Won't Be Fooled Again

by C F White

  “And why might you be staring at it, then?” Lisa peeped over the screen, her perfectly smoothed-out eyebrows trailing up her forehead and hiding beneath her thick dark fringe.

  She was trying out this look to cover the lines she claimed to have developed overnight when she’d turned forty last month. As far as Kez was concerned, her brow was as smooth as his left arm, and that was covered in a light-brown plastic that stood in stark contrast to his darker skin tone. But it was the best he was gonna get on the NHS. The cheaper versions tended to favour white patients.

  Catching her gaze, Kez smiled as sweetly as he could and a few deep-set wrinkles appeared through the locks of her hair. Huh, they only appear when she frowns.

  For those working in the cardiology outpatients department of a busy children’s hospital, frowning was a common occurrence. Especially when the admin staff were wishing they were elsewhere and the clinic was overrunning, as it so often did in the Rawlings-Khan practice. Both doctors were particularly thorough. A good thing for the patients being seen to, a not-so-good-thing for the secretaries who dealt with all the fallouts from those they were holding up. Or for Lisa, who had to ensure that her admin staff, aka Kez, didn’t overwork like the doctors so often did.

  “Why? To magically make it whizz around to five p.m.” Kez had to be honest. Lying made him sweat.

  Lisa tutted just as the p-ding of an inbound email burst from Kez’s computer speakers and brought the conversation to an immediate standstill. When Kez darted his gaze to his inbox, he couldn’t have prevented the spreading grin if his job had depended on it. And it kinda did.

  Good morning, Kwesi! Are we still on for our meeting later? Kind regards, Dr. Rafferty Carmichael.

  The little winky face after the name suggested this wasn’t the usual professional meeting exchange. Throwing his apple core into the bin, Kez shuffled forward and tapped out his reply with speedy fingers.

  Dear Dr. Carmichael, I have indeed scheduled our appointment into my calendar. Five p.m. cannot come around quick enough. This may be the first meeting I’ve ever looked forward to. Best wishes, Kez x

  He wasn’t sure about adding the kiss. Especially considering this was on his work account. But his fingers had done the talking and it had whooshed off before he could feel any guilt about it. This couldn’t be the first email exchange that had overstepped the boundaries laid out in the policy notes stapled to his cubicle border. Not if the St. Cross rumour mill was to be believed.

  Can’t wait either. Meet you outside. Raff xx

  Well, well, well. Two kisses. Kez’s smile grew tenfold to pain his cheeks.

  Gasping, Lisa peered higher over the barrier. “You have a hot date, don’t you?”

  Kez tried a flippant shrug, but guessed his curving lips would give him away. “Maybe.”

  “I knew it! You’ve been smiling all day, even when you were talking to Mrs. Marsh earlier. Come on, out with it. Who is it? Someone here?”

  “He may be an employee of the hospital, yes.”

  “A doctor?”

  Kez grinned.

  “You, Mr. Zakari”—Lisa pointed the tip of her highlighter pen at him—”are a dark horse. And I seriously hope it’s not Rawlings. There’s enough going around about him as it is.”

  Kez laughed. “No, it’s not Rawlings.” He tilted his head. “Although, I wouldn’t have minded before all the rumours.”

  “I’ll bet. But we don’t know they’re true, so let’s give the bloke the benefit of the doubt, yes?”

  “Sure.” Kez had to. He was Rawlings’ secretary after all.

  “So which doctor is it?” Lisa hummed. “The new one on Walrus Ward? Straight out of med school? Bit of a dish in tweed?”

  “My lips are sealed on this one, I’m afraid. I’m hoping it actually works out, after the disastrous last one. You’d think a doctor, even one who’s from Social Sciences, would be able to tell that this was fake.” Kez held up his left arm.

  Lisa winced. “Oh, crap. What happened?”

  “Took my shirt off and he miraculously had an urgent call to attend to.”

  “Oh, Kwesi. What an arsehole.”

  Kez shrugged. “Used to it. So, you’ll understand why I won’t be divulging the name of this one just yet.”

  “Fine. Don’t tell me.” Lisa huffed and tapped her nails across her keypad. “Well, you know what they say, right?”

  “It’s always the quiet ones?”

  “Ain’t that the truth?” Lisa peeped up from behind the barrier. “But no, I was referring to the time.”

  “Oh, right! It’s good to be fashionably late?”

  “Ha, no, but in this ward I’d say we’d win the London catwalk. You seriously do have this mystery date on your mind. I meant that time flies…”

  “Yeah, when you’re having fun?” Kez furrowed his brow, forming his own wrinkles.

  Lisa chuckled. “Well, I mean the day goes quicker when you’re busy. So…” She prodded the tip of her pen through an imaginary target in the air.

  Said target was clearly Kez and his procrastination efforts. Shuffling his chair under the desk, he attempted to get his work mode back on. He really did need to concentrate when typing out Dr. Rawlings’ notes. The consultant Kez serviced had practically illegible handwriting as it was, but having been the doctor’s secretary for a couple of years now, Kez had learned to decipher most of it. The rest he highlighted, and if Lisa turned up a blank, then he had to do the embarrassing cross-check with the doctor himself, taking up too much of Rawlings’ already precious time.

  Squinting at the notes, he leaned forward, then huffed and bit off the lid to his pink highlighter.

  “Kwesi!”

  Kez swivelled in his chair. That demanding tone, along with his full name, meant business. What have I fucked up this time?

  Kez blew the pen lid onto his desk. “Yes, Doctor?”

  “We may have to cancel the rest of today’s appointments.” Dr. Rawlings swung the multicoloured stethoscope around his neck, then tucked his tight-fitting chequered shirt into his just-as-figure-hugging chinos.

  Damn, that man is hot for a middle-aged bloke. Kez shook himself out. Not for the first time either. Whilst not technically his line manager—Lisa was the one who did his supervisions and annual reviews—the doctor was still his superior, and one of the most glorified paediatric cardiology consultants in the country. Swoon much?

  And if the current rumours infecting the hospital’s sterile walls were to be believed, Dr. Elliot Rawlings actually preferred men to the women who threw themselves at him more often than Kez was meant to notice. What are the chances, eh? Not that Kez had one, of course. Rumour mill also suggested that Rawlings had a type, and Kez wasn’t it. The doctor was into blonds. Who isn’t these days?

  “You want me to send these ones home?” Kez lowered his voice so as not to alert the remaining patients who were crowding the waiting area, with the clinic already behind on the routine check-ups.

  “Best do.” The doctor nodded. “Or transfer the urgent ones to Dr. Khan. There’s been an emergency call-out for doctors in the area. I’m on standby.”

  The doctor scurried off, his dress-shoes clomping on the varnished flooring. Kez didn’t linger too long on the man’s backside, he was almost certainly sure this time.

  Instead, he exchanged uneasy looks with Lisa over the top of their desk barriers, silently conversing as to what this emergency call-out could be. She tapped nails across her keyboard, obviously in an attempt to check the latest management level notices that Kez’s pay grade forbade him to see, when a shallow gasp from the cardiology waiting area caught his attention and prickled his skin.

  He stood, scooted out from behind his desk and stepped toward the door that separated the administration area from the medical bays. The television, normally tuned into Cbeebies or some Disney film, had been switched to News 24. The bold white-type lettering trailing the screen sent instant gut-wrenching fear into Kez’s normally iron stomach. His daily a
pple that, unfortunately, never kept the doctor away from him, curdled among that morning’s breakfast efforts of honey-flavoured porridge oats.

  FIRE IN MARLYTE ESTATE, BRANTON.

  The parents still left in the waiting area all stared up at the screen. Their intense focus rendered the usually buzzing waiting area silent except for the odd burst of song from whichever plastic toy hadn’t run out of batteries and was currently being put to full use by one of Dr. Rawlings’ patients.

  “A fire has broken out in a block of flats in Branton, East London.” The news reporter motioned to the building she stood before with a well-practised solemn expression. “The flames spread quickly and emergency services have been called a full hour after the fire is suspected to have started. Residents declare the alarm system hadn’t worked, with many having been alerted to the blaze by their neighbours.”

  The reporter swished a lock of hair away from her face and the wind blew the blonde strands straight back to stick to her glossy lips. Kez had no idea why he fixated on her and not what she stood in front of. Perhaps so I don’t have to look at it.

  “There have been no fatalities reported, but those with serious injuries have been taken to nearby hospitals, which are doing their best to cope with the overwhelming demand, pulling specialists out from other hospitals in the area.”

  Kez’s fingers trembled, the tips frozen as he clamped them over his mouth.

  “Residents of the Marlyte Estate in Branton have been granted access to nearby community centres, with church buildings opening their doors for those who have now suddenly found themselves homeless…”

  Ice-cold blood surged through his entire body and Kez hurtled back to his desk, grabbed his keys and flung his jacket over his sedentary arm.

  “Kez!” Lisa stood, hands on hips. “Where are you going?”

  Kez didn’t stop. He couldn’t. He ran through the corridors, slaloming through the scrubs heading his way and ricocheting off moving beds, all in an attempt to get to the exit of the hospital.

  Some things were more important than a job.

  Or a hot date with a doctor.

  * * * *

  He would have thought he’d be used to hospitals, especially having worked in one for the best part of three years and being a regular outpatient due to his congenital defect, but the entrance to the Accident & Emergency department of Newham University Hospital in Plaistow didn’t have the same welcoming vibe that Kez’s home from home at St. Cross did. There, they covered up the atrocities that life threw at unsuspecting families with smiley, happy volunteers, brightly coloured furniture and inspiring murals painted on the walls.

  Here, it was all business.

  Overcrowded with patients demanding to be seen or to be shown where their loved ones were or to be told what was happening next, the hospital appeared more like a battleground. And there was something so very off-putting about adult patients in emergency wards. They screamed wounds and sickness and…death. The smell wasn’t the same either, despite all NHS-led hospitals bulk buying the same sterilising solution for cleaning.

  Kez felt for the staff on duty, but that was minor in comparison to his need to push through the mounds of people and give his best demanding clearing of his throat to the girl behind the counter. Whilst he didn’t work an A&E clinic, he knew what irate patients who had been waiting for far longer than was deemed appropriate could be like. Draining your very soul. But he hadn’t just abandoned his frontline post, rushed through the city of London via several modes of public transport and sprinted from the station to be told to wait.

  “Hi, sorry, could you tell me if Eve Atta has been admitted?” He had no idea if his aunt had even been conscious on arrival and would use her English given name, or if they’d had to do a routine ID check that would show up her Ghanaian birth name. It was best to offer both, to help out the admin staff. Kez knew what it was like dealing with names that sometimes didn’t match up to database records.

  The girl responded to Kez’s hopeful smile by nodding and checking through the patient listings. “Yes, cubical five. Waiting for a bed upstairs.”

  Kez gave his thanks and hurried through to the main cubicles, not even bothering to ask for permission. They could come find him later, but he suspected the security staff had enough on their plates, judging by the sudden outburst from the man with a nail pounded into his hand.

  As Kez pulled apart the green curtain to bay five, he nearly gave the cleaners more work for their minimum wage by vomiting his curdled apple onto the sterile floor.

  His aunt lay there on the fold-out bed, covered in her old dressing gown as if she were sleeping soundly at home, but she wasn’t. Sleeping, that was. Is she? The oxygen mask covering her mouth made it difficult to decipher whether she was inhaling her own breaths, and the cast on her foot had slipped to the edge of the wafer-thin mattress as if it was too heavy for her to cope with.

  “Auntie!” Kez rushed to her side and placed his clammy hand in hers.

  Eve’s eyes flickered open and she smiled through the mask. Pulling it down, she licked her dried lips and gripped Kez’s fingers with warm skin. That’s a good a sign as any that she’s okay, right?

  Right?

  “Kwesi. Oh, Kwesi.” Her normally husky voice was gritty and deep.

  “Are you okay?” Bit of a stupid question considering, but what else could he say?

  She nodded. “Yes. Lucky really. I wouldn’t have left. They told us, stay put.” She had to pause to cough. “But he rescued me.”

  “Who did?” Was this where she swooned over some young fireman? Kez held down the need to utter that some people get all the luck.

  Eve swallowed, then pointed to the glass of water by the side of her bed. Kez handed it over and helped her drink, lowering to perch on the edge of the mattress. Eve looked weary, her skin ashy, and the scattered silver strands of hair fuzzed out from her usual tight braids that draped over her shoulders and down to her chest.

  “Your Callum.”

  Kez jolted. He shook his head. It had been a while since he’d heard that name, especially coming from his Aunt Eve, and the prefix was a shock in itself.

  “Callum?” Kez confirmed, just for the record.

  Eve nodded, gesturing to the plastic cup once more. After taking a sip, she settled back against the metal headboard.

  “He came to me, Kwesi. He carried me out. And a little boy.”

  Disbelief ran through Kez’s frosty veins. “Callum?” He glanced around, half expecting the man to show up and corroborate her story. When he didn’t, Kez laughed at himself for thinking that miracles might happen. “Where is he now?”

  “I don’t know. They whisked me off to here. I expect he didn’t want to hang around for the authorities.”

  Kez had to laugh. Wouldn’t that be the truth? Regardless, he didn’t want to think about Callum. Not then. Not ever, really.

  Trouble was, he’d been trying that for the better part of five years.

  And failing miserably.

  “What’s happening to you?” Kez shifted his focus to the one person he could trust to always be there. At least he could rely on her. She hadn’t left him. Thank God. Apparently, thank Callum. Now there’s some serious irony.

  “I’ll stay here for a day or so. They’ll be checking me over, no doubt.”

  “Then you’ll come stay with me.”

  Eve smiled that beatific smile of hers but shook her head. “No need, darling. I’ve already agreed to stay with Grace, from the church. You have your own life now. Don’t need this old dear cramping your style.”

  “Don’t be daft. It’s us, Auntie. Me and you. You look after me, I look after you. The way we always have. Family, remember?” Family isn’t all about flesh and blood. That very thought caused an unexpected prickle that Kez couldn’t shake off. He had to ask. “Did Callum’s mum get out?”

  Eve tilted her neck and reached out a hand to tap Kez’s cheek. “She’s been long gone, dear. Ever since he came back.”
/>   “Right.” Kez frowned, shaking to roll the odd sense of guilt off his tense shoulders. He hadn’t known that. And he’d used to have known everything there was to know about Callum’s life. Times change. “You’re coming home with me, though. No arguments.”

  “I have somewhere to go, darling. I am the fortunate one. There are so many who aren’t.”

  Why was it his aunt could say so much with so few words? Like that time she’d thrown her traditional Catholic principles out of the window to declare that ‘Karma would work its way and serve them all cold.’

  Turned out she was wrong though. Karma was a scorcher.

  Chapter Three

  Blast from the Past

  The crying was getting on his nerves. But probably not more so than it was for the mother of the poor kid who hadn’t stopped weeping since setting foot in the community centre. The tiny hall was overcrowded. And stuffy. And excruciatingly loud. Callum had found himself here, along with the other residents of the council-run housing who now had no home to go to, in a bit of a daze. Some of his neighbours had relatives, of course, and friends. And those people had come in droves, gathering the residents of Marlyte Estate and their limited belongings that they had sacrificed their lives to escape the fire with.

  Callum had come with nothing. Not even the toy egg. And he doubted the owner of that would still be coming at the designated time to claim it back. If there was any silver lining in this utter catastrophe, it was that.

  Sitting arms-folded on an uncomfortable plastic chair, he jiggled his knees and zoned in and out of the mass brawl surrounding the designated speaker for the council.

  “I’m sorry, but we cannot allow anyone access to the building.” The suited man at the front was doing his best to soothe the horde that surrounded him. He looked as bad as Callum felt. And just as young, too. The council had clearly sent their junior housing officer to deal with the aftermath. Callum felt sorry for him. “The fire is now under control and whilst many floors haven’t been affected, we need to keep the entire building evacuated.”