The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 2020 by Angharad Copyright © 2013 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

“Cathy, Cathy, wake up.” I felt someone shaking me gently and calling me. “You try, Stel.”

“Cathy open your eyes, Cathy, this is Stella, now open your eyes.”

I could hear her but I didn’t feel inclined or perhaps able to comply with her instruction. She told me to squeeze her hand, but I couldn’t do that either and I had this awful headache which felt as if my skull was about to explode because my brain was growing inside it.

I heard Stella say, “Get an ambulance and quickly,” and somebody presumably ran off. Nothing but my ears seemed to be working–well I supposed my heart and kidneys and other bits were doing their bit still, but I couldn’t control any of my voluntary muscles. I wonder if this is what it’s like being dead. Shit–my head is absolutely splitting–but I can’t tell them. I can’t be dead, it hurts too much.

“Okay, Cathy, this is what we’re going to do.” She related they’d called the paramedics and depending upon their diagnosis, I could end up going to hospital probably for a scan, “Oh and you’ve got a lovely shiner over your right eye.”

I seemed to drift in and out of sleep–or whatever it was. When I was asleep things didn’t hurt so part of me wanted to go back to it, but somewhere in the back of my head suggested it wasn’t good to go to sleep with a head injury. Oops, got that wrong.

I heard strange voices and someone shone a light in my eyes–god, that hurt my headache. Next thing I know I’m being lifted onto a gurney, and several bumps later I feel myself shoved into the back of a van and driven off with lots of noise. I wasn’t afraid, I wasn’t enjoying being bounced about on the bloody trolley either. However, a joke by Eric Morecambe came to mind as I heard the sirens, ‘He won’t sell many ice creams at that speed.’ I wanted to laugh but my body seemed to have forgotten how to.

I think I must have gone to sleep then because when I surfaced, well, became aware of anything, and I still couldn’t work my eyelids, I was lying in a bed with sheets and blankets over me.

Oh well, not dead yet, though I did begin to wonder if Billie got it wrong with her prediction. Sensing I was more awake I heard Stella and Simon talking to me. They were both speaking together and I couldn’t understand what they were saying. Inside my head, my brain was still aching but it was also screaming, ‘One at a time, I can’t understand you.’

It went on repeating this phrase until I actually heard it–then realised my mouth had worked–my ears didn’t because it went quiet, then I realised they’d both shut up. A new voice arrived, “Hello, Mrs Cameron, I’m Mr Hartley, I’m a trauma specialist in head injuries–come up from Southampton just to see you. We’re just going to put you through the scanner to have a look inside your noggin’, it will make a lot of noise but doesn’t hurt.”

I felt the bed being moved–this is the life–being moved about in a bed–the height of luxury. I could walk except my legs have forgotten how and I can’t see anything either, so I’ll stay in bed.

Who says the scan didn’t hurt–huh. That thing you lie on is used by Indian fakirs once they want a bigger challenge than a bed of nails. And the noise–ye gods–it sounded like a wasp the size of a Harrier jump jet which has got caught in a metal drum and is trying to release itself with a hammer.

Eventually, the noise stopped and I suppose they took me back whence I came–or at least up to the ward. I slept again I think–I didn’t know. The doctor came back and chirpily said, “We thought you had a clot or a bleed but it’s just a bit of swelling, we’re going to put you on steroids and administer cold to it in the form of an ice bag, so don’t jump out of bed you’ll only end up back in here again.”

I heard Stella speak, “I don’t know, Cathy, I spend more time in here since I met you than I did when I worked here.” She chuckled to herself. “Si’s gone for a cuppa he’ll be back soon, so if there’s any goss you don’t want him to hear you’d better say it pretty quick.”

I couldn’t think of anything–my head felt a little better and the steam hammer had gone–they were now using my head to break rocks. Stella sat down and started to tell me about my children–why? I wasn’t in some deep coma just a bit of a headache.

“Lady Cameron,” I heard a familiar voice say and recognised it as Ken Nicholls, then I realised he was talking to Stella. They must have stepped outside because I could only hear an echo not what they were saying–I went off to sleep again.

Later on–I supposed it was later–I felt an electric shock run through me and my whole body was buzzing–I knew who that was. “Hello, Mummy,” said Trish and Julie’s voice and I guess they each held one of my wrists and were trying to kick start me. The headache started up again and I felt very sick, very very sick.

“Gonna be sick,” I heard myself say and Trish told Julie to roll me onto my side while she shoved a papier-mache receiver under me. Of course, I missed it and it went all over the bed and the floor and Julie who cursed her younger sister.

I vomited again and this time a female voice spoke to me and seemed to know what it was doing–a real nurse perhaps? “Oh you mucky pup, you missed the pot, come on–sit up–here hold the bucket.” I felt something being shoved into my hands and I grasped it and held it up to my face and puked again–this time into the pot.

I opened my eyes and saw a young woman mopping the floor around my bed, then two others arrived bearing clean bedclothes.

“Sorry about this,” I said and they smiled.

“Back with us, then?”

“Yes, thanks.”

“You’re Stella’s sister?”

“Sister in law.”

“What you married into the Camerons? What are you nuts?”

“Probably, or I am now.”

She laughed, “How d’you feel?”

“Like shit, but the headache has gone.”

“Good, right we’ll finish changing you then your girls can come back in–the older one got a bit of sick on her and she’s dancing around like she was on fire.”

“That’s Julie, she is a bit of a drama queen.”

“What is she going to do when she has kids, f’ god’s sake?”

“She might have outgrown it by then.” I could hardly tell the truth, could I?

“The little one, she seemed to have a bit about her.”

“That’s Trish, she’s off the scale in IQ tests.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

“Don’t start talking about quantum theory–it’s her pet subject.”

“Um–I think I can promise not to do that.”