Drip Dry (26 page)

‘Sure thing. Then you go first and lead the way, okay?'

‘You aren't seriously going under there?' I ask in amazement as Ben proceeds to do exactly that. ‘This is ridiculous!'

‘Where's your sense of adventure, woman?' Alex grins at me and ducks down to follow his son under the house. ‘If we don't come out in ten minutes, call the cops.'

‘Alex?' I bend down and peer through the doorway.

‘Yep?' He turns on his haunches to look back at me.

‘You're an idiot.'

‘True, but –' he leans a bit closer and whispers – ‘I'm an idiot who needs to do something to impress my son. Capiche?'

‘Capiche,' I reply with an odd lump in my throat.

‘Oh, and if we don't come back, I've left you the beanbag in my will.' He winks at me and gets down on all fours to crawl after Ben and the light, which are both rapidly disappearing further into the dark, smelly recesses.

I stand up and stretch, smiling despite myself. I also take a deep breath of the air up here. Well anyway, he's right – he does have a lot of ground to make up with Ben, and what better way to do it than to support him in a harebrained adventure like this. Batman and Robin intrepidly penetrate the sinister underworld with only the power of good on their side. But by the same token, I feel a little bit left out. After all, it was me that Ben had turned to originally to help him find out what's going on – and he ditches me at the first sign of support from his father. I do hope that this living next door stuff doesn't turn into some sort of competition, because I'm not sure that I
can
compete, not with disgusting stuff like this, at any rate. Leaving me his beanbag in his will, indeed! That man will be the death of me.

Suddenly, the smile is wiped off my face as I remember that
that
man also happens to be engaged
and, despite all his witty behaviour, he is, as Fergus put it so succinctly, an absolute bounder. I narrow my eyes and kick out at the under-the-house door to relieve my feelings. It immediately swings closed with an audible thud. Damn, damn, damn. I squat down and attempt to prise it open again but to no avail. So I grab the crowbar and try to copy what Alex did with it earlier, but despite my best efforts, and a lot of grunting and groaning, it still won't budge. Damn, damn, double damn.

‘Hey, what happened?' comes a muffled voice from the other side of the door.

‘It swung closed again!' I call out. ‘You give it a shove from that side and I'll pull from this side.'

‘No, you stand back! I'll give it a thump!' calls the muffled voice and immediately proceeds to follow word with deed, before I even have time to move. Subsequently, several things happen at once. I try to scramble backwards to get out of the way, the door flies open with considerable force, bashes me full on the nose, and bounces back hard onto Alex, who has just stuck his head out to see what he hit.

‘Shit!'

‘Bloody hell!' I clasp my nose with both hands but the pain is excruciating. I look cross-eyed down at the offending organ and realise that blood is flowing freely down my face and dripping onto my pyjama top. It is quickly starting to look like a macabre version of a wet t-shirt competition.

‘God! Did I do that?' Alex is squatting next to me now and looking with concern at my face. ‘Christ, I'm sorry. I didn't realise you were there.'

‘Mum! Hey, you're bleeding!' Ben joins his father and states the obvious. ‘What happened?'

‘Id hid me,' I reply as I try to get up. Alex puts his arm around me and helps me to my feet. Ironically, although it is my nose that's damaged, I can still smell them and, believe me, I would vastly prefer not to.

‘Let's get you home.' Alex keeps his arm over my shoulders and steers me around the corner of the house and across his front lawn. I am feeling decidedly fuzzy-headed so I am rather glad of his help. Ben dances alongside, looking extremely concerned, until we reach our front door, which he proceeds to pound upon noisily, calling out to Samantha at the top of his voice.

‘Sam! Sam! C'mon, quickly open up! Hurry! Mum's had an accident and she's bleeding
everywhere
!'

‘Bemb?'

‘Sam! Sam!
Hurry
up!'

‘Bemb?'

‘Why won't she answer the bloody door? Sam! Sam!'

‘Bemb, dond swear,' I say automatically, ‘add Sab's nod here. She's oud.'

‘Oh. Well, do you have a key?'

‘Dough.'

‘Christ, don't either of you have a key?' Alex asks with evident disgust.

‘Well, I left the door open so this wouldn't happen,' says Ben defensively. ‘But no worries, I'll climb in through my window.'

He disappears around the corner and, shortly after, a series of clattering and smashing sounds can be heard from the direction of his bedroom. I use this time to close first one eye and then the other, staring down the length of my nose to see if it has started to swell. I give up when my eyes start to hurt. Shortly afterwards, the front door opens.

‘There you go,' Ben says with evident pride.

‘Perhaps you should step aside, mate, and let us get her through to the kitchen,' says mate's father, who is obviously beginning to feel the full force of my weight.

‘Oh, of course.' Ben moves to one side and we progress slowly down to the kitchen where Alex plonks me onto a chair with a rather ungallant sigh of relief.

‘Okay, have we got an ice-pack or something?' he asks, looking questioningly around at his offspring who looks back at him blankly.

‘Ub there,' I say, pointing with some irritation towards the freezer. After all, where the hell do they expect ice-packs to be kept? Alex finds it and brings it over to where I am dripping blood all over the kitchen table.

‘Now lean your head back and I'll put this on. Hopefully it'll stop the bleeding and we'll be able to see the damage.' He levers my hand away from my nose and peers at it. ‘Hmm, Ben, grab me a couple of damp flannels, will you, and we'll clean this up a bit.'

I stare at the ceiling obediently while my nose throbs, sending pulse-like sheets of agony behind my eye-sockets and through my skull. Ben comes back
with some flannels, hands them to his father and then proceeds to hover while Alex carries out his ministrations very gently around my nose region. The flannel is dripping wet, freezing, and it hurts. I flinch.

‘Sorry, sorry. God, it's all swollen. Hold still and I'll just finish cleaning this bit . . .'

‘Where's CJ?'

‘Hold still! I don't want to hurt you – only a bit more . . .'

‘I'll check, Mum,' says Ben as he darts away, obviously glad to have something to do.

‘I'm sorry, but you'll have to hold still – hang on a sec.'

‘It's okay, Mum,' gasps Ben as he arrives back out of breath. ‘She's still fast asleep.'

‘Good. Ow! Was Bissus Waverley there?'

‘No, it wasn't her, Mum,' answers Ben in tones of heartfelt disappointment.

‘Shh, we'll tell you all about it later. Christ, this is a mess.' Alex stops gently sponging my face and stands back. ‘Do you know what? I reckon you've broken it. I'll have to take you to the hospital.'

‘Dough hospidal,' I answer firmly, while tears well up in my eyes.

‘Yes, hospidal I'm afraid.'

‘Dough, dough,
dough
. I'b nod go-ig do the dab hospidal.'

‘Ben, can you look after your little sister while I take your mother to the hospital? I'll ring you as soon as I find out what's what.'

‘Sure, Dad. We'll be fine.'

‘Dough way! I said dough! I'b nod go-ig!'

10.00 am

The emergency waiting room at the William Angliss Hospital must be one of
the
most boring places to spend time that I have ever had the misfortune to be in. But then again, I suppose that anybody spending time in an emergency waiting room has
already
been misfortunate in one way or another. And they probably aren't in the most conducive of moods for various forms of amusement either. I know I'm not.

We've been here for almost three hours now. At least, I've been here for almost three hours. Alex has come and gone like a yo-yo, using all sorts of slim pretexts to get away – like taking Ben to St John's (and I'd like to know what the hell all that St John's is good for when the boy was still close to useless in an emergency situation), and dropping CJ off at my mother's for the morning. And, boy, would I like to have seen her face when her ex son-in-law from her daughter's first marriage arrived unexpectedly on her doorstep with her grand-daughter from the
other
marriage in tow – and god knows what she was dressed in (CJ, that is, not my mother). I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that she was still in her pyjamas.

But at least,
I'm
not still in my pyjamas. I absolutely put my foot down and insisted on being allowed to brush my hair (not that it's made a lot of difference – my hair doesn't wake up very well in
the morning without a shower), spray some perfume liberally over myself and get dressed in a tracksuit before we left for the hospital. Otherwise I'd be sitting here in a pair of very bloody Winnie-the-Pooh shortie pyjamas.

The first thirty minutes after we got here were taken up by an Irish lass (she's about my age but somehow Irish and lass just seem to go together, regardless of age), whose left breast proclaimed itself ‘Debbie', and who had so many little badges and buttons stuck all over her cardigan that you could barely see the cardigan for the heavy metal. She did a slight double-take as we approached and wrinkled her nose somewhat before, in a charming and almost understandable Irish lilt, relentlessly giving me the third degree about almost every aspect of my life. Certainly she now knows more personal details about me than I have ever thought it necessary to impart to a total stranger.

After she had meticulously stored away my every little detail in her computer, she waved me on to the nurses' station where a rather robust female also wrinkled her nose and then inquired what my problem was. Considering my hand was plastered over my nose, which was extremely swollen, I thought she should have been capable of hazarding a guess, but nevertheless I obliged her with a brief summary of which she understood not one word. So Alex filled her in a bit more succinctly. She then took a brief look at my wounded proboscis, sympathised somewhat, told me I wasn't to have anything to eat or drink, and ushered us over to the waiting area,
where we have been ever since. Or rather, I have been ever since.

So here I am, starving, smelly and looking like I was just pulled out of a council clothing bin. Next to me Alex is freshly showered, neatly dressed in jeans and a t-shirt,
and
has probably even grabbed something to eat on one of his frequent trips back home. Not fair.

Considering that we arrived here fairly early on a Saturday morning, the waiting room was already well stocked. Several of the inhabitants are quite obviously there as a result of kicking their heels up a little too high during their Friday evening's entertainment. There is an asthma attack over by the wall with his wife, a jogger nursing his arm by the water fountain, a heavily pregnant woman with her husband next to the magazines, and several children, all of whom seem to be suffering from a particularly virulent form of ADD, playing leapfrog over the seats.

I lean across to see what the brightly coloured magazine is that Alex is currently reading. It's
Dolly
. Okay, now
that's
a surprise.

‘It's the only one there,' Alex says defensively when he sees me looking at him.

‘Hmmb.' I raise my eyebrows at him.

‘I'm bored! I need
something
to read. And besides –' he flicks back a few pages and holds the magazine out to me – ‘look! Where else would I be able to find a ten-point plan for getting my boyfriend to spend more time with me than with his mates?'

‘Is there a quesdiodaire?' I ask with growing interest.

‘Actually, I think there is.' Alex flicks through the magazine till he finds the right page. ‘Here we go. Hey, do you remember when we used to do all of these?'

‘Yes,' I say shortly as I lean over to see what this questionnaire is all about. Hmm. It's how to find out if your partner is cheating on you. We both sit there in rather awkward silence looking at the page until Alex flips the magazine closed and drops it on the empty seat next to him. One of the hyperactive kids immediately swoops down on it and carries it off. I look up at the reception desk to see if there is any action over there and the Irish lass gives me a sympathetic smile. I wonder if I could fix her up with Fergus. I wonder if Terry fixed herself up with Fergus. I know that Fergus drove her home last night because he insisted that she was in no fit condition to drive herself (and he was absolutely right), but I don't know what happened after that. Although, judging by her behaviour, I can hazard a wild guess. Suddenly I remember that he is supposed to be coming back this morning to finish the floor.

‘Fergus!' I exclaim loudly.

‘Pardon?' Alex looks at me quizzically.

‘Fergus,' I repeat wearily, unwilling to try to explain any further because it's simply too much effort when most of your consonants aren't working.

‘Are you propositioning me?' asks Alex, raising his eyebrows at me.

I shake my head and look heavenward in an effort to make him realise I think he's an idiot without actually having to use any words. Unfortunately
all I succeed in doing is disturbing my nose, which had hitherto settled into a steady throb. Now it starts that heavy pulsating again, which causes my whole head to reverberate in rhythm. I groan.

‘Are you okay?' asks Alex as he looks at me with concern. Just then the robust nurse comes out through the swinging doors labelled STAFF ONLY, and calls out my name.

‘Riley! Mrs Riley?'

‘Ms,' I mutter crossly as Alex helps me up and we walk over to the nurse.

‘Walk this way,' she orders as she sets off through the swinging doors with her hips undulating. Alex and I look at each other and grin, but we manage to act like the mature adults we are supposed to be and follow the nurse using our normal gait. There are even
more
people behind the swinging doors – it's like a whole other world. People lying on trolleys, people sitting on seats, people glimpsed lying flat out on beds behind curtains. The nurse shows us into a small cubicle and clips some paperwork onto a metallic folder dangling from the foot of the narrow bed.

‘Okay, if you'd like to sit on the bed and you – you sit here.' She gestures Alex towards a green chair in the corner (exactly like the one upstairs in Diane's room). ‘Doctor should be with you shortly.'

Surprisingly enough, this is exactly what happens. Almost as soon as she undulates back out through the curtains, a very youthful-looking doctor enters and picks up the metallic folder. He doesn't exactly instil me with a great deal of confidence; in fact I
think I've got pimples older than him. He frowns, sniffs and grimaces rudely as he reads through the information.

‘Mrs Riley?' he asks.

‘Ms,' I correct politely.

‘
Miss
Riley?' he says, looking at me with surprise.

‘Dough,
Ms
,' I repeat firmly.

‘Oh! Sorry. Couldn't understand you. Now let me see – you say you were hit by a door, is that right?' He looks from Alex to me and then back again.

‘Yes,' I answer.

‘Hit by a
door
?' he repeats with his eyebrows raised.

‘Yes.' I am suddenly aware of how very lame it sounds.

‘I see.' The doctor frowns, looks down at the clipboard momentarily and then looks me straight in the eye. ‘Are you
absolutely
sure?'

‘Yes,' I sigh.

‘Hey.' Alex has suddenly caught on to what is going on. ‘Do you think
I
hit her?'

‘Well, it has been known to happen. And you look like you've got the beginnings of a shiner yourself.' The doctor gestures at Alex's face. I look at where he is pointing and, yes, he's right, Alex
has
got some rather interesting colouring around his left eye. Must have been where the door bounced off my nose and hit him.

‘Well, you're totally off base, mate,' says Alex indignantly. ‘We don't even live together.'

‘I see,' says the doctor sagely.

‘In fact, we're not even married – we're divorced!'

‘I see.'

‘Well, I don't think you do actually. And I resent the implications you're making!'

‘Look,' says the doctor, ‘it makes no difference what I think. If
Ms
Riley doesn't want to make a complaint, then my hands are tied anyway.'

‘There's nothing to bloody well complain about!'

‘Perhaps you'd better wait outside, Mr Riley, till I've finished my examination.'

‘It's Mr
Brown
actually – and perhaps you're right,' Alex says tightly as he turns to me. ‘I'll be just outside if you need me.'

‘Yes,' I say again, highly embarrassed by the scene that's taking place. The doctor ignores Alex's exit and puts his hand under my chin, tilting my head back to get a better look at my nose. He turns to pull a lamp down which he switches on while he prods and pokes along my cheekbones and then peers up my nostrils. I flinch and twitch nervously.

‘Sorry, sorry,' he mutters as he continues his examination.

‘Id wasmb'd him,' I say in an attempt to convince him that Alex isn't a perpetrator of domestic violence. ‘Id really was a door.'

‘Whatever you say,' says the world-weary doctor as he switches off the lamp and pushes it away. ‘Look, I'd say it
is
broken but there's not much that can be done for broken noses, you know. We'll send you off for an x-ray to make sure that you haven't deviated your septum, but I don't think so. More likely to be simply a hairline fracture. Anyway, when it's healed up, if you don't like the look of it, you can go and see
your local GP and get a referral to a plastic surgeon to get it straightened. In the meantime, I'll get a nurse in here to clean it up a bit, we'll get you off to x-ray and then we'll put a dressing over it for you. And I'll write you a script for some strong painkillers – you're going to need them.'

And with those comforting words, the doctor clips the metal folder back onto the end of the bed and departs. I sit on the edge of the bed, swinging my legs and thinking about what the doctor has just said. Not about the pain, although that's not exactly good news, but about the nose-straightening bit. Somehow I hadn't given much thought to the fact that I may have actually knocked my nose out of whack. I suppose I sort of thought that they'd do something in here and voila! Back to normal. I mean, my appearance has never exactly been earth-shaking at the best of times, but I really didn't need a cauliflower nose to complete things. Or is that cauliflower ears? No matter, I'm still going to have a nose like a prize-fighter that forgot to duck. Fine social worker I'll make – I'll scare all my clients silly.

Alex comes back in, sits down on the chair and smiles at me grimly.

‘I heard.'

‘Yes,' I say. ‘Life sugs.'

The robust nurse bustles in and immediately gives Alex a look that betrays the fact that our young doctor has been spreading his theories around. She sighs while looking straight at him, shakes her head and turns to me with an extremely patronising look on her face. ‘I'll just get the trolley and we'll clean
you up for now, shall we? And in the meantime, perhaps you'd like to have a read of this.' She thrusts a pamphlet into my hand, shoots another look at Alex and leaves.

I daren't look at Alex's face so I look down at the pamphlet instead and immediately it strikes me as incredibly ironic that I never had one of these shoved into my hands in all the time I was with Keith. When it might have done some good. Now, when I really
did
get hit by a door, I am invited to acquaint myself with ‘Domestic Violence – myths, stereotypes and the actual facts'.

Life can be really bloody weird sometimes.