Chapter 4
Alfie
When he’d first been admitted to hospital, everything felt alien.
He didn’t belong there. Nothing fitted. Everything, from the chlorinated smell of the air to the feel of the scratchy starched bed sheets and the sounds of the people, was wrong.
There was no space that was his and he was constantly being walked in on, interrupted, or woken up by the doctors and nurses.
He could feel the frustration mounting with every passing hour and the unfamiliarity was overwhelming.
Every night he prayed he could be back in his home.
Back in his little one-bed flat in Hackney, surrounded by the safety of his life.
Now he wasn’t sure how he could ever go back to it.
How would he sleep without the meditative beeping of the heart monitors?
How could he wake up in his bedroom alone?
Where would the faces of the other patients be when he needed company?
One of the rare perks of being a patient for so long was that you got very familiar with the dos and don’ts of hospital life.
Six weeks was long enough to know what to choose and what to avoid from the daily menus, to remember which porters had a sense of humour and which could barely even blink, let alone crack a smile.
It was also long enough to know which of the nurses would slip you an extra pudding at dinner and which of them you needed to be on best behaviour for.
Luckily, the Moira Gladstone ward contained more of the former than the latter.
And none was kinder, more protective and larger than life than Nurse Martha Angles, aka Mother Angel.
There was nothing small about her; she was a woman who could fill a room with just her bust and her laughter, and she oversaw the rehab ward with a keen eye and an open heart.
‘Good morning, my Mother Angel, how are you today?’
For the first time in a long time Alfie actually enjoyed waking up early. You couldn’t help but want to absorb every moment you could with Nurse Angles; she was one of those shiny people you only really found once in a lifetime.
‘Good morning, my love. Same old same old for me. Hank took me to the cinema last night – apparently I was asleep twenty minutes in! No clue what the film was about but it was a wonderful sleep, I can tell you that for sure.’
Hank was the love of Nurse Angles’ life. Childhood sweethearts, married at eighteen and with four lovely children. She adored him with every piece of her being, which also meant she moaned about him every waking hour.
‘He really must love you to put up with your snoring on date night! Also, when are you going to introduce us? I need him to teach me how to find a woman like you.’
She gave him an affectionate slap on the wrist. ‘Trust me, honey, finding them is the easy part. It’s trying to keep them that’s the hard work!’
‘Amen, Nurse!’ Sharon shouted from her bed. She was a recent divorcee and even more recent feminist.
Nurse Angles laughed a deep and chesty laugh. ‘Anyway, let’s see how we’re doing today.’ She glanced down at his bandaged stump.
‘Really? Again?’ Alfie knew he was being petulant, but quite frankly he wasn’t in the mood to have his wound pulled and poked at today.
‘Oh, so you want the swelling to come back, do you? You want the scar to burst and that thing to get infected again? Don’t make me call orthopaedics and have you transferred back again. You don’t think I’ll do it, but I will!’
Alfie may not have been in the mood for his checks, but Nurse Angles was clearly not in the mood for his answering back.
He’d been moved on to the Moira Gladstone rehabilitation ward after completing his stints in intensive care and orthopaedics.
Alfie had been around the block a bit and he knew this was the best place he could ever hope to end up.
There was no way he was going to risk being moved again.
‘Sorry. Be my guest. I just don’t like looking at it, that’s all.’
‘I know, baby, but I’ll be quick.’ She gently started to unwrap him.
His skin lit up with sensations. It didn’t hurt as such, although sometimes he wondered whether he’d experienced so much agonizing pain in the days after the accident that his threshold was much higher now.
It was a bizarre feeling, like red-hot pins and needles coursing up and down his body.
He flinched a little and Nurse Angles rested her hand on his.
‘I know it’s annoying, but this little bit of fuss far outweighs the risk of losing you.
Not going to let that happen on my watch. ’
He knew she was right and so he lay back and closed his eyes.
No matter how much time passed, seeing the wound still sent ripples through his body.
He’d take all the pain in the world over looking at his scars.
Those thick white lines that represented everything he’d lost and would never be able to get back.
‘Right, all done. Now, are you ready to storm that runway in physio this afternoon?’ Nurse Angles had finished the wound checks as quickly and as painlessly as she’d promised.
‘Oh, you bet, Mother A. Today’s the day I nail it.’
She gave him another of her gentle slaps and continued going through her routine assessment. Vital signs checked, measurements noted, and most crucially of all, pillow fluffed.
‘Now, Alfie, I need to ask you a favour.’
There was a slight change in her voice.
‘Of course, what is it?’
She sat most of herself down on the edge of his bed. ‘There’s going to be someone new moving in next door to you soon.’
Alfie’s heart leapt.
‘Before you go and get too excited, I need to warn you she’s severely traumatized and hasn’t spoken a word since she was admitted to the hospital.’
Alfie’s heart sank.
‘How long has she been here?’ He couldn’t imagine being silent for even an afternoon.
‘A few weeks now.’ Nurse Angles inched herself a little closer to him. ‘Look, Alfie. I know you’ll want to talk to her and try to become her friend, but please, I’m asking you to just leave it be for a while. Let her settle in. Give her some space until she’s ready to start talking, OK, honey?’
Alfie was still perplexed by the idea that someone could be silent for so long. He was intrigued to witness how that could even happen.
‘Alfie?’
‘Sorry, of course. I won’t say a word.’
‘There’s a good boy.’ She patted the space on the bed where his left leg used to be, an unintentional reminder of what he lacked, and heaved herself out of his cubicle.
Alfie wondered how on earth this person had survived so long without talking.
Surely that was an exaggeration? No one in their right mind could possibly volunteer to be quiet for weeks on end.
Throughout his life, numerous people had challenged Alfie to be silent.
Once, in high school, he’d gone as far as to raise ￡3,000 to do a sponsored forty-eight-hour silence.
He barely lasted the morning, but people were so proud of him for trying that they donated anyway.
Alfie lived for conversation. He thrived off connection.
In fact, one of the only things that got him through his days was annoying Mr Peterson or catching up on the gossip with Sharon.
Conversations were the fabric of his existence on the ward, and without them Alfie could only imagine what a lonely place it would be.
She won’t last long.
How could she? He knew how adamant Nurse Angles was about this, but Alfie couldn’t help his sneaking suspicion that the moment this mystery patient got sucked into the goings on here, she wouldn’t be able to resist joining in.
That was the beauty of the Moira Gladstone ward.
It wasn’t like the ICU or A&E. People weren’t in and out through a revolving door.
They stayed. They recuperated. They became family.
It was only a matter of time before his new neighbour would follow suit.