Visiting Time

This story contains themes of grief, loss, and trauma. Mentions a car accident, death, physical injuries, and emotional pain.

Early Sunday morning, the bus station is quiet with just the remains of last night's takeaway wrappers rolling around the stands, like dirty greasy passengers who’ve disembarked but have nowhere to go. The November chill turns my breath into little lost clouds and the slight breeze carries the scent of autumn, tickling my nostrils. Of all the places to be on a Sunday morning, this isn’t what I’d choose. I’d much rather be snuggled in bed, warm and content, my arms around Jenny.

A lonely pigeon with half its leg missing ambles lopsidedly past me and I follow it to the peeling old information board near the entrance, the toughened perspex cover etched with expletives and details of who in our small town is sleeping with who. I search the cryptic riddles of the timetables, ignoring that ‘Grace is a whore’ and that ‘Beth luvs Gary’, and attempt to decipher which bus, what stand, and how long.

I’m still standing there like someone who’s never caught a bus before when I feel a presence at my side, almost out of nowhere. I haven’t seen a soul until now, even the kiosk isn’t open yet. “Can’t quite find where I need to be,” I say without looking.

There’s a pause, and then “Isn’t that always the way?” I turn and to my right is a man, much older than me, he wears an old greatcoat and sucks on a pipe that hangs from the corner of his mouth. “Buses aren’t what they were, when you knew where you were going, and how to get there.”

“You’re telling me. I need to get to the hospital,” I say to him.  

The man smiles, his horn-rimmed glasses cling to his cold looking nose and he brushes a dew drop from the end of it. “Stand 8B,” he says, “not sure what good it will do you though.”

I trace my finger over the timetable, and sure enough, stand 8B, there’s a bus due in ten minutes. “Thank you, I’d never have found it,” I turn and smile at the man, but he’s gone already, just the scent of his pipe tobacco lingers. The one and half legged pigeon scratches around my feet and I look up and down the entrance area wondering what the man’s parting comment might have meant. The old boy must be nifty on his pins though, he’s nowhere to be seen. I shrug and set off for stand 8B.

After a minute or two, a few more people arrive at the bus stand. A man with two children - a teenage girl who looks like she’d rather be somewhere else and a young boy, about six years old, who’s fiddling with a red toy car. The boy looks up at me and smiles for a moment, the father, his expression blank, ignores me, the daughter ignores both her father and the boy and gazes at her shoes. In addition to the family trio, there’s a man in biker’s leathers carrying what appears to be a plastic bag full of empty milk bottles, an elderly lady with a bunch of yellow carnations, and a much younger woman, still in her Saturday night outfit, smudged eye makeup and no coat. I smile to myself, remembering how it was back in the day.

The bus arrives and I stand aside to let the man with the little boy and sulky teenager get on first. They show their tickets and I follow, the lank haired, downtrodden looking driver barely looks at us as we embark. I’m just glad to be on my way to see Jenny.

I take a seat near the back of the bus and settle myself in for the hour-long journey. It’s not fully daylight and my reflection looks back at me in the darkened window, reminding me of the shiny purple bruise on my forehead, so lucky to have escaped so lightly. The engine fires up and the bus starts to move away. The woman with the yellow carnations clutches her handbag and shakes her head as she glances across the aisle at the Saturday night girl who’s pulled herself into a ball in the seat opposite, her pale bare arms wrapped around her naked legs, her scanty blue dress barely enough to keep a mouse warm. She rests her head against the glass and I see her baleful expression reflected. I turn my gaze away, back to my own reflection but it’s gone as the lights from the street wash it away.

Daylight finally breaks and the bus makes its way, stopping at what feels like every hundred yards as it collects more people. The bottles in the biker man’s bag clink softly with every bump in the road, and the teenage girl and her father murmur to each other, the boy in the seat behind them. His father and sister pay him no heed as he shuffles and twitches then turns on his knees to face the back of the bus and begins to make a low brumming sound, his lips vibrating as he runs his toy car along the back of the seat. I watch, remembering the joy of innocent youth but as the little car travels backwards and forwards my mind awakens a little more, as absorbed as I am in my journey, my thoughts turn to Jenny and our own little car.

Jenny and I are lucky, our small Renault not so much, and I don’t expect to see it again given the state it was in when the recovery truck took it away. Jenny never did like that car, she said it had a bad aura. We’ll choose another car when she’s out of hospital, something that she likes, once her leg and everything else is mended… we can both look forward to that. If only that dog hadn’t run out in front of us, if only I’d driven slower, if only that tree hadn’t been there…

It’s getting busier now, the bus is almost full and I’m pulled into the present by a scrabbling under the seat. It’s the boy, down on the floor, his legs sticking into the aisle and his head just inches from my knees. “Are you okay down there?” I ask, craning my head to see what he’s doing.

“Lost my car… it went under here I think,” the boy glances up at me, then carries on his search.

I move my feet to one side, “Does that help?”

“Nah, I’ve bloody well gone and lost it,” the boy gets up off the floor and plonks himself in the empty space next to me. “That was my best car that was. Dad will be mad at me for losing it,” he rubs his eyes with the back of his hand.

“Is that your dad down there, with your sister?” I ask him.

“Yeah, that’s them. We’re going to the hospital to visit mum. What will I tell dad about the car?” Just at that moment the bus brakes hard and we surge forward in our seats and then jolt back. The boy looks down as the little red car comes trundling down the aisle, quick as anything he jumps down and grabs it. “Got it! Now dad won’t be so cross.”

“Maybe keep it in your pocket so you’ve no more accidents with it,” I say.

“That’s what dad says. Says I get into too many accidents and it’ll be the death of me one day,” he smiles and then shrugs his little shoulders. “Me and mum had an accident, so she’s in the hospital, but I’m not.” He rolls the car over his arm, then puts it in his pocket. “I better go back. Thanks for helping find my car.”  

“Hope your mum’s okay,” I say as he shuffles back to the seat behind his dad and sister. I see him say something to them but they don’t turn around, they’re both looking straight ahead, the girl’s head on her father’s shoulder. The boy slumps down in his seat and gets the car back out of his pocket and proceeds to drive it around the swirly patterns of the bus seat, brumming as he goes.

The district hospital comes into view, a sentinel of late sixties concrete architecture, tired and poorly looking, just like the people inside it. As the bus doors hiss and clank open, my fellow passengers pour out onto the wide footpath outside the main entrance, then filter their way through the glass doors into the hospital. The little boy tags along behind his father and sister, and the Saturday night girl in the blue dress, still hugging herself, rushes inside. The cold air hits me as I step off the bus, and so does the smell of tobacco from people smoking outside the doors, some in dressing gowns, one guy on a mobile drip, along with visitors and bored looking taxi drivers.

Stepping inside the hospital is like entering another dimension. From a sleepy Sunday morning, suddenly I’m in another world entirely. People are rushing, phones are ringing, children crying, frustrated voices reach a crescendo, and that smell, that triggering hospital smell, clinical, but there’s something unclean about it, a weird mix of scrubbed and disinfected staff and equipment, and the great unwashed populous, blown in from the street.

I get my bearings and follow the signs to the female ward, taking the steps to the fifth floor as it seems the lift doors won’t stay open for me. I reach the ward and then stop as reality hits me. My darling Jenny, so badly injured in the crash, and me with barely a scratch. A burly looking nurse bustles through the double doors. I pull myself together and follow.

The ward has eight beds in it, four along each side. All of them are full and there are people dotted around each one, carrying flowers and cards and fruit. I feel bad that I never got anything for Jenny, but things have happened so quickly and I just wanted to get here, to see her and know that she’s okay.

Jenny is in the bed next to the windows overlooking the car park. Her plastered right leg is held up by some sort of winch and her left arm, also in plaster, lies across her chest in a sling. Beneath her nightdress I can see bruises on her chest where the airbag hit her, and her face carries the deep blue and purple hues that she sustained in the impact. I silently move towards her. She’s sleeping and I’m not sure what to do. I so want to let her know that I’m here and that everything is going to be okay. I sit down in the green vinyl chair at the right of the bed and tentatively take her left hand. It feels warm and full of life and I feel heartened just to be with her, to feel the softness of her skin. My beautiful Jenny, still there beneath the bruises and the plaster.

Around the bed opposite, the family from the bus are assembled. The father sits in the chair, his daughter perched on the side of the bed. The woman in the bed looks pale, her red eyes etched deep into her face. The little boy stands at the other side of the bed stroking his mother’s arm, his toy car in the other hand.

There’s a small movement and my attention turns swiftly back to Jenny. Her hand flurries across the sheets to her eyes, now open, she’s rubbing them, wincing with the pain as she touches the swollen parts of her face.

“Jenny, Jenny darling, it’s me. How are you?” That’s a stupid question I know, but it’s the first thing that comes into my head. I look up to see if there’s a doctor or anyone in charge, and see the nurse from earlier, followed by a younger nurse making their way through the ward. After a moment, I recognised the second nurse, it’s the Saturday night girl from the bus, now in her nurse's uniform, her face scrubbed clean, like she’s polished it. They both make their way to Jenny’s bed.

“Good morning Mrs Schofield,” says the first nurse, “I’m Susan, and this is Debbie,” she indicates the Saturday night girl who is now a nurse, “we’ll both be looking after you today.”

“Jenny, please, call me Jenny,” Jenny's voice sounds dry and sore and nurse Susan pours some water into a cup from the plastic jug on the bedside unit.

“It’s good to see you awake Jenny,” nurse Susan continues as she hands her the water, “you’ve been through a lot, don’t try to say too much, you need to rest.”

“Where’s Steve, is he in this hospital too?” Jenny sips the water, licks her dry lips.

“I’m here love, you just woke up,” I smile at her.

Nurse Susan turns to nurse Debbie, “Debbie, please can you go and let doctor Baines know that Mrs Schofield is awake. He’ll want to talk to her,” and Saturday night nurse Debbie heads away back down the ward.

Jenny asks again. “Do you know where Steve is? My husband, Steve Schofield?”

Nurse Susan sits in the chair at the other side of the bed.

“What’s wrong with her?” I ask as a wave of love and concern floods over me, worried that her head injuries are more serious than I’d thought.

“You were in a car crash,” nurse Susan looks at Jenny and gives a small smile, “do you remember anything about it?”

“I’m not sure, yes, some of it, I think…” Jenny’s face has lost all of its wonder and life, like it's been wiped away and then repainted with the murkiest colours from the paint box.

“Jenny love,” nurse Susan pauses a moment and Jenny’s face begins to crumple. “Jenny, love, I’m so sorry, but your husband, Steve, he died last night.”

Both Jenny and I stare at nurse Susan. An overwhelming sense of nausea takes hold of me, like something is incredibly wrong and no one knows except for me. “No, no,” but my words dissolve in the sterile air. I try again, “Jenny,” the word hangs in my throat, like it won’t move into my mouth, “Jenny… I’m… here…”

Jenny makes a sound that I’ve never heard her make before, a sickening wail of despair, full of something deep and unfathomable, a sound of desperate hopelessness that belongs only in hell, not a sound that should come from Jenny.

Nurse Susan gets up and pulls the curtain around the bed. “I’m so sorry Jenny,” she says, “he sustained a head injury and huge internal bleeding. They did everything they could, but he passed away in the ambulance. He was unconscious, he wouldn’t have been in any pain.”

Tears are running down Jenny’s face and she stares straight ahead, like something has taken everything away and left her with pain and nothing else. I get up and wrap my arms around her shoulders, sobbing, like I’ve never wept before. How can this be happening? I kneel on the floor and lay my head next to Jenny’s, her poor injured face. I want to kiss away all the pain but something isn’t right, she turns her head towards me, tears streaming over her wounds. “I love you Jenny,” the words move across my lips and touch hers. She blinks, then shuts her eyes, tears still seeping through her closed lids. I kiss her eyelids, smell the scent of her hair, feel her softness, but I have gone, have no place, and as the curtains open and the doctor and nurse Debbie approach the bed, I rise to my feet and move aside.

I can see the doctor speaking to Jenny, he holds her hand, his voice is soft and low and I can’t hear him. I can’t hear what the people around the ward are saying, it’s just a warped, indistinguishable hum, and I can’t hear what nurse Susan is saying to nurse Debbie, and Jenny lies silent, still, and full of tears.

I leave the ward not knowing where I’m going, lost in some otherly place, alone and empty, the bright white walls of the corridor fill my vision and I’m walking in a straight line to wherever it’s taking me. Then, I see the boy, he's sitting by himself on a plastic chair at the side of the corridor. “Hello again,” I say. He looks up at me, eyes swollen with tears, his little toy car in his hand.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” I say to the poor little mite, “where’s your dad and your sister?”

“They’ve gone. They just left me. I’m all on my own,” his voice is a whimper, “and mum didn’t even say anything to me. She just cried, and then dad cried too, and my sister got all upset and nobody even said anything to me.”

I crouch down so that my eyes are level with his, both of us, filled with tears. “Come on mate,” I say to him and offer him my hand, “I think there’s somewhere we both need to go.”

“Where?” His eyes are full of questions. “My mum won’t talk to me and dad has gone and I don’t know how to get home on my own.”

“I’m not sure, but I think we can find the way,” I’m trying to convince myself just as much as him, “and there’ll be people there that we know, maybe that we haven’t seen for a long time.”

“Really?”

“Yes, I reckon so, and they’ll take care of us.” I give the boy a smile and hope and pray that I’m right.

 The boy puts his toy car in his pocket and slides down off the chair, he gives me his hand and together we walk down the bright white corridor, both making our way to somewhere beyond the light.