48. Primrose
PRIMROSE
“My first wife had gentle hands,” the old gent says as I loosen the tourniquet from his upper arm.
“Did she?” I ask absently, pressing a cotton wool over the puncture wound while also keeping an eye on the vials. A couple of days ago, a patient with dementia whipped them away and swore blind it had nothing to do with her.
“She ran off with the milkman years ago.”
“Oh, I am sorry to hear that, George.”
“Don’t be. He had a van. I only had a bicycle.”
A laugh escapes me before I can stop it. It feels strange in my throat, rusty from disuse, but George beams.
“There,” I say, popping a dressing over the tiny puncture. “All done.”
“You got a husband?”
“I do not.” The blue gloves make a snap as I take them off. “Why, was that a proposal?”
“I don’t even have a bike now. What kind of husband would I be? You set your sights higher, girlie. Marry a rich man.”
“I have my own car,” I say, not touching the rest. Rich men are a scourge on the earth. Well, some of them.
“You know what I can’t stand?”
I shake my head.
“Let me rephrase that. You know what? I can’t stand.” He pats the arms of his wheelchair, his expression remaining serious for a couple of seconds before his amusement gives, his mouth collapsing into a wicked, albeit toothless, grin.
This time, the laugh comes more easily. “Ah, you got me there, George.”
“Seriously though, if you can get my wheelchair in your car, I’ll marry you.”
“George, are you cheating on me?” The curtain around George’s bed is whipped back. Maya, the ward manager folds her arms across her ample chest.
“You might have excellent frontage, Sister, but the doc here has wheels.”
“Thanks very much!” I say, mock aggrieved as I gather up the vials. “Until next time.” I give a mock salute and scoot.
An ordinary Tuesday afternoon on an elderly-care ward. The rattle of the equipment trolley and the squeak of my Adidas as I turn out of the side ward and into the corridor. Ordinary is good. Ordinary asks nothing difficult of me.
“Primrose,” Maya calls after me. “We’ve had a call from the ED for a medical consult.”
“Urgh!” My shoulders slump. “Where’s Beaker?” I ask, referring to the F1 doctor who looks like the red-headed Muppet. He sounds like him a bit too.
Maya’s lips fold inwards, but she offers up no comment as she tries to look stern.
“Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t come up with the name.
And it’s better than Grim,” I add in a hushed tone.
Grim as in Grim Reaper. Poor Dr Patel. His very first shift and three old dears snuff it—of course that’s going to appeal to our collective gallows humor.
“Fine,” I add, sounding anything but fine with the request. “I’ll go. If I must.”
“That’s why we all love you,” she calls after me. “Because you always do the right thing.”
The words follow me down the corridor. The right thing do-er, that’s me.
I did the right thing when I’d walked out on M.
LDH (twenty-three days ago, not that I’m counting), leaving him sleeping in that room.
I left not because I wanted to, but because staying would have meant accepting something I knew was wrong.
The trouble with doing the right thing is that sometimes it can feel like tearing out your own heart.
He set out to hurt me. To drive me away. I hope he’s happy with the outcome.
Lies. I hope his dick shrivels up and falls off.
Meanwhile, I put one foot in front to the other, just like any other day.
Some days are easier than others, but I keep on keeping on.
My days are like a that Dolly Parton song.
Tumbling out of bed. Stumbling to the… well, you get the idea.
Shower. Dress, then the Tube into work, often pressed between less-than-fragrant strangers.
Pull on my lanyard. Grab a coffee from the cart on the way in and smile at the good-looking guy running it, then castigate myself for losing the whole commute to thinking about the exact shade of blue of a certain douche bag’s irises.
But when I step onto the ward, for a little while, other people’s problems are louder than mine.
“Hello, Gretel.” I pause on my way out and crouch next to the woman’s chair. She’s eighty-eight, bird-boned with cotton wool hair. A green hospital blanket is tucked firmly over her knees, her gaze glued to the windows, today’s sky the color of dirty dishwater. “How are you?”
“I need to go home,” she whispers sadly. “My husband won’t know where I am.”
I cover her hand with mine. The notes say her husband died eleven years ago. Time heals, apparently. What I do know is that eleven years or eleven minutes, grief is still crushing in the moment.
“What’s his name?”
“Arthur.”
“Tell me about him.” And she does, until her lunch arrives. My knees ache as I straighten and wash my hands at the nearest sink.
One foot. Then the other. The ward is noisy, overheated and relentlessly alive. And I cling to it. There are blood results to chase, discharge summaries to finish, and bed twelve is insisting that his Ford Cortina be brought to the front entrance as he has a hot date. In 1975.
This afternoon, I have an MDT meeting no one warned me about, and a CT scan to chase up, but for now, I’m doing the right thing and heading to a department where I don’t even have a patient.
I swipe my security card and take the stairs, purposely not looking at my reflection in the windows on the way down. Three floors down, I swipe my card again and ask a nurse in blue as she passes, “Which bed is the geriatric consult?”
“Eight, I think,” she says, barley looking at me.
A side room. The blinds are drawn but there’s a portable workstation in front of a door slightly ajar. I knock with one hand and slide a lock of wayward hair back into my bun with the other.
“Hello,” I announce, pushing it wide. “I’m Doctor Whittington, what—”
My heart. It plummets.