69236538256563

RACHEL
The hospital receptionist sent me to a ward in the old part of the building. I walked down a corridor
that was long and square, an exercise in perspective, with a pair of double doors at the end.
Rectangular strips of lighting hung from the ceiling at regular intervals, each one emitting a pale
bloom of fluorescence, as if it were undernourished.
Old linoleum that was the colour of ripe cherries covered the floor, and on each side there were
private rooms where patients lay. Some were propped upright, reading, or watching TV. Others were
just contours under the sheets, still as a landscape, in rooms that seemed more dimly lit, as if they
were advertising their role as a potential place of transition, a conduit between illness and health, or
between life and death.
I saw Katrina emerge from a room at the far end of the corridor. She stepped out, then turned and
closed the door gently behind her. She stood for a second or two, looking back into the room, her
hand against the window. She wasn’t aware of me.
‘Katrina,’ I said. I hardly dared to look into the room, and when I did I saw that John looked barely
alive. He lay on his back, his head was heavily bandaged, an oxygen mask was over his mouth and
what I could see of his face was swollen and disfigured by bruising. He was connected to tubes
everywhere. Two nurses were tending to him.
‘Hello,’ Katrina said softly and I was disarmed by her humility and vulnerability. Her face was taut
with exhaustion and shock. She looked very, very young, just as she had at her house a few days
earlier.
‘They want to do some checks,’ she said. ‘I was in the way.’
‘How is he?’
‘He has bleeding and swelling on the brain,’ she said. ‘They hope the swelling will reduce. They
say he’s stable.’
‘How long will that take?’
‘Nobody can say. And nobody can say what damage it’ll leave.’
I put my hand on the glass, palm pressed against it.
‘Did you see what happened?’ she asked me.
‘Somebody threw a brick through the window and he ran out onto the street after them. He was
chasing them. I didn’t see what happened after that. We found him just round the corner. He was
already hurt, he was lying on the ground.’
‘The doctor said it looks as though he was kicked in the head repeatedly.’ Her voice cracked. ‘Who
would do a thing like that?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said.
We stood side by side like sentries, watching him, and it was long moments before we were
interrupted by brisk footsteps. It was a nurse, and the soles of her shoes squeaked on the linoleum.
She gave some leaflets to Katrina. ‘I grabbed what I could,’ she said. ‘The ward’s miles away and
I got paged as soon as I got there so I hope they’re what you need.’
‘Thank you,’ said Katrina. She took the leaflets hastily, held them against her stomach. She was
trying to hide them from me, but there was no point. I’d already seen enough. ‘Folic Acid’ I’d read as
they were handed over, ‘An essential ingredient for making healthy babies’.
‘You need rest,’ said the nurse, ‘and you need to keep your strength up. Would you consider going
home and getting some sleep? We don’t expect to see any change in him today.’