Heaps of Trouble (14 page)

The ambulance went directly to St Stephen's Hospital, down by Kingsbridge railway station, and as soon as we pulled in the door was opened by two nurses and a doctor who climbed into the back and went over to Catherine. After examining her for a few minutes, he called in the ambulance men and instructed them to remove the stretcher. The last I saw of my sister was her stretcher being rushed through the hospital doors and disappearing from sight, with the two nurses running after their new charge. Expecting them to come back for me, I was amazed when the doors of the ambulance were closed again and, with the sound of the passenger and driver doors slamming, we were on the move once more. All alone in the back of the van a feeling of loneliness and abandonment washed over me; I had no idea even where they were taking me.

Shortly after, when I peered out of my window, I recognised the entrance to St James' hospital. We stopped by hospital seven-casualty unit, where my two drivers unloaded me and wheeled me along a corridor to a room with six curtained cubicles. Picking one as if by random, they placed me on the bed, wished me luck, and departed.

As time ticked slowly by, I began to think that perhaps nobody knew I was there. Since I couldn't walk, I had visions of nobody finding me for a few days; then, when they
did
find me, perhaps they wouldn't know what to do with me? After what seemed an eternity, the curtain was flung back and a nurse poked her head in saying, ‘Ah, there you are, we were wondering what had happened to you.' Closing the curtain again, she disappeared for a few more minutes before returning with a doctor in tow. He read the file that the drivers had left at the bottom of my bed, then examined me and, after tut-tutting at the state of my dressings, told me that there would be no more bandages. They were now going to allow nature take its course. Finally, issuing instructions to the nurse, he left with a rustle of his white coat. Alone with the nurse, my first thought was to ask if I would be given any more injections. When she said no, for the first time since the accident I felt relieved that at least that particular horror was over.

I was moved upstairs to a ward containing six beds and installed in a corner bed near the corridor. I didn't really take note of the other occupants of the room until later on that evening, when I discovered that I had been shoved into a geriatric ward. In spite of my injuries and the fact that I couldn't walk, I was probably the fittest person there. For the few nights I was there, I didn't get a wink of sleep from the racket they made.

First of all, the lights were left on throughout the night and, when I used the call button over the bed to request that the nurse put the lights out (the only time I used it during my entire stay in hospital), I was informed that it was ‘hospital regulations' to leave them on, as the nurses and patients needed to see where they were going throughout the night. But she agreed to place a towel over the light nearest to my bed, which promptly fell off as soon as she left.

The noise began from the bed to my immediate left and continued around the room, echoing off the walls, and sounding as if the inmates were rehearsing for a job in the sound effects department of a film studio. ‘Phhhooooooooooooo…' I thought that the old fellow next to me had ripped his bed sheets in half until the smell hit me. Then I realised what he had done, which was quickly repeated by the other four, until it sounded like the wind instrument section warming up in an orchestra.

‘Phhhooooooooooooo…, brrraaaaaaaaa…, faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…, phuuuuuuuuu…' This lasted for at least five minutes, varying in tempo and length, until they wore themselves out with the effort and the room smelt like an old tannery factory. Thinking that they had blown themselves to sleep (and slowly recovering from the smell), I resigned myself to sleeping with the light on. The next act lasted throughout the night with the odd intermission. Each of them fell out of bed at some stage or another and stumbled their way to the toilets (which were somewhere out in the corridor), managing to knock against every other bed in the room, both while leaving and returning.

‘Haaaahaaaahaaaa…, Haaaahaaaahaaaa…' (as the bed-head banged against the wall), ‘Haaaahaaaahaaaa, Haaaahaaaahaaaa…' Until, finally, one of them succeeded in dragging up the phlegm that must have been lodged somewhere around his feet and spat it out into a bedpan, making as much noise as if a bullet had been fired into it. As soon as dawn broke it was if a switch had been hit and all noise ceased completely. Thinking that at last I could get some sleep, I had just settled down when I was aroused by the sound of a trolley being bounced into the ward by a lovely old woman. She had a cigarette hanging out the side of her mouth and sounded like she should be selling bananas and bangers on Moore Street.

‘Mornin', mornin', and who have we here? Jaysus young fella, youse look awful, what in the name of Jasyus happened ya? Do you want some tay? Aagh, God love ya. Jaysus, did you get hit by a bleeden' bus, or wha'? Ha ha.'

Before I could answer one of the old-timers piped up, ‘Quiet Molly, can't you see he's trying to sleep. The poor boy has been out to the world since they brought him in yesterday. Shush now and leave him rest.'

‘Don't you tell me to shush, you bleeden' old fart or you'll get no breakfast. Tom, did you sleep well? I hope youse wasn't dreaming of me like youse always do? Haw, haw.'

This was followed by a hacking cough as if she smoked about eighty Woodbines a day.

Molly abandoned her breakfast trolley in the middle of the ward and started to distribute trays to the patients, exchanging jokes and banter with the other geriatrics on a level that suggested they had been in the ward for a long time. Finally, approaching my bed, she put down a tray with a cup, saucer, a side plate with two slices of bread, and a larger plate containing…; well, I have no idea, as it looked a bit like scrambled egg, except that it was in one large lump and was the wrong colour. There were also two black objects (which I hoped were what passed for sausages) and something else that looked like it belonged on the bottom of somebody's shoe. I told her that I wasn't hungry, so she sat down on my bed and, taking another fag from behind her ear, said, ‘Now look here, Sonny. If youse don't bleeden' ate up, youse can't expect to get bleeden' better, now can ya?'

I have to admit that it didn't taste as bad as it looked and, while I was ploughing through the ‘breakfast', Molly returned with the biggest teapot that I had ever seen: so large, in fact, that she had to hold it up with both hands. She filled my cup to the brim, which caused half of the contents to spill over into the saucer, and, with a final wave at everybody, she rattled and banged her way out of our ward. On into the next one, where I could hear her begin her morning banter all over again.

The medical staff reintroduced my thrice-daily injections the next morning because, as the nurse changing my dressings had told me the previous night, I had caught another infection. I blamed Molly's breakfast. And so the horror of having to pass the days waiting for the sound of the trolley that announced their administration began all over again. I don't remember seeing the parents during the few days that I spent with the geriatrics; I guess they were too tied up with Catherine. Thankfully, on the morning of day four, two orderlies appeared in my room and announced that they were taking me to another ward.

Molly turned out to be the every ward's equivalent of the town crier, as she knew everything about every patient and, of course, more than the doctors. ‘Shure, Jaysus John, I could have told ya that ya had bleeding gallstones from the look of youse when they first brought you in. Didn't me Auntie May, God love her, die of ‘em only last year and the fecking doctors couldn't save her. Aagh Jaysus, but they never listen to me. Take me word for it, if they bleeden' well operate on ya, youse'll be fecked.'

So much for her bedside manner, she had everybody terrorised with stories of her family's illnesses. From the talk out of her every one of her relations and friends must have had one or more of every symptom under the roof of the hospital and, worse still, most had died from them. Before the first day was out, Molly had the complete history of what had happened to me and where my sister was.

‘Shure, no wonder yer parents haven't come visit ya, God love ‘em; they must be sitting day and night with yer poor little sister. What age was she again? I'll say a prayer for her on me way home tonight at the chapel.'

Molly's visits became one of the highlights of the day, as, apart from listening to her chatter, there was not a lot to do but lie down and read from one of the books I had taken from the hospital's mobile library that rolled around the wards every afternoon. This service was run by a Molly look-a-like called Mary, who I swear couldn't read, because she kept handing me books written in Irish. The second afternoon after I was settled in my new ward, either Molly was early, or Mary was late. In any case, the pair of them arrived in the ward together and decided to wreak havoc on one of the patients.

‘Jaysus, howaya Mary? Give us a bleeden' light and keep away from tha' fella over there, or he'll try and pinch yer arse.'

‘Pinch me arse? Jaysus, I'll give him a good clout across the bleeden' ears. Here, give us a fag will ya? Aagh fuck it, I'm bleeden' well burned out from ‘em.'

‘Jaysus, Mary, did ya hear how the fecker broke his bleeden' leg?'

‘Jaysus no, Molly, tell us. Did he fall off his missus while riding her? Ha, ha, ha.' Her laughter developed into a barking cough, with Molly snorting like a pig digging up the ground with its snout. All the while the ‘fella', whose name was Mike, was quietly reading his paper and completely ignoring the two women who had taken up residence in the middle of the floor with the full attention of the rest of the ward.

‘Well Jaysus, Mary, yer nearly rite there. He was in bed when he busted it, issen that right Mike?'

‘How can ya break yer bleeden' leg while in bed, Molly? Hey Mike, tell us how ya could break yer bleeding leg in bed; is she having me on or wha'?'

Mike continued to ignore them and took an even greater interest in the paper he was reading. Molly continued with the fag stuck out of the side of her mouth as her left hand adjusted the rollers in her hair underneath a scarf knotted below the chin. From the rear she looked like she was routing under a brooding hen in search of eggs.

‘He turned over in bed and broke it.'

‘Agh feck off, yer havin' me on. Hey young fellow, have ya finished reading that book I gave ya?'

‘Look, I'm telling ya, there was a hole in the bleeden' sheet which his big toe got stuck in, and during the night he turned over and woke up the next morning with his leg busted.'

‘Jaysus it tha' rite? Hey, Mike, is tha' rite? Jaysus, wha' sort of eejit are youse anyway? Yer better take them sheets home with ya, or next time ya might get your bleeden' head stuck in it? Ha, ha, Molly, wha'? Ha, ha, ha. Hureeee hureeeee…' (as another fit of coughing racked her).

The doctors here were no better than in the last place when it came to their morning visits, only this time the fellow I saw appeared to have a deal more apprentices following him around. He also had the ward sister in attendance. Once again my feet became their centre of attention: they now took to jabbing them with pins and tapping them repeatedly with small hammers, checking for some reaction from me. They had stopped applying the yellow sticky stuff to my chest, so the burns were drying up and had been replaced by thick, black scabs that covered most of my chest and both feet, and appeared to take on strange shapes. The largest one completely covered my right breast and looked like the map of Ireland; it even had a hole in it that looked like Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland to me. That and the one on my right arm were the biggest and stood about an inch proud of my skin, with the rest of them varying in size, shape and height. I also had a beauty right across my chin that itched like mad and never stopped oozing, as if it was constantly leaking.

But it was the smell that kept me awake at nights; that smell of burning flesh and particularly hair, which has never left me. It would come from nowhere and waft over my senses like a blanket covering me, causing me to stop whatever I was doing at the time and tense, expecting the ball of flame to pick me up and hurl me against a ditch again.

I was allowed to wear a pyjama bottom only, which the hospital supplied since I had arrived completely naked, and I spent most of my time huddled under the cotton sheets shaking from the cold. During the night, when sleep finally arrived, the sheets would snag the scabs as I tossed and turned. Many a night I woke up covered in sweat, with the smiling face of a nurse bending over me, telling me that I was all right and I was only having a dream. Since the scabs were being plucked away with the assistance of the sheets, I would prise them up and peer under their black, hard, shell-like structure to view with growing interest the mounds of soft, pink skin that matched exactly the shape of the outer shell. Almost as if they were strangely shaped moulds that had been stuck to my body.

I learned all about pain during that first week in St James – and I learned to live with it. As my own way of coping, whenever I was asked how I was feeling by the visiting doctor and his entourage, I always answered, ‘Fine Doctor, when can I go home?' Otherwise, if I said I was hurting, a nurse would appear as if by magic and proceed to jab needles into me. Shortly after my arrival I had what they called a ‘relapse', which had them all clustered around behind my curtain peering at me. They hadn't a clue what was wrong, so they rushed me down to the X-ray department again to photograph my chest, in the hope that it would give them some idea. But they needn't have bothered, as I could have told them myself what was wrong if I had felt inclined to do so –which I didn't.

I had woken up that same morning and decided that I had had enough: I wanted to die and for me it was a perfectly logical conclusion. I had had enough of the pain, hospital, injections, picking black scabs off my chest when I woke up in the mornings, and I had especially had enough of that bloody smell that just wouldn't go away. I had become selfish; I didn't think about what Catherine must be going through, holding on to life with a strength that I did not possess. Here I was, feeling sorry for myself, as if I was the only person in the world with a problem. So that morning I simply let go, with amazingly rapid results. It was as if after I had made the decision my body just said to itself, ‘Thank Christ. He's finally quit fighting, now we can stop too and have a long and permanent, well-earned rest.'