The following morning was heavy with mist. Damp, rolling curtains of it moving slowly around the streets. I was pretty sure I could smell the sea on it, even though we were fifteen miles or more from the nearest wave. I wondered if it had rolled all the way down the A4 from Avonmouth. All sounds seemed to have been deadened, like when it snowed. But the birds still screeched their morning greetings to each other (if that was what they were). It bothered me to think that the birds might not be able to find all their usual places in the mist.
I had climbed out of bed before anyone that morning. I made them all a packed-lunch and cooked everyone a hot breakfast. They had all looked at me with bewildered expressions — especially Michael.
Neil and I barely spoke. But only because we were busy doing other things. When we kissed goodbye he told me to be careful. I told him I would be.
Michael pulled Rose’s ponytail while she was putting her arms into her coat. She squealed and pushed back into him, he tripped over his school bag and burst into laughter. If Rose had been going to complain, his falling over stopped it dead in its tracks. She laughed too. The tickle really had done them some good. Michael quietened down a little as he said goodbye. He looked suddenly preoccupied.
‘You know Harry probably won’t be in today,’ I told him.
‘Are you sure he’s OK?’ Michael said.
‘I told you, he is fine. I saw him last night. He had bruises and bumps, but he’s OK. I even got the feeling that he felt a bit guilty about it himself.’
‘He was calling you names,’ Michael, said. ‘But I didn’t mean for him to go to hospital.’
‘Michael, just make sure that nothing like that ever happens again, no matter what names people use. As long as you’re sorry and as long as you don’t do it again, everyone will be fine — I promise.’
‘OK?’ he said.
‘The teachers know that it’s not normally like you to do anything like that. In a few weeks it will all be forgotten about. And I’m sure you and Harry will be fine too.’
‘When are you coming back to school?’ he said.
I shook my head. ‘I’m not sure, Mikey. Very soon, I hope.’
He looked happier as he chased Rose to the car. He would be fine.
At 8:30am I printed off a page of time-slots from my computer. They were divided into half hours, and each time had a line next to it to write in appointments. I ticked from 6:am, the first time on the sheet, to 8:30. So far, so good. I folded the sheet and put it in my handbag, along with a pen.
When I rang him during his surgery phone-in at 8:45am, Doctor Jones said he could see me straight away.
I drove as quickly as I could through the thick mist and heard my name called out by an electronic voice as I stepped through the health centre’s automatic door.
Although I was probably his first patient of the day, Doctor Jones’ room smelled as thought hundreds of sick bodies had already passed through it that morning. The air was stale and poorly. I wanted to tell him to throw open a window and let something fresh in. I was thankful that I wasn’t his last patient of the day. No wonder doctors were off sick all the time.
He nodded at the chair in front of his desk. As I sat down I looked from him to the window, several times, willing him with my mind to open the damn thing. It didn’t work.
‘You said on the phone that you think you’ve experienced a blackout,’ he said. ‘A period of time that you can’t remember — is that right?’
‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘I lost about an hour and a half yesterday after going to see Mr Connell.’
‘You know, the human mind is a remarkable thing,’ he said. ‘It recognises when we are highly stressed or overwhelmed and often switches into “protection” mode. Almost like an auto-pilot. Have you ever experienced a moment when you’re driving and you suddenly realise that you can’t remember the last few miles?’
I wondered how much trouble I would get into for punching a doctor on his first appointment of the day.
‘My husband said the same thing,’ I said. ‘This was different. It wasn’t like that.’
He sat back in his chair and smiled.
‘What was the last thing you remember doing?’ he said.
‘I remember leaving Colin Connell’s house, climbing into my car and looking up at the sky. The sky was dark, with big, heavy clouds. It had just started raining really hard and I wondered if there might be lightning. I think I could smell the lightning.
‘There were a few people about and I noticed that none of them had umbrellas. And then I decided not to go home, but to drive to Banwell to see my mum and dad.’
He wasn’t making any notes as I spoke. I think I thought he should be.
‘And then I remember coming into Banwell and thinking back over my childhood. Being with Mr Connell had started me thinking about things I hadn’t thought about for ages.’
‘You said that you “lost” about one and a half hours. But also that you drove almost one hundred miles that you can’t recall?’
I nodded.
So did he.
‘To have driven that far in that amount of time, you must have been averaging about 65 miles per hour.’
I hadn’t thought of that.
‘That seems a little on the fast side,’ he said.
I couldn’t argue with that. I wondered if I had been caught on a speed camera somewhere. Or even whether I had been pulled over by the police. I couldn’t remember a damn thing, so anything was possible.
‘Are you absolutely sure it was that distance? Or indeed if it was only and hour and a half?’
‘I can’t be a hundred percent sure about the distance. I hadn’t pushed in the mileage thingy at the start. I’m only guessing by the amount of fuel that had gone. The fuel-gauge said nearly empty and I’m pretty certain I had over half a tank when I’d started out that morning.’
Doctor Jones pushed his chair back and reached up for a large book on a shelf over his desk. It looked like a directory to me, but I assumed it was full of medical stuff.
‘Had you eaten anything prior the this “blank” period?’ he said.
‘I’d had breakfast,’ I said. ‘Then I rang you and you gave me Colin Connell’s number. I didn’t eat anything else after that until I got to my mum and dad’s. And I was starving.’
‘What had you eaten for breakfast?’
‘Just cereal. And a coffee.’
‘Had you had anything else to drink — other than the coffee?’
‘I’d had several coffees,’ I said. ‘We were up pretty early. In the early hours really. We had an intruder in the garden, and then the police were called. It was all a bit stressful. So I’d had a few coffees to keep me going.’
‘Nothing else?’
I wasn’t sure how to broach the subject of Colin Connell’s virtual insistence that I drink or eat something. Doctor Jones had recommended Connell personally. But perhaps the doctor was thinking along the same lines I had, that maybe I had eaten or drunk something dodgy.
‘Mr Connell gave me a drink,’ I said. ‘Practically insisted. He must have thought I looked thirsty. Offered me food too.’
‘But you didn’t have any?’
I shook my head.
‘Only a glass of water. I wasn’t really hungry at the time,’ I said. ‘I think I was a bit nervous.’
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Let’s have a look at you.’
He picked up one of those wooden lolly stick type things they put on your tongue while they look down your throat. He also grabbed one of those torchy eye things that seems to double up as an ear thing too. Medical terminology was never my strong point.
The throat examination was over in a moment. I think we both knew there was nothing wrong with my throat. But he spent more time hovering around my ears. And even longer staring into my eyes through the torchy eye thing.
‘Have you had any problems with the wounds?’ he said. ‘Are they still healing OK?’
I was going to say “Well you’re the doctor — yo
u tell me”. But the timing wasn’t right.
‘I think they’re healing fine,’ I said, trying not to blink at the bright light still shining in my left eye from a distance of about ten millimetres. He moved it back across to the right eye again.
‘And are you feeling generally well at the moment? Have you had any dizzy-spells or feelings of nausea?’
‘I still have this pain in my upper left leg,’ I said. ‘There’s still no bruising there, and there are no marks or scratches either — but the pain is definitely there. It’s a dull ache practically all the time, but every now and then the pain intensifies. Sometimes for a prolonged period and sometimes just a sharp stabbing pain.’
At last he switched the bright light off and I squeezed my eyes shut for a few seconds. When I opened them Doctor Jones had disappeared. Then I felt hot breath on the back of my neck. Instinctively I jolted forward, almost out of the chair, and spun around.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I just need to examine the wounds on your head. I didn’t mean to startle you.’
I blushed. ‘Sorry, I had closed my eyes after the torch thing, and when I opened them I couldn’t see you. Then I just felt breathing behind me. It just made me jump.’
I sat back in the chair. Calmed myself down.
‘I need to feel around your neck and also your head too,’ he said.
“Phrenology — it’s pretty much regarded as a pseudo-science now”
‘Very often,’ he said, ‘blackouts are caused by a lack of blood reaching the brain. So for some people, if they stand up too suddenly it can cause a minor blackout. Also diabetics can be prone to them, and those with low blood pressure.’
As he spoke I felt his hands pressing in at the base of my skull around my neck. His fingers felt smooth and dry. He pressed hard and I winced. He didn’t apologise.
‘I need to see if there are any obvious signs of blood loss or internal bleeding. I know you’ve already had an MRI for all this, but it is possible that something small may have been missed. If it’s been building up over the last few weeks it may be the thing that’s causing you the problems. If there is something near the surface, I might be able to feel it on your head.’
He felt around my head a bit. I stared at the closed window again. Perhaps the lumps on my head would convey my desire for fresh air.
‘That all seems OK as far as I can tell,’ he said. ‘Can you roll your sleeve up and we’ll just check your blood-pressure.’
For some reason I hated the blood-pressure thing. As soon as he wrapped it around my arm I tensed up. I knew it wasn’t painful, but feeling my veins throbbing against the sleeve as the air is pumped into it makes me feel on edge and uncomfortable. I always feel like they pump too much air in, so it’s really tight and then they leave it pumped up for too long, letting it out too slowly. Perhaps I’m a wimp. Although I’m fine with needles and spiders.
The air hissed as he slowly let it out.
‘Let’s have a look at this leg of yours,’ he said. ‘If you would just hop onto the examination bed.’
I rolled my sleeve down and blushed again as I pulled my trousers half way down.
‘Where does the pain seem to be?’ he said.
I put my hand over the area that hurt.
‘It feels like it’s right at the surface,’ I said. ‘Although there’s nothing there to see. Maybe I damaged it inside when I hit the ground?’
‘It is possible that there is some nerve damage,’ he said. ‘If you are feeling something on the surface, but there’s nothing there.’
‘Sometimes it feels deep in there too. Could that still be nerve damage?’
He felt around the area I had pointed to.
‘It’s possible. Does this hurt.’
‘It’s no more than the dull ache at the moment. Pushing it seems to have no bearing on whether it hurts or not. It just comes when it wants to.’
‘This was x-rayed at the time wasn’t it? And it came back fine.’
I didn’t know what to say to him. So I just looked at him.
‘OK, if you would get dressed and come and sit back down.’
I pulled my trousers up and shuffled over to the chair again.
He sat down and looked into his big medical directory, turned a few pages.
‘I think perhaps we should get you to the hospital again,’ he said. ‘It might be prudent to have another brain-scan.’
‘No problem,’ I said, zipping up my boots. ‘I think that would be a good idea too.’
‘I think we should do it sooner rather than later. Perhaps we should get you there straight away.’
He turned to his computer monitor and tapped a few things on the keyboard.
‘Do you have time to go there now?’ he said.
‘Is it Bristol or Bath?’ I said. Both were more or less the same distance from home, but Bristol was slightly better for parking.
‘It’s up to you, but Bristol might be a good option. I’ll need to ring them.’
He asked me to “park myself” in the waiting-room while he contacted the hospital. He said he would come out personally to get me when he was ready. For ten minutes I flicked through a caravan magazine that was almost as old as Rose.
The waiting room door squeaked and Doctor Jones walked towards me. He held a sheet of paper in his hand.
‘They can see you straight away,’ he said. ‘I explained your symptoms and what happened. If you hand this to the reception when you get there, they’ll put you in the right direction.’
He handed me the sheet of paper. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to look at it or not. I decided not to.
‘They will write to me, of course,’ he said. ‘But please feel free to call if you have any additional questions that I might be able to help with. And we should then make another appointment once they’ve seen you, and once we know where we are.’
I thanked him and headed out to the car. Outside it felt like the mist was clinging to me as I walked. I could almost feel my hair turning to ringlets with each step. I climbed into the car and turned on the engine. Then I read the letter from Doctor Jones.
The patient, Christine Marsden, has presented with possible blackout. No external trace of bleeding to the cranium or behind the eyes. Brain-scan may show up something further. Patient suffered wounds to head approximately 5 (five) weeks ago. Seems to be healing satisfactorily. No previous history of dizziness or blackouts. Possible brain damage?
I folded the letter and put it on the passenger seat, turned the heaters on full-blow, and steered the car out of the health centre car park.
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