Champagne & Lemonade

by John A. D. Hickling

  “Dirty work’s right, Higgo, listen to this. I went into his office to empty the bin and I accidentally caught a glimpse of Kelsey’s computer screen. You’ll never guess what the important job was.”

  “What?” I replied as I watched Don fill with glee; he knew that I couldn’t help but want to know.

  “Ordering a set of three grand golf clubs,” beamed Don.

  “You’re joking; three grand on some clubs? We can’t even get new wheelchairs out of him.”

  “I know, Higgo, mind ya, they were good ’uns,” said Don, wiping over the pipes again.

  “It’s a joke, but nowt surprises me with him; he’d sell his own mum for a profit. Right, I had better crack on, Don, see ya later.”

  “Yeah, I’d better get these pipes done. Oh, and, Higgo, don’t say owt; you’re the only one I’ve told.”

  “No worries, shag, see ya later, ’tator,” I said as I made my made my way to collect a patient named Trevor. On the way I bumped into a cleaner, a logistics guy and a nurse who all mentioned Don’s golf club story to me.

  Apparently, a few minutes after Kelsey had ordered his golf clubs, he was seen making his way down a corridor and as he did so he tripped over some rubbish bags that were on the floor. He kicked a bag at the wall just as Macko and Tez had come around the corner.

  Kelsey went red and foamed at the mouth as he yelled, pointing at the rubbish, “Hoh, you, what the hell is this?”

  “Looks like black rubbish bags to me, guvnor,” Macko had replied.

  “Well, get them moved — now,” was Kelsey’s order.

  “It’s break time, man; we will sort it later, won’t we, Macko’?

  “If we get time, mucker; come on, I’m ruddy Hank Marvin, me ode.” And they had started to walk off.

  Kelsey had jumped up and down yelling, “Do you know who I am?”

  Macko had turned to Tez, “We got an idiot here who don’t know who he is, chief; the filthy creature. Come on, Tez.” And they had gone off for their dinner.

  Kelsey then booted another bag of rubbish, knocking a member of the public to the ground as he did so.

  Kelsey had then joined up with the CQC on the tour of the hospital, but he was more concerned about Dr Isaac Wilkutitov, who was just staring at Bev’s kidney area. Kelsey, looking at his watch, met briefly with the CQC then made some excuse that he had been called away and would leave them in the capable hands of Dr Sharmalar.

  *

  Since I have been in this job the things you see and hear make you realize how lucky you are and how precious life is. I constantly remind my Mrs and family when we bicker and moan about daft things like having too much milk in ya tea or bumping ya car (it’s only metal after all) of how much worse things could be.

  And today was no different. I fetched a patient, a Mr Trevor Ropewalk, he was a nice chap, in his late forties. I got him in the wheelchair and we set off for his chemotherapy treatment after me asking him where he was from, which always breaks the ice.

  Trev told me he was a bricklayer. Up until recently he had been fit and well and up to date with his finances. And now, just a couple of months after the cancer had been detected, things are different: his health is up and down and his finances are permanently down as he can’t work. He had a smile on his face the whole time I was with him, even though he wasn’t very happy that day because the nurses hadn’t given him his pain relief — again, and they hadn’t even told him I was coming. Dodging around the cleaners I asked, “How are you coping with it all?”

  Trev spat in his sick bowl. “Well, James (we introduce ourselves to the patients when we pick them up and it’s displayed prominently on a nametag anyway), the chemo is very draining and tiring, but the general care, apart from no tablets on the ward, has been good. And I know that if I didn’t have the treatment I wouldn’t stand a chance; so it is all for my own good.”

  I nearly lost control of the chair as the sun beamed through one of the windows. “Ya joking, no tablets? And ya right, Trevor, it’s the old cliché but you are in the right place, I suppose.” I admired how he took it on the chin and got on with it. He was thankful for what he had got. I admired his jolly spirit and it made me think about the petty things we all take for granted every day.

  I got him to his destination, gave him a friendly pat, and said, “I might see you later, all the best to you.”

  “Thanks ever so much, James, I hope to see you later.”

  As I left him I could sense that he was putting a brave face on a horrible situation. I wished I could have stayed with him, but a patient on a bed needed to go from Critical Care to theatres. Now, normally on dayshifts the theatre porters do this and we do it on the nightshifts, but it was that busy today with the CQC visit that we helped out. So I met up with Jack and we made our way to Critical Care.

  On the corridors there was a commotion as Doris, the cleaner, was yelling at a logistics porter who had nearly wiped half of the cleaners out with his tug, which is like a dodgem car that pulls cages and bins etc. Now, the driver of this particular tug was a right crackpot; he had defiantly been some experiment somewhere along the way. Why they let him drive around on these things is anyone’s guess. Last week he ploughed into a bed, patient, nurses and all, and two weeks ago he took the door off the Ear, Nose and Throat Department. Then, a few days ago, he knocked a doctor twenty foot up in the air and the doctor landed head first on the floor while the porter just drove on. Dr Wilkutitov happened to be passing and helped the doctor, taking him away on a trolley. Last I heard that doctor hadn’t been seen again since.

  Me and Jack held back and made sure the porter (who was known as Barmy Bob) had gone before we carried on. We got to critical care and took the chap to theatres. His name was Fred and he was having his shoulder operated on.

  The CQC were in the theatres too, inspecting everything — even us, watching how we manoeuvred the bed and everything. They stood silently, not saying a word, apart from one chap who scribbled some notes and said, “Errm”. As soon as they turned their backs to look at some equipment and other stuff a cleaner jumped out of a cupboard and quickly cleaned under the patient’s bed.

  After me and Jack left the theatres we went back to base. The CQC weren’t far behind us and their next point of call was to visit the labs. The labs are situated near the plaster clinic on the corridors and they are huge. They did everything down there: testing blood and urine samples for illnesses and working on new treatments. When you go in there to collect blood for transfusions there is always someone doing tests and experiments on seemingly every illness there is. We take blood and other samples there, and when I was a logistics porter I used to empty the rubbish bins. There are loads of the top brains down there, all draped in their long, white coats, and the stench of dead, rotting things bombards your nostrils as you walk in.

  At the base we had a quick cuppa and I told the lads about the golf club story. Then our phones beeped; it was Trevor Ropewalk waiting to go back so I accepted the job as I wanted to see how he was after his treatment.

  Upon arriving I made my way to him and clicked off the brakes on the wheelchair. I took him back, but the difference in him drained me. He now looked forlorn, pale and he hardly spoke.

  “That didn’t take long, Trevor. How are ya, pal?” I said, very concerned.

  “Okay, but it’s tired me out.” His drive and earlier confidence had diminished.

  “You don’t look as chipper as ya did on the way here, mate. I’ll get ya back and settled as quickly as I can, pal.” Trevor could only manage a very weak nod of his head. He was very quiet on the way back to his ward, apart from the odd gurgled spit into his phlegm splattered bowl.

  I got him back and settled and he forced a smile. “Thanks, James, sorry I was quiet; I feel terrible,” he muttered.

  “No problem, Trevor, get some rest. All the best to you, pal,” I replied and then left as the nurse came to attend to him, which gave me some comfort.

  I was quite taken aback by the
change in him; I wished it would all work out for him. It also made me think of what I have got, and how you should enjoy every minute of every day.

  On the way back, still reeling from the shock of seeing the difference in Trevor, I bumped into a young girl named Kelly, who worked in the labs, she was talking to a female cleaner and the story she told us was already doing the rounds — Don had got a hold of it. There is a guy who works in the labs, he’s a nice guy but a right nut job; we all think he escaped from the mental wards. Sidney Squeak is his name. Apparently the visit went something like this.

  The CQC were all introduced to Professor Nigel Lowbottom and he showed them around a blood testing facility. In the room was Sidney Squeak clad in comical goggles that enhanced his shining bald head (except for a clump of hair on the front), wearing yellow rubber gloves and draped in a white lab coat three times too big.

  “Aaaahh, at long last,” an eager Squeak had exclaimed as he clasped Bev’s hand and covered it in kisses. Before the horrified Bev could speak Sidney had done so instead. “Allow me to show you what I have been working on.”

  Nigel Lowbottom, shaking his head, had looked for support from another assistant to try and stop him, but the assistant just returned the baffled look. Squeak pulled down his goggles, dissected a frog and started mixing various powders and pouring liquids into a bowl.

  “Stand back and be prepared to be amazed; I give you the cure to the common cold or, its Latin name, shiverous onyourbikeus.”

  Bang.

  The explosion set off the water sprinklers. Staff went running and screaming. The Professor, under a dirty lab coat, hushed out Neil, Bev and Greg, who had all looked like drowned rats.

  “I do apologize to you all. Mr Squeak is a little eccentric; but what do you do with him?” said Lowbottom.

  Bev and Neil shook their heads, while Greg coughed, mumbled “Errm” and scribbled some notes.

  Most of them then left the labs except for a couple of assistants, and Sidney, who had been looking at his experiment for some time, rubbing his chin. “Well, what happened there then? I can’t have put too much TNT in it, surely?” He had then bent over and stuck his tongue into a bowl of powder; before shooting straight back up. “Yep, too much TNT in it.”

  Well, me and the cleaner were laughing that much at the fiasco that I had tears running down my face and the cleaner had to promptly mop them all up off the floor.

  I made my way back to base with mixed emotions, still chuckling from the Sidney Squeak story and thinking about Trevor. Suddenly, all four of the Dump’s on duty security staff went running past me followed by three nurses; they all looked to be heading for Grape Ward.

  I shouted to Selina, the nurse manager who I knew, to ask her what was happening. She beckoned me to keep up with her as she told me what all the commotion was about. Apparently, some male patient had lost the plot and wanted to jump off the hospital roof — I reckon he had probably tried the hospital food.

  As I walked along with Selina she said, “I’ve just come from Kelsey and he’s ordered us to not let Wilkutitov anywhere near the scene and to make sure that the CQC don’t get wind of it — as if we don’t have enough on our plate already. I mean, how are we supposed to prevent that?”

  “Knowing Kelsey he’d probably rather you just pushed the poor sod off there as quickly as possible,” I said

  “Ha, funnily enough he did say something to that effect,” was Selina’s reply.

  A security guard then shouted over to Selina and informed her that the patient now had a student nurse by knifepoint and was threatening to jump off the roof with her. The order from the personnel on the roof was to grab something soft in case we needed to break their fall.

  Selina went white. “Oh my God, I have to go, James,” she said, shaking.

  “Is there anything I can do?” We were now in a jog as we talked.

  “Erm, could you help get some mattresses round to where they need to be?”

  I patted her on her arm. “I’m on it,” I said as I went one way and Selina continued up to the roof.

  I went to get some mattresses and spotted Jack coming towards me on his way back from the shop. I told him what was going on and we hurried off.

  We got to where the equipment is kept, which is in an old, unused ward. This is where beds, mattresses and that sort of stuff is kept along with a room for medical equipment that houses such things as monitors, feed pumps, syringe pumps and lots more.

  Tez and Macko luckily happened to be nearby; they were clearly supposed to be working but were instead laughing themselves silly over Sidney Squeak’s escapade. I quickly filled them in and we dragged some mattresses around. We hauled one up each, grabbing them by the handles on the side. Macko and Tez asked if this would be on overtime rate.

  A nurse who met us outside was organizing the mattresses in the hope of cushioning the man’s fall. She spoke to someone on the roof via some sort of walkie-talkie thing and said, “Okay, I’m on my way.” She then asked me and Jack for assistance. We grabbed a trolley armed with oxygen for the young nurse who was a bit worse for wear and we made our way to the roof.

  When we got there the police, nurses and security were still trying to reason with the male patient. Ian Brickhouse’s eyes lit up when he saw the oxygen as he was still out of breath from running up the stairs. Kelsey and the CQC were on the roof now and me and Jack shook our heads at the sight of Kelsey impatiently checking his watch. One of the CQC still just stood there, scribbling notes and mumbling “Errm”.

  Suddenly, out of nowhere, the man started crying and loosened his grip on the nurse, enabling her to run to safety. She broke down in the arms of her matron. I felt for the young nurse and wondered what she must be thinking. I mean, you don’t expect to come to work and get attacked with a knife and do a bungee jump without the bungee, do you? I thought about how it was unfair; why couldn’t it have been Kelsey at knifepoint waiting to be thrown off the roof? I doubt there’d be a shortage of volunteers for that job. As for the event itself, it didn’t bother me. There is always summat happening at the Dump; it’s better than watching telly.

  We got the young nurse on the trolley so that a doctor could take a look at her. He suggested that she be taken home; Kelsey suggested a twelve hour shift for her instead.

  The patient shouted “Goodbye” and went to jump. Security and police jumped for him, grabbing his legs. He swung over and hit his head on the edge. It took a handful of people to drag him up to safety; he was cut up and knocked out so they now had to take him to be checked out. Barry and Pete came up to fetch him.

  Me and Jack made our way back with the trolley that we brought up for the nurse that was no longer needed. Kelsey too was leaving, walking ahead with the CQC, on the way to his office for a chat with them on the day’s findings. We had just overtaken them as they turned to go into Kelsey’s office when Barmy Bob ploughed into them on his tug (well, into the CQC, Kelsey got out of the way).

  *

  Well, what a day, I was shattered, but with it being nearly home time this would be my last job. I was on the way to pick up a patient from his ward to take him to his radiography treatment. I was thinking about the day’s events. I was still taken back by Trevor Ropewalk’s bravery and I chuckled about Sidney Squeak. But the drama on the roof had been on another level; I couldn’t wait to tell the Mrs about it all.

  I got to the ward and entered the patient’s room; he was waiting and smiled. I, on the other hand, was gobsmacked as he only had one eye, and where the other one ought to have been was exposed to show a big, scabby hole. I tried not to look, but you know what it’s like, you can’t help it, can ya?

  I introduced myself and got him in his wheelchair; I then picked up his notes from the nurses’ station and set off. Frank was a nice chap, he told me he was a writer and working on a book about his life story. I told him that I liked writing and that I was doing a story about the hospital. He told me about him getting cancer — that’s how he lost his eye. The o
nly time we stopped talking was to dodge the cleaners.

  Frank was telling me about him going to live in Jamaica when a noise rattled the corridor. I looked at the chair, thinking something was caught in the wheels, when Frank informed me he had trumped, just as two nurses walked by. “No,” he said, “it wasn’t the wheels, it’s me, and I know those nurses weren’t impressed. But I’m not bothered,” he said, “When ya gotta go, ya gotta blow.” He said, “I did it once and pushed a bit too hard, and there was a ball of poo in the bed. I felt embarrassed, but what can you do?”

  “Shit happens, Frank,” I said.

  I got him to his treatment room, booked him in and made my way back to my base.

  *

  Well, that’s it for another shift for me. Another quiet day at the Dump. I’m gonna have a steady walk home today, fish and chips for me tea; battered haddock, which means fried in batter, not battered to death.

  The two ladies who were fighting have been charged; the one in the blue with disturbing the peace, the one in grey with ABH (actual bodily harm). Apparently, she gave one of the police officers a crack round the head. The man on the roof has woken up and, apart from cuts, bruises and a very sore head, he his OK. But instead of thanking the staff for saving him, he is now suing the hospital. The CQC didn’t look too pleased about the visit, but then again apart from ‘errm’ not one of them has said anything. And, in case you are wondering, the old man in the red coat is fine, but for some reason, he said he is going private.

  Harry and… The Pirates of Rock Bay

  It was a typical summer’s day and Harry was at home, staring out of his bedroom window, wondering when the rain was going to stop. He jumped on his bed and carried on reading his pirate book: The Pirates of Rock Bay.

  There were two main pirate gangs in Rock Bay: Captain Shannagan and his ship, the White Wind, and the bad Captain Greed and his smelly, big, black ship, the Devil’s Bottle.

  One really hot day, the Devil’s Bottle was in hot pursuit of the White Wind. “Faster, you dogs, faster,” bellowed Captain Greed, who was dressed in a long black coat, a scruffy ripped red shirt and big black boots. He also wore a bandana round his head and an eye patch over his right eye. He had recently grown a beard to cover up the scar on his chin that Captain Shannagan had given him some years back. In his hand he held his faithful sword, which had beaten many a pirate.