The drama of the collision and fall scattered the nearby dancers who were lucky enough to realise what was happening and jump out of the way before they, too, were felled. As Carole rushed to where her father lay on the floor, the music stopped playing and people began to press forward to offer help.
“Oops, sorry old fella,” Steven said, rolling off Frederick and attempting to get up. “Tripped over my own feet.”
He let out a drunken laugh, as if it was just one of those things, but as Carole got down on her knees to help her father who was still lying flat on his front, she realised this was serious.
Frederick’s face was contorted in pain and blood was seeping from the side of his head that had hit the wooden floor with a thud.
“Dad!” Carole shouted, alarm making her heart rate spike. “Oh my God, are you okay?”
Still lying on the floor, her father looked dazed. Carole’s mother appeared beside them along with Carole’s sister, their expressions panicked as they too saw the blood dribbling down Frederick’s head.
“Freddie!” Nina said. “You’re bleeding! What on earth happened?”
“I fell over,” Frederick mumbled.
“You didn’t fall,” Carole said and threw an angry look at Steven, who’d now made it to his feet. “You were pushed by that idiot there.”
Steven swayed a little and looked at the man he’d knocked to the floor, his expression baffled and embarrassed as the surrounding guests stared at him.
Frederick shifted in an attempt to sit up. The instant he moved, he let out another howl of pain.
“Oh God!” Nina said, reaching out to him. “Don’t move, Freddie! You’ve got a head injury!”
“It’s not my head that’s the problem,” Frederick said, wincing as he rolled from his front and onto his side. “It’s my arm. I think… I think it might be broken.”
Carole looked at her father’s left arm, which he was now holding gingerly against his body, and saw the unnatural angle his wrist hung at. She gasped at the sight of it, and she wasn’t the only one shocked by the injury.
Her first aid training kicked in. Working as an NHS mental health counsellor kept her one remove away from many of the physical conditions her patients might suffer from, but she valued the ability to render aid in an emergency and kept her basic skills up to date.
Staying calm in the face of unexpected injuries was important, and never more so than when the patient was your own father.
“Dad, do you think you can stand up if we help you?” she asked.
Frederick closed his eyes and nodded. “Yes, it’s just my arm that’s sore. I think my legs are fine.”
“Okay, let’s get you up off this floor, Dad. We’ll brace you until you’re upright and then we’ll sit you in a chair.”
Without needing any instruction, Tom shifted to Frederick’s other side. Jane hurried off the dance floor and returned with a chair from a nearby table. Nina, still crouched beside her husband, wiped at the blood on his head wound with a paper hanky. The other wedding guests around them stepped back to create some space, a few of them lingering in case their help was needed once Frederick began to stand up.
“Give me a second, love,” Frederick said. “Let me catch my breath before I try to get up.”
Carole listened to her father’s ragged wheezing. The fall had literally knocked the wind out of him. She was only vaguelyaware of what was going on around her as she focused on her dad.
The hotel staff arrived on the scene along with a manager, ready to help. Steven Weaver was led away by Jilly, even as he protested that he hadn’t meant any harm. A nearby guest instructed someone to fetch brandy from the bar to help the accident victim deal with the shock.
She was both aware and unaware of all this activity taking place around her. But it was the sound of sobbing on her left that made Carole look up from her father.
On the edge of the dance floor, she saw her two little nieces, Nancy and Lily, ashen-faced and crying as they stood with their father, his arms around them.
“Is Grandpa okay?” Lily sobbed.
“He’s fine, sweet pea,” James replied. “He just bumped his head and is feeling a bit dizzy, but he’ll be fine.”
“I want to cuddle him and help him get better,” Nancy said in a hitched voice.
“You can cuddle him in a minute once he’s up on his feet.”
Frederick must have heard this exchange between his granddaughters because he drew in a long breath and turned in their direction.
