‘Mr Fox? This is the nurse at Lauder Lodge. I’m afraid your father’s been taken ill.’
He drove back to Edinburgh in a daze. It was only when he reached the Royal Infirmary that he realised the car radio had been switched on throughout. He couldn’t remember listening to any of it. He’d been told to try A and E first. Mitch had been found on the floor of his room.
‘Could just be a fall,’ the nurse had told Fox, her tone of voice indicating that she didn’t believe her own words.
‘Was he conscious?’
‘Not really…’
Fox parked on a double yellow line in the ambulances’ drop-off zone and headed inside. Someone was being served by the receptionist, so he waited his turn. There were only two or three people seated in the waiting area. They were staring at a TV in the corner of the room. The receptionist didn’t seem to be in a hurry, so Fox walked past her desk and towards the receiving area. Nobody stopped him or asked him what he was doing. Patients lay on trolleys, some in curtained cubicles. Fox did a circuit of the room. A member of staff was busy at a computer. He asked her where he might find Mitchell Fox.
‘He was brought in an hour ago,’ he explained, ‘from Lauder Lodge nursing home.’
‘Might not be in the system yet.’ She walked over to a marker-board on the wall and studied it. Then asked another member of the team, who nodded and approached Fox.
‘Are you a relative?’
‘I’m his son.’
‘Mr Fox has gone for an X-ray. After that, it’ll be straight to the day ward.’
‘Is he all right?’
‘We’ll know more in a little while. There’s a waiting area just-’
‘Can I see him?’
‘The receptionist will let you know.’
Fox was pointed back in the direction of reception. By the time he got there, there was no queue, so he gave his name and was told to take a seat. He slumped as best he could on the hard plastic chair and stared at the ceiling. No one was watching the TV any more; they were busy peering at the screens of their phones. A woman with a bandaged arm kept walking around. When she got too close to the doors, they opened automatically, allowing in a blast of cold air from the world outside. It was a process she seemed happy to keep repeating. There was a cupboard nearby that kept being unlocked and locked again by members of staff. Fox couldn’t see what they were doing in there exactly. The two toilet cubicles were being kept busy, as were the snack machines. One young man was trying to get the coin slot to accept a particular ten-pence piece. Every time it was rejected, he tried again, having studied the coin for any obvious flaws. Fox eventually went over and replaced it with a ten-pence piece of his own. This one worked, but the young man looked no happier.
‘You’re welcome,’ Fox told him, returning to his seat.
One member of staff seemed to have the job of emptying the waste bin and removing any newspapers that had been left lying around. The bin bag wasn’t even half-full when he replaced it. Ten minutes later he was back, checking to see how full the new bag was, then moving the bin across to the other side of the room. Fox managed to stop himself asking why. On the TV, a man was telling another man how little a small ornament was worth. It then went for auction, and failed to sell. Was it an heirloom? Fox wondered. When first purchased, had the buyer had any inkling that it would one day feature on a daytime programme – and sorely disappoint its current owner?
The waiting area’s resident smoker returned from another cigarette break, her hacking cough heralding her arrival. Then the doors shuddered open again as the woman with the bandaged arm wandered past them. Fox turned in his seat to face her.
‘Will you bloody well stop that!’ he shouted. She looked surprised. So did the receptionist, who followed this with a frowned warning. Fox held up a hand in capitulation and went back to staring at the ceiling. It wasn’t just his dad, he realised – it was everything else, too. The questions that seemed to whirl all around him; the characters whose lives were suddenly connected to his own; the hours of sleep he was lacking; the sense of utter, abject futility
…
And then his phone interrupted with a text. It was from a number he didn’t recognise, and when he opened the message it was an address, postcode and time. The postcode was FK9, the time 7.15 p.m. Fox copied the postcode into his phone’s map. The highlighted area took in Stirling University. Fox guessed that he was being invited to Alison Pears’s home, and that she and her husband lived practically next door to the university. He decided not to bother replying, but he added the phone number to his address book, just for future reference.
And for something to do.
After almost an hour, he asked the receptionist for a progress report, and was told his father was in Combined Assessment.
‘Along there,’ she explained, pointing through another set of doors. Fox nodded his thanks and followed the signs on the wall. Eventually he arrived at a nurses’ station. His father seemed to have arrived only a few minutes before. Staff were still fussing around his bed. A machine was monitoring his heart rate. It gave a regular beep, creating a rhythm with the other machines nearby.
‘How is he?’ Fox asked.
‘A doctor will be along soon.’
‘But he’s all right?’
‘The doctor will have a word…’
A chair was provided for Fox’s use. His father’s eyes were closed, the bottom half of his face covered by a translucent oxygen mask. Fox went to squeeze his hand, but saw that there was a spring-loaded clip on one finger, linking it to the machine. He touched the wrist instead, finding it warm. He looked for any signs that his father might be about to open his eyes. There was a bruise on his forehead and a bit of swelling – probably from the fall.
‘Dad,’ Fox said, just loud enough for his father to hear. ‘It’s Malcolm.’
No response. His fingers sought the pulse in Mitch’s wrist. It beat a slow, steady tattoo in time to the machine.
‘Dad,’ he repeated.
The staff seemed to be discussing something at the nurses’ station. Fox wondered where his father’s clothes were. He was wearing a short-sleeved hospital gown. One of the staff had broken off from the discussion to make a phone call.
‘We can’t take any more admissions,’ he explained. ‘No spaces left.’
So it could always have been worse: Mitch could have been kept waiting on a trolley in a corridor. Fox wondered if there were some sort of hierarchy, and whether that meant things were serious.
Could just be a fall…
‘I don’t believe it.’ The voice came from behind him. He turned his head and saw Jude standing there, arms by her sides. Fox got to his feet.
‘They say he fell,’ he began to explain.
‘I don’t mean Dad,’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘I mean you.’
It took Fox a moment to realise what crime he had committed. ‘Jude, I’m sorry…’
‘Walked into Lauder Lodge as usual. “Oh,” they tell me, “did your brother not say? Your father’s been rushed to hospital…” So thanks for that, Malcolm. Thanks a bunch.’
A member of the nursing team was approaching, gesturing for them to keep the noise down.
‘I plain forgot, Jude. I was up to high doh…’
‘How do you think I’ve been? All the way here in the taxi…’ She had turned her attention from Malcolm to Mitch. ‘Not knowing what I was going to find.’
‘Sit down,’ Fox said, offering her the chair. ‘I’ll get you some water.’
‘I don’t want any of your water!’
‘Look,’ the nurse started to warn them, ‘I know this is difficult, but you’ll have to keep it down for the sake of the other patients.’
‘What’s wrong with him?’ Jude was still studying her father.
‘It might be a stroke,’ the nurse said. ‘But we can’t know that for sure yet.’
‘A stroke?’ Jude lowered herself on to the chair, gripping its sides with both hands.
‘He’s already had an X-ray,’ Fox explained to his sister.
‘There’ll be a doctor along in a minute,’ the nurse added.
Fox nodded to let the nurse know everything was fine now. But when he made to squeeze Jude’s shoulder, she shrugged him off.
‘Don’t touch me,’ she said. So Fox stood there and watched as she leaned forward until her head was resting against the edge of the bed. Her whole body spasmed as she sobbed. Fox looked over towards the staff, but they’d seen it all before. Eventually the same nurse came with a few words of advice.
‘There’s a cafe in the main entrance. You might be better off there. Give us your number and we’ll buzz you when the doctor turns up.’
But Jude shook her head. She was staying, so Fox stayed too. Another chair was found for him and he placed it next to his sister. She was squeezing their father’s hand, and failing to dislodge the finger-clip.
‘They found him on the floor of his room,’ Fox explained quietly. ‘He hit his head when he fell.’ He paused, realising there was nothing else to add, apart from yet another apology. Jude wouldn’t look at him. When she did lift her face from the bed, she focused on the machine instead.
When the doctor arrived, he seemed impossibly young to Fox – barely out of his teens, surely. No white coat or stethoscope; just a shirt and tie and rolled-up sleeves.
‘No bones broken, no fractures,’ he recited, flicking through the notes he’d been handed. ‘Might just do a scan. We’ll keep him in a day or so…’
‘Someone mentioned a stroke,’ Fox said.
‘Mmm, it’s one possibility.’ Fox had been expecting the doctor to shine a light in Mitch’s eyes, or take his blood pressure and pulse… something like that. But the young man just glanced at the patient. The notes were telling him what he needed to know. ‘We’ll start to get a better idea when he comes round.’
‘Should we try rousing him?’ Fox asked.
‘Best leave it.’ The doctor had come to the end of his reading. ‘Scan later today or maybe tomorrow. After that, we’ll hopefully have some firmer news.’
And with that he was gone, moving to a patient on the other side of the room.
Jude didn’t say anything, and neither did Fox. He’d seldom felt as useless. When someone from the nurses’ station asked if they’d like a cup of tea, he nodded and felt pathetically grateful. Jude wanted water, and both drinks duly arrived. Fox said sorry again, and this time Jude looked at him.
‘You never think of me – either of you,’ she said.
‘Not now, Jude. Leave it for later.’ Fox nodded towards Mitch. ‘He might be able to hear.’
‘Maybe I want him to hear.’
‘Even so…’
She took a sip of water from the plastic glass, cupping it in both hands. Fox’s tea was too strong. The only way to make it drinkable was to add both sachets of sugar.
‘Look,’ he told his sister, ‘I was in the middle of something when they phoned me. I wasn’t thinking straight – even when I got here.’
‘No room in that head of yours for me, eh?’
‘Can we cut the martyr crap, Jude, just this once?’
He managed to hold her gaze, but only for a few seconds.
‘You’re some piece of work, Malcolm,’ she said, slowly and steadily. ‘You really are.’
‘Better to be something than nothing, eh?’ He made the mistake of glancing at his watch.
‘Somewhere you need to be?’ she asked.
‘Always.’
‘Don’t let family get in the way, will you?’
He was trying to calculate how long it would take him to get to Stirling. Would the evening rush hour slow him?
‘Christ, you really are planning to up and leave.’ Jude’s mouth stayed open. ‘Whatever it is, it can’t be more important than this.’
‘Just because you don’t understand doesn’t mean Dad wouldn’t.’
‘And I’m supposed to just sit here?’
‘You’ll do whatever you want to do, Jude, same as always.’
‘Said the kettle to the pot.’
It was hard to disagree, so Fox didn’t bother trying. He asked her if she needed money for the cafe. She kept him waiting for an answer before admitting that the taxi had cleaned her out. He placed a twenty-pound note on the bed, next to where she was holding Mitch’s hand.
‘I’ll be back later,’ he promised. ‘You going to be all right?’
‘What if I say no?’
‘Then I’ll feel worse than I already do.’
‘Just bugger off, Malcolm.’
Which was exactly what he did, after handing one of the nurses his card with his mobile number on it.
The nurse nodded, but then looked over towards Jude. ‘Is she going to throw another wobbly?’
Fox shook his head with some confidence. ‘Just so long as I’m not here,’ he explained.