She moved into his place and put her hand on Amelie’s chest. Her breaths were very shallow and her pulse, now Mina had finally located it, was thready and feeble.
‘Amelie, can you hear me?’ She tapped her godmother’s face gently, as she’d been taught on one course. ‘Amelie?’ There was no response and Mina felt her chest constrict with fear. Johannes was talking in rapid German down the phone and she had no idea what he was saying.
Then Dave appeared in the doorway, his eyes widening as he took in the scene, but he stayed put, clearly aware that unless he could do something he would be in the way.
‘Can you go and grab a blanket and a cushion?’
Suddenly she remembered the recovery position and squeezed her eyes shut trying to picture exactly what that entailed. She’d done training with a life-size dummy called Herbert on the floor of the staff room in training. Now all the giggling and silliness didn’t seem quite so funny, but the process popped into her head. She leaned over Amelie and pushed one leg up, bent at the knee, pulled out her right arm and gently rolled her body onto her side. That looked about right, although the bluish tinge around Amelie’s face worried her. Did that mean lack of oxygen or something? God, she wished she knew more. She hated being so useless. Sitting back on her haunches, she stared down at her lifeless body, praying that the ambulance could get here quickly.
Johannes hung up the phone. ‘They’re on their way.’
‘How long will it be?’
‘Not long, there’s a paramedic station not so far away.’ He patted her shoulder, looking worriedly at Amelie.
‘Not so far away’ could mean anything round here. Mina blinked back a tear, grateful that he was there, and that he was his usual gruff self. Other people might have panicked and been ineffectual.
He picked up Amelie’s hand stroking it. ‘She’s cold.’
‘Dave’s getting a blanket.’ And no sooner were the words out of her mouth than he appeared with one of the soft wool blankets that were normally piled in a corner of the lounge for guests to help themselves to.
They draped the blanket around her, and even though Mina wasn’t sure it was the right thing to do they wedged the cushion under Amelie’s head. She hadn’t stirred at all, which was the most frightening thing of all. Mina had never seen anyone so pale and still before, and terror drove her to keep checking Amelie’s pulse, her fear ratcheting up each time it took her a while to find its feeble beat, scared that it might stop at any minute.
Dave stood back, his hands clasped over his stomach in respectful silence.
‘How was she when you left?’ asked Mina.
He frowned. ‘She was… actually she was quiet, and now I realise she’d slowed down in the last half-hour. Yesterday she was busy, busy. Here and there. Today, not so much, and when I left she sat down at the table. She looked tired.’ He winced and screwed up his mouth. ‘She kept rubbing her chest.’
Johannes and Mina exchanged a grave look. They both knew Amelie worked too hard.
‘She never sits,’ said Johannes. ‘Always has to do everything.’ He stroked a loose, dark curl from Amelie’s face. ‘I kept telling her.’ He shook his head and Mina could see that his hand was shaking. She laid a hand on his shoulder, wanting the touch of another person as much as to comfort him. ‘She’s a stubborn one. Thinks she can run the world on her own.’
There were so many platitudes to be mouthed in situations like this, thought Mina, and she couldn’t bring herself to say a single one.
At last they heard the sound of a siren approaching, but it sounded a long way in the distance.
‘Shall I go out to the front?’ asked Dave.
‘Yes,’ said Mina and Johannes at the same moment. Clearly, like her, he didn’t want to leave Amelie’s side.
With Dave’s departure they sat in silence as Mina once again took Amelie’s pulse, to give herself something to do as much as to reassure herself that she’d done everything she possibly could.
Her fingers moved along the edge of Amelie’s wrist, inching across the skin. There was no pulse. Trying to fight the rising panic, she pressed her fingers down harder. Still no pulse.
‘I think her heart’s stopped. The pulse. It’s gone.’ Her mouth dried. CPR. That’s what she needed to do. She remembered that annoying dummy and how hard you had to press. How many compressions? Was it two per second? Interlock the hands. In her head she pictured the rhythm of the trainer. One. Two. One. Two.
She shoved Johannes out of the way and pushed Amelie onto her back, placing both hands in the centre of her breastbone. Pressing down with all her body weight, she began. One. Two. One. Two.
‘Pulse.’ One, two. ‘Check.’ One, two. ‘It.’
One. Two. One. Two. The siren still sounded a long way off.
She heard Luke’s voice come from somewhere behind her. One. Two. One. Two.
He spoke to Johannes but quietly as not wanting to disturb her concentration. She focused everything on each compression.
‘One. Two. One. Two.’
