The Accidental Guest

by Tilly Tennant

  The disappointment was cemented as Hannah opened the front door to find two smiling paramedics on the step.

  ‘Someone reported a head injury?’ one of them asked. He was very cheery for someone who spent his days patching people up, especially as he was working on Christmas Day. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that he bore an uncanny resemblance to Santa himself. Hannah found herself hoping he hadn’t been called out to any young children today, because that would just be weird.

  ‘I did… well, my sister did… this way…’ Hannah gestured for them to follow her.

  ‘Are you alright, love?’ the man asked, ‘You don’t look so perky yourself.’

  ‘Oh, it’s not me. I’m fine.’

  The paramedics followed her through to the kitchen where Tom waited patiently.

  ‘Got yourself a nasty knock there,’ the Santa look-a-like said, nodding at Tom’s head. His partner, a man who was as skinny as his colleague was portly and who had been silent up to this point, merely pulled in a sharp breath to indicate his agreement. ‘How did you do it?’ Santa asked.

  Tom shrugged. ‘That’s really the main problem. My head doesn’t feel too bad, but I can’t remember anything.’

  ‘Hmmm… well, I’d better take some particulars while Jim here takes a look. What’s your name, guvnor?’

  Hannah frowned. ‘He doesn’t know,’ she said, wondering at what point the paramedic had stopped listening to his patient.

  Santa raised a perfectly white eyebrow and glanced between the two of them. ‘Blimey… when control said amnesia they really meant it. Do you have any details I can take at all? ID on you? Something with your address?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Tom said.

  ‘Well, that’s a new one on me,’ Santa said. He looked at his colleague who gave a silent shrug, presumably his own special sign language indicating that he’d never encountered Tom’s problem either. ‘I’m not quite sure where we go from here. We need something.’

  ‘But you can treat him?’ Hannah asked.

  ‘Oh, we can fix the superficial wound, of course, but we need to be able to log you and for that we need a name and date of birth.’

  ‘Well, what do you do when you find people unconscious in the street and nobody knows who they are?’ Tom asked.

  ‘Most people will have something on them to give us a clue. Are you sure you don’t have a mobile phone or anything?’

  Hannah resisted the urge to screech at this man. How many times did he have to be told?

  ‘Not on me, no,’ Tom said with a lot more calm than Hannah felt she possessed at that moment. ‘What would you do if you found someone with nothing on them?’

  ‘I suppose we’d cart them in and let the people at A&E sort it. It’s not our problem once we drop off.’

  ‘Can’t you cart… I mean take us in then?’ Hannah asked.

  ‘Yes, but he’s not unconscious, is he? So we need to find out who he is.’

  ‘But I don’t know,’ Tom said.

  ‘Can’t you pretend he’s unconscious?’ Hannah asked.

  ‘But he’s not…’ Santa scratched his head.

  ‘Us?’ Tom turned sharply to Hannah now, two steps behind in the conversation.

  ‘Of course,’ Hannah said. ‘I wouldn’t dream of letting you go alone.’

  ‘Yes, but…’

  ‘There’s no point in arguing, my mind is made up.’ Hannah turned to the paramedic. ‘That’s ok, isn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose so. Perhaps it might be helpful seeing as he doesn’t know who he is.’

  ‘That’s settled then.’

  ‘No…’ Tom said, ‘I’ve encroached enough on your day. I’m sure once we get to hospital there will be a record of someone looking for me so I won’t be alone for long.’

  ‘But you’ll be alone for a bit.’ Hannah chewed her lip. Perhaps it would be awkward if she was sitting at the hospital and some distraught wife turned up. She knew how she would feel if the tables were turned. She couldn’t leave him to go alone either. Despite what he said, it must be terrifying to be in such a confused state. At least one friendly face close at hand would make it better, even if it was a very new friend. Friend… was that what she was to him now? Were they friends? Would she ever see him again when all this was over?

  Gina’s voice interrupted her thoughts. ‘You’re here!’

  Hannah whipped around to see Gina and Jess at the kitchen door, hair wet and rosy-cheeked.

  ‘The front door was left open,’ Gina added, seeing Hannah’s look of surprise.

  ‘It’s not that…’ Hannah said, ‘How did you get back so fast?’

  ‘Some dude George knew was randomly out in his tractor,’ Jess put in. ‘I mean, who drives around in their tractor on Christmas Day? Unless he’s actually been given it for Christmas…’

  ‘So,’ Gina jumped in while Jess’s mind wandered off to some strange little world where tractors were the Christmas present norm. ‘He offered George a lift home. Saved us a job and got him home in half the time without breaking a sweat.’

  ‘And without Trixie peeing herself,’ Jess added.

  ‘Right…’ Hannah said, getting more confused by the second. ‘As long as he got home ok I suppose that’s all that matters.’

  ‘So, what’s happening with Tom?’ Gina asked.

  ‘Tom?’ the Santa paramedic asked.

  Gina angled her head at the casualty. ‘Humpty Dumpty here….’

  ‘Gina!’ Hannah squeaked.

  ‘It’s alright,’ Tom laughed.

  ‘No offence,’ Gina said.

  ‘None taken.’

  ‘So, you’re Tom?’ the paramedic asked with a frown.

  ‘No… well, yes… Sort of.’

  ‘We named him Tom,’ Jess said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to name a stray man just like you’d name a stray cat.

  ‘Right…’ the paramedic said.

  ‘Well, we had to call him something, didn’t we?’ Jess insisted. ‘We couldn’t keep referring to him as him or that man.’

  The paramedic shook his head. ‘I think we’d better get on with examining the patient or we’ll be here all night.’ He began by gently moving Tom’s hair to examine the wound. ‘Is it total memory loss?’ he asked as he peered at the cut.

  ‘Pretty much.’

  ‘What did you do when you got up this morning?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What did you have for dinner yesterday?’

  ‘Don’t know that either.’

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘I hope I’m younger than I feel right now.’

  ‘Well, your sense of humour is still intact,’ the paramedic smiled. ‘What date is it today?’

  ‘I could hardly fail to notice that it’s Christmas Day…’

  ‘True. Who’s the prime minister right now?’

  ‘Not a clue.’

  ‘Well…’ Jess cut in, ‘I don’t know that either and there’s nothing wrong with me.’

  ‘Debatable,’ Gina fired back.

  ‘Rude…’ Jess said.

  ‘Like you then,’ Gina said.

  Hannah sighed as she watched them bicker. Usually she found it funny, but right now her head was spinning.

  The paramedic questioned Tom for a few moments longer. ‘You need some glue on that cut if nothing else,’ he announced finally. ‘And I expect you’ll need a nut scan too.’

  ‘What’s a nut scan?’ Hannah asked.

  ‘CT, to rule out brain injury.’

  ‘Do you think there is some?’ Tom asked.

  ‘It’s hard to say. We only patch you up enough to get you to A&E. It’s the doctors’ job to find out what’s wrong with your bonce.’

  ‘Are we going now?’ Tom asked.

  ‘That’s the idea,’ Santa said cheerfully. ‘Can you walk or do you need a wheelchair?’

  ‘I can walk,’ Tom said.

  It was on the tip of Hannah’s tongue to say he could also run, launch hi
mself heroically through the air and be generally pretty bloody marvellous. But she decided that it was asking for too much explanation. She stood up. ‘Will you and Jess be ok here if I go?’ she asked Gina.

  ‘What!’ Gina stared at her.

  ‘I’m going with Tom.’

  ‘Hannah…’ Gina angled her head at the doorway. ‘Can I have a word? In the other room?’

  With a sigh Hannah followed her out of the kitchen. Gina waited until they were alone before she spoke again. ‘You can’t be serious,’ she said in a low voice.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You hardly know him! He hardly knows him!’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. What kind of person would I be if I let him go alone?’

  ‘He’s got people. He might not know who they are but he has them, so let them deal with it.’

  ‘Not right away, he won’t. What if he’s alone for hours? It’s Christmas Day. Nobody deserves to be alone in hospital on Christmas Day and not even be able to remember who it is they’re missing.’

  ‘What about your Christmas Day? Or ours – mine and Jess’s? Don’t they matter?’

  ‘Of course they matter! And we can still do all that later.’

  ‘You could be gone for the rest of the day. You know how long accident and emergency waits are.’

  ‘I’m sure it will be fine.’

  Gina paused. She seemed to be casting around for a solid argument that would persuade Hannah of her folly. And it was folly, even Hannah herself could see that. At least she would, if she could hear the small, sensible voice that was trying to shout louder than the totally irrational one that was yelling in her head right now. ‘There’s another thing…’ Gina finally said, with more than a little triumph in her voice, ‘how will you get home? It’s still snowing, and you don’t have a car that would get you half a mile down the road in this.’

  ‘There’ll be some public transport.’

  ‘What’s going to be running today, even without the snow?’

  ‘What about George’s friend with the tractor? That would get through…’

  ‘Hannah, that’s ridiculous, and if you don’t start talking sense I’m going to ask the ambulance men to look at your head for damage!’

  Hannah pushed a hand through her fringe. ‘I know you’re right. But it just feels like I should be with him. Does that sound weird?’

  ‘Frankly, yes, it sounds nuts. You’ve done enough – more than many would. Without you God only knows what kind of mess he would have been in by now. Let the professionals take care of things; you need to think about yourself for once. You’ve had a bad experience with George and his car and you need to remember that. Relax, let me and Jess take care of you and enjoy the rest of your day. If you’re still worried tomorrow we’ll call the hospital to see if he’s been claimed.’

  ‘You make him sound like a lost puppy.’

  ‘When you think about it, the situation isn’t all that different.’ Gina gave Hannah an encouraging smile.

  Hannah didn’t like it. In fact, every ounce of her wanted to argue, but even she could see how much sense Gina was making. She was getting far too involved in this man’s life and that would only complicate things in the long run – for her and for him. She already felt a connection, something that could be so right, but could also be very, very wrong. Maybe, much as she hated the idea, her involvement should end right here, with Tom going off to hospital. It was time to let the people who did this for a living take over now.

  ‘You can call the hospital later tonight, get an update,’ Gina added, ‘if that would make you feel better.’

  ‘It would,’ Hannah said. ‘Do you think they’ll keep him in?’

  ‘I’ve no idea, but I suppose that’s something we’ll find out when we call.’

  Hannah nodded. ‘Ok then. I’ll stay here.’

  *

  It had been a strange sort of goodbye. How do you part from someone who has been thrown into your life and entrenched themselves into it so quickly and completely that you can barely believe they hadn’t always been there, someone you hardly know and yet know in a way nobody else ever could, someone you don’t know anything about but already feel you know all you would ever need to?

  There had been an awkward moment, where Hannah wasn’t sure whether she was supposed to kiss or hug or show any kind of affection at all. So as the paramedics looked on with barely disguised looks of amusement, Hannah settled for a very formal handshake and a stiff wave at the door. Then the ambulance was gone, and so was Tom. Perhaps for good, but Hannah couldn’t let herself dwell on that possibility.

  Gina led her back inside. ‘Shall we get that dinner on now?’

  ‘It’ll taste disgusting,’ Jess said. ‘It’s been cooked about five million times.’

  ‘I think that might be a slight exaggeration…’ Gina cocked an eyebrow at her daughter. ‘But it can’t be helped. What were we supposed to do? None of today could be helped.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Hannah said. ‘This is not exactly the Christmas Day we’d planned, is it?’

  ‘Well,’ Gina replied brightly, ‘one day we’ll look back on it and laugh. And it’s not a complete wash out. We still have the rest of Aunt Dot’s presents to open, and I don’t know about you, but nothing says Christmas to me quite like a milkmaid figurine with only one bucket on her yoke.’

  ‘Or a half-full tube of dried up hand cream,’ Jess chipped in.

  ‘You got one of those?’ Hannah asked, ‘And you didn’t even share with us?’

  ‘That was last year,’ Jess laughed, ‘and it was too good to share so I gazed at it in secret in the dead of night when nobody else was there.’

  Hannah couldn’t help but giggle. Despite all that had happened, she could already feel her spirits lifting. If anyone could salvage the rest of the day and turn it into a proper Christmas celebration, Gina and Jess could.

  In the kitchen she stared at the chaos. It looked as though Jamie Oliver had been in and thrown a tantrum.

  ‘To be honest, I don’t feel like reheating all this now,’ Hannah said.

  ‘If I’m honest, I don’t really feel like eating it either,’ Gina agreed. ‘Sorry…’

  ‘Don’t be,’ Hannah said. ‘I feel exactly the same. It doesn’t feel like Christmas dinner with all the trimmings time now. Do you know what I think?’

  Gina raised an eyebrow in a silent question.

  ‘I think,’ Hannah continued, ‘that we should have our Boxing day dinner tonight and then settle down to watch telly.’

  ‘Turkey and oven chips?’ Jess grinned.

  ‘Just so.’

  ‘And then we can have Christmas dinner on Boxing Day.’ Gina clapped her hands together. ‘It’s kinda topsy turvy. I like it!’

  ‘Right then…’ Hannah began to clear a space to work, transferring the food they weren’t eating into pots to store overnight while Gina rooted in the freezer for a bag of oven chips. ‘Peas too?’ she called as she held the bag up for Hannah to see.

  ‘Let’s leave the healthy stuff for tomorrow,’ Hannah replied. ‘Tonight I want to eat chips and ketchup and maybe even a pickled gherkin.’

  ‘Sounds good to me.’ Gina shoved the peas back into a drawer and shut the freezer. After popping a tray of chips into the oven, while Hannah and Jess finished up cleaning the surfaces, Gina flicked the CD player on once again and began to bop around the kitchen. ‘Time to get pissed,’ she laughed as Hannah gave her head a wry shake.

  Hannah reached for their slightly battle-scarred turkey to begin carving off some more. ‘I think I’ve had enough with those two brandies you forced down me earlier.’

  ‘They were medicinal,’ Gina said. ‘These will be purely recreational.’

  ‘Can I have one now?’ Jess asked.

  ‘You can have a snowball.’

  ‘Ugh! Can’t I have something a bit less disco?’ Jess pouted.

  Hannah burst out laughing. ‘You certainly inherited your mother’s way with words!’
r />   ‘Can I though?’ Jess insisted.

  Hannah looked at Gina. ‘I don’t mind if you don’t.’

  ‘Only one,’ Gina warned Jess. ‘A light beer or something.’

  Jess grinned broadly. Hannah knew why she wasn’t causing more of a fuss. It wouldn’t be long before Gina was plastered and then she wouldn’t notice Jess craftily refilling her ‘one’ glass of beer a few times. But it was Christmas, an odd one, but Christmas nonetheless, and Hannah figured Jess was as entitled to let her hair down as they were. And she was pretty sure that both she and Gina had been sneaking shots from their father’s drinks cabinet before they were eighteen too, though Gina was a lot more sensible where her own offspring was concerned. It was just another aspect of being a mother that Hannah had resigned herself to never experiencing.

  Hannah fixed more brandy, this time mixed with a generous measure of lemonade to make them last a while, and Jess headed out to help herself to a bottle of Belgian beer from the stock Hannah kept in the outhouse down the garden. She came back into the kitchen some moments later kicking snow from her boots. The day was already turning to dusk, and a blast of cold air roared in through the open back door.

  ‘It’s stopped snowing,’ Jess announced.

  ‘Bloody typical,’ Gina said. ‘We could have done with that a few hours ago when we were waiting for an ambulance to get through. I bet it’ll be melted tomorrow.’

  ‘I don’t think so…’ Hannah’s gaze went to the darkening skies outside the window. ‘It feels like it might freeze over rather than melt.’

  ‘Then the roads will be lovely and slippery to cause more havoc for Boxing Day.’

  ‘That’s not good.’

  ‘I suppose it just means we’ll have to sit around snuggled in our PJs all day and watch films with all those chocolates we’ve bought each other,’ Gina said cheerfully.

  ‘Sounds good to me.’ Hannah sipped her drink. ‘I wonder if Tom will have been reunited with his family by then.’

  ‘I expect so.’ Gina shot a glance at Jess, who returned it with a little shrug.

  ‘Still…’ Hannah continued, ‘I wonder if he’s ok.’

  *

  Much later, when they had full bellies and were sitting together on the sofa like cats huddled in a barn, Hannah passed a tray of chocolates to Gina.