Violet
‘No,’ he said, his voice faltering. ‘I wish it was. I really wish it was.’ He sounded sad. ‘I’m with Dev, your housemate. Marvin’s been brought in, he’s been assaulted, it’s pretty bad.’
‘You alright, love?’ One of the charge nurses took her gently by the elbow. ‘Here, do you want to sit down?’ He gestured to a plastic chair with dubious stains.
‘No, I– I need to find bay six. I’m one of the doctors. My friend. He was stabbed.’ She was shocked, both by the words coming out of her mouth in a coherent string, and by their content.
The nurse nodded as if staff members came looking for assaulted friends all the time. ‘Ah yes,’ he said. ‘Gus mentioned to keep an eye out for you. Come this way. Dr Winters, isn’t it?’
They paced the few metres in silence, Violet oblivious to the wailing coming from bay seven or the drunken yelling coming from bay five. The first sound she actually registered was that of Gus, his warm calming voice coming from behind the curtain.
‘Gus,’ she called out, the panic evident in her tone. ‘Dev?’ She saw her housemate’s face crumple as the charge nurse pulled back the curtain and ushered her inside. She rushed to hug him and felt his body go from rigid to molten within the space of a few seconds as he seemed to buckle beneath her.
‘Oh Violet,’ he said, and his face crumpled. ‘What a fucking nightmare.’
She glanced across to the bed where Marvin lay, his face ashen beneath the caked foundation and glitter, his heavily lashed eyelids barely flickering in response to her voice.
Discoloured bruising was now starting to compete with the bronze and gold of his contoured cheeks and she wasn’t sure where the purple of his eyeshadow ended and the lattice of contusions began.
A tiny frond of turquoise feather was stuck in the dried blood at the corner of his mouth and it wafted up and down with his shallow breathing.
‘Marv,’ she whispered, placing her hands on the side of his trolley, the cold metal of the bars sharpening her senses. ‘What did they do to you?’
Dev began to sob as he sank into the chair beside her. ‘Fucking bastards,’ he said. ‘Absolute fucking bastards.’ He leaned forward so that his head was in his hands, incapable of further speech.
Violet looked up at Gus, her eyes pleading for further information.
He gestured her out of the cubicle and she stood for a moment, torn. ‘We’ll just be here,’ he said gently, pointing to the other side of the curtain. ‘Marvin’s stable. I’ll fill you in on what I know.’
Nodding silently, she followed him a couple of paces to the sinks at the far end of the bay.
‘Sit down,’ he said, pulling out another of the ubiquitous rigid plastic chairs.
She sank into it gratefully and listened as Gus told her what had happened.
He’d been in A&E assessing a cardiology patient who was being transferred to HDU when he’d heard someone talking about Violet Winters.
‘It was Dev,’ he said. ‘He was– well, he wasn’t making much sense to be honest– but he kept saying, “Violet, get Violet, she’ll know what to do”, and, I don’t know, I guess I heard him give his details to the triage nurse and it clicked, he was your Dev, your housemate.’
Violet nodded mutely as Gus crouched down to her level, searching her face until her gaze was focussed on him.
‘So,’ he continued quietly, ‘I went over. I’d finished with my patient, I said I knew you, and could I help at all. That’s when I called you.’
‘But what, what happened to Marv?’ Violet’s voice was a hoarse whisper.
‘How could anyone– he wouldn’t hurt a fly– he’s– well– he’s just the kindest, gentlest…
’ She ran out of words and Gus reached over and took her hand in his, resting them both in her lap.
The warmth of his skin against hers was comforting and she squeezed his fingers as he carried on.
‘So– it seems he was on his way back from the club?’ Gus checked in with her to see if this made sense.
‘He hadn’t been able to get a taxi for some reason, Dev wasn’t sure why, and had decided to walk back on his own– didn’t make it any further than Brighton Street, that’s where he was found, collapsed by the wheelie bins.
Luckily a couple of mates had left the club at a similar time, taken a similar route, otherwise no telling how long he might have been there, they called the ambulance and then, obviously it’s only a short trip here.
Paramedics got Dev’s number from the friends who found him, called him at home, he got here straight away, I think he’s still in his dressing gown. ’
‘So was he robbed– Marv?’
‘Not sure. Don’t think so. The police will want to take a statement but they seem to think it was probably a random attack.’
‘A random attack on a man in full drag,’ said Violet bitterly. ‘Seems unlikely. Especially if nothing was stolen.’ She leaned forward, her shoulders hunched, staring at the floor as if the lino might give her some answers.
Gus remained silent but his grip on her hand tightened and she got the impression that he thought the same thing. That maybe he was almost as furious as she was. ‘Is he going to be okay?’ she asked. ‘Tell me the truth, Dev can’t hear us.’
‘You’ll have to speak to Veena for the detail,’ Gus said gently.
‘She’s the one who clerked him in and took the history from the paramedics.
I’m pretty much going on what I’ve been able to piece together from Dev and Melissa, the nurse who’s looking after him.
But it sounds as though we’re looking at a few fractured ribs, possibly a punctured lung and at least one stab wound to the abdomen.
’ Violet let out a choked sob and Gus drew his arms around her, pulling her into an awkward half-crouched hug.
She was vaguely aware of the smell of his skin, the rough fabric of his top absorbing her tears.
He held her like that for a few moments until the rise and fall of her breath had steadied and then he pulled back, looked her in the eye with his steady reassuring gaze.
She clung to the connection, feeling somehow that to break eye contact, to have allowed herself to become distracted by any other part of his face, his body, this horrible little corner of A&E, would have left her in a whirling vortex of fear.
Gus’s voice, Gus’s caramel eyes, they were her lifeline, her absolute focus.
‘The important thing, Violet, is that he’s stable, his obs have all settled down.
He’s probably lost some blood into his abdominal cavity and he’ll likely need an examination under anaesthetic to assess the internal damage but he’s going for a scan in a few moments– we’ll know more then.
’ Gus’s arm was still around her shoulders, warm and comforting.
She concentrated on the details of what he'd just told her, the likely sequence of events.
How like Gus to know instinctively that this was exactly what she needed: methodical steps to follow, a plan of action.
She nodded, absorbing the information, processing it, working it out.
Gus seemed to realise that the logical part of her brain was kicking in. ‘Do you want me to see if Veena’s free to come and chat to you? She’s dealing with a motorcycle accident at the moment but I can pop my head around the curtain and see how long she’ll be?’
Violet put her hands on her knees to steady herself and rose to stand.
‘Thanks, yes,’ she said. ‘I need to be with Dev, I…’ Her bleep started to go off and she looked at it for a moment as if completely mystified as to its function or purpose.
Gus reached out and unclipped the offending item from her pocket, his hand brushing against the waistband of her scrubs and resting briefly on her hip as if reluctant to leave her.
‘I’ll answer this,’ he said. ‘You go and sit with Dev.’ He picked up the chair from the corner where she’d been sat and carried it with one hand over to a position next to Marvin’s trolley while tucking her bleep in a pocket next to his.
Dev remained in the same position as when they’d left him a moment ago, motionless, his face blank.
He was holding Marvin’s hand so tightly Violet could see white indentations around the knuckles.
‘Dev,’ she whispered as she sat beside him. ‘I’m here. I’m so sorry.’
He shook his head miserably, unable to speak, and she put her arms around him, drawing him to her just as Gus had done, cradling his head against her shoulder as she told him it would all be alright, not entirely sure that she believed her own words.