As we pull into the car park, I can’t believe that I’m back at the same hospital I was discharged from only this morning. I’d feel sheepish if I weren’t so worried. When we stop, I go round to the boot to pull out Mr Green’s wheelchair, but he calls to me, ‘Never mind that – let’s just get in there.’
I consider this for a moment and decide that I’ll have to put my foot down. I walked through this building just a few hours ago, and some of those corridors feel like they’re half a mile long. ‘It’ll be quicker in the end,’ I tell him, and just carry on with it.
I’ve already got the wheelchair on the tarmac and mostly unfolded when the passenger-side door swings open, propelled by Mr Green’s stiff, outstretched arm. It hits the car parked next to mine with a heavy thump. I hold my tongue. When he finally gets himself upright, he sees me standing behind the chair and grunts, but sits in it anyway. I lock the car and we set off towards the hospital building.
When we get inside and ask for directions, it turns out that I was right about the chair: Mrs Joe is deep in the guts of the hospital. I push Mr Green through the corridors and try to ignore my own soreness. He is silent the whole time, gripping his walking stick in his lap. He hasn’t said much since I picked him up; our longest conversation was when he asked what happened to my face, and I told him only the bare minimum about that.
We find the ward and approach the nurse at the main desk. I tell her who we’re here for. She looks dubious. ‘It’s a bit late. Are you family?’
‘Friends.’
She flicks through some papers on a clipboard. ‘I shouldn’t really let you. She’s sedated anyway.’
Mr Green taps his walking stick against the frame of his wheelchair.
‘Is her son here?’ I ask.
‘I’m not sure.’
‘About five feet ten, in his fifties, probably wearing a big duffel coat.’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Can we at least talk to him?’
‘I’ll let him know you’re here.’
She disappears along the corridor and round a corner. About thirty seconds later, Joe appears from the same direction. He sees us and stops.
‘All right, mate?’ I ask him.
He stands still, watches me.
‘Joe?’
He takes a step, then another, then another. His steps pick up speed and soon he moves faster than I’ve ever seen him move before. He lumbers towards me, his arms pump. He gets to within a couple of metres and I think, ‘He must stop now,’ but instead of stopping, he lowers his head and screams out, ‘Yeearghhhh!’
He butts me in the middle of the chest and I fall on my arse.
The successive impacts of skull on ribcage and floor on backside amplify the pain of my injuries from dull ache to blinding agony. I scream. Joe belly-flops onto me like a professional wrestler. I scream again.
‘You called the doctor!’ he bawls into my ear. ‘You called the doctor and put her in the hospital! You made her poorly!’
‘Joe, I didn’t do anything.’
‘You’re lying. You called the doctor!’
‘I didn’t call any doctors.’
‘You did! You took his number to call him. I saw you with my beady eye. You thought I was asleep, but I was watching you!’
There’s a sharp crack from somewhere above. ‘Joseph! Stop that at once!’
Joe’s lips stretch back across his face in the ugly grin of someone about to burst into tears, and he rolls off me clutching and scrabbling at the back of his thighs.
Mr Green stands over us, walking stick aloft. ‘Any more of that and I’ll knock you on the head too. It was me who called the doctor.’
—
In all the rush to pick up Mr Green and drive over here, I didn’t think to ask him what actually happened, or how he knew where Mrs Joe was. If I had, I might have learned the truth and been prepared for a hostile reception from Joe. As it is, I have more bruises for my collection.
‘I was worried about what you’d said. I tried to call you first – I thought you were going to give me a lift over there, like we talked about – but there was no answer,’ said Mr Green.
‘I was in hospital.’
‘Well, I know that now, don’t I? So I telephoned there, but he answered.’ Mr Green looks over at Joe, who feeds coins into the vending machine on the other side of the hospital cafeteria. ‘He kept telling me she was asleep. Now, I’ve known that woman for over forty years and she does not sleep in the middle of the day.’ He slaps his hand on the tabletop, as if sleeping in the middle of the day were a clear sign of immorality. ‘So I called the surgery.’
‘And they sent someone to see her?’
‘Aye, but not till this bloody morning! Some emergency call-out, eh?’
‘I’m surprised they bothered at all.’
‘Well, I was insistent. It’s about time somebody made a fuss on her behalf.’
I pick up a salt shaker and turn it over in my hand. ‘So what happened?’
‘They telephoned me at lunchtime, said that Mrs Joe had a collapse when the doctor arrived and she was on her way to hospital.’
‘A collapse?’
‘She was none too pleased to see him. I think we can both imagine how it happened.’
‘Aye.’
At the vending machine, Joe watches the tea dribble in to the last of three flimsy plastic cups. When it’s ready, he lifts it out of the hatch, places it on an adjacent table with the other two, and struggles to gather them all up between both hands. I’d better help him or there’ll be third-degree burns to add to the growing list of devastation. I go over and take a cup from him. He doesn’t say anything, but he follows me back to the table and sits down with us.
There’s a moment of silence and then Joe pushes the change across the table. ‘Thanks for the money, Mr Green.’
‘You’re welcome, Joe. Do you have anything else to say?’
Joe stares into his lap. ‘I’m sorry I went mental.’
‘I’m glad to hear it.’
‘But you shouldn’t have called the doctor. It was meddling.’
‘Bloody hell, Joe. Don’t you see that someone had to meddle?’
‘She doesn’t like it!’
‘Look, Joe,’ I break in, ‘I know she doesn’t like it when people stick their noses in her business. And normally when that happens, she tells them where to go, right?’
‘She bloody does!’
‘Exactly. But this time she couldn’t do it, could she?’
‘She was really angry, but she couldn’t talk.’
‘That’s not normal, is it, Joe?’
‘No.’ He shrugs and looks back at his lap.
‘So mebbes she does need some looking after, eh?’
‘Mebbes.’
‘Then drink your tea and stop being a daft bastard, right.’
Joe takes a slurp of the grey tea and curls his lip. ‘It’s not as good as me mam’s.’
‘Nothing ever is, son,’ Mr Green tells him.