Gus
Barbara stuck her head around the office door. ‘Mum’s here,’ she said. ‘In the visitor’s room. I’ve made her a cuppa.’
‘Thanks, Barb– tell her I’ll just be a moment.’
He scrolled through the notes on the screen, bracing himself for the conversation he was about to have.
He knew that this girl’s mother would be less concerned with the medical information: how badly her daughter’s liver and kidneys had fared, whether her risk of clotting was now reducing, what her lung function was doing.
He would be able to tell her that there was unlikely to be lasting damage and knowing that her daughter was alive and being cared for was baseline reassurance– the very fact that the girl was in HDU meant that these things could be assumed.
No– what would be troubling this mother was the more nebulous question of why?
Why did my daughter do this?
Was it an overdose or simply a mistake?
Why would she want to end her life?
Why did this happen to us?
Gus knew her pattern of this woman’s thoughts before he’d even met her. Because he’d had very similar thoughts himself.
He recalled the first time he’d been told his father was in hospital.
He and his sister, Dot, huddled up on the sofa under the watchful eye of Mrs Greenham from next door.
His mother returning, pale, weary with guilt and lack of sleep.
Taking his hand in hers as she spoke to him a hushed voice, anxious not to wake his sister who was dozing by his side.
‘Tata will be home soon,’ she’d said, trying to smile. ‘He misses you both very much.’
A twelve-year-old Gus had thought this unlikely.
His father had been like a bear with a sore head for days, growling at the children whenever they entered the dark fetid atmosphere of his cave-like bedroom.
He knew how it was when Tata was in one of his black moods.
Best to stay away until the cloud passed and the fun-loving, playful version of his father returned.
Except that this was the first time his father had actually disappeared during one of the black moods.
And the blue lights flashing outside his bedroom window a few hours earlier, the trembling voice of his mother echoing up the stairs, telling them that she just had to pop out and that Mrs Greenham would be looking after them until she got back– none of that was normal.
None of that was good. He’d heard the policewoman.
Brisk and efficient. There was something reassuring about her tone, even if the content was anything but.
Words like ‘railway bridge’, ‘passers-by’, ‘note in the car’.
Hearing the crumpling of paper and imagining the reciprocal crumpling of his mother’s face as a sob escaped her mouth.
That one word, echoing around the walls of the sitting room long after she’d gone. Why?
And for years after, every time it happened.
Every near miss. Every botched attempt. Every cry for help.
Always the same question. Why? Why isn’t he living here with us?
Why did he and Mum have to split up? Why aren’t we enough to make him happy?
As Gus grew older he learned more. Began, not to understand exactly, but to at least appreciate how the trauma in his father’s past had caused the darkness inside.
How it wasn’t Gus’s fault, or Dot’s fault, or even his mum’s fault that Tata was the way he was.
And his father was still here, many years later, still battling his demons, but now managing them with medication and therapy and the healing distance of time.
Gus didn’t see him very often– not as often as he should.
But when they spoke on the phone there was warmth and always a little note of relief– relief from Gus that his father was still alive, still getting on with the day-to-day business of existing, and relief from his father that he, Gus, was settled and happy.
That he had a successful career, yes, but mainly that he had found someone to love, someone who loved him back, a happy marriage on the horizon.
He heard the same note in his mother’s voice, and in Dot’s.
A feeling that no matter how much everyone else screwed things up, Gus would be okay, safe, secure and content.
And that was why he’d been unable to tell them the truth.
To admit that this perfect life of his was a lie would have been devastating for all concerned.
He would get around to it of course, he’d have to.
But he couldn’t face it over Christmas. His mum would be so disappointed, she was already choosing outfits for the wedding.
And Dot was hoping that Amelia might invite her to the hen party, not that they got on particularly well, but she’d convinced herself that Amelia must know lots of celebrities through working in television and was sure that some of them would be in attendance.
The idea of having to lie to the two most important women in his life for an extended period, avoiding questions about why he hadn’t brought his fiancée home for Christmas, why she hadn’t called him, why there was no present…
even for him this would have been too much of a stretch, and he was someone well practised in pretending things were better than they were.
That was why he’d chosen to work the week of nights.
He knew it was only kicking the can down the road.
But this was a can full of guilty worms, a can laden with the weight of his family’s expectations, and to his mind it needed kicking as far away as possible.
‘You got the septic girl, then, Gus?’ A voice from the door drew him back to the present.
Barney Snell, one of his surgical colleagues and another acquaintance from medical school stood in the doorway flicking idly through a set of observations charts.
He must have been coming to check on the post-operative patient who’d been transferred from theatre earlier.
‘Hi, Barney. Yeah.’ Gus moved his chair in case Barney wanted to sit down. ‘She’s stable, thankfully. You know how quickly these things can deteriorate but looks like we caught it in time.’
‘Druggie, is she?’ There was a dismissive tone to Barney’s voice.
‘Ex,’ Gus said, with emphasis. ‘She was on a methadone programme until this one episode.’
‘Well, I expect that’s what she told everyone,’ said Barney, laughing almost fondly at Gus’s naivety.
‘More likely she was cadging the methadone off the GP, flogging it on the street and using the proceeds to buy smack. We had another one of them in a few days ago– below-knee amputation, circulation absolutely destroyed by injecting shit into his veins.’ He shook his head as if disappointed that his surgical time had been wasted in such a fashion.
‘It was a nightmare trying to sort out his pain relief– he had the tolerance of a rhino, nothing touched him. And then of course he wants a whole bagful of tramadol and codeine when he leaves the ward. I told the foundation year not to write him up for it, he’d have only traded it in for ketamine as soon as he got out.
I said to her, the foundation doc– pretty thing, she was– I said, I wouldn’t trust an addict as far as I could throw them. ’
Gus wasn’t quite brave enough to raise his objections at this little speech, only his eyebrows.
He knew what Barney meant, of course he did.
He’d seen addicts who would have said anything, told any lie, if it meant they got what they needed.
But there was no reason to assume that they were all like that.
And to deny someone pain relief when they were discharged from hospital was simply wrong.
But it was the judgemental tone that irked him the most. After all, what would Barney Snell know about life on the streets for a heroin addict?
Neither of them had a clue about what it must be like living on the margins of society.
And Gus knew that the age when Barney was forming his opinions on the world had been spent in an exclusive educational establishment, surrounded by the comforting blanket of wealth and privilege.
He remembered Barney dropping discreet little hints about his expensive schooling, the family money and the circles he moved in, when they’d been medical students.
Of course, they would have had just as many issues with drugs in moneyed circles as they had on the rougher streets of Bristol, but somehow people like Barney always felt themselves to be insulated from the problems that beset those lower down the social orders.
Gus jotted down the last of the girl’s results from the computer screen and stood from the desk. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I’ll leave you to it. I’m off to have a chat with the family.’
Barney’s mouth formed into a smirk. ‘Surprised they bothered showing up,’ he said, his voice low and conspiratorial. ‘I mean you've got to know when to let go, haven’t you, if your kid’s that fucked up. I suppose they blame themselves. Not wrong if you ask me.’
‘Lucky nobody is asking you then Barney, mate,’ said Gus as cheerfully as he could.
‘Ha! Yeah. That kind of conversation’s much better suited to you.’ Barney punched Gus gently on the shoulder as he took the recently vacated seat. It was a minor power move, the significance not lost on either of them. ‘You always were better at pretending you gave a shit than the rest of us.’
A sharp retort was on the tip of Gus’s tongue but he swallowed it down.
The problem with Barney, other than the fact that he made you want to smack him in the face on a semi-regular basis, was that he was, for the most part, completely oblivious to any suggestion that his attitude was inappropriate.
He would have laughed off accusations of bigotry, and positively enjoyed being called an arrogant snob.
Besides, Gus didn’t have the time to challenge him– although he was aware, even as he was thinking it, just how lame that excuse sounded.