Calamity in Camberwell

by Alice Castle

  Beth found herself secretly revelling in it all. Being in command every single day, always having to be the one with a plan, responsible not just for its drafting but its execution and with the outcome weighing on her shoulders, Beth had been thoroughly grown up for years. It was knackering. But lying in this bed, tucked in by someone else, obeying the bonkers timetable, and eating food you didn’t even need to chew, she could feel herself relaxing. Almost too much. She could see how long-term patients found it hard to leave.

  As the pain in her head receded, and the prospect of lunch at the absurd hour of 11am loomed, Beth realised that enough was probably enough. She swung her legs out of the bed, feet touching the cold lino, and pushed herself up. Her head swam for a moment or two, and she wondered if abandoning this lovely comfy sanctuary was a big mistake. But, unexpectedly pleasant as these hours of respite had been, she did need to take up the reins of her life again.

  Ben would love being at Charlie’s, because it was a novelty. Whether he knew it or not, he needed the safety and security of his routine at home, with his mum, to enfold him again. And Beth herself required a lot more stimulation than she was getting in her sky-blue bed, gazing at the blank walls, wondering when her next cup of tea would trundle along. It was time to find a doctor.

  Shuffling down the corridor, passing the vending machine where Ben and Charlie had made free last night, Beth was having to stop every few steps to wrap her hospital gown more securely around her. Why did they make them like this, flapping open at the rear? What on earth was that all about? Surely the majority of people in hospitals were not there to have their bottoms operated on. For whose benefit was all this unintended buttock-flashing?

  The relaxing effect of her stay had mostly worn off by the time Beth found the nurses’ station, an island of paperwork in the middle of a labyrinth of beds. There were no nurses there, but a few pimply medical students were snorting with laughter at something at one end, their suspiciously fresh-looking lanyards giving away their status as total newbies to this hospital, and to healing in general. There was no-one else to ask, so Beth approached them.

  ‘I was just wondering when I’d see a doctor?’

  ‘You’re seeing four now,’ said the tallest of the bunch, a strapping lad with a lugubrious face and curly dark hair.

  ‘Are you qualified?’ asked Beth pointedly, and the boy had the grace to look abashed, staring down at his shoes.

  ‘We need practice, ask us anything,’ said another of the group.

  Beth gave him the sort of look she reserved for Ben when he was at his most annoying. Then she addressed the girl in the gang, who had long, straight, fair hair and was wearing a sensible Fair Isle jersey that would have made Beth sweat buckets in the hospital heat. She clutched a biro and a clipboard and looked ready for just about anything – except Beth.

  ‘When are the ward rounds? I’m in a room just over there,’ Beth gestured.

  ‘Um, well, that’s, well, probably…’ the girl stuttered, already outside her area of expertise and they hadn’t even got anywhere near illness or symptoms.

  Beth was just about to roll her eyes when, thank goodness, a nurse appeared. She threw herself on her mercy. ‘Could you tell me when I’m likely to get seen by a doctor? I’d like to be discharged,’ she said.

  ‘Ah, the kind of patient we like best,’ said the nurse, her apple-cheeked smile infectious. ‘Don’t worry, Mrs, er?’

  ‘It’s Beth Haldane, I’m in that room down there,’ she said, pointing.

  ‘Ah. Ok then, Beth. Let me just check my notes…’ It was clear that Beth’s name had prompted a caveat in the nurse’s memory. She shifted round to get behind the desk, poking at the drifts of files everywhere across the surface, picking up first one then another. ‘Ah, the hand-over notes. They don’t like to make things too easy, the night team,’ she smiled again and Beth found herself following suit.

  The medical students, thankful now to be off the hook, seemed to edge further off and were soon laughing again, the Fair Isle girl standing an inch apart. Beth felt for her. It was never easy to be the clever, try-hard girl amongst a gang who made things look easy; she knew that all too well.

  The nurse, running her finger down a page of the file, stopped and read intently. ‘Ok. I see. So, you’ll need to be seen by the consultant before we let you go. Head injury, you know. Can’t be too careful. And you’ll have medication to take at home, so we’ll need the discharge nurse to go through that with you.’

  ‘Medication? Really? I don’t think I’ll be needing anything major, it’s hardly hurting at all now.’

  ‘Well, that’s good, but we don’t want to take any chances, do we? Now, at the moment you’re on four-hourly paracetamol, no problems on the dispensing front there, so that could end up speeding things up a lot for you,’ she smiled again.

  ‘If it’s paracetamol, I don’t need anyone to tell me how to take that, I’ve been doing it myself for years.’

  The nurse shrugged. ‘Safety protocol,’ she said, as though that explained everything. And in many ways, it did.

  ‘Um, did a doctor see me during the night? I remember waking up and seeing someone in a white coat in the room? Would that be noted there?’

  ‘It would if they made any observations but,’ said the nurse, running her finger down the entries again, ‘I don’t see any note here of a doctor being called to see you. Normally they wouldn’t come in the night unless there was an issue. Did you call for a nurse, or ask to see the doctor?’

  ‘No, definitely not. I just woke up and he was there.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said the nurse, giving her a beady glance. Beth wasn’t sure whether that meant the nurse thought she was naturally a fantasist, or whether the head injury itself had caused delusions. She turned back to the file and seemed to see something confirming her doubts. ‘And I see here, there’s a police interest in it all?’

  It was Beth’s turn to use the non-committal ‘hmm’. She wasn’t going to go into all that now, on the open ward, with the fledgling doctors probably listening in feet away, and who knew how many patients with nothing better to do than eavesdrop as well.

  ‘Well, if I could just see the doctor? As soon as possible? I’d love to get home.’ Beth tried an ingratiating smile, but it seemed the nurse had turned against her. She gave her a glance that seemed to suggest she’d be held at the hospital until the nurse herself was good and ready, which wouldn’t be any time soon. ‘There must be loads of pressure on beds, after all?’ said Beth raising her eyebrows. She would have thought they’d be only too happy to turf her out onto the street as soon as possible.

  ‘Look around you,’ said the nurse. ‘We’re not busy. Not too busy to make sure you don’t go home before you’re good and ready.’

  Suddenly, it sounded like a threat. Beth retreated back to her bed. By the time she got there, her legs were a bit shaky and she was grateful to lie down. But after an incredibly early lunch of a cheese sandwich on white bread, banana, and a cup of tea – during which she was beginning to wonder whether her teeth would fall out due to disuse if she stayed in the hospital system much longer – there was a sudden commotion at the door. The apple-cheeked nurse appeared with a whole cluster of white coats – some of the students from earlier, with a few extra thrown in for good measure.

  Beth sat up a bit in her bed and looked at them expectantly. They all shifted about from foot to foot, in silence, avoiding her eyes, while the nurse noted things down in her chart and took her temperature. Then there was a swirl of motion from the door and the consultant was there – a tall, sturdy woman in her mid-fifties, with business-like salt and pepper hair in a geometric bob, and mauve half-moon glasses that she peered over. She gave Beth a surprisingly shrewd glance from cold blue eyes before holding out an imperious hand for the notes. The nurse mutely handed them over, the consultant adjusted her glasses and raked her eyes down the line of squiggles, and pursed her lips.

  Beth wondered whether the vertical lines scored a
bove them meant she was, or had been, a smoker, or whether she just existed in a permanent state of mild disapproval. ‘And how are we feeling, Mrs… Haldane?’ she said crisply, timing the question so that she’d flipped the folder to the name on the front just in time to ask her question seamlessly.

  ‘I’m fine now. Tiny bit of a headache, but I’d really like to go home,’ said Beth.

  ‘That’s the spirit,’ said the consultant, with a swift glance around at the band of white-coated minions, who tittered sycophantically.

  ‘Well, it looks as though I’m your fairy godmother today, Mrs… Haldane,’ she said, with only the briefest of glances down at the notes to refresh her memory on the name. ‘I’m going to make your wish come true. You’re looking a lot better than when you came in, that’s what we like to see.’

  ‘Oh, did you see me when I was admitted?’ said Beth with interest.

  ‘Well no, just a form of words; the notes tell the story. The important thing is that you’re feeling fine in yourself, no signs of concussion. No dizziness? Weakness? Light-headed at all?’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Beth, blithely skipping over the odd muzzy moment. She’d be fine when she got home.

  ‘Well then. You’re good to go. Matron here will arrange for the discharge nurse to see you and then you’ll be on your way.’

  ‘Oh, is that really necessary? I mean, I understand it’s just a question of taking painkillers…’

  ‘I’m afraid so. Guidelines,’ said the consultant with another sharp look at Beth over the mauve glasses, and that was that. ‘Onwards and upwards,’ she said sharply to her little crew of white coats, who bustled after her like tufty goslings in the wake of a large, sleek Canada goose.

  Beth was left realising that she hadn’t even asked about the doctor who’d appeared in the night. Something told her she’d just have earned one of those dismissive glances over the mauve spectacles, but she was still kicking herself. She hated an unasked question almost as much as an unanswered one.

  Two hours later, the unanswered question was definitely where on earth was the discharge nurse? Was there only one servicing the whole hospital? And was Beth the only person who had to stop herself giving a slight snigger every time the poor nurse’s job title was announced? Discharge. Ick.

  The joke had worn very thin by the time 4pm came around. There was a sudden bang at her door, which she hoped was the nurse at last, but it was even better. It was Ben, hurling himself at her in an action replay of yesterday. Katie and Charlie followed, wrapped up against the cold outside and already rosy from the tropical temperatures on the ward.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ said Katie, giving her a slightly off-balance hug. The height of the bed, the bandage, and Beth’s slight reticence about public displays of affection, all combined in a nexus of awkwardness.

  ‘I can’t believe I’m still here,’ said Beth. ‘I’ve been trying to leave since this morning.’

  ‘Right,’ said Katie. ‘We’ll see about that.’

  Half an hour later, they were back at Beth’s little Pickwick Road house, with Beth ensconced on the sofa with a piping hot cup of tea in her hands. Katie’s sunny optimism had cut through all the red tape associated with the simple action of leaving hospital, as effectively as a hot knife through royal icing. They even had a plastic bag of paracetamol tablets with endless instructions on how to take them, as though they were the deadliest poison on the planet.

  ‘I wonder if they’re just trying to protect themselves against being sued, and that’s why they make it such hard work to get out?’ mused Beth.

  Katie raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh, it’s just silly. Let’s not worry about it. I’ll nip down the road later, get a takeaway from Olley’s, and we’ll watch Strictly on catch-up, how about that?’

  ‘Bliss,’ said Beth happily. She adored the fish and chips from the shop down in Herne Hill, and it was even more of a treat as they’d had to foreswear fast food since Ben’s tutoring started soaking up every bit of spare cash. She was usually slightly allergic to Strictly’s sequins, but they were just what she needed tonight.

  They were all snuggling on the sofa, watching the nail-biting red light moment when one of the contestants gets stripped of their fake tan and has to head back into the real world, sans glitter, when the doorbell rang. Beth instantly stiffened. She might be feeling a hundred per cent better, but she was still jumpy.

  Katie gave her a glance above the boys’ heads, then went to the front door. Moments later, she was back with a smile. ‘Time for us to go now, Charlie,’ she announced brightly, to groans from both boys.

  Beth was about to join the chorus of protest, when she saw Harry York looming behind Katie and doing his usual trick of making her home seem like a doll’s house.

  ‘Oh, chips,’ he said, falling on the remnants in one of the Olley’s bags on the floor, installing himself on the sofa, and grinning widely at Beth and Ben. ‘Yum.’

  For the first time in what seemed like forever, a man shepherded Ben up to bed that night. Beth was still tired out by the whack on her head, and as night fell she was very grateful to have the suddenly clingy boy bundled off by someone who wouldn’t take a lot of nonsense. She tried to bestir herself and at least collect up the plates, chip papers, and Ben’s inevitable ketchup, but the effort seemed too much. Instead, she gazed blankly out of the sitting room window into the darkness. It was a little like the view she’d had into Jen’s kitchen that night. An indistinct reflection, lights, distorted shapes.

  Wait a minute, had she actually seen her attacker, fleetingly, that night? Did she have a vague recollection of someone reflected in the window – tall, wearing a hoody…?

  But that hardly narrowed it down. Almost everyone in the world was taller than her, and half of them probably had hoodies, too. She gave up puzzling and applied herself to her cold cup of mint tea instead. Katie had made it just before she left, and it was a wonderful antidote to the slightly overstuffed, greasy feeling Beth had after the fish supper, delicious though it had been.

  York bounded down the stairs moments later, and plonked himself next to her on the sofa, rooting around in the bags and wrappers for any spare chips that hadn’t been guzzled. ‘You could go and get some more, if you like, it’s not far away,’ said Beth mildly.

  ‘I’ve already eaten. This is just a lovely dessert,’ said York, munching contentedly. He made the bonanza discovery of half a packet of chips in the corner of one of the bags.

  Must have been Katie’s, Beth thought. Only a yoga teacher could pass up the total deliciousness of a crisply-fried Olley’s chip.

  ‘So. Remembered anything about your injury?’

  ‘Funny you should say that. I was just thinking, well, something did come back, while I was looking at that window.’

  ‘Yeah? Anything useful?’ said York indistinctly. He’d now hit a motherlode of battered cod, undoubtedly left by one of the boys. Even deep frying couldn’t make fish much of a rival to chips, chips, and yet more chips, in Ben and Charlie’s estimation.

  Beth passed him an unsqueezed lemon quarter from her plate, but he looked at it, baffled, before carefully putting it to one side on the arm of the sofa. ‘Got any ketchup?’ he mumbled. With a sigh, Beth handed it over. It looked as though Ben had a rival in the epicurean stakes.

  ‘I have the oddest feeling that it was someone I know. And the only person I can think of, who’d be hanging around the house at night like that, would be Jeff.’

  ‘Jeff?’

  ‘Jen’s new husband. Well, not that new,’ Beth added. Quite a few months had gone by now since the wedding. And immediately, her thoughts went to that bloody wedding present. Where was it? Still sitting in her car? And where, come to think of it, she thought with a prickle of panic, was her actual car?

  ‘Oh yes, Jeff Burns,’ he said indistinctly.

  ‘Is my Fiat still outside the house, you know, in Camberwell?’ said Beth in horror. Although she knew it was silly, she really didn’t want to have to go
back there to collect it, even in broad daylight.

  ‘Don’t worry. Give me the key and I’ll bring it over for you.’

  ‘You’re not insured to drive it, though?’ said Beth, worried grey eyes raised to his amused blue gaze.

  ‘It’ll be ok. Give me the name of your insurers and I’ll sort it,’ he said, patting her hand with his own slightly sticky one.

  The fleeting touch of his fingers was warming and, notwithstanding the grease, she felt instantly reassured. But the physical contact seemed to have introduced a new element and she suddenly felt all gawky, sitting there on the sofa, and struggled into a more upright position. York, too, was staring rigidly ahead. Had a line been crossed? She wanted to get back to the ease they’d had a moment ago.

  ‘Peppermint tea?’ she said, a little desperately. She’d like a warmer cup herself and it would give her an excuse to get away. She thought she was feeling up to a bit of movement now.

  ‘What? Haven’t you got any good old builders’ stuff?’ he said, eyebrows reaching his thick blond hair.

  She laughed, and they were back to normal. She levered herself out of the embrace of the saggy sofa and wandered slowly to the kitchen, picking up the Olley’s debris as she went. She’d leave the white paper carrier bags by the front door, and dump the rubbish in the wheelie bin outside before going to bed. There was nothing worse than coming downstairs in the morning to the smell of elderly cod.

  She brought the mugs back in – one peppermint, one builder – and asked, ‘So, will you be questioning Jeff?’

  ‘Already tried to get hold of him. No joy yet. And no sign of your friend, either.’

  ‘What? You haven’t been able to trace Jen?’

  York shook his head. ‘Not so far. But don’t worry, we’ll find her.’

  ‘What about her ex, Tim? Doesn’t he know where she is?’

  ‘He had some story about her going away to finish a huge work project. But we’ve spoken to her current, or I should say, last employer, and she’s up-to-date with everything for them.’