I’m going to put an end to this.
As I head out to the street, I decide to treat myself to a cab instead of the Tube. After the last few days, I deserve a cab.
My phone starts to ring as I slip into the back of the car and relay my address to the driver.
‘Sandy, hang on a second.’ I clip in my seat belt as the driver pulls out into traffic. ‘Sorry, I’m back.’
‘Scarlett,’ she sobs. ‘It’s your dad.’
A feeling of terror slithers around my torso and constricts my chest. ‘Sandy, what’s wrong? What’s happened?’
In less than half an hour, I’m running from the cab, throwing notes at the driver, hurtling into Accident and Emergency.
‘I’m looking for my dad, Doctor Phillip Heath,’ I say frantically to the girl at reception. I watch, my feet bouncing, my temperature rising, as she types details into her keyboard. ‘Please hurry,’ I beg.
‘Scarlett!’
I turn to Sandy and grab her tightly, pulling her in to me. ‘How is he?’
‘They won’t let me see him because I’m not family,’ she says, clearly distressed, her eyes red, wet and swollen.
‘What! Excuse me,’ I snarl at the receptionist, ‘this lady is more family than anyone else I know.’
‘Sorry but the policy is immediate family only.’
I have to think quickly. ‘She’s my stepmother. She’s lived with my dad for more than twenty years. They’re common-law husband and wife.’
The receptionist pouts as her eyes run from Sandy’s head to her toes. ‘She didn’t tell me that. He’s in room seven. Go down the corridor, all the way to the end, turn right, go through the double doors and it’s about halfway down on the left-hand side. You can both go.’
Thanking her, I take Sandy’s hand and we march towards room seven at such a pace, Sandy is forced to remove her burnt-orange, wool coat.
Sandy bursts into tears as soon as she sees the frail man lying before her, bruises already showing on his body. I’m numb, unable to move from the spot where I’m standing. He’s propped up on one pillow, his head wrapped in a thick bandage, blood seeping at his temple. He’s dressed only in tubes beneath the sheets and his clothes, which have been torn from his body, are piled on the plastic chair at his bedside. Intravenous drips are strapped into the back of each hand. Tubes pumping oxygen into his tiny, helpless body are wrapped around his head and nestled into his nose, artificially inflating his lungs. His eyes are red and black, swollen shut. A machine beeps, frightening me out of my trance and I step towards him, saying his name. There’s no response. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up and goose pimples form on my arms. The shell lying in the bed, the shell wired up to these machines, is not Dad.
A doctor dressed entirely in green enters the tiny prison of a room with a clipboard. His grey hair is in stark contrast to his black skin. ‘You must be…?’
‘Scarlett, his daughter.’
His large hand is ice cold as it shakes mine.
‘This is Sandy, my stepmother.’
‘I’m Doctor Jefferson,’ he says, turning to shake Sandy’s hand.
‘How bad is it?’ My words are shaky.
‘Your father has sustained some superficial wounds and broken his right arm. We can clean the wounds and x-ray the arm but we needed to stabilise him first. When he fell down the stairs, he suffered serious injuries to his head.’
‘I think he must have hit it on the stair lift.’ Sandy sniffs. ‘There was blood.’ She shakes her head and retrieves a tissue from inside her jumper sleeve.
The doctor nods as if Sandy has offered the next piece of a jigsaw puzzle and it fits. ‘The impact fractured his skull. It caused severe swelling and haemorrhaging.’
An intangible weight forces the air out of my lungs and my hand moves to my open mouth.
‘Will he be okay?’ Sandy asks through a tissue.
The doctor flashes a look of sympathy to Sandy then speaks to me like a professional, stoically. ‘Scarlett, it’s possible that your father may never regain consciousness. We have machines breathing for him. We’re keeping him alive to give him a chance to recover.’
‘Why do I get the feeling there’s a but?’
