Narrow Minds (33 page)

Geoff nodded and slumped sideways into the warm spot I had just vacated. ‘Yes please.'

Ten minutes later he had a mug of tea and a handful of paracetamol (we were going through the things like travel sweets). I stood up and put my coat on. ‘I've got to go and get the kids.' I pulled on my hat and gloves. ‘Will you be all right?'

Geoff nodded. ‘I think I'll just sleep.' He shuffled carefully into a more comfortable position. ‘Ouch!' He sighed. ‘If I can.'

‘Hmm, where's the pain?' I looked up from ferreting around under the sofa with a pair of fur-lined boots in my hand.

‘Right down the bottom,' Geoff gasped, ‘I can't move it at all.'

I checked my watch, I was going to be late. ‘I'll pick up some stronger painkillers for you.'

Geoff nodded then closed his eyes.

In the chemist, I hedged my bets and bought the strongest painkillers they would sell me, more cold and flu tablets, various painkilling creams and some Ibuprofen. (I decided that if all this was going on I was probably going to get a headache as well.) I was just about to pay when a display of boxes caught my eye.

‘Is that a TENS machine?' I asked the woman behind the counter. She nodded and taking one from the pile opened it for me to look at.

‘They're very good,' she said, ‘they get rid of all sorts of pains.'

‘I used one when I was in labour, it worked well, are they good for backache too?' I studied the little blue machine nestled in its polystyrene nest.

‘Excellent.' The assistant smiled, she took out the four little sticky pads and plugged each one into a wire which she then plugged into the machine. ‘These little pads send out a small current and if you put them around the area of pain, they stimulate the nerves and block out pain.' She frowned. ‘I think that's how it works.'

I hesitated, thinking of my ailing bank account. ‘It looks very expensive.'

‘Not at all,' she said and turned the box around, showing me the ticket, £14.99, ‘they're very good value.' Smiling again she put everything back in the box and stuck her hands into the pockets of her overall. ‘Would you like one?'

I was torn, we had to get Geoff back to work as quickly as possible and if the pain killers didn't work we were going to be in trouble.

For a moment I felt ashamed, Geoff was obviously in a lot of pain and here was I worrying about the fact that he didn't get sick pay. I shook my head, if he didn't get paid it wasn't only going to be him in pain, it would be all of us.

I dragged my debit card out of my purse and turned to smile at the assistant. ‘Yes, I'll have one and I'd better have the batteries as well.'

I left the chemist with a large bag of goodies and a receipt for well over thirty pounds. Heading for the car I realised that I had just used the last of the week's money, thank goodness it was Thursday and tomorrow was payday so at least we could eat.

Geoff took up the sofa for the entire evening. Charlie, obviously feeling aggrieved that she wasn't the only one sick in the house, took herself off to bed after moaning that her chest hurt. It was a quiet and peaceful evening, with Geoff wired up to his little buzzing machine and drugged into insensibility, he could finally sleep. Mortimer and I watched the telly revelling in the peace and quiet.

I woke Geoff to make him go to bed and had to wrestle his TENS machine off him (he was obviously one of those people it worked really well for). We dosed him again with yet another round of pain killers and went to bed, hoping that in the morning all would be well.

It most certainly wasn't, waking at about six I leapt out of bed and hurried to turn the fire up and get the boat warm. By the time the fire was blazing and the kettle screaming I turned my attention to my determinedly sleeping husband.

‘Geoff …' I waited for a few moments, nothing. ‘GEOFF!'

One eyelid cracked open and a red-surrounded amber eye looked at me. ‘What?'

‘Come on, time to get up, kettle's on.' The morning was so like a hundred others that I had completely forgotten the pain he had been in yesterday, it was brought back to me when he tried to move.

‘Argh!' Geoff yelped as he tried to roll over. ‘My back.'

‘Damn,' I griped, ‘I'd forgotten about that.'

Fishing around in the drawer again I popped two codeine and paracetamol tablets from a blister pack. ‘Here, take these.' As I turned from the sink with a glass of water in hand I saw that Geoff had crawled out of bed and was attempting to stand up, he wasn't doing very well.

‘Hang on,' I said and put the drugs and water back down on the kitchen surface. ‘Here grab my hand and use it to steady yourself.'

Geoff shook his head and, still bent double, crabbed his way around the bed toward me until I had a wonderful view of his behind clad in stripy pyjama bottoms. Reaching out his right hand he braced himself against the kitchen work surface and attempted to stand upright.

I watched as he obviously hit a position that was incredibly painful, his face contorted then the blood drained away leaving him white and shaking. As I opened my mouth to say something comforting his eyes rolled up into his head and he fell, very slowly, backward toward me.

I still don't know how I managed, but I caught him under both arms and lowered him to the floor, unfortunately I went with him and we ended up in a pile between the kitchen units with me on the bottom and my normally indestructible husband in a dead faint on top of me.

I was completely stuck, there is only space for one person between the units and Geoff was unconscious, I tried to roll to the left and met the fridge, rolling to the right only got me into a cupboard. Eventually I managed to push Geoff off me and by rolling on top of him finally was able to get myself upright, by this time he was coming around again.

Finding himself on the floor he looked confused then, as he tried to move, his already pasty face paled further and turning his head, he heaved then groaned, luckily nothing came up.

Of course both children chose this moment to appear. Sam seeing the state we were both in beat a hasty retreat back to his bed and Charlie, mid-moan about chest pains, stopped in the middle of her sentence and just stared.

It was pure chaos, there was just no room to manoeuvre. I decided that the first thing I would have to move was Geoff.

‘Sam, get out of bed please.' Sam's head appeared over the partition.

‘Is Dad all right?' he quavered at me.

‘He will be, but I need your bed … NOW!' I held out a hand for Geoff to grab, he ignored it.

‘OK, OK.' Sam leapt out of bed and headed for the toilet.

‘Charlie, just park on the end of our bed for a couple of minutes and let the dog out, will you?'

Mortimer, wondering what on earth was going on, was preparing to jump on us from the top of the bed.

Geoff, with my help, managed to very slowly roll over onto all fours. I didn't press him to get up and he just crawled down the boat then climbed slowly into Sam's bed. I handed him the tablets and the water then marshalled the kids to help me get the bed put away.

Eventually we were all sorted. Rolling Geoff gently over on to his front I attached his TENS machine and, as soon as he was happily buzzing away, his breathing steadied and became less tortured with every minute that passed.

Making sure he had the controls to hand, I left the kids to make their own breakfast and went down to start the car. Covered in ice, it appreciated fifteen minutes running to get itself ready for the day. (I felt this was completely unfair, I'd have liked fifteen minutes to get ready for my day as well but I didn't have that luxury.) On the way to school Charlie kept coughing until frazzled beyond endurance I finally told her to shut up.

‘Oh, thanks very much,' she muttered between hacks. ‘My chest really hurts.'

I sighed. ‘Look, it's Friday, both of you get through today and we've got the whole weekend to relax.'

She muttered something beneath her breath and went back to staring out of the window coughing occasionally.

By lunchtime Geoff was feeling much better, he'd had three solid hours of electrical current passing through his back and could actually walk about. He was a little high from painkillers but was coping pretty well.

‘How're you doing?' I passed him a cup of tea.

‘Pretty good.' he gave me a slightly spacey grin. ‘Quite a lot better actually.' He took a sip of tea and stretched slowly and deliberately toward the ceiling, grinning as he did so. ‘I called work, they were very good about the whole thing. At least I have the weekend to sort this out.'

I nodded and looked up from the jobs website I was perusing. ‘Do you think you will?' I winced at my tone; I didn't want to force him back to work but …

Geoff laughed. ‘I think I'll be fine, I'll take the TENS with me.' He laughed again. ‘Hey, I'll be the only battery-operated electrician for miles around.'

I just groaned.

The next morning was Saturday and, not expecting to see Charlie before midday, I was surprised to find her standing over me at seven o'clock in the morning. ‘You all right love?'

‘No,' Charlie said clutching her chest, ‘my chest really hurts and I can't breathe.' She puffed her cheeks out at me as she tried to breathe out. ‘I think I've got the flu again.'

I struggled out of bed and throwing on a long padded work shirt I use as a dressing gown, grabbed the thermometer. While I was waiting for it to go ‘beep' I took a long look at her, she was pale and sweaty, her breathing coming in short gasps and squeaks.

Reading thirty-nine degrees on the thermometer, I reached for my phone and dialled 999. I put one hand under her arm and propelled her toward the bed. ‘Sit down,' I hissed. She nodded and collapsed onto the bed with Geoff, they made a fine pair alternately wincing, groaning, wheezing and coughing, they sounded like a terrible alternative one-man band.

The ambulance took about half an hour to arrive during which time I poured Charlie, between coughs, into leggings, big socks, boots, a baggy sweatshirt and a big coat. Leaving her in the boat I went outside to await the arrival of the paramedics. When it arrived, a man climbed out of the back and stared up the flood defences at me.

‘Where's the patient?' he called.

I indicated behind me. ‘Up here,' I called back.

He looked worried and dithered about. ‘I can't bring the ambulance on to that grass, we might not get off.'

I put a hand up to him. ‘Just wait there.'

Unable to bear the messing about, I went back to the boat and half-carried, half-guided Charlie up the steps, over the flood defences, down the other side and over to the ambulance. By this time a small crowd of onlookers had gathered on top of the flood defences, trying to work out what was going on. They didn't really get a chance, after ten minutes of prodding and poking, Charlie, eyes somewhat panicked behind the oxygen mask she was wearing, was on her way to hospital.

A TENS machine is obviously a wonderful thing, five hours later Geoff had managed to pour himself and Sam into the car and picked us both up from A&E. It had been confirmed that Charlie had pneumonia in one lung and was given antibiotics and strict instructions to stay in bed for at least a week.

Three weeks later she finally went back to school. Geoff had gone back to work after the weekend but he was still occasionally attached to his TENS machine and with all the panic and worry of the winter I realised that I'd completely failed to notice that spring had arrived.

I found myself staring at a small group of daffodils while out for a walk with Mortimer. It had been, without a doubt, the worst winter we had ever been through, but I was now so tired that I had hardly noticed the last month and had gone through the motions of my days like a zombie. The long green shoots pushing up through the icy grass almost made me cry, the boat was still a cold wreck, Geoff might still have had occasional back problems and Charlie still had a cough that could be heard through five millimetres of steel, but the very sight of these little plants gave me just enough of a boost: I could see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Chapter Fifteen
Finally, Winter's Over

S
LOWLY, SO SLOWLY, THE
world grew warmer, there were more sunny days, the surrounding trees and bushes developed small buds and then seemingly all at once exploded into bright new greenery. Sam took to riding his bike around the flood defences and Charlie, having made two good friends, started spending weekends at either Scarlet's or Jack's house, she seemed to be enjoying life much more.

I wholeheartedly approved of her two friends, Scarlet, tall and statuesque, reminded me of a somewhat gothic burlesque girl, her long red hair matched her name and she had a ready smile and an airy nature, I often imagined that if she hadn't been wearing such huge boots Scarlet would have floated away on some mad flight of fancy or other.

Jack on the other hand was as sarcastic as one human could possibly get, tall and thin to the point of emaciation, his well dressed exterior seemed seriously at odds with our outdoorsy lifestyle but his cold-hearted commentary on life, people and work often had me in genuine fits of giggles. He had superb timing and could cut a conversation with a single comment. He also had a laugh like a constipated donkey, a certain personality trait that Sam mimicked immediately and within minutes there were two of them braying away at some joke or other. Even though they filled up the boat and ate all my bacon and eggs they were always welcome to visit.

We hadn't seen Amelia since Christmas and although we had spoken on a regular basis, she had decided that we were all too ill or infirm to cope with a visit and had used this as an excuse to keep Chris as far away as possible.

Eventually there could be no more excuses and on a sunny weekend in late March she turned up with ‘Mr Right' in tow.

Leaping into the boat she dragged him, looking rather bewildered and confused, to meet us. He was tall and seemed to be genuinely amused by Amelia, her siblings, the mad dog and her odd family. He had longish mouse-coloured hair which was definitely wayward and gently floppy, actually that described Chris exactly. With his big black duffle coat, slightly baggy jeans and well-loved trainers, he looked the epitome of the eternal student, softly spoken with a quick wit and a ready laugh he grinned at the world that he could only see through fairly strong glasses, I could certainly see why she was so enamoured of him.

After spending the afternoon with him my last worries vanished. It didn't look like we'd put him off at all and he had spent most of the afternoon with Sam and Charlie trying to teach them to spin poi, while laughingly fending off an overenthusiastic staffy who felt that balls on strings with long coloured tails were still balls and therefore belonged to him.

The next day Amelia rang. ‘So, what did you think of him?'

I laughed. ‘You are of course completely right, he's lovely.'

Amelia squeaked. ‘Oh he is isn't he.' She gave a happy sigh. ‘He thought the same about you lot as well which was a huge relief, anyway it was lovely to see you, I'll call you during the week I have to go I'm on my break at work.'

With that she was gone.

With the kids settled and Geoff happy in his job (his three-month trial had ended without fanfare and he just carried on with the company), I decided that I needed to find a job. The extra money would be great and would just make life that little bit easier.

The only problem was what to do, I needed a job close to both Sam's and Charlie's schools and preferably needed to work between nine-thirty and two-thirty. I knew that trying to find a position with those specific criteria was not going to be easy at all.

Looking through the paper one night Geoff said, ‘How do you feel about fixing tellys?'

I frowned. ‘I'm sure it would be a very useful skill.' I looked back down at my book. ‘Unfortunately it's one I don't have.'

Geoff handed the paper to me; he had ringed a small ad on the jobs pages. ‘It says full training given.' He tapped the paper with his pen. ‘It's working for Addenbrooke's.'

My interest was piqued. ‘Really? That'll be those entertainments units they have above each bed, we were using one when Charlie was in A&E.' I looked at the advert. ‘Oh, it's part-time as well, I'll give them a ring tomorrow.'

The job wasn't actually working for Addenbrooke's, it was a company that had offices at the hospital site. Hospedia had the contract for maintaining and supplying all the bedside entertainment units in the hospital and after going through a couple of interviews I happily donned my bright pink shirt and joined the ranks of the ‘telly' staff.

For about two weeks I followed one of the other staff about, learning the ropes. It was an easy job and with my background in IT I had no problems at all dealing with the technical side and it didn't take long to get used to the patients even though some of them could understandably be a little tetchy.

There were five other staff, Debbie the boss was lovely, tiny and blonde, she smiled her way through the day, took all traumas in her stride and generally sorted us out and laughed while she did it. Angela the relief manager was different from Debbie in almost every way, small and stocky with long fair hair, she was much less laid-back but had an equivalent sense of humour; she laughed at different things to Debbie but it didn't really matter, they both laughed a lot.

Rob, the youngest member of the team, sported a vast amount of tattoos and a tall Mohican. Rob's looks belied his nature, he was very good at all the technical bits and pieces with an evil sense of humour. Jolly, so small it was a wonder that she could reach the units that were positioned above the patients' beds, could often be found giggling with one of the patients on the wards.

Beata (known to all as Betty) was the other member of the team. Betty was one person I got on well with immediately, very intense and determined to do the best job she possibly could. A qualified teacher in Poland, she was totally committed to perfecting her English and we went out on the wards together a lot. She had a great sense of humour and her often comic comments on life made me laugh a great deal.

My first day alone on the wards made me realise that this was the definitely the job for me. I had noticed that some of the patients with the more gruesome injuries, bike accidents and that sort of thing, thoroughly enjoyed regaling anybody they could with the intimate details of both their accidents and the following treatment. I worked out pretty quickly that showing the least bit of disgust or horror didn't go down well at all, and my twenty years in customer service stood me in good stead when I had to have a poker face.

That day I was out on the wards by about ten o'clock. My first call was to the plastics ward, it was one of my favourites; new and gleaming, the four huge wards stood at the end of the small village-sized institution that Cambridge calls its hospital. I wandered into the ward and approached a bed next to the window.

‘Hi there,' I announced myself to the man in the bed, he was about thirty, his leg, obviously in a bad way, was supported on some sort of gantry affair outside the covers. It didn't look to be healing at all well. ‘I'm from Hospedia, I understand you've got some problems with your television?'

He looked up from his book and nodded. ‘Oh hi, yeah.' He reached over and pulled the television down on its long arm and turned it around to face me there was a double white line across the screen. ‘It just sort of stopped.' He gave me a big smile. ‘Can you fix it?' He pointed down at his leg. ‘I think I might be here some time.'

I nodded and, taking out a screwdriver, climbed up on the chair beside his bed. ‘I think so, I just have to reboot it.' That procedure completed, I sat down on the chair beside him and waited for the machine to run through its start-up sequence. ‘So what happened to you?' I pointed down at the leg.

There are some patients you feel you can ask and some you just know that you can't, it's definitely down to instinct. Some are smiley and bored and want to talk, others are just so ill that you get in and out as quickly as you can, doing the least you can to disturb them. This was definitely a smiley chatty type.

‘I fell down a manhole.' He grinned and winced as he applied pressure to his thigh. ‘Fell into a load of pipes and one of them pierced my ankle,' he went on, sticking his lower lip out and frowning down at his leg, ‘made a right mess.'

I nodded. ‘Didn't you see the manhole, or didn't it have warning signs?' I figured when he got out of the hospital someone was going to be sued to their last penny.

The man leaned back on his pillow and closed his eyes. ‘Yes, I knew it was there and yes, the signs warning people about the hole were perfectly positioned.' He opened his eyes and gave me a sad grin.

‘Ok …' I was a little confused ‘So how …' I tailed off, I didn't really want to ask, ‘Did you jump?' – it seemed a little insensitive.

The man in the bed (James) pushed himself to a more upright position. ‘It was my manhole, I was working down there.'

‘You fell down your own manhole.' (Poker face, poker face, don't laugh, definitely don't laugh.)

‘Yep, stepped backward while talking to my mate and just went straight down the hole.' He shook his head. ‘That was three months ago, and I'm still here.'

‘Wow, unlucky.' I made a show of checking the unit, seeing how far the reboot had progressed, it gave me a moment to get my face under control.

‘Do you want to see pictures of my leeches?' James reached over for his iPhone.

‘Leeches?' I was confused; had we slipped back into mediaeval times?

‘Yeah.' James began flicking through pictures on his phone. ‘They use them for pulling blood through grafted skin, I had loads of them.'

‘Erm  … OK.'

James had about twenty pictures of his little slimy friends working away on his leg, I was quite horrified to note that although they started out quite small, by the time they had finished, one in particular, had grown so large it was attached to his ankle but its tail was wrapped around his shin. I just couldn't help myself at that picture and let out a small ‘Ewww'.

James sat up and looked over at the picture. ‘Oh, that one was great, he was my favourite. I named him you know.'

I noticed that the reboot had finished and, reaching over, picked up the phone and put in the code that would tell the unit that it could continue working. Replacing the handset I stood up and, gathering my kit together, got ready to leave. ‘Go on.' I turned to James who was grinning at me from the bed. ‘I'll bite, what did you call it?'

James looked hurt. ‘Not ‘it', it's a ‘him',' he paused for effect, ‘that one was called ‘Lawyer'.'

I laughed and groaned. ‘Thanks for that, that's an image that's going to stay with me for the rest of the day.'

Laughing, he waved me out of the ward and went back to his book.

My next port of call was the children's ward, then transplants, then the maternity hospital, after that there were a couple of other calls as well, one I couldn't get into, because the patient was very, very poorly, finished off my day.

Back at home that evening Geoff asked me how my day had gone. ‘Pretty classic, I should say.' I looked up from mending Sam's school trousers (small boys seem to treat school trousers like their own personal nemesis). I explained, laughing about the leeches and about the man who had backed into an electric fence with an armed shotgun, the shock from the fence had caused his finger to depress the trigger and he had shot two of his own toes off.

‘You sound like you're quite enjoying this job.' Geoff raised his eyebrows in question. (I have to admit I'm fairly renowned for starting a job with great gusto only to fall out of love with it after about a week.)

‘Well the money certainly makes a big difference.' I bit the last thread from Sam's trousers and held them up to examine the repair, it wasn't great but at least it meant he would be less obscene for the next couple of weeks until I could afford to buy him a new pair on payday. ‘The job itself is the same day after day but the patients all change so you never know who you're going to talk to or the stories you're going to hear.' I thought about it for a moment. ‘It definitely has its ups and downs, some patients, their story is ending and it's really sad, their families are so helpless and hopeless that it's heartbreaking.'

I took a long look around our skanky boat. ‘I know I moan about living like this, but there are at least fifty people with money and big houses in that hospital at the moment that would swap their lives for mine in an instant.' I heaved a big sigh remembering a scene of quiet grief I had witnessed that day. ‘It's all about what's important, really, isn't it?'

Geoff nodded and handed me a cup of tea, there wasn't really much to say to that so instead we took advantage of a moment of peace and quiet to indulge in ten minutes of leaning on each other. Enjoying my tea I indulged in some fairly miserable thoughts of how much worse life could be and counted our blessings.

That summer wasn't great. The weather, after a brief spell of ridiculous high temperatures in June settled down into that sort of grey nothingness for which Britain is famous.

Charlie and her friends had taken to camping with a vengeance, and most weekends she would disappear with Jack, Scarlet and a constantly changing crowd of others to a piece of waste woodland where they would set up camp and spend the weekends getting muddy and exhausted.

I had a call fairly early one Sunday morning: ‘Could you come and pick me up, Mum?' Charlie sounded fairly subdued and I wondered if she'd fallen out with her friends.

‘Sure,' I replied, looking around for my keys, ‘you OK?'

‘Not really,' she said in between sniffs, ‘could you hurry please?'

It took me about half an hour to get to her and as I got out of the car I realised almost immediately that it wasn't an argument, she'd hurt herself, again. I had to sigh, what had she done this time?'