Lesson 13
Lynne’s eyes felt as if they should open, but that was too much effort. She was restricted, not restrained, but there was a tube taped to and up her nose, one to her neck and one on the back of her hand. She could feel them pinching her skin and holding her back. She tried to work out where she was, but despite having been spoken to about her love of Take That and Enya, about half an hour before, and by a nice pretty blonde lady too, she couldn’t get a fix on where she was.
She was so tired, she had been working hard yesterday, she had been actively assisting in hiding smuggled people. She had to keep them safe, then allocate them to separate launches, to be integrated into communities further down the coast in fewer numbers and therefore less easy to track. And the day before, she had been in training for catching spies. She had been part of a cell who identified a business that was doctoring the statistics for a pharmaceutical company. She had been really excited that she had been chosen to complete the task with the other two. She had never been chosen for teams at sports, or been popular, at work, or play.
None of the things that she had been spending her time doing over this past week related to her usual jobs, but the memory of her real job was nebulous, she had no guesses to make for what it was. But the day before the other two jobs, she had been on a long shift in the chocolate factory, where they were running a day making Caramac mint bars. It had been arduous and tedious, but she could see how production could be improved.
That took her memory off at a tangent – she remembered being on a photoshoot, for a coffee table book, about unusual sights on the Isle of Wight, photos in out of the way places. She had been dressed in a fairy costume and had to jump off rocks and pose in the air, so as to look like she was flying. That had been a very long time ago, but she could feel the rush of air like it was yesterday.
Lynne became agitated, because she couldn’t be sure it was a long time ago, it could have been yesterday. She began to struggle for breath and pulled off her oxygen mask, suddenly feeling confined and lonely and desperate for some conversation. But most of all to gain some context. Where was she? The light was really bright through her eyelids. Why couldn’t she open her eyes?
She became aware of a circular sign with three coloured lights chasing each other, then a voice,
“Lynne, Lynne, do you know where you are? You are in Blandmouth Hospital, you have been very poorly, but you are on the mend.”
Lynne stiffened then stopped struggling with her tubes and lines – she was in hospital, how had that happened? She must have had a car accident. How bad was it, she wondered? Was she lying in bed? At no time recently had she felt difficulty in getting around, she had been walking, unless she had dreamed it. She was suddenly overcome with such tiredness, and she was so thirsty. She needed to sleep.
Succumbing to the desire to hide from questions, she became aware of a voice that she recognised. She willed her eyes to open, and they did, she turned her head, first one way, then the other. A nurse was beside her immediately. But she couldn’t speak. Her fingers pulled at the nurse’s cardigan and then pointed at her own ear. The nurse asked if she wanted her hearing aids, she shook her head. Then pointed at her ear and then nurse’s ear. The nurse asked if she had heard something, Lynne tried nodding, which made her whole head thump alarmingly, then stuck up her thumb.
The nurse said, “If it was a person, there was a lung consultant here looking at your notes and adjusting your meds. Don’t worry, you are in good hands. Mr Whittaker is very kind and gentle.”
Mr Whittaker, who was he? Why did she know his voice? Her eyes drooped again, and her thoughts knotted themselves again. Just as she was dropping off, she half dreamt, half realised who he was. He was the man who had cut her mum’s lovely birch tree in her mum’s garden down, the day after her mum’s funeral. There had been a number of bad things about that action. Not least that it didn’t belong to him and that he was being terribly sneaky, plus the fact that he had asked her if he could cut it down or trim it back and she had said no and explained that the tree had an existing Tree Preservation Order on it.
When challenged, after the dastardly deed, he had laughed and said that he couldn’t put it back now, and it had dropped thousands of little sticky resin pods across his deck and firepit area, which was very inconvenient.
She had sobbed, at the time, being inconsolable. Her mum’s house was going to be sold anyway, but it felt like sacrilege, that he had no right to do such a thing on her mum’s property, just because it inconvenienced him and his guests.
Sleep overcame her at that point and she slipped back into unconsciousness, albeit with a niggle in the back of her mind.
