Blackout

It was early December and cold with it. Rob had driven down from his place in the Chilterns and got me there just before the deadline. He’d been about to go out that evening and wore a long black jacket with square shoulders and embroidered cuffs over tapered trousers and pointed shoes. I’d not seen him for the best part of a year and felt bad about him seeing me in my stained orange sweater and cords with flecks of mud round the bottoms. At the same time I was kind of proud this elegant young guy of twenty four was my son. 

I was happy for him to leave me at the door but he said he’d promised Wendy not to let me out of his sight till it was all through. One fall is enough, she’d said. 

More than anything else, I was mystified. How come, when I was leaving those flats, I remembered tripping over a step in the ex-convent next door? It couldn’t have been more than five or ten minutes, but what happened in between? Who knows? 

Rob and I made our way past the ambulances and into A and E. It was nearly 6. I checked in at Reception and he went into the waiting room. 

“And you lost consciousness for five to ten minutes,“ said the receptionist, tapping away and not looking up. 

“No, “ I said. “I must have been conscious, mustn’t I? I was walking out of the flats along with other people. I didn’t come to lying on the floor or anything. I wasn’t out cold.“ 

“Memory loss,“ she wrote.

That seemed nearer the mark.

“Maybe,“ I said. “I’m not sure.“

She looked up from her computer and gave me a cold look.

“Memory loss,“ she said.

When I went into the big room, Rob was sitting against the far wall talking to a young woman with long dark hair. She was in stitches. He pointed to an empty seat not too far away. The place was rammed. I felt relieved we weren’t sitting together, him in his finery and me a tramp.

I put my head back and closed my eyes. It had been a hectic few hours. At the end of the session, I’d left them at the office and caught a bus home. If I’d done myself any damage, I’d have realised. But I gave it longer, just to play safe. Got some lunch, looked at Facebook, wiped the bird shit off the tops of the feeders, refilled them and did other things. Nothing adrift. 

Mind you, I remembered thinking, I might be wrong. Wendy would have been the first to tell me if I was different in some way. But she was trekking in Malawi – three months this time. I know she does it to get away from me, but we both play along with the lie that mountaineering is her one passion in life. It suits us both.

So I had no one around to let me know if I was turning into a zombie. – And it wasn’t as if I could pop next door and ask whether they’d noticed any change in me. 

I’d been catching up on stuff when the phone rang. It was Wendy. – Not long back, she said, from a hike up Mount Mulanje. She asked how I was doing and I told her about the fall. “Sounds serious,” she said. “Ring 111. How long since it happened?“ 

I told her five hours. She said I’d been stupid to leave it. ‘If they want you to go to A and E,’ she said, ‘and say someone must go with you, tell them Rob. I’ll phone him this minute.’ 

When I opened my eyes, the dark girl had gone and Rob was signalling me to come and sit by him. I thanked him again for dropping everything. 

“No problem,“ he replied. “Glad to help. Mum really scared me. Had you hanging somewhere between life and death. She made me promise on a stack of Playboys to get here as soon as possible.” 

“She does pile it on,“ I said.

“Always has. Should have realised.“

“Too bad it’s meant you missing your party,“ I said. 

“Goes on all night,“ he replied. “I’ll get there. No sweat.“

For the first time I took a good look around the room. I’d expected to see more people dead worried, but most of them looked blank. A black woman in front of me had her head on a man’s shoulder and coughed from time to time. There was a lot of it about that evening. Two along from me another woman was barking away. “We’ll be lucky if we get out of here unscathed,“ I whispered to Rob. “We come in fit and free from infection as they say and leave with God knows what.“ He nodded vaguely, lost in something on his phone. 

The only thing was there was no gore. I’d expected the odd lacerated arm with blood trickling through a dressing, a spiked eyeball, that sort of thing. We were in a place called “A and E“, after all. But no emergencies, no accidents anywhere – visible ones at least. Seeing these resigned people slumped all around me, they could’ve been passengers at Luton waiting for a delayed flight.

I felt cheated of the distress I’d anticipated. Had I seen too TV soaps about US emergency rooms? Or was life in New York genuinely more dangerous than in North London? Probably. 

All the same, the lack of blood was a relief. It always turns me up. Even a cut finger and I get wobbly. If there had been dripping limbs that night, I know for sure I’d have fainted – gone straight out. 

An hour or so dragged by.

“Doris Atherton!“ someone called out from the business end of the room. I didn’t see her face, only the back of an old woman on the arm of maybe her husband. They both looked shrunken, and as it seemed to me, not long for this or indeed any world. What did she have wrong with her? Fishbone stuck in throat like the queen mum? Alcohol poisoning? Total loss of will to live? I gave up after a while. I only did it because it helped pass the time.

I’d told Rob it was a false alarm – just Mum taking her usual totally unnecessary precautions. But now I wondered. After all, the 111 people hadn’t taken it lightly, otherwise we wouldn’t be here. I moved my neck this way and that a bit. There was definitely something not right. And the top of my head was throbbing …

“It’s hot in here,“ I said to Rob.

“Hadn’t noticed.“

I warned him things might not be plain sailing. 

“OK,“ he said.

I wished I’d brought something to read. Even the Mail’s sports pages would’ve been better than nothing. Judging by their expressions, all the younger people there had masses of fascinating stuff on their phones, but I only ever use mine for the odd phoning and texting. I’d often asked myself if I’d have been better off without it. “On bus now“. “Home in ten.“ Was it worth carrying around this expensive piece of kit for things like this? If like Rob I’d been locked in camaraderie with five hundred others, things might have been different. But I wasn’t. I only ever contacted Wendy, Boots, the dentist or Pizza Express. Over three hours had now passed and I was bored stiff.

I was also hungry. Someone behind me said the vending machine was out of order. They’d put money in for crisps and not got it back. They’d probably done something stupid and it was in fact OK, but I didn’t want to take the risk. I rooted in my back pack and found some extra strong mints.

“Like one?“ I asked Rob.

“I’m good,“ he said, scrolling.

For a moment I felt cold air on my face. A boy of about six was standing near the entrance, making the automatic doors open and close. He’s probably been in that room for hours and was as bored as I was. I didn’t mind personally, but why didn’t his parents tell him to stop? Because it kept him out of their hair, I guessed. Even so, you’d think they’d have brought him up to have some concern for others. We’re not in this world for fun, after all. 

Four hours in and they called my name. Rob was joking with the girl he’d met earlier who’d now come back. He said he’d stay where he was. He knew he’d made that promise but I’d be OK once I went through that door.

The cramped area behind it was filled with cubicles. Medics were milling around the space between the two rows. They sent me off for a brain scan. Then they put me in a cubicle and wired me up to check my heart. From behind the plastic curtain, I heard snatches of a man’s voice. “Yes, you are correct, I am from Mongolia,“ He was well-spoken, with a slight accent. I was busting a gut to hear more, but that’s all there was.

They told me to wait outside. Rob was on his own again. He eased his long thin legs back to let me through.

“Where’s your lady friend?“ I asked.

“Gone in again. Hopes it’s not cancer.“

“Jesus,“ I said. “Poor thing.“

“Right,“ he said.

I looked round the company. There was a short, thick-set man standing near Reception. He was wearing a padded jacket and had a dark beanie pushed back on his head. His face looked kind of Chinese. 

What was a Mongolian doing in our A and E, anyway? And how come he spoke so well? 

I could see he was aware I was staring at him and I turned away. 

“Sorry it’s taking so long,“ I said to Rob. 

“We’ll get there,“ he said. “Any of those mints left?“

We got talking.

I was pleased he was in a chattier mood. It had been a long time since we’d last met. He told me the video games business was going great guns. He and the other two guys were making a packet. Only trouble was, he was in a bad place with the poker. 

“Come again?“ I said.

“Lost some.“

“How much?“ I asked. 

“Could be worse,“ he said. “Twenty-nine grand.“

I was knocked back.

“What you going to do?“ I said.

“Not sure,“ he replied. “It’s not easy, seeing how things are. At least we’ve a chance to talk it through…“

He paused.  

“I’d been wondering…. About Gran’s money she left … now the house is being sold and all..“

“You’re asking for thirty thousand?“ I said, trying, but failing, to keep my voice down. People in the rows ahead were looking round.

“You’ll get it back,“ he said.

“Doris Atherton!“ someone called again.

Before I could get any further with Rob, they called me too. Rob said he was tired and would stay behind like last time. “They’ll look after you,“ he said. “They always do.“

An elderly Indian doctor told me the brain scan was clear and so was the ECG except one of the results was not normal. They’d have to re-do it using a different procedure. From the look on his face I picked up it could be serious. I was asked to wait inside. 

I sat there getting more and more agitated. The only people near me were a man a bit older than myself half propped up and half asleep in a bed on wheels, and his wife. His face was a darkish grey and he was dribbling from the side of his mouth. Whenever I looked their way, his wife gave me a sad smile. Was this some kind of holding area for no hopers like him and me? 

My mind went back to Rob. Instead of skulking out there eyeing up some girl or other, he should have been here with me in this last chance saloon. That’s what decent people do, I thought, seeing the lady looking back at me again. They’re with them whatever –  as comforters, carers, eyelid closers. I imagined what Wendy would be saying if she’d heard how he kept his promise. 

At least being on my own I could think things over. He’d often asked me for money, and usually managed to screw it out of me, but never a sum like this. Plus he’d always told us the business netted him four thousand a week. We’d been over to Little Gaddesden and seen what this meant. A beamed five-bedroom “cottage“ as he called it, big enough for the most sociable of bachelors. Everything he could ever have wanted – fine dining a stone’s throw away, a Porsche and a BMW, Caribbean holidays whenever. He’d be able to cope on his own with that kind of money. Even if it meant a short loan. – And not from me, I mean.

When I saw the doctor coming down the corridor, I could smell it was bad news. He took a long time getting to the point and I didn’t need all that stuff about the alternative procedure, but that’s the kind of man he was. Surprise surprise though, I was in the clear. All double checked and nothing to worry about. I could go home.

I did a punch in the air. The wife of the man in the bed was still giving me that creepy smile. “Hope all is tickety-boo for you both too,“ I said. 

Rob had managed to get a cheese sandwich from somewhere. When he saw me come out he bit into the remaining triangle.

“I’m OK,“ I told him. “Been discharged.“

“Right,“ he said.

When I said I couldn’t bail him out, he spat back that I might want to think twice.

“Meaning?“ I asked.

“Meaning what I say,“ he replied. 

It was freezing cold walking back with him to the BMW. After six hours, I was glad to be going home. I said again how grateful I was he came down so quickly. 

“And all for nothing as it turned out,“ I added. From the look he gave me I could see he’d taken it the wrong way.

I tried to change the mood. “At least if it’s an all-night do, you’ll be there for a good part of it. It’s only just gone midnight.“

“Yeah,“ he said, feeling for his keys as we got to the car. He clapped me on the shoulder. 

This made me lose my footing on the frozen surface and I tripped over. 

He helped me up.

“You OK? “

“It really hurts,“ I said. “…I don’t know. I can’t stand on my foot.“

“You’ll be OK,“ said Rob, holding open the passenger door. “I’ll get you home pronto.“

“I think I may have broken it. We’d better get it checked out.“

“Another of your false alarms, I expect,“ he said.

He helped me limp past the ambulances. The swing doors opened automatically and we went back into the waiting room. 

“Things’ll be winding down time I get there,“ he said. “Send me a text, OK?“

As he was leaving, a nurse came out from the treatment area. 

“Doris Atherton!“

I spent the next two or three hours turning over and over Rob’s threat. What did he have in mind? 

When I was called for the second time, the doctor tried to cheer me up by saying it was the sportsman’s injury – in their lingo a fracture of the fourth and fifth metatarsal. I came home by taxi at 4.30 with a surgical boot on my left foot, slept in my clothes and had nightmares about Rob and a Mongolian enforcer. I don’t often sweat, but I was woken up by the phone, drenched. It was Wendy ringing from some hunting lodge.

“Promise me you’ll not take it off till I get back,“ she said. “You should be more careful at your age about not falling. The one saving grace in this sorry story is that Rob was there for you throughout.“