Nick
Nick
He’s sitting in his mother’s living room for literally the first time in years, a plate of unappealing pasta on his lap, when his phone starts to ring. A London number, one he doesn’t recognise.
‘Hello?’ he says, as he answers.
The lady on the other end of the line sounds oddly distracted as she tells him that she’s calling from the A&E department at Chelsea & Westminster Hospital.
He immediately assumes it’s about his mother. But she’s not in a London hospital. She’s in St Peter’s, down the road in Chertsey. His throat begins to close up as the woman says something else.
‘You’re listed as the emergency contact for Beth Millen. We just wanted to let you know that she was brought in earlier today by ambulance. She’s having tests…’
He can’t process what the woman has said.
‘Can you repeat that, please?’
He concentrates as she says the same thing again.
‘Beth?’
‘Yes.’
‘Which hospital did you say again?’
‘Chelsea & Westminster.’
‘I’ll come straight away.’
He plucks his car keys from the small bowl in the kitchen and rushes out of the door.