IV

IV

I WAKE UP

to find Bella standing at the foot of my bed, looking aghast. Her hand that isn’t in a sling is holding a pot plant with a gift-wrap bow stuck on it.

Hello, you, I think I say.

‘Eddie, I’m so sorry,’ she says.

‘It’s okay, dear.’

‘I – the bus and my brakes … I couldn’t …’

‘It was an accident,’ I tell her. I remember it now. I remember the rain. Her brakes failing. ‘All is forgiven. But you’re okay?’ I point to the sling.

‘Just a fracture,’ she says.

I lean forward.

‘What?’ she asks. ‘What’s wrong?’

I’m trying to see Jake’s shoes.

They’re on her feet. In perfect nick.

I lean back with a sigh.

‘I’m so sorry, Eddie,’ she says. ‘I could have killed you.’

I wave my hand. ‘I’m a tough cookie.’

She places the pot plant on my bedside table. It’s an olive tree.

‘Wait,’ I ask her. ‘What day is it?’

‘It’s Friday,’ Bella says, looking concerned for me.

‘Bridie!’ I cry, and peel the covers off my hospital bed, not stopping to check that I am clothed first. Fortunately, I am wearing a very fetching NHS gown.

‘It’s okay,’ Bella says, putting her hand on my arm.

‘I have to get to her!’

‘Hold your horses,’ Bella says. ‘They’ve got another few hours of obs to do.’

‘Obs?’

‘Yeah, your hot doctor told me.’ She points to the cuff on my upper arm. ‘That will be taking your blood pressure every thirty minutes for a few more hours and they’re monitoring your pulse.’ She draws my attention to a grey clip on the tip of my finger.

‘Oh God. I’m dying, aren’t I?’

‘Actually, they said your scan was clean, but they want to monitor you because you lost consciousness and were, and these are their words, talking a lot of nonsense.’

‘And because I’m ridiculously old?’

‘Well, they didn’t say that, but that was pretty much the vibe.’

‘I can’t wait that long. You have to get me out of here, I have to see her! What if one of us dies before I get to see her? We’re both so bloody old!’

‘Eddie.’ Bella sits beside me and puts her non-slinged hand on mine. ‘It’s okay. She’s coming. You just have to get these tests done and you’ll be a free man.’

‘She’s coming?’

‘She’s coming.’

‘She’s coming here

?’

‘She’s coming here.’ Bella’s tone is very calming.

‘She can’t see me in a hospital bed.’

‘Okay, we will see her somewhere else, I promise.’

Time is crawling. Each minute feels like it hurts. The gap between when the arm cuff inflates to check my blood pressure, slowly deflates and then inflates again stretches out for many weeks.

Bella is a patient and dutiful friend, and she sits with me, forces me to play Scrabble. And then when she sees how bored it makes me, gets out the Mouse Trap she bought from the charity shop that is missing its boot piece. We are midway through Travel Monopoly when I notice that Bella has been secreting the tiny ￡500 notes into her sling straight out of the bank. That rascal.

‘Not long now,’ one of the nurses says as my arm band inflates again and she notes down what it says on the screen. ‘Everything is looking really good, considering.’