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Saturday, 6th May

 

Laura

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It had to be serious because Aiden sounded really panicky.

 ‘Your mother’s had a nasty fall,’ he’d said on the phone. ‘I called you earlier but you didn’t answer.’

  I’d told him I’d been in the car at the time, so I couldn’t. ‘What’s happened? Is she all right?’ I’d asked.

  ‘It was when we were walking, up above the Suspension Bridge,’ he said. ‘I called 999 and they took her to Southmead. I’m there with her now. Yes, she’ll be all right. I’ll explain when you get here. Are you on your way?’

  I drive like mad to the hospital, run from the car park to the main entrance, fight my way through some monstrous revolving doors and I can feel my body tensing up already. I race over to an information desk and I gabble at a woman there and she tells me where A and E is. ‘It’s quicker if you come in at the other end of the building, love,’ she tells me.

  She’s right. It’s a very long way to A and E and to get there you have to navigate a brutal corridor of towering white walls with intrusive glass panels, all the time following the directions for number thirty-five, and that’s the only number on a scary red background. (All the others are black.)

  When I finally arrive, by way of a lift because A and E’s on a different level, the whole space is crowded. I hate hospitals. They give me the creeps. I can never forget how frightened I was when Mummy took me to have my tonsils out. The walls were green then.

  A nurse points me to someone behind a desk. I go over and explain who I am, and the woman studies her notes and gives me more directions.

  There’s a curtain drawn around the bed when I get there. I tug at it this way and that to find an opening. I peer in. Aiden’s there, sitting on a chair, with a mobile phone to his ear and clutching a piece of paper and a pencil. Mummy’s nowhere to be seen. And the bed’s gone too.

  ‘Hello, Laura. They’ve taken her to X-ray,’ he says, lowering the phone just for a moment.

  ‘Who are you talking to?’ I ask.

  ‘Just calling some people to tell them what’s happened,’ he says. He resumes his phone conversation, mentioning something about Fire and Rescue.

  Why the hell is he doing that right now? His face is drawn and he looks the worse for wear. His corduroy trousers are dirty and grass-stained, and one leg’s torn quite badly. His jacket looks grubby too.

  He ends the call, ticks something (is it a list?) on the piece of paper, and looks at me. ‘It’s like I said. She had a very bad fall,’ he says, ‘and she’s broken some bones. And hurt her head, but she’ll survive.’  

  Thank God. ‘Tell me what happened,’ I say.

  ‘We were on the cliff —’

  ‘Cliff? What cliff?’

  ‘The one up by the Observatory,’ he says.

  ‘You mean you actually went down into the gorge?’ I say, horror-stricken.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The two of you?’

  ‘Yes.’

   I can’t believe it. Why? You’re not supposed to do that. It’s incredibly dangerous.

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