The next evening Cassie and Callum went for Sunday dinner at her grandmother’s.
Afterwards, they agreed to Cassie’s suggestion of Monopoly. She was guiltily aware of the two of them deliberately avoiding the subject of her mum, knowing she found it difficult, but she was grateful for the simple interaction that playing a daft game allowed them.
‘Brawo!’ said Babcia, clapping her hands as Cassie’s throw landed her little dog on Mayfair, which her grandmother owned. Peering over her glasses at her card she said, ‘Let me see, with one house . . . you owe me £200 rent.’
Cassie counted her few remaining notes – she’d had an unlucky run of throws. ‘Um, can I owe it to you till I pass Go?’
‘Sorry, tygrysek, rules are rules.’ Her grandmother’s eyes glittered with acquisitive glee. ‘You could give me one of your properties instead?’
‘Babcia! You’re ruthless! Dad – lend me some cash?’
Callum shook his head, pulling a rueful grin. ‘Sorry, Catkin, you won’t catch me getting between you and Nana Rachman there.’
Cassie had to mortgage two properties to pay her debt, grumbling, ‘This is the closest I’ll ever get to having an actual mortgage.’
Callum’s go landed him on King’s Cross station. Cassie whooped – as the closest property on the board to Camden Town she had snapped it up – but Callum had gone very quiet.
‘Come on, Dad, it’s only £25 and you’re loaded.’
Callum half rose from his chair before his legs folded and he half sank, half collapsed to the floor.
‘Dad!!’
The next few minutes were a flurry of panicked activity. Cassie kept it together enough to check he was still breathing and had a decent pulse – Thank God! – while Babcia called 999. The sight of his pale and sweaty face made her chest hurt. ‘Come on, Dad, wake up,’ she murmured.
Eventually, he opened his eyes and managed a smile. ‘Hello, Catkin. What’s occurring?’
*
At A & E, the nurse, who recognised her, sent them straight to resus – which dealt with potentially life-threatening emergencies. Callum had recovered some during the ten-minute ambulance ride and by the time a junior doctor arrived in their curtained alcove to take a history he was almost back to normal although still candlewax pale.
‘I just had a funny turn is all,’ he told the doctor. ‘I don’t want to waste your time.’
‘We’ll see,’ she said dismissively, looking at her clipboard rather than him. ‘Is this the only time that you have lost consciousness recently?’ Her accent was the kind that took years of private schooling to acquire.
‘Yeah, unless you count a bender I went on in 1995.’ Grinning, he sought the doctor’s eyes but she ignored him.
Cassie wanted to slap her. She could only be in her twenties but she was already the type of medic who saw herself as superior to the grubby masses, no doubt on a fast track to private practice at the first opportunity.
‘Any nausea or vomiting?’ she asked.
‘No.’ Callum shook his head.
‘Dad, you threw up at Babcia’s a couple of days ago!’
He was sat in a chair with Cassie standing behind him, giving her a view of the top of his head. She noticed that he’d lost more hair in just the last couple of weeks – and the bald patches were randomly spaced, which wasn’t typical of male pattern hair loss. Running a hand through his hair in what looked like a simple gesture of affection, she found it came away holding a couple of dozen dark curly strands.
Nausea, hair loss, fainting . . .
Jesus! She broke into the doctor’s next question. ‘Dad, remember you complained that your tea tasted funny? What about other drinks?’
The doctor huffed. ‘I’m sorry—’
Cassie cut her off with a chopping gesture.
‘Now you mention it, drinks do taste a bit off. Food sometimes too.’
‘Metallic tasting?’
His eyes widened. ‘Yeah, how do you know?’
The doctor had turned a furious red. ‘Now, look here—’
‘Look, I’m pretty sure my dad has overdosed on zinc supplements. How many of those tabs do you take in a day, Dad?’
‘Oh, maybe five, six? The more the better right?’
‘You’re only meant to take one.’ She turned to the officious medic. ‘If he’s been taking five or six of the tabs I gave him every day that’s 150 grams a day.’
‘A zinc overdose?’ She sent Cassie a death-ray stare. ‘That is highly unlikely. I’m going to run checks for myocardial infarction. A heart attack, in layman’s terms.’
Cassie opened her hand under the snooty medic’s nose to show her the dark hairs still clutched there. ‘Does a heart attack make your hair fall out?’