The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1585 by Angharad Copyright © 2011 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

“What d’you mean, we have a situation?” I asked, looking at him. He was still dressed and his side of the bed hadn’t been disturbed. “Haven’t you been to bed yet?”

“No I was watching a film with Tom and Stella.”

“What time is it then?”

“’Bout quarter past twelve.”

I sat up in the bed and rubbed my eyes. “What’s happened?I hope Julie is okay?”

“It wasn’t Julie they phoned about.”

“Who then?”

“Caroline.”

“Caroline?”

“Yeah, she’s in the QA, she was coming back to see you–she and Jenny had a big falling out and she got hit by a car while running to catch a bus to come out here. Your friend Ken Nicholls is duty surgeon–she’s in a bad way.”

“Oh my God! Okay, I’ll get dressed. Ask Stella if she’ll watch the children?”

“I already have.” Simon began to take his clothes off as I was donning mine. I was about to say something when he began to pull on his jeans and a checked shirt. “I’m only changing–don’t want that hospital smell in my working suit.”

“Hospitals don’t smell now–not like they used to, so I am told–of carbolic and other disinfectants.”

“Well, I’m not taking the risk,” he added while lacing up his trainers. By now I was dressed and I combed my hair back into a ponytail and added a red scrunchy. I grabbed my handbag, keys and coat as he pulled on a fleece jacket and zipped it up.

“We’ll take my car,” he said as we ran out to it, “I’ll drop you at A&E and park up, then come and find you.”

“Okay,” I agreed and jumped in his car.

We were at the hospital and I was running into A&E within twenty minutes. “Hi, it’s Cathy Cameron, Mr Nicholls sent for me.”

The receptionist wasn’t impressed. “Take a seat while I try and contact him.” I walked to the nearest chair feeling riven with frustration and worry. Caroline hadn’t been exactly my flavour of the month lately, but I was still fond of her.

“Cathy?” called a familiar voice and I saw Ken beckoning to me, I jumped up and walked quickly to him. “Come on in, nice to see you again, pity it’s always with some disaster or other.”

“How is she?”

“She was dressed as a he, well mostly. It was the panties and bra that caused the paramedics a little consternation because she otherwise looked like a bloke with a ponytail. They found your address on her and I advised the police to contact you. She’s in a bad way I’m afraid.”

My stomach flipped and I felt sick as he led me into a cubicle in which I barely recognised my former housekeeper, who was black and blue in places and bleeding in others. She was attached to drips and a respirator.

“We’ve done some preliminary X-rays and she’s due in theatre in the next half an hour–I’m going to have to remove her spleen and possibly her right leg. She’s got a smashed right orbital, so could have lost the sight in that eye and there are some fractures to the skull above the eye. Spinal damage is minimal considering the other things, but she must have been caught by the right leg and swung up into the air, it’s broken in three places and partly severed at the knee.”

“How long have I got?”

“I’m expecting to have a theatre crew ready in twenty to thirty minutes. See what you can do.”

With a nurse watching me, which didn’t help my concentration, I sat by the side of Caroline, as close as the machines would allow and grasped her hand. “Hello, Caroline, it’s Cathy–I’ve come to help you.” I felt my body flooding with energy, which, considering I’d been in bed half an hour before, surprised me a little. Perhaps my own adrenaline encouraged it, but in seconds my whole body was buzzing–almost literally and I felt her hand trembling in mine.

“Jesus Christ,” said the nurse and ran out of the cubicle.

I knew I was glowing with energy and I suspected Caroline would be too. The energy had its own agenda, and I saw it focusing on her head and then on her leg, with just a residual amount allocated to her abdomen.

I had never known the energy flow through me as strongly as it was doing. Even when I’d healed one or other of the children, it hadn’t been as strong. I felt Simon behind me, his eyes wide with surprise as he saw the energy passing from me into this battered and bloodied body of our housekeeper.

“Wow,” said Ken’s voice from behind me.

“Please,” I asked quietly and he shut up. He allowed me three quarters of an hour and sent Caroline for scans and X-rays while I sat and drank a cuppa in the A&E office.

“It was like a cross between lasers and lightning flashes–amazing,” he said.

“I feel knackered,” I said, nearly dropping my cup.

“While we’re here, any chance of seeing Julie?” Simon asked cheekily, and Ken picked up the phone.

“She's asleep, but you can pop up and see her for a minute–don’t wake her up.” Simon practically dragged me to the lifts as we sped up to her ward.

“She’ll wake up, she’ll sense I’m there.” I said, but he pooh-poohed it.

“Not if you don’t zap her, she won’t.”

“Suit yourself,” I replied and he dragged me onto the ward. The nurse knew who we were and I stood at the foot of her bed. ‘Nil by mouth’ it said above her bed alongside Mr O’Rourke and her name, Julie Kemp.

She was peaceful, but I could see her eyes moving under her eyelids. She was dreaming–no she wasn’t, her eyes popped open and she smiled at me, “Mummy?” she called so quietly it was barely audible.

“Hello, darling, how d’you feel?”

“I’m a woman, Mummy, I’m really a woman now–I feel wonderful, but a bit tired.” She yawned and closed her eyes, slipping back to sleep.

As we went back down to A&E Simon asked, “Is it really that tiring being a woman?” I declined to answer him with anything other than a yawn. He shrugged.

“Okay, the good news,” said Ken, looking at images on a computer, “she doesn’t look brain damaged, and the swelling around her eye is reduced by half. I don’t know how, but her blood vessels–the femoral artery and down to the popliteal has seemingly healed itself, she’s going to have some big scars, but the leg looks safe. You’ve done it again, haven’t you, you and that blue stuff–I just wish I could bottle it.”

“Sorry, Ken, it won’t let me control it, so I doubt it would allow you to shove it in a bottle like a genie. Please–none of this happened–okay? Can you control your nurse.”

“I hope so, you see, if she tells anyone about this because it involves a patient under treatment at this hospital, I’d get her struck off for breach of patient confidentiality.”

“I’ll do worse.” I said trying to look mean.

“Like what?” he asked.

“I’ll strike her off my Christmas card list.”