Jim looks unhappy. So he should.
We reach the right department and
I make enquiries with the receptionist but draw a blank. The receptionist is
not going to hand out information. I explain we are friends of the vic but this
cuts no ice and she tells us to take a seat and she’ll get a doctor to come and
see us as soon as possible. She eyes the lab coats with suspicion.
We sit down in a small ante room.
The sort of room that seems to litter hospitals of a certain vintage. A series
of poorly hung posters advise on everything from your rights as a patient to
the tell tale signs of sexually transmitted infections. Jim seems particularly
interested in this poster. It is made up of drawings of men and women’s
genitalia and the signs to look out for. I know Jim will be struggling to read
the words but he is lapping up the pictures and I have to stop him as he starts
to unbutton his flies.
The doctor arrives but he passes
on little information and is more intent in finding out who we are. I tell him
we are old friends and push to see Charlie. We are told this would not be
possible. It is not long to visiting time and if we would care to come back
then we can see him. I change tack and ask if we can have his ward number as a
few people would like to send flowers. He tells me to send anything to the
department and they will make sure it gets to Charlie.
I let it go and decide to retreat
and figure another way to get to Charlie. The doctor is getting way too
suspicious plus Jim is back at his flies again. We leave and walk a little way
back down the corridor and stop at a drinks machine.
I wait until the doctor is out of
sight and tell Jim to wait by the machine and tell him if anyone comes along
make it look like he is getting a drink.
I walk back to the reception area
but stop just short of being seen. I poke my head around a corner and note the
receptionist is buried in a PC. She is facing away from me but I would need to
cover about thirty feet without being seen to make it to the other side of
reception and out of view. All the receptionist needs to do is look up and I’m
a goner. I scan the reception and note that a phone sits on a shelf at the
back. I have a thought.
I walk back to Jim to find him,
trousers at ankles, examining his privates. I order him to pull up his trousers
and glance around to see if he has been spotted. I tell him what I need him to
do and I head back to reception.
A few moments later the phone
rings on the reception shelf and the receptionist spins round to answer it and
I move. I briefly look back and see Jim on his mobile talking to the
receptionist. I walk across the gap, keeping my eyes firmly fixed on the
reception desk.
I just make it to the other side
when she slams down the phone. Heaven knows what Jim has said to her but when I
look back he has a stupid grin on his face and is beginning to undo his flies
again. I wave my hands in the air, point to my groin and violently shake my
head. He gets the message but I have no idea for how long. I head for the
wards.
I come to and still feel groggy.
My bladder is in major need of relief. I reach over and press the call button
and a nurse appears and I tell her that I need a pee - she reaches into the
cupboard next to me and brings out a plastic bed pan. She doesn’t leave. Does
she expect me to use it in front of her? I have trouble peeing in the gents.
There is no way I’m taking a whiz in front of a girl.
I ask her to leave and she shrugs
her shoulders and exits.
I look at the bed pan. It’s not
hard to figure how it works but I’d rather go to the toilet. I’m not sure that
my number one will make an appearance without a guest stint by a number two and
I’m not sure I trust myself enough not to screw up the whole operation. I put
the bed pan down and pull the covers to one side and try and sit up.
My inner ear objects and does its
best to stop me moving. My bladder kicks up a notch and in my physically
reduced state I’m not confident I can hold it in much longer. I clench my teeth
and force myself to stay seated and then place my feet on the ground. My leg
aches but I push on and up and then out of the door and into the corridor.
I have no idea where the toilet
is but just then another male patient exits from a door across the way and I
ask him if that’s the toilet and he confirms it is. I push in, find a cubicle
and slump onto the toilet and let rip.
Joy.
The effort of getting here has
run down my battery a little. A few moments on the pan won’t do me any harm. I
close my eyes and lie back.
‘Are you ok in there?’
I drift back and answer with a
yes.
‘Are you sure you are ok?’
I answer in the affirmative again
telling the enquirer I’ll be out in a moment. I have no idea how long I have
been asleep. I hear the door swing closed and start the struggle of getting
back to my bed. I make it as far as the toilet door but I’m weak and even
opening the door takes its toll. I look out and the corridor is quiet but not
empty. The main wards lie to the left and there are two nurses chatting next to
the entrance doors. To the right there is a man walking towards me. It takes an
instant to recognise him and in my haste to get out of sight I tumble back into
the toilet and fall to the floor.
The gorilla. The short one. Back
for me?
I’m square in the middle of the
toilet and I realise that I’m exposed to anyone that walks through the door. I
crawl to the nearest cubicle and push the door closed behind me. This is not a
good thing. All I can think is that the gorilla has come to finish off what
they failed to do on the roof. I wish I had been more forceful when I told the
police about the gorillas. Maybe they would have given me some protection?
I try and figure what the deal
is? Surely he wants Leonard not me? Was I not a mistake? Am I now to be killed
because I could finger him? Maybe he knows about the parcel and has come to get
it? Maybe he isn’t here for me at all? Too many questions and nothing like
enough answers. Whatever he wants it isn’t good news.
I figure I have minutes at the
most before he susses my whereabouts. This is too obvious a place not to look.
I feel like a new born kitten. I’m in no fit state to outrun him. I can barely
stand. But I can’t stay here. I grit my teeth and anything else I can grit and
pull myself to my feet. I would give my left arm for a bit more energy.
I open the cubicle door and look
round the toilet. Apart from the door there is no other viable way out. The
only windows are high up. I consider trying to smash one but the noise would be
a giveaway and I have no idea what lies beyond. I know from the view out of my
bedroom that I’m a good two or three floors up. I cross to the door.
Each step is getting harder and I
need to hold onto a wash hand basin to stay vertical. I pull the door a crack
and see the gorilla standing outside my room door. Conveniently there is a hand
written sign informing everyone that I am the current occupant.
Make it easy for him won’t you Mr
National Health Service!!!
I watch as he considers his next
move. He reaches for the door handle and I get ready to move. I won’t get far
but I need to move before he returns. I grasp the door handle and prepare to
stagger to my death.
A voice rings out and I realise
one of the nurses has spotted the gorilla. Gorilla number one take his hand off
the door handle and turns in the direction of the voice. The nurse is asking
what he is doing and he starts to spin a story about being a friend. The nurse
asks who let him onto the ward. It isn’t visiting time so how did he get past
reception? Gorilla number one is free wheeling as he tries to dig himself out
of a hole. He opts for discretion and tells the nurse he will come back later.
The nurse isn’t that easily fobbed off and asks him to wait while she phones
reception. The gorilla ignores her and turns to walk away from the ward. The
nurse is too long in the tooth to put up with nonsense but she also recognises
trouble when she sees it. She heads back to her colleague and a phone.
I wait until she slips into the
ward and then I check to see if the gorilla is out of sight. He has gone and I
walk slowly to my room. I have no plan of action. No idea what to do. I’m far
too weak. Just getting dressed seems like a mountain to climb and I can’t make
good an escape in a hospital gown - no matter how good my bum looks at my age.
I sit on my bed assuming I have
some breathing space while the gorilla retires to formulate a new plan of
action. The urge to sleep is massive and I place my head on my pillow. Ten
minutes. Ten minutes kip and then I can think straight.
I’m gone.
George has just phoned from the
police station and asked me to go down and pick him up. I make my excuses and
pull a wave of angry looks from my friendly neighbourhood work colleagues for
pissing off for a second time in one day. I ignore them. They can all go and
take a running jump.
I’m only worried about my boss
and he is in a strategic planning meeting - shorthand for being cooped up until
well gone finishing time. My car is parked in the multi storey across the road
and I am half way out of the office when I remember the parcel and I have to
double back to my desk.
Ten minutes later and I am behind
the wheel of my venerable Vauxhall Astra. My car has not tipped the thirty
thousand mark yet she is nearly thirteen years old. I’m not a high mileage
person. But she is reliable, gets me from A to B and I like her. She’s my
friend. And that says a lot about my life.
I have three friends on this
planet - George, my car and Nancy. In rank order Nancy is the oldest friend -
we met at primary school. My car is next and then George. There have been
others but not others that I would call friends. Not real friends.
To me a friend is not someone who
you met a few weeks, months or even years ago. To me a friend is a very special
person. I consider my car a person. After all she has a name - Connie. A friend
is someone who has to earn their stripes in a big way over a long period of
time. Except that would preclude George and, somehow, he has managed to short
circuit my whole friendship rule, skipping from a stranger to a friend and
missing all the pain in between. I should be suspicious of this. I’m always
suspicious of other people’s new ‘best friends’ but George is that unique
object in the universe - someone who is different. With George it’s not how
long you have known him but how deep you have known him and I am Marianas
Trench deep.
So I class him as a friend.
The traffic is the usual for this
time of day - annoying. The grid system that makes up central Glasgow conspires
to send me the wrong way but I have fought hard with it over the years and
despite the council’s best attempts to ban and bamboozle motorists, I have
always managed to get in and out of the centre. I see it as a bit of a personal
crusade. It’s my right to use a car and until this is taken away from me by
force of law I’ll slug it out with the Glasgow traffic system and by hook or by
crook get to work and get home again.
The police station is easy to
find but difficult to park near. Double yellow lines, CCTV cameras and a lack
of parking bays inform you that you are not welcome but after a few moments
circling I see a Ford Fiesta slide out of a space and I slip in.
George is waiting for me at the
reception and we say little until we are in my car. George is a quiet man but
today he is in the mood to talk. I should really go back to work and so should
George but given the events of the morning we decide to head for my flat in the
West End. I’ll deal with my boss tomorrow and George is counting on his trip to
the police station giving him an out with his company.
He makes a quick call to his boss
from his mobile and tells him how it is. He hangs up and shakes his head
muttering ‘fools’. He tells me that his boss wants him to go in early tomorrow
to make up for the lost hours. He thinks that stinks. I think it’s fair. My
boss will be far less forgiving and I’m not daft enough to let the fact he is
in a meeting all afternoon lull me into a sense of false security. I can
guarantee that one of the many grazing bovine creatures that populate my office
will only be too happy to grass me up.
With that thought I am sullen all
the way to my flat but cheer up when I realise that the parking nightmare that
I usually live amongst has become a sea of available spaces at this time of
day. I park and we go up to my flat hand in hand. I put on the kettle while we
chew through what has happened and what we need to do.
It doesn’t take long before we
get round to the parcel and George is all for opening it. I’m not so sure.
Whatever it contains is not going to be something that will benefit us. Then
again the sheer curiosity factor has to be taken into account. We throw the
idea of opening it back and forth as we sip our tea, me on lemongrass and
strawberry, George on monkey brew.
George ends the debate by
slitting the parcel flap with his pen knife and tipping the contents onto my
coffee table. A small waterfall of photocopied sheets tumble onto the table.
Some cascade onto the floor.
I pick up one at random and find
myself faced with a typed series of numbers in tables with rough annotations in
pen scribbled at random points. George picks up some other sheets and finds the
same. We sift through the rest of the contents but they are much of a muchness.
George pulls out one that seems to differ from the rest.