Oh Dear Silvia (23 page)

All I know is that I was suddenly on the ground, clutching my leg and Ajani was somehow in front of me.
I saw his face because at the exact moment that a touch of first light hit it and lit him up, an enemy round hit him in the head and as his skull shattered, sending shards of bone and brain and blood and hair exploding out every which way like a dandelion head, he slumped forwards on to me, smothering me with his pumping dark blood and his ruptured flesh. Clumps of hard soil and rocks were thwacking me from either side as the earth around me was being pounded by their 762 rounds, slamming into the ground. My mouth, ears and eyes were full of dust and thick glinting blood. Tasted like steel, like nothing I’d ever tasted before, like metal and bacon together. I couldn’t tell what was my blood and what was his. Bastard. All I knew was the pain.

I try to shove him off the top of me; he’s heavy for a small bloke. Ajani – who was dead bright and dead green, and is now just dead. I can hear muffled sounds and I can hear pounding as boots stomp on ground around me. Are these my lads? Or ragheads? Are the fucking Taliban right on us and about to finish me off? I can’t see. I reach down to my right thigh to draw my 9mm but I am getting weaker with every second and I can’t do it.

Is this what dying feels like? Am I going to kick it here, in this dirty shithole, leaving my call sign with no leadership? I hear reassuring sounds of Geordie Jim
telling me to keep still, and he’s doing something tight to my leg, he’s injecting me. I hear the sounds of a helicopter – and that was it, I lost all consciousness.

Turns out the rest of my unit got the backup they needed from 1 Royal Irish, the ANA, and two Apaches and pushed on to take Red 1 with only Ajani as a fatality. Besides a couple of the Talibs who copped it. Rest taken prisoner … Some injuries, like me, but not too shabby, considering.

So now, here I am, patched up, drugged up, and waiting to be casevaced to Bastion. Then there’ll be some decisions made about what needs to happen next – I expect I’ll be taken to Birmingham or somewhere like that to recover. Need to know exactly how serious it is before plan is made. Looks like a shattered knee to me. But what the cock do I know?

Well, what I
do
know for sure is that life is precious, and I’m going to savour every living moment of it. And I’m going to do that in the name of courageous Ajani Sahar, and courageous Dad and courageous Cassie. Not you. You wouldn’t have the first clue about courage, or what matters, Silvia. You proved that. When I was in and out of consciousness in the Chinook, with my legs splinted together, and my own blood spilling down the deck plates to my face, I thought about my family and how they would cope if this was it for me.

I knew then, very clearly, that it wouldn’t matter to you because you haven’t known me for so long now. Would you even find out? And if you did, would it just be like someone snuffing out a candle in the next room? Can’t see it, doesn’t really matter, doesn’t affect you? Like that? Well, here’s the thing I knew in that moment Silvia. I don’t care what you think any more. My anger about you and your shit has eaten me up, you pushed me away and that push got me all the way here, but no longer am I going to let you be in charge of what I think about me.

I am going to survive this. I am going to survive you. Even if it meant coming to this hellhole to learn it. I now know it. I do not need you. I do not love you. I no longer look for your love back. Keep it, and shove it up your arse.

There’s dust everywhere here. It’s the teller of everything. Weather, war, everything. I’ve had it everywhere, eyes ears nose mouth … It’s even inside my shit and my fucking socks at the end of the day. But as I lie here now. Finally. I think it’s settling. Settling. Settled.

So. Happy Birthday, and that’s it.

Bye then. J.

Cassie folds the pages and replaces them in the envelope. She sits and thinks, with Jamie’s words still in the air, and the sound of her mother’s breathing.

Never altering.

Thursday 10am

Winnie is about to carry out her regular checks on Silvia, making sure all the machines are functioning properly and she is as comfortable as she can be. Winnie twice washes her hands with the alcohol-based sanitizing gel from the dispenser on the wall, and as she gets a wake-up whiff from the nostril-singeing menthol assault of it, she has a passing shudder of horror at the certain knowledge that most of the visitors in this and every other ward won’t bother.

Winnie remembers the training film they were shown about MRSA, and the terrifying statistics she learned, like the fact that 53% of healthcare workers have traces of MRSA on their hands at any one time. A hospital is the ideal environment for the bacteria to flourish and for the transmission of infections because so many people are in direct contact, living and dying, side by side so closely. She discovered that there are 17 strains
of MRSA, and many can kill you if your immunity is compromised and you are weak. Add the virulent and ugly C. Diff to the equation, and it pretty much transforms a hospital into a kind of luxury bug hotel.

The superbugs have checked in and they are getting stronger with every antibiotic encounter they have. They are partying in every room of the hotel, especially the communal areas. They are getting drunk at the bar, and having parties and weddings and weekend breaks, and conferences, and basically taking the piss. They don’t stay quiet in their rooms any more, they are out and bold and loud, and hitching a ride to anywhere on any dirty hand they can find.

Winnie is determined that she, at least, will not be a carrier. Not knowingly, at any rate. She knows how vulnerable her very poorly patients are, and she would do nothing to exacerbate their often tragic situations. Winnie is a person who, in a quite old-fashioned way, takes the most enormous pride in her work. She will always do the absolute best she can, and if washing your hands regularly to minimize the risk of infection is part of that best, then of course she will comply. It’s simple and easy. Why don’t others see it the same way?

Likewise, she would never enter a room without greeting her patient with a cheerful hello. It’s only right and decent to her. It’s good manners, and Winnie was brought up right. On top of which, she has plenty to tell Silvia today. Plenty. Because a miracle has happened since yesterday afternoon.

‘Marnin’ Silvia. It’s mi, Winnie, comin in to check you darlin. Jus so you know, it a blustery nasty day, an’ Deyvid Cyameroon still de prime minister. Lord help us all. He is hatin on the poor ol’
NHS. So. Ya nah miss nuttin, sista, in fact, ya might even be better off fas’ asleep! He he he. Now let’s have a lickle look at dis bag.’

Winnie deftly lifts the sheets where Silvia’s urine bag hangs, attached to the catheter. Even when her patient is unconscious like this, Winnie likes to be sensitive and subtle about it, so she folds the sheets back in such a way as to reveal as little as possible of Silvia. Discretion and dignity at all times are Winnie’s modus operandi.

‘Dere, let’s give you new bag. Shame de bag cyaan match your shoes, eh?! He he. Now den, dat should feel better.’

Winnie carefully replaces the old full yellow bulging plastic sack with a new empty fresh one, and she cleans all the connections to be sure. She then raises the top of Silvia’s bed a little bit higher, about 20º, so as to allow for good drainage of venous blood, and she makes a note that it’s time Silvia was turned to lie on her side for a while. She knows that if a coma patient is in one position too long, the lowest portions of the lungs become passively congested with blood, and the respiratory functions of the alveoli are then impaired. This then becomes frighteningly fertile ground for the development of numerous infections, but especially of bronchopneumonia.

Winnie can’t turn Silvia alone, so she will summon help in
a minute, but meanwhile, she wants to tell Silvia what happened without anyone else in the room, so she proceeds with her regular checks of blood pressure and temperature, plus respiratory levels, while she relates her tale excitedly.

‘So, now, when mi see Mr Shute, sorry, “h’Edward”, leavin here in such a rush yesterday, mi notice ’im stress ’n’ vex. I arks ’im if he wan’ go getta caffee. ’Im say yes, so we go to de h’appalling café dungstairs and ’im get two cup overprice liberty-teykin muddy water call’ caffee. Serious, Silvia, dat caffee is made by a sadist, it so horrible. We both sippin it so polite, den I get it in mi throat where it burn up so, an’ mi start fi cough real bad. Den we both laffin at jus’ how rank it is. Laffin an’ coughin. So much dat mi snortin like a pig! It so funny, and h’Edward face light up so when ’im smile, don’t it? ’Im a lovely man, Silvia, in’t it? An’ ’im speak so high of you. ’Im say ’im sad de marriage broke up, but ’im h’understan you needin to move on, have new life. Dats good. For both. Yes? Mi can see ’im sad dat you sufferin now Silvia. ’Im have a good heart. An’ ’im pay de eighty thousand pongs it cost for di h’atrocious caffee, so mi know ’im generass.

‘H’anyway. We talkin an’ talking ’til mi jaw ache, mainly ’bout you an’ Cassie an’ Jamie, but h’eventually, mi tell ’im all about what bin goin on wid mi son Luke. It so pyainful for dat bwoy. Mi heart bleed, truly …’

All the time, Winnie is observing and checking Silvia. Checking her airways are clear and clean. Checking for skin
integrity and muscle deterioration, checking for ulcers, checking her mouth for saliva. Gently, in rotation, she moves all Silvia’s joints to avoid stiffness, and all the time, she is noting the lack of response and she is documenting everything efficiently on the charts. She doesn’t want to miss a single trick or clue, and she is super diligent, even though she is talking all the time. Winnie is a supreme multitasker.

‘Him get beat up by dis group of mean gyals at school, long time now, but ’im only tell mi Tuesday eveling when ’im come home wid him head bruk open, and plenty scratches dung ’im beautiful lickle sad face. Mi could see where he bin bawlin. Lines o’ tears. Valleys dung ’im cheeks. Poor lickle mite. Scared ’im ’til he shiverin like a leaf. Dey mash ’im up really bad. Tek ’im book bag an’ ’im dinna money an’ ’im iPod ’im save up for wid ’im birtday money. Dem give ’im big bodderation fe nuttin! All becaa why? Becaa ’im so lickle an genkle? And black? And becaa dey can.

‘Mi tinkin it might be my fault, becaa mi teach ’im not to use ’im fist, to try an’ negotiate if dere is problems. But dese gyals is proper bullies dey don’t want talk, an’ of course, ’im feel worse becaa dem is gyal. He supposed to be de big man and bash dem up if dey treaten ’im, but ’im only nine years h’old and dey in senior school, an’ dey massive! Bully gyals. Wyait at de syame bustop, so dey got plenty chance to give ’im liks. Fe what?!

‘I seen dose gyals. Tree of dem. One is pyale an lang an maaga,
one is slabba-slabba, fat as a wyale, an de las’ one is white trash wishin she a black sista wid corn row too tight an big ol’ ugly bangles an’ gold bling ev’ywhere. De parents should be h’ashame. Mebbe dem no know, but mebbe dem de syame. Whatever, mi cyaan have mi bwoy mess up like dis, look ’pon ’im all mash up. Dat fat one bash ’im in ’im teet an’ now the front one come loose. Dat sight mek mi vex an’ mi all ready fi go dung where she live. I know dat flat, an dat gyal, she dead! She mess wid my pickney, I mess wid her face, beccaa she need to know ’bout di truut when it come to bullying. You always gonna meet a bigga bully dan you one day, missy, an’ see me ya! Me a go box up your face so bad, you will ny’am ya own teet, truss mi. Mi a dweet! Serious. Mi a tersty fe her blood, mi dat vex. Mi could kill.

‘I was tinkin an dreamin of all de isms an schisms I would lay on dem nasty gyals when mi hear a lickle whimperin quiet noise. It Luke crying h’again, but dis time, it beccaa of me. Mi frightenin ’im wid all de cursin an’ shoutin, an’ stampin about. We no do dat in my family. I teach ’im not to. An’ now I am doin it bad. ’Im beg me not to go rung to dey flats. ’Im say it a go mek it worse an’ ’im have enough crosses. ’Im lickle tears reach into mi heart an’ I soften up an’ calm down. Mi cyaan bear it when ’im cry. Mi never could. Mi haffi comfort ’im, an’ ’im mek mi promise not to go dere, not to say anyting, an’ so dats what I do. H’eventually, h’after mi fix up his face wid TCP, ’im fall asleep on de sofa in front of de Simpsons, an’ mi let ’im stay home wid mi mudda yesterday.

‘So you see, Silvia, mi full of sufferation when mi see h’Edward here, an’ mi see dat similar sufferation in ’im face when he left, so dats why we have the caffee an’ dats why mi tell ’im all about Luke. An’ mi cyaan believe how much ’im lissen. Proper lissen. An’ alla de time mi see ’im tinkin and tinkin an’ arksin questions. H’Edward truly h’interested in what mi tell ’im an’ ’im a hatch a plan inna ’im brain to help. Mi cyaan believe ’im takin time to tink it troo. H’after all, dis nuttin to do wid ’im. It not ’im problem. Mi tell ’im so, but ’im h’insist ’im help. H’Edward say ’im know all about bullyin an’ how it leave you feelin bad ’bout plenty tings.

‘Mi not sure if ’im bullied at school or where, but ’im seem to feel de pain when ’im talk it over, ’im eyes look sad, so best not to intrude ’pon ’im personal ting an’ tings. Mebbe one day, dat might be possible, but not jus’ now. H’anyway, ’im say it all “outrageous” an’ fe to have “zero tolerance”. ’Im arks if de school do anyting to help? Well, mi say, some other tings happen in the pass wid Luke, not so bad as dis time, but de school not really respond, an’ Luke beg mi not to get h’involved fe fear it mek it worse, so really, we stuck wid it.

‘Bwoy! H’Edward get all heat up ’bout dis an’ ’im talk about “institutional racism” bein de “downfall of dis country” and “stealth evil” an’ how de police got de same, and so schools copy, an’ let dis level of crime creep up ’til it so normal an’ big an’ bad, we letting racist thugs kill h’innocent black boys jus’ walkin on the street, an’ dose wicked boys run free an’ laff
bout it fe years. Boastin ’bout how good it feel to get rid of dat “pointless nigger” an’ how dey wish dey could do it one at a time ’til we all dead. Dis is what happen if no one stop dem. ’Im tink what happen to Luke “a race hate crime” an’ “intolerable”. You should see ’im face Silvia, ’im full o’ fury!