The Zombie Files, 3
I took my husband for a hurtle today. A very small, careful hurtle. Got a phone call from the ward shortly after noon saying brightly, bring Peter some day clothes and take him for a walk. So I did. Mind you, we had to walk around the auxiliary car park because there wasn’t anywhere else. Part of the Gormenghastiness of Gormenghast Hospital is the way there is no clear space, but the building has not been done in any sane, justified manner—more like they’ve tried to stuff all the donut holes back into the donuts again twenty or fifty or a hundred years later. I keep looking for the primary or the logical or the easy way from the main car park to the central Victorian brick blob from which the wards and annexes extend, as crooked and knobbly as any giant spider’s legs, and there isn’t any. The Minotaur’s labyrinth had fewer dead-end corridors. And every time you hit one you can look out a helpful window (which doesn’t open, or you might jump out and run away) where you can see the Quonset hut or the potting shed or the alien obelisk that is filling what used to be the blank space between the knobble you’re in and the next one. They also appear to pave things over when they can’t immediately decide what else to do with them.* Aaaaugh! That was a dandelion! Quick! Where’s the tar bucket!** Stairs are also good. Hampshire is hilly but I swear a lot of the stairs in Gormenghast are artistic. Some major donor eighty years ago was rocking on his heels and, possibly in a mellow haze caused by the cocktails that were being handed out at the on-site charity banquet he was attending, held up his hand with the thumb at right angles to the forefinger, squinted, and said yes, ah, we need stairs there. And there. And there. And . . .
I have possibly had too much excellent Dunkerton’s cider*** this evening. I actually got some sleep last night, with the result that I feel both better and even more of a space cadet today. Blah. Blooie. Blog? I’m supposed to do what?
I still don’t know if I can bring him home tomorrow. They didn’t ring me this morning, of course. I rang them. So sorry, all the appointments are taken. ARRRGH. However the Nice Man on the desk† said that he’d try to lasso an occupational therapist for me—and he did. She was chained to the bedpost when I arrived.†† She says that she’s happy to sign off on Peter, but that the white coat and stethoscope crew are still waiting for a final blood test. I can ring up tomorrow at 11, when the white coats stumble out of their morning meeting with a coffee-stained plan borne aloft. Hit those candles, folks, please. I want him home.
* * *
* I have visions of a scissors-paper-stone game among the hospital development board: Quonset-potting-obelisk.
** The devil to pay, and no pitch hot.
*** http://www.dunkertons.co.uk/
† And he is a Nice Man. It’s one of the mysteries of life, I feel, that very often the majority of individuals in a vast behemoth system like the NHS are nice, well meaning, helpful, considerate and friendly,^ but the system itself is a malevolent boa constrictor. I suppose it’s that one ratbag consultant annuls a whole wardful of nice nurses.
^ You’ll note I’m not saying anything about intelligent. I’m still thinking about that nurse the other night who told me that there wasn’t a schedule because people are in hospital for a lot of different reasons.
†† She too is nice, well meaning, helpful, considerate and friendly, and may be intelligent too. She also looks offensively strong and healthy and vibrant, and was about to ride her bicycle twenty miles home.
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