Sugarcoated

by Catherine Forde

  Note to self: D’you need any formal Art qualifications to be a cartoonist? That’s what I was pondering, promising to risk a careers session with Miss Camel-face Connolly and her toilet breath in the morning to find out. If you don’t then maybe all these scenes I’ve been drawing can be part of my portfolio. They’re not half bad. Kinda Manga. Imagine me having a hidden talent? I was thinking this while I sketched in more fine detail to the best (in my humble opinion) piece of artwork on the page.

  Better than my sketch of the hammer attack outside Dad’s shop (bloodied window, monobrowed assailant, hyper-dancing accomplice); or my impression of the smoochy booth in the restaurant where Stefan and I had gone on our first date (complete with Radec, the spherical waiter, and the swing combo time-travelled from a 1930s Chicago speakeasy). I sketched Stefan as I’d first seen him in the newsagent’s. My hottie on a stick: suede jacket, jeans, shy smile …

  ‘Sweet-talking guy,’ I hummed under my breath, Mum’s brilliant old Chiffon’s record playing in my head as I shaded in more tones to the thick flop of hair over his eyes:

  ‘Talking sweet kind of lies,’ I drew more definition to his grin. Dotted in his dimple.

  ‘Don’t you believe in him, if you do he’ll make you cry …

  He’ll send you flowers and paint the town with another girl …’

  Admiring my completed Mind Map at arm’s length, I was singing aloud now.

  ‘Sweeter than sugar, kisses like wine …’

  Into the eyes of my cartoon Stefan:

  ‘Staaaaaaay away from him …

  No, you’ll never win …’

  I waggled my finger at the tiny drawing I’d made.

  Feeling pretty damn chuffed when it was complete. Maybe all those years spent doodling over my jotters hadn’t been time wasting after all.

  To Uncle Mike.

  No hanky panky last night from your little

  neecee.

  Just this masterpiece.

  Don’t worry, I’ll explain everyfing the

  second I see ya!!

  Lotsaluv

  Claudia Warhol

  Bonsoir.

  Au revoir.

  I scrawled in massive flourishy writing across the back of my Mind Map since there was no room left on the front.

  Feeling very artistic indeed, I left my evening’s work propped between two bottles of Bud on the kitchen table so it would attract Uncle Super Mike’s attention as soon as he walked into the kitchen. Then I flounced artistically off upstairs to bed.

  Wasn’t feeling so jittery any more. Was too tired. I’d lost track of all time working on my Mind Map. Couldn’t believe my radio alarm was reading the wee small hours already. I’d to double check with the speaking clock. ‘12.14 a.m.’ the fruity-voiced man on the end of the line assured me so pleasantly I snapped back down the receiver, ‘Easy for you to say, pal. You don’t have double maths first thing,’ before I put the phone down.

  When it rang out immediately I had one of those insane notions that the speaking clock was live: Bugger: have I just been rude to some old pensioner trapped in a call centre dishing out timechecks to earn the bread to pay his gas bill?

  I practically apologised to Mr Speaking Clock.

  But then a bored-sounding female voice brought me back to the real world.

  ‘Hello. Claudia Quinn, please.’

  ‘Speaking.’ I glanced at the time on my bedside alarm again. 12.16.

  ‘Who’s this?’ Calling at this hour.

  Could it be Australia? Something about baby Sean. Mum not up to giving me a message herself. Bad news.

  ‘Hello, Claudia,’ the voice on the end of the line didn’t sound Australian.

  Nor did it answer my question. Just continued speaking. Kind of automatically. More automatically than the speaking clock man. Like she was reading from a script.

  ‘This is Sister Smith from Intensive Care. Western Infirmary. One of my patients is asking for you.’

  ‘A patient? For me?’ I said, but this Sister Smith cracked what sounded like a piece of chewing gum then talked on through me.

  ‘He says you’re his friend and he wants to see you. He’s very sick so can you come to the hospital, please?’

  ‘But I don’t know any … Have you phoned the right person? Who is this patient anyway?’

  In the pause after my questions I could hear faint music: female voices, pretty wild-sounding for nurses, if you asked me, out of synch with each other and out of tune with Tom Jones bellowing It’s Not Unusual.

  ‘Claudia, my patient’s waking out of a coma. Could you come to the hospital tonight?’ Sister Smith spoke quickly, raising her voice over the background noise. For a nurse she sounded more impatient than caring. Rude, actually, although I supposed working in Intensive Care taught you to cut to the chase in matters that matter. Still. I didn’t warm to her attitude.

  ‘So, you’ll come and visit now, Claudia?’

  There was rustling on the line when Sister Smith was speaking this time. But not crisp leaves interference, like when I was speaking to Uncle Mike. The noises I heard from this call suggested the receiver was being moved about a fair bit. Maybe Sister Smith was multi-tasking: emptying a bedpan, or signalling instructions to another nurse:

  Crash cart! Paddles. Stand clear. Charging…

  But the kind of slidey bumpy muffly rustles I could detect sounded more like the noises you get over the phone when two or more heads are sharing one handset. That’s what I half-thought might be going on while I listened to Sister Smith and heard myself naming the only possible person I knew who was in hospital.

  ‘Is the patient Dave Griffen?’

  There was nothing but slidey muffly rustles then. I was sure someone was wrestling with the receiver, putting a hand over the mouthpiece.

  ‘Hello?’ I raised my voice against whatever tussle was going on down the line.

  ‘Yup.’ When Sister Smith did speak again her voice was higher pitched. Her words swallowed and choky-sounding. Like she was smiling or excited or nodding her head, I thought, before I heard her clearing her throat.

  ‘Ahem. Just ask for Intensive Care. Someone’ll be looking out for you, don’t worry, Claudia,’ she said, her voice the sweetest and most friendly it had been throughout the call.

  30

  clod’s law

  You’d have to go back to the Old Testament or that scene in Singin’ in the Rain to find a wetter night for any soul to be trudging in squelching soles through the streets of Glasgow.

  Not that there was even a spit when I set out for the Western Infirmary, which explains why I’d no brolly. (Actually I never have a brolly, me.)

  The heavens waited till I was a good half way into my journey before they let rip. Clod’s Law, eh? And you know that kind of boingy gymnastic rain that buckets so hard it bounces off the pavements soaking you from the bottom up and the top down at the same time? That’s what I was up against. I’m not exaggerating, I was so sodden I felt like I’d peed myself. And wet boy-shorts are not the pleasantest of sensations when you’re going to meet a fella. Possibly his mum, too. Of course it didn’t help that I’d left the house in a denim (the most rain-unfriendly fabric known to man) jacket and those filthy streetsweeper jeans as Mum called the trousers that, in fifteen minutes of walking, had blotted up so much puddle-water they were glued to the tops of my thighs like sloppy cold papier mâché.

  ‘Where are all the taxis?’ I grumbled, ton-weight legs lurching me along the deserted main road. ‘And what am I doing out here anyway? It’s the middle of the night.’ For the umpteenth time I used my mobile to call a black cab.

  ‘I’m sorry. Your call is in a queue.’ The same warm and dry and cheery operator I kept on reaching chimed like it didn’t matter that a girl was drowning out here. In the background plinky-plonked the same muzac loop of Here Comes the Sun. Was that meant to be a joke? Did the cab company play Let It Snow in a heatwave?

  I couldn’t believe my luck: the one and only night I ne
eded to get anywhere fast there was barely a car on the road.

  Definitely Clod’s Law, I sighed, stopping on a corner and squeezing half a gallon of rain from the ends of my hair. For a moment I considered turning back home. Being smart for a change. Phoning the hospital to say I’d pop in first thing in the morning. After all, if Dave Griffen was coming out of his coma he must be less critical now. Delaying my visit a few hours wouldn’t matter to him, would it? It might be even for the best, since the sight of a big wet doughball like me appearing at Dave’s bedside with her clothes clinging in all the wrong places and her nose running was hardly going to be therapeutic for him, was it?

  Yeah, better to come tomorrow on the bus all nice and dry …

  I was so close to aborting my errand-of-mercy. Only I spotted approaching headlights. And wouldn’t you know – Clod’s sodding Law again – it was actually a taxi. No FOR CLOD on its little orange light, alas and alack. No. Just three blootered geezers in the back roaring their heads off at me as the taxi shot past. Sprayed me from head to toe with gutter muck.

  ‘Lovely,’ I burbled, attempting to dry my dripping face with my hand. Of course this just made me even wetter. Too wet to turn back. And too late anyway. Ahead of me, I’d spotted the blurry twinkle of floors in the hospital. Somewhere in those wards stacked on wards was Dave Griffen. Fighting for his life.

  But asking for me.

  Wow!

  The notion of that, I must confess: Dave Griffen specially asked for me! is what kept me sloshing the remaining few blocks with ramrods tap dancing on the top of my head, water streaming down my face. I know this sounds mad, and it’s embarrassing to admit it. Shallow too. But I actually felt there was something movie-esque about the whole situation: Here I was. The girl in the rom-com. Hurrying, alone through deserted city streets. Plain but strong, I was. Possibly Jennifer Aniston drabbed down or padded up like Renée Zelweger in Bridget Jones to play the character of Clod Quinn. An Oscar shoe-in for any female movie star gorgeous enough in real life to go Ugly Betty for a few months. Bulked-up Jen/Ren-as-Clod can hardly see where she’s going for all that famous hair (dyed Clod-gingery and back-combed to attain that rain-frizzed look) in her eyes. She stumbles through the wet, half sobbing to herself now when she reaches the hospital. She’s banging on locked doors, ‘You gotta open up!’ trying different entrances, determined to find a way in somehow …

  Because nothing can stop her. Claudia Quinn’s on a mission to revive a friend her heart’s telling her could be so much more … Can she reach Dave Griffen in time …?

  Sick this made me sound, I know, but in the throes of hurling my weight against a hospital door that was clearly marked NO ENTRY, I was actually delivering a schmaltzy film-trailer voiceover, muttering under my breath in an American accent. Nearly gave the cleaner dabbing away on the other side a heart attack.

  ‘I need Intensive Care,’ I bellowed at him when he spun round to see who was doing all the door-thumping.

  ‘Me’n’all now, thanks very much, hen,’ the cleaner was clutching his chest while he peered out at me. ‘Way in’s round the corner.’

  Although there was a locked fire-exit between us, he reeled back when he’d looked me up and down.

  ‘But you’ll no’ get intae a ward the night.’

  Backing away he jerked his mop at me. ‘Visiting’s seven till eight. Come back tomorrow.’

  I’d a doubly helpful exchange with the bloke manning the only open door I could find.

  ‘Looking for Intensive Care –’ I made to barge past him, but he blocked my path, legs apart, arms folded. I’d stake my big toe on him being ex-army.

  ‘Where you going, pal?’ his greasy brown caterpillar of a moustache rippled when he spoke.

  ‘Intensive Care.’

  ‘That wouldn’t be your decision. It’d be mine. Unless you’re medically qualified. And the walking wounded always start off in Casualty. That would be here. See that desk. Give your details. Sit. Wait your turn.’

  This fella – clearly acting out his Casualty bouncer job as a Glaswegian version of some heavy from Reservoir Dogs – strutted me towards a queue in reception. His fingers clamped round the tip of my elbow. Squeezed. Not in a chummy way. In front of me, two stoners with busted noses and bloodied shirts were growling insults through a screen, while the female clerk safe on the opposite side totally blanked them. She just tapped away at a keyboard and smiling to herself like she was being serenaded by Julio Iglesias. Next in the queue a lassie with rubber legs and fairy wings was puking into her tutu. No way was I going near her.

  ‘Look.’ One of Uncle Mike’s sneaky wrestling jerks freed my arm. I backed away from the Casualty bouncer, checking all round me for direction signs to the wards. ‘I’m not sick. Just had a phone call to go to Intensive Care.’

  ‘Zat right. Not sick? But you blow in here shouting the place down?’ The doorbloke’s tash gave a sarky twitch. ‘We’ll let the doctors establish your medical fitness, shall we?’ he said, the softness in his voice not quite matching the meanness with which he seized my wrist when I dodged past him into a corridor through swing doors marked Wards.

  ‘Backup. Backup.’ He followed me, snarling into a walkie-talkie, his request a completely unnecessary waste of hospital resources in my opinion. Single-handedly he made a grand job of pinning me to a wall. Then racking my arm up my back till I yelped at him to stop.

  ‘Don’t even think about it on my watch, Wonder-woman,’ Casualty bouncer’s chewing-gummy breath was a hot whisper on my wet cheek, ‘unless,’ he was laughing, his caterpillar catching my wet hair in a way that turned my guts, ‘you really do fancy a night in Intensive Care with a feeding tube up your nose. Interested?’ He leaned his full weight against me. Pushed into my back with his pelvis to make his point. ‘Huh?’ When he wrenched my wrist all my strength was transfused with pain.

  I know this fella was only doing his job, but to say I wasn’t happy about the way he restrained me was an understatement. And I knew I was being pretty stroppy but I liked the way he was talking into my ear even less. It was intimate and cruel at once, and worst of all – this is what made me shudder. This is what made me mad – it was kinda sleazy: here was a stranger thinking his uniform granted him power and licence to grind himself against me.

  Think again, slime-ball.

  You wouldn’t imagine there’d be any silver linings in growing up to be a girl with size nine feet, but take it from me. See, when you stamp down hard with one of those big plates, it hurts like …

  ‘Fuuuuuuu-’

  Instantly Casualty bouncer let me go to grab his stomped foot in both hands. While he was dancing the Rumplestiltskin, I used the rear butt-thrust that I’d thought was responsible for opening Stefan’s garage to whumph doorbloke to the ground.

  Before he was back on his feet, I’d belted through the nearest set of double doors. Up a flight of stairs I stumbled, three at a time.

  Six floors later and my heartbeat was thudding out of my ears, though not quite loud enough to drown the furious echo of Casualty bouncer’s promises about what I’d be getting when he’d his hands round my neck.

  I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I was scared. Metaphorically speaking this bampot chasing me had me up against a wall. He was in his rights to do so too. And I only had one option:

  Keep on climbing, Clod. Find Sister Smith. Sort everything out …

  Rubber-legged, totally whacked, I burst through the doors of Intensive Care with so much force that they walloped the walls they were hanging from like fire-crackers exploding. Then ricocheted back. Whammed into my face.

  When I took my hands away from my pulped nose and saw the evil eye I was getting from the nurse who’d responded to my entrance, I decided Casualty bouncer was a mere pussy cat.

  ‘Can you read?’

  He might have had the build of a malnourished whippet and the hissiest of whispers, but this guy in a white tunic was no Sugar Plum Fairy.

  ‘NO ENTRY to my ward.’ He flouri
shed the back of his hand against the warning signs in the ward doorway. Made the same gesture at the SILENCE posters flanking the walls. And it was his ward. He’d the badge on his tunic flashed in my face to prove it:

  HEAD OF ICU: MARTIN SMART.

  ‘Sister Smith. I’ve to ask for Sister Smith. She phoned,’ I gasped, blood from my nose streaming into my mouth.

  ‘Ssssh,’ Nurse Smart’s index finger was pressed so firmly to his lips that their flesh paled. ‘You’re not shouting across to your pals in a nightclub now, sweetheart,’ Martin Smart half-shooed, half-backed me from the ward entrance just as Casualty bouncer’s latest threat echoed up from the stairwell below.

  ‘See when I get my hands on you –’

  ‘Sensational. A security ding-dong’s just what vulnerable patients on life-support need at one o’clock in the morning,’ Martin Smart’s tone was caustic enough to strip paint. ‘But it’s not happening here.’ As he spoke, Martin Smart was flipping down a bolt on the ward door, closing the other door on me, flapping me backwards.

  ‘Don’t you even think about crashing my ward looking for trouble. Or turning physical on me. Just get explaining yourself. Before I wheech you down the service lift to meet the big hospital cop who stops lollies like you stopping me from doing my job.’

  Now I was really scared.

  ‘Please. I’m not looking for trouble. But I was phoned to come here. Urgently. By a nurse. From here. Honest,’ I clasped my hands before the flinty eyes of Martin Smart. ‘Sister Smith called from Intensive Care. Said Dave Griffin was asking for me. Now that guy out there’s gonna kill me –’

  ‘Right. Zip the lip two secs now.’ Martin Smart, who listened hand on hip to my burbling, suddenly whisked me back through the door of his ICU and bolted it with a fraction of time to spare before Casualty bouncer set about pummelling it instead of me.

  The tongue-lashing he took from Martin Smart for that!

  ‘You dare stress my patients. There’s folk hanging on to life by a thread in here. I’m getting right on to your supervisor –’