The waiting room
The ambulance arrived and everything seemed to happen in slow motion.
It appeared that Joe had a heart attack while pushing himself for the Clapham Half and had collapsed, metres from finishing his run.
Charlie appeared first on the scene, and fortunately he was trained in first aid and immediately administered CPR.
They were all terrified and no-one knew what was going to happen next.
Max hadn’t been there when his parents had died, but he imagined the ambulances arriving on the scene, and the paramedics getting out and doing their best. He watched as they put Joe into the back of the ambulance, and then the lights and the sirens started, and they drove him off to the hospital.
He was still breathing when he left, which was a good sign, but poor Joe had suffered the same fate as his father.
Despite all his good intentions, the one thing he was terrified of happening had come to pass.
Max felt outside of himself as he watched the ambulance drive away, a sickness swirling inside of him at the horrible possibility of Joe dying.
It was so surreal, it felt like it couldn’t actually be true, but it was.
His head felt light and faraway, his stomach a whirlpool of anxiety, but fortunately Hope was there to keep everyone focused on the only thing that mattered.
‘Right, we need to call Joe’s wife, so we can meet her at the hospital.’
‘Do you have her number?’ asked Anita.
‘I do. Right, is everyone going to the hospital? You don’t have to come if you don’t want to, or can’t, it’s just—’
‘We’re all coming,’ said Eve, a hand on Hope’s arm. ‘It’s Joe.’
Everyone nodded, and once Hope had spoken to Joe's wife to explain what had happened, they all set off. Luckily, the hospital wasn’t far from Clapham, and they ordered Ubers to take them all there.
It felt strange seeing Joe’s black cab that was parked by the common as they drove past it and towards Tooting.
Max was in the back of one of the cars next to Bethan, who looked as white as a sheet and hadn’t said a word since it had happened.
She, like him, was remembering the day that Jake had died.
Another day, another emergency, and like Max, she was praying that this one had a happy ending.
‘You all right?’ Max asked her quietly in the back of the Uber, and she nodded and smiled at him, but she didn’t say a word.
He wanted to hold her hand, give her a hug and make it OK, but he knew he couldn’t.
She needed her space, her time to work through this just like everyone else.
In a moment of crisis, Hope had stepped up, and Anita and Eve had been vocal and supportive, but Max, Bethan and surprisingly Charlie, had all been quiet, lost in their own minds.
They reached the hospital and got out. It was going to take Joe’s wife, Dawn, longer to get there as she was coming all the way from East London, and she had needed to make sure their daughters were being watched by a neighbour before she could leave.
They raced inside where they were greeted by a lady on reception, who looked up Joe’s name in the system, and then invited them to sit in a waiting room.
Joe had only just arrived in the ambulance, and it would take some time.
‘Does anyone want tea or coffee?’ asked Anita.
‘Yeah, sounds good,’ replied Hope.
‘I’ve been here before with Ravi. There’s a decent coffee shop, which should still be open.’
With time on their hands, they made the journey together to the hospital coffee shop, trudging along the sparse, sterile hallways with the bright fluorescent lights overhead, the smell of chemicals hitting their nostrils.
Max couldn’t believe what had happened. They shouldn’t be there.
They should all be heading home to get something to eat, and Joe should have been on his way back to his family, proudly boasting about a new personal best. It should have been just another night, but it wasn’t, and instead, it had the potential to be one of the worst.
They all got a coffee, except Anita who got a green tea, and they returned to the waiting room.
Joe’s wife had texted Hope that she was on the way, and they sat in a tense, emotional silence, all of them in various states of disbelief.
The waiting room was one of those horribly institutional rooms, where nothing good ever seemed to happen.
It felt to Max like sadness and grief were etched into the very fabric of the room, into the metal legs of the chairs that were sat on the hard floors that had been cleaned over and over again with the same bleach in an attempt to clean away the tears of the people who had been there before.
The pain of people waiting on news, of the emotion that sat within the walls, and even the good days when people had pulled through, wasn’t enough to make Max feel anything other than fear that ultimately Joe wouldn’t make it.
‘I can’t believe this is happening,’ said Charlie eventually. ‘He seemed fine on the run.’
‘He was doing so well,’ said Eve. ‘We were having a right craic before we set off.’
‘He was really pushing himself today,’ said Anita.
‘Let’s just hope he’s OK,’ said Hope. ‘I’m not a religious person, I don’t pray to a god, but let’s all pray that Joe’s going to be all right. He’s such a good bloke, and doesn’t deserve this.’
‘Can I say something?’ said Bethan, who had barely said a word since it had happened.
‘Yeah, course,’ replied Hope.
Bethan, who had been sitting in the chair next to Max, stood up so she could face the group.
Max looked up at her, with her hair a bit of a mess after the run, she had tied it back but strands had come loose, in her workout clothes, no make-up, her skin slightly flush, and he couldn’t imagine a more beautiful woman.
She looked sad and reflective, and he didn’t know what she was going to say, but whatever it was, the moment she sat down, he knew he wanted to put his arm around her, and tell her it was going to be all right. It had to be all right.
‘When I joined the run club, I was going through some pretty difficult personal stuff at the time, which I won’t go into, but after one of the first run clubs, I’d left, a bit emotional and I wasn’t sure it was for me.
Anyway, I was sitting on a bench when who should walk across but Joe.
I hadn’t really spoken to him one-on-one, but he saw I was having a bit of a moment.
He sat down next to me, and we talked for about twenty minutes.
He was such a sweet man, so kind, generous, and he gave great advice.
Honestly, without Joe, I’m not sure I’d be here now, talking about him like this.
I would probably have left that day, and never gone back, but Joe told me to keep going, to never give up, to keep believing, and that’s what he needs from us today.
We have to keep believing because that’s what he would have done. ’
Bethan stopped speaking, and then sat down next to Max, who instinctively put his arm around her, and she fell into him, her head resting on his shoulder. They sat like that until eventually a woman came dashing into the room. It was Joe’s wife, Dawn. She looked terrified.
‘Any news?’ asked Dawn. ‘They wouldn’t tell me anything up front.’
‘Not yet,’ said Hope, and the two women hugged. They had only met a handful of times before, but they both loved Joe. ‘They wouldn’t tell you anything?’
‘No. I told them I was his wife, and they told me to wait in here with you a lot, but they wouldn’t say anything …
’ Dawn stopped speaking and broke down into tears.
She had probably been holding them in, desperate to get there and find out what was going on, but once she had, and all she could do was wait, she relaxed for a second and all the emotion flooded out of her.
Hope held her for a moment, before Dawn produced a packet of travel tissues and wiped her eyes.
After a moment, she sat down with everyone else and they waited.
Anxious knees bobbed up and down, and hands became something to help keep scared minds busy.
When his parents died, Max had never had that moment.
One second they were alive and then the next they were gone.
He hadn’t had time to hope that they might be alive, but despite the differences, sitting in that hospital waiting room for news about Joe, it still brought all the emotion of that time back again.
When he looked across at Bethan, he could tell she felt the same.
He hadn’t even been inside a hospital with his parents, but just being there, he felt it.
The overwhelming fear that he had lost someone else, that poor Joe’s wife had lost a husband, his daughters a father, and that run group would never be the same again.
When Max thought back to when he had joined, it was that conversation with Joe inside the sauna that had really helped him the most. Nothing ever changes if nothing ever changes.
Joe was such a lovely man, and it would break Max’s heart if he didn’t make it.
They sat like that, mainly in silence, for an hour until eventually someone came into the waiting room. It was a woman in scrubs, early thirties, glasses, looking around the room.
‘Mrs Mitchell?’
‘Yeah?’ said Dawn, standing up quickly, and everyone else stood up too.
The woman walked across to Dawn, standing in front of her. ‘Would you like to speak in private, Mrs Mitchell?’
‘No, tell me now. Is my Joe all right? I just need to hear it.’
There was a moment, when all of their lives, and especially Dawn’s, seemed to be hanging in the balance.
There were two versions of the next twenty-four hours and in one version Joe was all right, and their lives would continue on as before, and there was another when he died, and nothing was ever the same again.
‘Mr Mitchell suffered a heart attack, but has pulled through, thanks in part to the swift care he received at the time. He’s not completely out of the woods yet, but for the time being he’s in a stable condition.’
‘Oh my Christ,’ said Dawn, breaking down into tears, before she spoke. ‘Can I see him?’
‘You can,’ said the woman with a smile, before she looked at the group of people behind Dawn. ‘But just one person at a time. He’s still quite weak.’
‘You go,’ said Hope, and Dawn followed the woman, and everyone else fell into hugs and there were more tears. ‘He’s going to be all right. Thanks, it seems, to you Charlie.’
‘I’m just glad he’s OK. I thought we’d lost the big man for a moment,’ replied Charlie.
‘I need to get some fresh air,’ said Bethan, who turned around and walked out.
‘I’ll make sure she’s OK,’ said Max, before he walked out of the waiting room, following Bethan outside.
It was still light out, a clear, warm evening in South West London, and Bethan stood and took a deep breath before she let it out in a slow steady stream.
Max walked out and stood in front of her.
‘You OK?’ he asked, and she looked at him, her eyes searching his.
Then she stepped a little closer until she was right in front of him, and Max felt his whole body stiffen up slightly.
His heart raced with Bethan being so close to him.
She still hadn’t said a word, and then she leaned forward and pressed her lips against his, his arms automatically going around her waist and hers around his.
The pressure became a little stronger, small adjustments happened as they kissed outside the hospital.
It was a strange, surreal moment, but one that Max had hoped for almost from the day he’d met her.
It was an incredible kiss, and after the emotion of the day, it felt like the perfect end.
Just holding her body, feeling her soft lips on his, it sent a myriad of feelings and emotions shooting through his mind and body.
A kiss had never felt more right, more perfect, and he didn’t want it to end, but it did.
Bethan pulled away, and then she looked at Max.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and then she turned around and dashed away, leaving Max standing there, wondering what the hell had just happened, and perhaps more importantly, what would happen next?