One Split Second

by Gillian Crook

  Well, it has been a good morning and so far I have sufficiently wound up the staff nurse. She was not amused, but Irene is so dour and never cracks a smile, one day maybe I might get her to smile, but I don’t suppose it will be any day soon. Miserable cow! sorry, but she is. I got one of the young male auxiliaries, to move all the menus from each table, so that the meal didn’t match the bed number. You see, most people in the ward don’t bother checking the name, they just go ahead and write what they want. Oh she is gonna go ape-shit at lunch time because the meals won’t match what that particular person wanted. Don’t panic, it’s not all that bad, because when everybody realises they have the wrong food, they soon ‘see’ the mistake and it gets sorted… but, not before Irene nearly turns belisha beacon red with anger!! It’s only a bit of a laugh, and my friend Marie, the aux was in this morning, so we had a bit of laugh about it, and in fact, she helped Irene sort out the food to the correct bed. Later on I just had a bit of a nap in anticipation of what exciting things were gonna happen… oh, incidentally, talking of things happening, the lovely Mr Mackenzie, did not turn up yesterday… by jove, what a surprise, well I don’t really mind, he’s’ a crazy Celtic supporter and I think they were playing, so he probably would have gone to watch it with his other crazy celtic fan, Tom. Actually, it was quite nice in a bazaar kind of way, because I had expected it, and he hadn’t let me down, and now I know, now I will get a grovelly phone call, probably tonight and he will make all sorts of excuses, bless him, I will let him feel bad for a while and then I will let him know I was expecting it and it was lovely to know that he hadn’t changed.

  Also, Barry phoned to say he was going to Warrington, so I thought maybe I would give the kids a night off, then again, maybe not, I love them so much, they cheer me up every time. Well, places to go, people to see… very heavy schedule today… now lets see; I need to speak to the physio, to see what course of action we are going to take because at the moment I can’t get on a wheelchair because of the operation to the bum, which, I have been told by the surgeon, who is a lovely man, Mr Templar, that it is the ‘sacral’ area. I thought he said the sacred area at first and I thought, it’s been called a lot of things but never sacred. Then I was supposed to see the Podiatrist (I knew them as chiropodists, but the other is the PC name for them), I suppose when you think of it, it makes sense… when you are numb anywhere in your body, you can’t feel what’s going on, and the pod files your nails and deals with any feet problems. Apparently, the most common problem is ingrown toenails, and I suppose if you weren’t paralysed it would hurt like hell so he is needed! The other one I need to see is the dentist. I suppose if I’m going for the full mot, I should get the dentist to look at my teeth, because I think I cracked a tooth in the accident! (One lil injury that nearly got away undetected)!! Also, we are supposed to see the physio at some point.

  So, Amy and mum did turn up, and explained that they had come via such and such, to get to wherever, and in the meantime, were en route to somewhere else, so they had decided to come in to see me and bring a few bits. It feels more like a ‘duty’ call, meaning that because they were about 20 mins in the vicinity of the hospital I should be ‘so grateful’, that they had gone out of their way to get here, SO why come into see me and then as soon as they arrive they tell me when they are having to leave… how senseless and insensitive is that… Sorry! Am I suppose to feel honored or should I give them a commendation? I would rather they just came in and it went something like this… ‘Hi there, we were passing so thought we would pop in, and we have we have picked you up a few bits but they are probably all wrong, as, we didn’t have a lot of time to spare because we are rushing to get to Perth, and the traffic is really bad, so we cant stay long, but Hi anyway, and how are you?’ . . . ‘oh, I’m fine (just unable to walk at the moment)’, Oh, that’s good you seem a bit brighter… ‘Yeah, I’m good’ . . . . Ok then, there’s the few bits we picked up for you, but we really have to get going now to beat the rush hour… ‘oh, ok, bye then’ . . . ‘ok, we will phone… Bye… ! That’s the truth of the way things should really be because that’s what they mean. Anyway, they had gone shopping and, sorry, there was no ‘gourmet’ food from markies, but there were lots of nice SWEETS AND CAKES!! SEE WHAT I MEAN! Also, they had bought me some clothes, but they had got them in the wrong size… so, they were gonna have to go back to the supermarket and they would get them changed for next time. When did getting a pair of joggers and some tops become such an arduous task? Oh, well never mind, it was the thought that counts, shame that the thought only reached about 2 out of 10; I really am not ungrateful and I do love them so much, but please do not come out with pointless ‘excuses’ when the truth is, Amy doesn’t like hospitals and she wanted to go. Well, they did and in the end we had a nice chat and they said they would phone later… at least, I had some more sweets to pig out on!! I love to bitch at times, and sometimes it’s only the family who get the brunt of it. It’s just a build up of pent-up frustration and I’m always sorry afterwards!!

  Well, Angela phoned and I missed her calls, but I was told that she was supposed to be calling back in half an hour, well half and hour came and went and I tried to get the ward phone… and I couldn’t damn well get it… so. This proves my point that if she had got me my MOBILE PHONE, as promised, I wouldn’t need to worry about the patient phone… . it is soo annoying I have been asking for another phone since I got into hospital. In the two months that I have been I hospital I have faced near death, bashed and bruised my body, been through a kidnapping with such ‘hallucinogenic’ experiences I thought I was going to be killed!!, yet it is too much trouble to have gotten me a mobile phone that I could use to call them back or at the very least leave a message or call a few friends and… the list is endless. I think their worry is that I am going to be ‘naughty’ and use it in the ward when I shouldn’t (what, are the hospital going to do? throw me out?) The mobiles affect the machinery (or so they say), and I suppose they do have a point, but who is really gonna hear me under the covers and what electrical airwaves are gonna be affected!! Well, no mobile phone.

  In Plymund I used to carry my phone everywhere with me and I even kept it under the pillow at night. Actually talking of the phone, one of the first things I asked for when I woke up in the hospital (after I had ask for the kids and my mum, then got the shock of my life when I saw, Tony, Paula and Marie), was my bag that had my mobile phone in it. But, then, oh God, I knew I had, had an accident, but I didn’t know how serious it was, then when I saw so many of the family there, I knew it was something pretty bad. I suppose I knew nothing, because I had no information about my accident. It had been given to the family by the docs, because I had been unconscious for a few days and they had arrived before I was conscious. Anyway, back to the bag. Because I used to carry my mobile, money and make-up in it, no matter how ‘drunk’ I was the night before, I would always manage to find my bag, even if I had to retrace my steps, but this time there was no point. I realised later, that it must have got lost that fateful day on the 25th August 2003 when I was down at the hoe, in Plymund. I’m gonna write this because I don’t want to forget it.

  On the Saturday night before the accident, I had been out with my friends and we had been drinking and dancing and having a laugh, and I spotted this handsome guy looking over. I carried on dancing, chatting to my mates and thinking, mmh, he is staring at me. Well needless, to say, me and my mates got separated when it was time to go and I couldn’t find them. Anyway, I felt a tap on my shoulder and it was the very same guy. He asked me where my friends were, and I told him I had lost them, and he volunteered to stay with me to help find them. While we were looking we got talking and he seemed really nice. I was obviously not going to find the girls, so he offered to walk me home, but I didn’t want to go home. In the end it was obvious I wasn’t going to find the girls, so he asked if I fancied going to his for a drink, because he had to get home because of his dog! I know what your thinking? He
did seem nice enough, and I did think he looked quite ‘normal’ and not the type that went picking up girls, (what a very idiotic assumption for me to ‘blindly’ make, considering my track record when it came to guys), but for me it was a bit of a confidence boost to think that maybe a ‘nice’ guy, and good looking, fancied me, and so I thought, what the hell… and said ‘ok’, it was only a `drink`???

  Well, we introduced ourselves to each other, and he told me his name was Alec, he was a cabby, and he owned a dog, and his own taxi firm… well, that seemed cosha enough… why would he make something like that up? I just said I was working down here, and didn’t elaborate (I come with so much baggage, I make the reclaim conveyor at Heathrow airport look empty). I did think for a second though, my God, I hadn’t been with anyone else, even for a kiss, for a long time, and had previously been involved in two relationships that made me very uncertain of any other guys, since, one of the guys, Pete, used to lift his hands to me, and eventually in a jealous rage beat me up—(he was a thug), and the other, a Turkish guy who had raped me, and there was already an ongoing investigation into an issue of illegal immigrants involving the police. That is all too painful to write about at the moment, but I will at a later stage.

  So, you could see my dilemma; Anyway, after long meaningful deliberation (at least 2 secs—well, my instincts felt good this time), I agreed yes, to going back to his… he said he didn’t live far away, so we started to walk, or should I say stagger along the road, having a laugh and chatting. We went towards the Hoe, with it’s beautiful lit up promenade and lovely big lighthouse (not far from where my fateful accident was). It was a beautiful night, and he was good fun, in a crazy, but friendly crazy way, like me. We eventually got to his, and it was a tasteful block of flats with quite a plush entrance, and really nicely looked after with lil pot plants in some of the garden areas and trees around it, and it also looked very secure and safe (I remember taking all this in as my senses weren’t totally numb), and I was checking for exits in case I needed a swift getaway! So, we got to his flat, on the second floor and he was faffing about trying to find his keys then when he found them he started to put them in the keyhole, when a dog started barking… oh dear, man and beast, I had better beware… well, I love dogs and he had told me he had an Alsatian, called Shadow, and he had him for about 2 yrs, so he was only still a pup and not to worry. Ok, I do love dogs, having grown up in a family with golden retrievers, so I didn’t mind, and again my instincts were good, because why would he have told me about the dog if he was planning something unsavoury? So, when we eventually got in to his flat he quitened the dog down… and then the dog came to me, and like his master, I liked him straight away as well, . . . incidentally, the name of his dog was Shadow, because when he first got him, as a pup he used to follow him everywhere, to the point he was always tripping over him, and they were inseparable (he even used to take him in the taxi and let him sit on the front seat)—so it seemed appropriate to call him Shadow! So whilst he was getting the drinks, I fell into a lovely comfy single chair and had a look around his flat which was moderately modern, not too large, a definite bachelor pad, nicely decorated, messy but homely; . . . I liked this guy and his dog, aah! Alec shouted through to open the patio doors if I wanted to, so I did, and there was a little patio, with some plants scattered around and a small two seater set of garden furniture, nice touch, and a small barbecue… all in all it was actually very tasteful, admittedly it was all being viewed through ‘booze coloured glasses’, but a good haze for a change, one that was pleasurable. Alec came through and he seemed genuinely glad that we had come back to his instead of going on somewhere else, and to be fair to him, he had made the point that if I had wanted to go onto a club, he would have gone just because I would have been going… I thought that was sweet.

  Well, after I had a few glasses of wine and he had a few beers, and shadow had his water and went into his special cubby hole to sleep, we carried on chatting, and he had on a Fleetwood Mac, album that I loved, and everything just seemed so right; then we started kissing, and one thing lead to another and we ended up in his bedroom. After we had ‘slept together’ we both fell into a very sound, and for me anyway, contented sleep, and it was a long time since I had slept with a guy who had put his arm round me protectively, instead of when Pete used to, so that I couldn’t sneak out of the bed. We both slept in till about 10 then he got up first and I stayed in bed and fell back to sleep. When I eventually got up, about 2 hrs later, he already had showered, new clothes on, had taken the dog for a walk, had a pair of shorts with a belt and a white t-shirt on the chair in the shower room there for me to change into… and, he also had put breakfast on, and the patio doors were open and the sunlight beaming in, and even with a bit of a hangover I still was able to appreciate the beautiful day. Oh, it was so peaceful! I put his dressing gown on first and he got me a cup of coffee and said to just sit for a while on the patio… His flat was small (and Messy) well in the bedroom, but like I described before, it was compact and everything in its place… the patio looked onto other flats, but there was enough distance between them for each individual patio to remain secluded, and it was in a lovely part of Plymund, and the other flats around him all had their patios looking beautiful. We talked over breakfast; he had made, croissants, orange juice and cereal (and he did offer me a beer—well it was actually lunchtime, but I declined the offer and said I may have one once I had a shower and got ready, then I could sit out on the patio and enjoy it), yes, the breakfast was delicious, and there were good vibes, especially since he hadn’t actually asked me to leave and I didn’t say anything about going… . We talked about the night before, and when it got to the part about us sleeping together, we both agreed it wasn’t a drunken fumble, and I knew for certain it wasn’t—he was just so kind I was starting to wonder if it could really be true that I might have met a decent guy? He felt a bit special, if that makes sense after just one night? So after my shower and getting dressed and doing my make up, he had been cleaning the kitchen after breakfast and I sat out on the patio to dry my hair, and he came out with a glass of wine, it was all just so civilized and ‘right’; we talked about everything and anything and we had a laugh, then he was telling me a bit about himself, and in a nutshell, he was single, had been married, had two children, ran his own taxi firm and he was a decent, hard working, classy guy (his words, not mine) and he had a good old `tongue in cheek sense of humour`, he was also the same age as me, well, he was 42, and we both agreed that we had enjoyed ourselves (a lot) the night before. Then surprisingly he asked me if I wanted to go for walk with shadow—he had offered to give me a lift home if I wanted, but I opted for going for a walk. We walked along the road first, then crossed the road to the field where he let shadow off his lead, we talked and talked and we got on really well, so whilst we were walking we stopped at a few pubs on our travels and sat out, the day was gorgeous. We sat down by the harbour, with yachts moored along side, and we got shadow some water. Alec had a pint, and I had a wine, and we just sat saying nothing for a while, taking in the sunshine and admiring the view and I was contemplating what to do next? I knew I had to get home at some point in the afternoon, so that’s what I decided to do. We walked further along the hoe and came out at the lighthouse, and I recognised my bearings, so I said I could walk from there to get home, not because I wanted to really as I was quite content, but I just felt I didn’t want to overstay my welcome into his little world. Then GREAT! he asked me if I would like to go out that night, so (of course) I said yes… we talked about where to meet and then decided on a nice wine bar/cafeteria called the Voodoo Lounge in the middle of Plymund town centre, so we agreed to meet there at 8 pm. We gave each other a proper, long, wonderful kiss and I got butterflies, I’m sure you know what I mean? So, I toddled away after I said `bye` to shadow, and thanked Alec for a lovely time (I wanted to say wonderful and special, but I didn’t want to frighten the poor guy away, by seeming overly keen! what a joke, I was smitten. I
walked home with a spring in my step, and I actually couldn’t believe I had met such a nice guy—we had got on really well, and it was a case of love me love my dog (I didn’t love… but I definitely liked a lot!), and there was plenty of time to tell him about things! So, when I got home, I went for a shower, washed the clothes he had given me and sat out in the sun, and Joan, my best mate, came over to see me and I told her all about it. She was excited for me, which made me even more excited! We were like a couple of silly girls. So after Joan left, I had to go for a quick lie down before I got ready to meet him. Then I started to get ready and I didn’t have a clue what to wear, I pondered over what I thought he would and wouldn’t like… in the end I opted for a dark green leatherette pair of trousers with a cropped top and a pair of sandals… even though I say it myself I looked really good. Heart beating I ordered a taxi and got there for about five past eight. When I got in, I couldn’t see him straight away, and then he came from around the corner looking for me. He looked smart and handsome, and felt very lucky. He took me towards a beautiful comfy sofa, where he had ordered a bottle of bubbly for us. He then told me he had really bought it for me, because he would rather have a pint… I didn’t argue with that, and, he made a toast to us`, my God it was a long time since I had toasted to an `us`! but it felt right. I think that we both had the same idea that we could enjoy each others company, a lot! Even though it was early days, it was special, because it all just felt right! After a few drinks, (and I shouldn’t really have been drinking, but this time, I wasn’t drinking to get drunk and shut things out… oh, no, I was having a drink to enjoy and try to take everything in). We went onto the club upstairs from the Voodoo Lounge. He wasn’t a dancer, but he didn’t mind me strutting my stuff on the dance floor… we even met a few people that were friends of his, and he introduced me as his `girlfriend`, I was so chuffed. We stayed till about 1 at the club and then walked back to his and again, it was a great night. When we got back to his, I was looking forward to seeing shadow, and I was quite drunk, but happy drunk and enjoying myself and made a big, over-exaggerated fuss of the dog, but he was so so cute and yes, I was very tipsy! He poured us a `nightcap` which I thought was quaintly old fashioned.