Chapter 2.03 #2
Why couldn’t Tufty have got her a nice dirty book? Like a Sarah Waters, Sylvia Day, Miranda July, Salwa Al Neimi, Ana?s Nin . . . Or one of the Marian Keyes with lots of riding in it? Even a Jilly Cooper would do in a pinch.
Roberta starfished across the bed again, grimacing up at the ceiling.
Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. . . .
Day 34 – Sunday (12:10)
The problem with hospital food was that people were expected to eat it. Don’t think you were supposed to enjoy it, just cram it down, get better, then sod off out of there and vacate the bed for somebody else. Or die. Either was good as long as it freed up space.
Whatever happened to Jamie Oliver, kicking the hospital-kitchen doors down and whipping up fresh pasta and pesto and pizza and porchetta and perfectly presented porcini polenta . . .
Instead of which, what did Roberta have for lunch today?
Skin-graft salad.
And yes it was probably meant to be ham, but it looked far more like a surgical offcut.
Could kill for a curry.
She adjusted her glasses and scowled at this morning’s Scottish Daily Post – the bumper Sunday edition with all the crappy magazine bits and supplements that no one ever read.
‘DID SICKO JIHADI THUGS BOMB brAVE ANDERSON?’ above yet another photo of the bastard carrying her through the dust. ‘HERO MP SAYS BLAST WAS “TERRORIST ATTACK”: EXCLUSIVE’.
That Specialist Crime Division spook, Rifkind, had mentioned Anderson’s bomb theory two weeks ago. How come the Sharny Dick Plop was only just publishing it now?
The front page was light on detail, big on conjecture and sensationalism. ‘CONTINUED ON PAGE 6→’
She turned to a double-page spread, crammed full of hyperbole, speculation, and downright lies.
They’d married it with a photo of Silvermoss Business Centre after the blast – the units peeled open like the foil on a Chocolate Orange, chunks of machinery scattered all around.
There was a pic of Anderson too: some sort of official MP portrait, where he was obviously trying to look like a statesman, rather than a wife-beating, racist thug.
Wanging on about how important it was to stand up to Islamic extremists invading the UK in small boats, raping our sheep and stealing our jobs and wank, wank, wank . . .
Roberta snatched Boris Johnson’s squeezy head from the bedside cabinet and crushed it in her fist. Pkongk – out popped his eyes.
Then in again: glonk.
Bloody Graeme Bastarding Anderson.
Pkongk-glonk.
And she’d helped get him elected . . .
Pkongk-glonk. Pkongk-glonk. Pkongk-glonk. Pkongk-glonk-pkongk-glonk-pkongk-glonk-pkongk-glonk.
Day 35 – Monday (16:50)
Was there anything more depressing than an off-brand Rich Tea Biscuit? Pale and disappointing at the side of her cup. Sucking all the joy from the room as the young man wheeled his trolley away, off to spread depression and despair, one biscuit at a time.
Pfff . . .
Roberta dunked it anyway.
Munching on the hot soggy mush. The culinary equivalent of sackcloth and ashes.
The door swung open and in rolled Babs, with her cheery middle-aged smile, unruly mop of hair, and a thick Alice band that made her look as if she’d lost a bet and this was the forfeit.
She wheeched the chart from the foot of Roberta’s bed, running a podgy finger across the data. ‘And how are we today?’
‘We are contemplating horrible NHS biscuits.’
‘Good, good.’ Babs produced a wee pen-torch and shone it in Roberta’s eyes. Humming something bland and repetitive as she moved it from side to side.
‘I’m bored. I want my phone back.’
‘You should’ve thought of that before you got blown-up. No screens till your noggin settles down a bit.’ Playing follow the finger. ‘How are the headaches?’
‘If I say they’ve all gone away, can I go home?’
‘Nope.’ Running her fingers along the back of Roberta’s skull – light as cotton wool. Tracing the scar tissue.
‘Then they’re a massive pain. Like some big hairy tosser is drilling away with a jack hammer.’
‘Hmmm . . .’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Sharp and stinging, or hot and throbbing?’
‘Steady on, Babs, you randy sexpot: I’m a married woman.’
‘It’s Doctor Turner to you, if you’re going to be cheeky. How’s physio going?’
A grimace. ‘Shouldn’t need physio. Head got bashed, no’ my legs.’
She tapped Roberta’s forehead with a knuckle.
‘See the contents of this rock-hard skull of yours? Sixty percent fat, forty percent neurons and glial cells and nerves and blood vessels and all that mushy stuff. It’s a finely balanced network of chemical signals and electrical charge.
And you scrambled all the wiring by getting your head caved in.
That’s why you need physio.’ She made a note on the chart and stuck it back where it came from.
‘We’ll try upping your pain meds again. Everybody loves opioids! ’
And off she sodded, with a cheery wave and a wobbly bum.
Leaving Roberta to her horrible biscuit.
Day 36 – Tuesday (01:24)
Doctors Pink and Green and Blue clustered around Roberta’s bed in the darkness. Looming. Beaks clacking away as she lay there, one hand covering her face, stifling the sobs.
Day 37 – Wednesday (10:35)
Sunlight streamed in through the glazed corridor, making the hospital air sticky as golden syrup. Roberta clunk-shuffled her Zimmer along. Leaving Aberdeen Royal Infirmary’s Pink Zone behind and heading into the hospital proper.
Wearing her brand-new pyjamas: orange, festooned with hedgehogs, badgers, and squirrels. Tartan slippers on her feet. Like a proper auld wifie.
Through here, in the Yellow Zone, the hustle and bustle of the hospital’s main entrance and reception area throbbed against the old familiar hospital noises – squeaks and beeps and rattles and that ever-present hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm . . .
Kind of tempting to just keep going.
Make a break for it.
Call a taxi and head home.
Babs would love that.
But Roberta was on a mission – an expedition to explore uncharted territory.
Searching out that mythical far-off land: the Green Zone.
(11:20)
Sodding hell . . .
Pfff . . .
For anyone with working legs – who wasn’t lugging around a three-inch titanium plate in their skull – it probably would’ve taken five, maybe six minutes if they dawdled to look at the paintings and whatnot hanging in the hospital corridors.
But she’d been on this slow-motion clunk-and-shuffle slog for hours. Days. Weeks. Sodding years.
Roberta staggered into the Medical High Dependency Unit, found room six, and sagged against the observation window. Forehead making greasy marks on the cool glass.
Inside, it was far bigger than her one, back in Neurology and Neurosurgery, large enough for four beds and a ton of monitoring equipment. Flashing lights and bleeping things. Graphs and charts and wavy lines on monitors . . .
Its occupants: all flat out and motionless.
Billie Nesbit was in the bed nearest the window, pale as a whittled bone. Freckles grey and faded. Even her hair had turned a dusty shade of rust.
They’d taped her eyelids shut. Which didn’t inspire confidence. Doubt Billie would be waking up any time soon . . .
Day 38 – Thursday (16:06)
Roberta drew a hairy willy on the Prime Minister’s forehead and turned to page nine of that morning’s Aberdeen Examiner.
Safe in the knowledge that no one would want to read it after her.
Not by the time she’d finished defacing all the photos with willies, defamatory speech balloons, tattoos, scars, fangs, blacked-out teeth, horns, and glasses, anyway.
Well, everyone needed a hobby, right?
So, who was next for a biro makeover?
The pen drooped in her hands.
A whole quarter page had been devoted to ‘“INEPT” COPS STILL KNOW NOTHING ABOUT BODY IN BIN’. They’d accompanied it with another grainy photo of the wheelie bins, sitting in the foggy lay-by. Taken by some TikTok ghoul on the train to work. Skull and bones spilled across the potholed tarmac.
The article that went with it wasn’t exactly flattering about Police Scotland’s efforts to identify the victim or killer.
And just to rub it in, they’d included a second pic, near the end of the story: Roberta and Tufty, trying to block the remains from view as the 07:42 from Inverurie headed north to Insch.
At least the wee loon had the brains to keep his head down, face hidden by his peaked cap.
Sodding Roberta was on full display, all stretched out like Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man.
Only not naked.
Thankfully.
That would’ve given the commuters something to wank about.
But it meant the dick who wrote the article could crowbar in some guff about Graeme Arseing Anderson ‘rescuing’ her from the explosion.
She grabbed Boris Johnson and dug her fingers into the bugger’s rubbery head.
Pkongk-glonk. Pkongk-glonk. Pkonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnngk-glonk.
Day 39 – Friday 25 July (14:15)
Tintin the Tattooed Twat was back, doing his can-you-push-against-my-hands routine again. Only this time her feet were not to be defeated.
He gave her a toothy grin. ‘That’s great, you’re doing great.’ Increasing the pressure a little. ‘Keep this up and we’ll have you whizzing about with a walking stick before you know it!’
(16:50)
Dr Babs flicked her pen-torch to the side and back again, making stars race across the world. Leaving blood-red streaks behind as Roberta slumped there in her woodland animals.
One more flick. ‘Good. That’s a real improvement on last time.’
Thank God for that.
‘So, I can go home?’
‘Nope.’ The pen was replaced by Mrs Finger, moving from side to side. ‘But I think we can let you watch a little TV, if you like? Won’t hurt at this stage.’
Roberta sat up. ‘Phone?’
‘Also nope.’ Making notes on the chart. ‘And don’t make me explain why: it takes ages, is really complicated, and I need a wee.
’ Slipping the chart back into its holder.
‘But there’s bound to be something good on this weekend – as long as you don’t watch more than an hour a day, knock yourself out.
’ Frown. ‘Only not literally. That titanium plate in your head is expensive and we don’t want it damaged. ’
‘Urgh . . .’ Flopping back against the pillows again. Groaning like a stroppy teenager. ‘And I repeat: urgh!’
‘With a positive attitude like that, you’ll be out of here in no time.’
She should be so sodding lucky . . .