things in my head that I’d need to take.
“Don’t be daft, it’s a two-hundred-mile journey. I’ll be out of here before you even make it halfway.” She laughed which turned into a bit of a cough. “I’ll be fine.” She heaved a heavy sigh down the phone. “I’ve got to go, Chris is here, I’ll call you when I get home.”
With that, she was gone.
I spent the rest of the day completely failing to do anything useful. With all the traumas about my job I’d forgotten how imminent the baby’s arrival was.
Two days later she called me.
“Are you all right?” That was the first question I screamed at her as I answered the phone.
“Er … Yeah?” Amelia sounded puzzled and then her voice changed. “Oh damn, I was going to call you when I got out of the hospital, wasn’t I?” She groaned. “Sorry, Mum, I completely forgot.”
“I’ve sort of had this low-level panic going on for two days,” I said. “I’ve been trying to call you but it just goes through to your answerphone so I assumed that you were still in the hospital.” I huffed at her for a bit. “I was just about to call Chris’s mum and see if she knew what was going on.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Amelia sounded genuinely regretful. There was silence for a moment and then she changed the subject. “So what are you up to?”
“I’m standing in a leaky boat, staring out at the rain and wondering if my daughter and grandson are OK.” I wasn’t going to let her off that easily.
There was silence on the end
of the phone.
“Shall I call you back some other time?” Amelia sounded on the verge of tears.
I caved in immediately. “No, no. Now is good and I’m not mad at you. I was just worried.”
“Chris knew what was going on,” she said as if this was some sort of defence against my being forgotten.
I didn’t want to upset her so I backed off a little, changed the subject and things were fine again.
It was only later that I realised that now, more than ever before, I was no longer her first port of call when the storm winds rose. Her husband was now her anchor and with a baby on the way that state of affairs would cement them into something really strong.
It’s a hard thing to finally let go.
Geoff, for once, had managed to get home early and as usual was using any time that he had to work on the boat. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised when I was handed a paintbrush and invited to help with the varnishing of the new desk. As we were slapping on the sticky substance, I noticed that a dark stain had crept across the ceiling.
“What is that?” I gave it a bit of poke, much to Geoff’s annoyance.
“Condensation,” he said as he gently slapped my hand away. “This boat is a terrible condensation trap and cooking with gas doesn’t help: that just adds to the humidity.”
“Does that mean it can’t be stopped?” Condensation had been our biggest problem since the day we’d bought this boat. The windows always ran with water and, with the lack of heating in the bathroom, every time someone had a shower, the steam would condense on the ceiling and then a gentle rain would fall on us from above. The only way we were going to stop it would be to strip back to an empty shell, completely re-insulate the whole boat, fit new windows, and find an alternative fuel for our cooker. As we didn’t have that sort of money to spare, the chance of this happening any time soon was minimal.
Happy go Lucky , our previous boat, had been much better ventilated and used diesel for cooking and heating. After a few leaks had been got rid of she had been a lovely dry and warm haven. Minerva was older and much less forgiving about giving up her full complement of interesting moulds and spores. I spent a lot of time washing down mouldy walls and cleaning the dirt caused by a mixture of condensation and smuts from the fire from between the metal runners on the windows.
“So how are we going to fix that?” I stared up at the ceiling.
“That’s where I took out that old light you hated.” Geoff studied the small damp patch above his head. “I think I’ve got something that will cover it. Tell you what …” his fingers rasped over his beard as he considered the problem, “… you pop down to the marina and pick up the post and I reckon I can have that fixed by the time you get back.”
Well, that seemed like a good deal.
As I trudged through the rain I could hear Drew’s ancient Honda motorbike making its way down the long drive. I waved to him as he came past me. But soggy, windswept, and intent on getting home, he didn’t see me and I lost sight of him as he went over the hill and down into the marina.
As I rounded the corner, I could hear the bike engine screaming and watched as people ran across the gravel of the marina car park. Increasing my own pace I found Drew lying in a heap on the gravel and ‘Swampy’, his ancient green Honda, was flat on her side with her wheels in the air the engine revving as though trying to take off. A long gouge in the gravel marked the point of upright failure and the subsequent slide and fall.
Stepping over the tantrum-throwing motorcycle I hit the kill switch and the engine sputtered into silence. Bob, one of the boaters that lived in the pond, was already checking Drew over. He looked up at me. “I’ll call an ambulance,” he said.
I nodded and wandered over to talk to Drew who was lying, groaning gently, on the grass beside the track.
I looked into his face and checked that he was conscious. I’ve known this man for a very long time and I know how many bike accidents he’s had. “What’s broken this time?”
He gave a shaky laugh. “Shoulder, maybe both but definitely one wrist.” He winced and hugged the particularly injured arm closer to his side.
I nodded and we chatted for a while about what had happened as we waited for the ambulance to arrive. Eventually I looked up as flashing blue lights turned into the long drive. They were still just under a mile away but from our vantage point we could watch their slow progress down the drive. “Cavalry’s nearly here,” I said.
Drew nodded. Gritting his teeth and scrunching his eyes in pain. He tried to get to his phone. “I need to call Bill.”
I stilled his searching. “I’ll go and pick her up from work; they’ll be taking you into Addenbrookes. We’ll meet you there. I’ve got her number, I’ll call her now and if she doesn’t answer I’ll just go and hammer on the door.”
Drew gave me a shaky grin. “Hey,” he said. “I asked you to do all that without moving my lips.”
“Oh, shut up and get in the ambulance.” I watched as Bob chivvied the paramedics into a decent parking place and then stood away. While the two paramedics checked Drew over, wincing all the while at his terrible jokes, Bob and I pulled Swampy upright and stashed her out of the way. She didn’t look good and how he’d managed to crush both the left and right handlebars, I’ll never know. “Did you actually see him come off?” I asked Bob.
He shook his head. “No. I heard the scrape and crunch and a complete dictionary of swearing and when I looked up he was face down in the gravel.” He shrugged. “Why?”
“Well it’s weird, look at the bike, it looks as though he’s hit both sides of it. Did he flip it? Did it bounce? How on earth do you managed to crush both sides in one accident?
We stared at the bike and then at each other. Well, I doubted if Drew would remember what happened. Leaving the mystery for another day, I waved the ambulance off and, heading to the car, called Geoff to say he would have to pick up the post himself.
Within an hour Bill and I pulled into one of the staff parking places at the hospital. I waved to the nurse who had bandaged my head the night of the duckling-avoidance manoeuvre and she trotted over to see us.
“What have you done this time?” She stared at my head.
“Not me this time, we’re here with her husband.” I gestured vaguely at Bill who was hopping from one foot to the other. “Motorcycle accident …”
“Another one,” Bill grumped with an irritated air.
“… came in by ambulance probably less than half an hour ago?”
The nurse nodded. “Come on, I’ll take you through to him.”
By the time we found him, Drew had taken a fairly large dose of pain killers and was alternating between being in pain and terribly giggly. “I’m really hungry,” he said.
“We’ll get you something when they’ve patched you up.” Bill shook her head at him.
Within a couple of hours Drew was sporting two rather nifty wrist braces and had one arm in a sling.
“Are we done?” I looked up at the doctor and started gathering my things together.
He nodded.
“Is he all right to have something to eat?” I could hear Drew’s stomach rumbling from where I stood about five foot away.
He nodded and shrugged.
“Great, thanks.” I waited until he had wandered off before muttering. “Very informative.”
The hospital has a very large food court and soon Drew was ordering a burger and chips. With Bill holding the food we wandered back to the car. Drew clambered into the front and Bill hopped in the back. We positioned the food on his lap and made sure he was well belted in.
Munching away he seemed very chatty and bright. We drove through Cambridge and headed onto the A14. Concentrating on the road I wasn’t really listening to Drew and Bill’s conversation. It was only when she said, “What the heck are you talking about?” That I swung around to take a look at him.
The hand holding the chips dropped to his lap and, as he passed out, he was, silently, very sick.
Heaving in sympathy I hit the warning flashers and pulled the car on to the hard shoulder of the slip road. Bill and I leapt out of the car and between us man handled a completely unconscious Drew out of the car and into the recovery position on the grass verge.
A large set of headlights pulled up behind us and two very wary police officers climbed out of their car.
It must have looked very suspicious; two women dragging an unconscious man out of a car and towing him toward a dark hedge. It probably looked as though we’d murdered him and were trying to hide the body. It didn’t help that I was still heaving and trying to control my stomach and Bill was desperately trying to get Drew to come round.
The silence continued for a moment. I honestly couldn’t think what to say. Eventually I got my stomach under control and approached the female police officer. “Can you call an ambulance?”
Both police officers stared at me and then glanced at Drew then at each other. One took a step forward and asked, “What’s going on?”
“Oh, for goodness sake,” I yelled at them. “He had a bike accident this afternoon, he’s been in A&E, they’ve just released him, I’m taking them home, and he threw up and then passed out again.” At this they sprang into action, one called for an ambulance the other trotted over to have a look at Drew.
Within five minutes the ambulance had arrived. I couldn’t believe it, it was the same flaming crew that had picked him up from the marina.
“Hello again,” one of them said as they stepped from the cab.
“Not again,” said the other.
After a brief conversation with the paramedics the police took off and Bill and I followed the ambulance back to Addenbrookes.
“This is ridiculous.” Bill stopped me as I was about to get out of the car. “You go home. We could be here for hours.”
I got the feeling that worrying about me being bored and fed up was playing on her mind so I nodded. “OK, just make sure you ring me when you need a lift home.”
She gave me a hug and took off back toward the emergency department. I was just getting back in the car when my phone rang.