Jack Ropell lay exhausted on his hospital bed wearing just a pair of light blue boxer shorts and a white towelling dressing gown, open to the waist. He was drenched in sweat and badly needed a shower, but at this moment he was hardly capable of breathing, let alone getting up. Two hours of physiotherapy had left him drawn and pale, even though it had been carried out in the pool with the friendly water helping to keep much of the weight away from the leg. His normally muscular body was unusually flaccid because of the time it had spent laying idle while his injuries were first put right and then given the time to mend. Now he was paying for that lack of condition as he struggled to get back into working condition.
In the first month after the explosion, when the surgeons had first reversed their earlier decision and told him they now thought there was a chance of saving his leg, he had nearly wept with gratitude. Now, after three bone graft operations and nearly six months of intensive physiotherapy, he wasn't so sure. Perhaps he might walk normally again, but at this point in time he would settle for freedom from the constant pain, even if it meant wearing an artificial limb for the rest of his life. He opened his eyes and saw the face of Staff Nurse Sally Crawford, wearing her purple uniform and the ridiculous lace cap with the ease of a professional, looking at him with sympathy. She fancied Mr Ropell like mad although she would have rather died than let him know it.
"Would you like a couple of pain-killers, Mr Ropell?"
He gave her a grim smile.
"Thanks, Sally, but after my experience with the injections I think I will suffer without them as long as I can, thank you."
They had given him painkilling injections after the first two bone grafts and ironically for an Excise man, in his still weakened state he had quickly become reliant upon them. Since then and during the subsequent weeks of cold turkey while he killed his dependence on the drugs, he had tried to do without any medication that was not essential to his health. The only plus point as far as he could see being that he now had a better idea of what the average hooked youngster was up against. Sally Crawford put a cup of tea down on his bedside locker, which he ignored being a confirmed coffee drinker, and left him to his thoughts. They were fairly black.
It was now a year since the explosion. He had suffered eighteen operations during that time, most of them on his shattered leg. The surgeons had told him that he would soon learn to walk properly again and that apart from an increased risk of infection due to the loss of his spleen, he could lead a normal life. They didn't define normal, but he took it to mean he would not need a wheelchair. He winced and gritted his teeth as the pain in his leg turned into an agonising stabbing sensation and lifting his arms he grabbed the tubular iron bed head to prevent him self crying out. After a few minutes it subsided and he relaxed again. He picked up that mornings paper and tried to occupy his mind, but he was too tired to concentrate.
He wanted to sleep, but sleep brought dreams of darkened places suddenly filled with fire and explosion. Not every time, but often enough to make him fight sleep at this moment. The dreams were particularly bad if he slept after a physiotherapy session when he was mentally as well as physically shattered. He picked up the remote control and switched on the television to a twenty-four hour news channel. Nothing new was happening so he did what he always did to ignore the pain. He started to go through in his mind how he was going to nail the bastards that had done this to him, that always made him feel better. He looked at the filing cabinet and desk that was now part of the furniture in his room. Anne Romsey had been to see him twice a week for the last six months. She spent the whole day with him. In the morning she briefed him on the new material she brought and in the afternoons she pulled his notes into shape. She then took them away for Peter Romsey to read bringing him typed copies back on her next visit. Apart from that she was doing him no good at all.
Jack Ropell would not have admitted it even to a priest had he been religiously inclined, but the truth was he was falling for Anne Romsey. She had a quiet dignity and strength that impressed him and a sense of humour that amazed him considering her circumstances. He had tried finding out a little about her dead husband a couple of times. Nothing too pushy, just gently using any chance she gave him in ordinary conversation to turn the talk to her family. He had found out that she had loved her husband and missed him and that she had great respect for her father in law but there she stopped. He sometimes joked that she would be out on the town when she left the hospital at the end of the afternoon while he was stuck there, but she never volunteered any information, just a gentle smile. He had not found out if any new man had yet come into her life, but was prepared to feel extraordinarily jealous on the chance that there might be. That is why he was going at the physiotherapy so hard. He wanted to be out of here. He wanted to take that beautiful face out to a restaurant or other public place where other men could be jealous of him. Tomorrow was Thursday and tomorrow she would be here. Tomorrow he would accept the painkillers.