CHAPTER 4
Lil sat in silence for a few seconds, staring at the mug of tea Alwen had just delivered. When she did speak, it was far more hesitant than I was used to hearing from her.

“What if… This is all sponging, stuff, yeah? If…”

She stopped once again, clearly seeking the right words before trying once again.

“If this is meant to be the start of proper things, proper COUPLE things, aye? How can I start on the basis of her paying for everything? And what if it doesn’t work out? How do I pay you all back?”

She looked across at her colleague, wincing slightly.

“I mean, look at Alwen there, and Maria. Both young, both students. Equal depth to their pockets, isn’t it, and a lot more of their lives ahead to come back from bad choices”

Alwen winced.

“Not now, Lil. I mean, shit… I can’t even go home without having to change clothes and try to remember, you know. Parents’ home, I mean. Everywhere else, even college, and then… I just don’t know”

That was when I saw a lot of what the other Jenny must have seen in Lil, because her whole focus visibly shifted, and it was now on Alwen.

“What don’t you know, love?”

Marlene sniffed.

“Bloody social worker, I am. It’s quiet, and Ox has the bar. Out with it, girl”

The younger woman slumped into a chair almost as heavily as had Lil.

“You’re going to wonder…”

Marlene took her hands in hers.

“If you think I was too pushy that night…”

Alwen shook her head, emphatically.

“No. I needed that shove. I thought… Jen, she had a dress for me, LBD thing, and it was all my choice, but in the end, well, no choice, really. Marlene, I remember thinking that first step down the stairs, aye? First step to real life. Cliché, of course, but you know… You’re all my friends, aren’t you?”

Amina put her hand on top of Marlene’s.

“You really ask yourself that, Alwen? I think, really, you know the answer, don’t you?”

“Um… Yeah. I suppose I do. It’s just, well, I need reassurance, far too often. It’s so many things, aye? Am I real? I don’t do all those things---look, I don’t really use make-up, and I am SO not into jewellery, and… It was something Mam said, about bringing friends home, family home, aye? Not to bring men anywhere near her”

Lil burst out laughing, a bloody good sign.

“Tell me all about THAT one, woman!”

“Yeah, but, well. Lot of shit from the gender clinic, I’ve heard. Am I really a woman if I don’t fancy men? And her friend, and that Aussie lad, so bloody loved up it should come with a sugar tax levy. And Maria is just so, so, persistent”

Marlene’s voice was still soft.

“I can warn her off, if you’d like”

“I… I don’t know, Marlene. I mean, she’s nice enough, and, well, it’s more me than her. Nothing downstairs for her, not like there was for me. Er, sorry; that was meant to sound clever. Look, I just don’t know. I just feel there’s pressure on me from every bloody direction, and it is messing my head up. Sorry, Lil. This was meant to be about helping you, not sorting me out”

Lil shrugged.

“Want me to tell the truth? You just have, love. Perspective helps, realising my plate is a lot less loaded than other people’s”

A sharp laugh, before she added, “And that didn’t come out the way I meant to, but you catch my drift. Tell me about this hotel place, Jen…”

Tom and I were back on the road on the Monday morning, and it was almost like a replay of the Lil and Alwen show, as he seemed a little withdrawn. We parked up in a favourite spot, by the Brooklands retail centre, and I popped into Greggs for a couple of sausage rolls and some coffee, hoping he’d stir himself into life if I offered him a few minutes alone. No joy.

“Tom?”

“Aye?”

“You okay? Very quiet, butt”

“Ah, Jen. Just thinking, yeah?”

“What about? If you want to tell me, of course”

“Ah, well… My driving, aye?”

“And what’s wrong with it?”

“I was too… If I’d pushed it a bit harder, that old woman, Cynthia, maybe she’d not have arrested. Might have survived…”

Oh, for fuck’s sake!

“Tom, can you remember exactly why we kept the speed down? And yes, WE! She had a broken hip, and she was eighty bloody six, and it was her second heart attack, and we can’t always bloody win, can we? We, WE, did OUR best, and nothing would have been enough. How many RTC deaths have we seen?”

“More than enough, but they’re different”

“No they bloody aren’t. There are just some occasions when there’s nothing more we, or anyone else, can do. You have to…”

“Foxtrot One Five, Foxtrot One Five, Central”

I took the handset, for once quicker than Tom.

“Go ahead, Central”

“What’s your location, Jen?”

“Brooklands retail park, stationary. What do you have?”

“An urgent one. Report of middle-aged woman, breathing difficulties. Called in by M.O.P. M.O.P. is staying with her for now, so far””

“So far. Location?”

“Outside the Highfields, Caerau Road. No, she wasn’t in the pub”

“Understood. On way”

“Thanks, Jen. Update when and if we can”

“Understood. Out”

I hung up, as Tom fired up the light and sound, and his driving this time took no prisoners, maybe to compensate for what he saw as his failings with Cynthia. I had to keep one hand on the grab handle as we made warp speed through at least two red lights, and in a stupidly short time we were turning of Heol Trelai and pulling up by the pub, where a gaggle of early drinkers was sitting well apart from two women, with no apparent concern, on the picnic tables in front of the building. Tom spun us round, reversing up towards a low wall but making sure to keep enough space for trolley and lift. One of the women was straight across to us, waving a mobile phone, and I did my best to let Tom collar her as I went straight to what was clearly our patient, and, shit: cyanosis.

“Tom! Bottle and mask!”

He disengaged from our Member Of Public, and in thirty seconds I had the oxygen flowing and, thank god, the change in her colour was almost instant, like the sun coming up. I waved across to M.O.P., and she settled down beside the casualty, handing her the phone. I clipped on the blood oxy meter---shit, not at all good.

“Hi, I’m Jen, that’s Tom. I’d like to leave this lady to breathe for a while, but if you don’t mind, could you tell me what you know?”

Her eyes were just starting to leak, so I kept the smile going.

“What do I call you, love?”

“I’m Glenys. Glenys Shaw. I don’t know this lady”

“What did you see?”

“Nothing, really. She was just sitting on the wall, with her phone out. Couldn’t speak, aye? So I took the phone, realised it was on nine nine nine, so finished the call. Thought I’d stay by, see she was all right. Helped her onto this seat. Nothing, really”

Once again, for god’s sake. ‘Nothing’?

“Glenys, thank you. Trust me, it wasn’t ‘nothing’, so you can feel proud today. This lady was turning blue when we arrived, which is not a good colour for skin. Can you manage a few words, love? Can we maybe have a name? Tom’s just getting the stretcher on wheels, and then we’ll run you into St Dai’s”

She fumbled in her handbag, pulling out her purse, which held a driving licence. Hannah Saunders, aged… right, sixty-four, and from about two hundred yards away.

“Trolley, Tom. Do you think you can stand, Hannah? Just need a few steps, then we’ll settle you on the trolley. I’ll keep the oxygen on”

She patted my hand before holding up hers: wait. A search in her handbag produced a scrap of paper, and I passed her a pen as she scribbled her name, address and a ‘thank you’ for Glenys, who was now starting to weep. A quick hug, and then onto the trolley, up on the lift and then her oxy line switched to the ambulance’s feed. Tom wasn’t as manic this time, but he was definitely in full blues-and-twos mode. I called in the numbers, and we were straight through triage to a space in one of the corridors, and amazingly only waited ten minutes after the canular went into her arm before she was in a bay in Casualty and awaiting a bed in the Acute Medical Ward and a CT scan.

I finally pulled Tom away, as he seemed determined to keep watch on her, almost as if he could heal her by sheer presence and force of will.

“Queue to unload, butt. We need to move. Come on”

I almost pushed him out to our wagon, and we found a space in the Severn Road car park before ringing in an order to the Jamaican place up the road. Once that was done, I started, gently, on Tom.

“Feeling better, now?”

He nodded.

“We got that one right, Jen. Thoughts?”

“Oh, bloody obvious ones, love. Without Glenys, she’d have been toast. Those pissheads at the pub weren’t exactly rushing to help, were they?”

“What do you think, diagnosis, like?”

“They start drinking first thing, they get pissed”

“No. Hannah”

“Ah, that one, well, a guess. Her airways were fine, and lungs were taking in lots of air, so got to be something like an embolism. Probably pulmonary. I gave her a shot of warfarin, just in case”

“Poor woman”

“Yeah, well, nature of our job, butt. Now, got your cash, and I’ll go and grab the food. Can you give Central a shout, drop a subtle hint so we don’t have to drop our food”

The smile that came back made me feel a lot better about him. Four weeks later, we saw Lil off on a slow train to Gatwick, and Amina and I started packing for sun, sea and sangria. Sorry, Tom: bugger caravan parks.