CHAPTER 26
There was a tap on the door, which opened for a nurse, and a hospital worker with the stereotypical tea trolley. I moved off the bed so that we could wheel the little table across for Alys, and after a quick check of her IV line and the provision of two mugs of tea, the nurse made a few notes on the sheet of paper hanging on a clipboard from the end of the bed.

“Before the tea please, Alys…”

My girl looked up, setting down her cup.

“But you do it from my ear these days”

“Old habits, love. Now…”

The nurse busied herself with the usual set of tests and measurements, then ran through a set of questions about headaches, dizziness and nausea. I must have looked puzzled, because the woman turned to me with a slight frown.

“We are still checking for any signs of concussion. Alys--- have you told your friend what happened to you, love?”

Alys nodded, and her nurse smiled.

“Thank you. Confidentiality and all that. Anyway, as Alys suffered several blows to the head, combined with severe dehydration, we are simply being careful. We do a lot of that, being careful”

I dug for a smile.

“Thank you. She needs all the care she can get right now”

The nurse’s eyes hardened for a second.

“I have heard rumours that some of her worries are no longer--- No. Not my place to say that. You’re Penny Hiatt’s girl, aren’t you?”

“Yes. Enfys”

“My husband works down the Uni, in maintenance. Well, sort of: he’s one of their managers. You’re bedding down in her office, he says”

“Yes, I am”

“Well, I will have a word with the team. I know what you are, love, to each other, I mean. If I can get permission, bring your bedroll up here. There’s room”

“You sure?”

“No, but I can ask. You’d need to tell your Mam, of course”

“Thank you”

“No need. Now, the doctors will be doing their rounds in a quarter of an hour, so you might have to step out. I’ll point you at the café if that’s the case”

She wrapped up her blood pressure kit and pulled its trolley behind her as we stepped into the corridor.

“I think you can find the café, Enfys. Back down there towards the main entrance. Now, I said I know what you two are to each other. Not a complaint, love. She is not doing well, after, well, we both know. If you are able to stay with her, it should make things easier”

I already suspected what the answer would be, but I still had to ask.

“In what way?”

“Oh god. Just this once, sod confidentiality: self-harm. She is really fragile right now. I have seen it before in rape victims. They blame themselves for it. Sometimes they decide to atone, in an odd way. Can’t remember who I heard it from, but that is what rape is, about damaging someone. Effing up, not effing. It’s power and hate, not sex, and before you say it, I was one of the team that checked her over when she came in, so I know. You don’t have to be penetrated by a penis to be raped. Don’t care what the law says. So, if you can, bring your bedding over here, and we will work around you. Please”

A deep sigh and a squeeze to the forearm, and then she was all smiles again.

“Here’s the doctor. Shush on all that, please”

We went in just ahead of the woman in the white coat, and Alys was looking shamefaced.

“Sorry, Enfys, but I drank your tea as well. Bit thirsty”

The doctor laughed out loud.

“I think we can tick off ‘cognitive functions working’, then! How are we feeling this afternoon, Alys?”

“Don’t know about you, but I ache, all over. Bit painful when I eat”

“Abdomen or facial injuries?”

“Er, my ribs and stomach are sore, but bruised sore, not burst or broken sort of thing. It’s my lips. Still all swollen”

“Then it’s a good job we don’t supply the crustiest of bread. If I can just…”

The doctor moved over to the bed to spend a minute or so checking the damage.

“Well, I can see a big problem ahead”

Alys looked worried.

“Why?”

“Well, one of the things you need to do is to stop stretching your mouth, as it opens the wounds again. Smiling is a bad thing, and as you have your partner here now, that is obviously going to be a real worry”

Suddenly, my love was laughing, as happily as I could imagine, despite the winces as her ribs and other injuries made their presence felt. The doctor grinned back at her.

“See what I mean? Now, Enfys: could you step back a little, please? I need to do an examination, and while I am sure you would be happy to stay, I work better without distractions. Off for a replacement tea, please”

I sat in the little café for the time it took for my tea to vanish, only then realising how thirsty I had actually been. I couldn’t begrudge her drinking my cup earlier, but I did feel a little aggrieved that I had been excluded from the examination. Never mind: she was laughing again, and that was all that mattered. Ring home, girl.

“Enfys? How is she?”

“She’s laughing again, Dad. Doctor’s doing her rounds, an examination and stuff. I got sent out of the room, but the nurse is going to ask if I can stay”

“Stay in the room? As in sleep there?”

“Yes. She has to get the go-ahead from her bosses, but it would be great if she can”

“Then let us know, and Mam can drop off your bedroll tonight. I assume you’re staying there all day, love”

“Oh god yes”

“Then do us all a favour and take some time to yourself. Take a walk, get something to eat, away from the hospital. There’ll be a time when you need to vent, to put stuff into some sort of order. Don’t do it in front of her, okay? Oh, and Steph is coming up for a few days, her and Geoff. Anything you need, anything else? Books? Magazines?”

“I’ll ask her. Going to head back in now, see if the doctor’s done. I’ll let you know, about both things. I love you, Dad”

“We know you do. Look after her. Oh, and Neil sends his love”

“Oh hell, I almost forgot about him. Is he okay?”

“Bit of a hangover for a while; worn off now, I hope”

“Oh. Wasn’t just him, was it?”

Dad paused for a moment before confirming, in a very soft voice, what I had suspected.

“No. And Vic with us”

“No shame, Dad”

Another, longer pause.

“No. Not really. Anyway… you speak to the doctor, and I’ll let your Mam know once you have the word”

“I can do that, Dad”

“I’ll do it, love. Let me see she’s okay, it will”

“I get you. Going to head back now. I’ll let you know when I do”

“Look after her, love”

“You know I will”

“Yes. I do. Later, then”

He hung up, voice catching a little, and I sat with my tea, trying to count how many times he had told me to look after Alys. This was breaking people.

Tea done, I had a look through the paper rack, finding a silly logic puzzle magazine, and headed back to her room, where I found the doctor on her way out. She smiled on seeing what I had bought.

“Cognitive function testing, or boredom threshold exploration?”

I laughed at her cheekiness.

“We will see, Doctor!”

“Rang your parents yet?”

“Um?”

“Bedding and that. There’s room under the window for you”

“Oh! Thank you”

“Don’t thank me until I tell you whether it’s inside or outside the window, Enfys”

She was off, grin still in place, and I tossed the magazine to Alys while the nurse fiddled with a new bag of whatever it was dripping into her arm.

“This should give you some minutes of peace if I snore”

“You don’t. Got a pen, love?”

An hour later, after the police had been and gone, with a signed statement, she was asleep, the puzzle book and pen lying by her open hand on top of the covers. I picked them up as gently as I could before settling myself into the bigger chair, my own e-reader in my hands, losing myself in one of Joe Tasker’s books on climbing. It was well outside my experience so far, as it was about Himalayan expedition stuff, but I could recognise so much of the emotion and strain there; I just couldn’t be sure I would ever have the courage or commitment to be so far out, such a world away from support. I looked over to my sleeping lover, and wondered if that was how it felt to her, a rope’s length of run-out with no gear and no stance in sight.

I realised I was getting maudlin just as Mam came into the room, Nansi Edwards in tow and my bedroll in hand. After a round of hugs, the latter smiled at me.

“You sure about doing this, Enfys?”

I squeezed her back.

“Wouldn’t be much good as a… as a girlfriend if I wasn’t, would I?. She’s been asleep about forty minutes. Should be about time for the tea lady”

Mam chuckled.

“Feet under the table properly, eh? Brought some cake and stuff down for the two of you, but go steady with it. Don’t know how long she’ll be in, after all”

“Mam, when she gets out…”

“Ask Nansi, love. I’m right, aren’t I?”

“Don’t know”

She shook her head, then turned to her friend.

“Nans, room in Alys’s bedroom for this one, when she’s released?”

“Course! Got a better mat, I have. Or at least, a thicker one. Now, if you two would like to go away, just for a few minutes. Please”

I shrugged, and once more found myself sitting in the little café with yet another cup of tea, Mam cradling her own as she sat across the table from me. I put down my cup, and gave her a smile before asking what I needed to know.

“How’s Dad doing? And Neil? Vic Edwards?”

She held her cup in both hands, the steam rising before her face.

“Wobbly, love. Vic and Neil in particular. Both struggling. Not easy, this sort of thing”

“Yes, but without Neil, well!”

“He knows that, love, but knowing and feeling, not always easy to get them both on the same page. Dad’s made it plain, though”

“How?”

“Neil is a free guest from now on. We owe him too much for anything else”

She put her cup down, reaching for and grasping both of my hands.

“It’s a family thing, love. Doesn’t matter what happens between you two, you and Alys, in the future, she will always be family. We look after our own, and we pay back as well as forward”

A grin, and a shrug.

“Well, of course it matters what happens, but you take my point”

Tea finished, we were soon back at the room, where Alys was awake and waiting for me, waving her own device.

“Matching you now, I am! Mam’s brought my reader in2

“Could have just borrowed mine!”

“Enfys, my sweet, maybe I don’t want to read about mountains and stuff. Got my own books on here, and Mam’s added a couple more. Don’t ask, they’re not your sort of thing”

Nansi Edwards nodded.

“Not mine either. Surprised they’re hers, I am”

Alys laughed, which was always a good thing to see and hear.

“They’re funny, Mam!”

Nansi’s eyebrows went up a long way.

“Really, love? Nazi zombies and tentacle monsters from wherever? Enfys, I’ve also loaded some of the Terry Pratchett stuff on there. Now, he IS funny, not like that Stross bloke”

Alys sniffed.

“Personal taste, Mam. It’d be a boring old world, et cetera. But thanks. Anyway, Doc says I’m healing well. They should take me off the drip tonight, she said. Be able to sleep at last, without wrapping myself up in all this plumbing”

That was the mood throughout the visit, as she prattled away brightly, even trying to talk her mother into trying one of the puzzles I had bought her, until the two Mams were gently ushered out by the nurse who ‘unplumbed’ Alys, as the doctor had promised. I spread my mat and bag under the window, we ate our evening meal together, even though mine was a mixture of stuff bought in the café, and the nurses kept us both supplied with tea.

I slept comfortably in my bag until around two in the morning, when I joined her in the narrow bed, which stopped her whimpering before it could become a scream.