available if you cared to check, and at least as many people these days favoured looking forward to the longing glance back at the nation left behind. The tables around him were filling up. He didn’t bother pouring a second cup from the teapot. As he was returning to his car, his phone rang. But it wasn’t Alison Pears.
‘Mr Fox? This is the nurse at Lauder Lodge. I’m afraid your father’s been taken ill.’
He drove back to Edinburgh in a daze. It was only when he reached the Royal Infirmary that he realised the car radio had been switched on throughout. He couldn’t remember listening to any of it. He’d been told to try A and E first. Mitch had been found on the floor of his room.
‘Could just be a fall,’ the nurse had told Fox, her tone of voice indicating that she didn’t believe her own words.
‘Was he conscious?’
‘Not really…’
Fox parked on a double yellow line in the ambulances’ drop-off zone and headed inside. Someone was being served by the receptionist, so he waited his turn. There were only two or three people seated in the waiting area. They were staring at a TV in the corner of the room. The receptionist didn’t seem to be in a hurry, so Fox walked past her desk and towards the receiving area. Nobody stopped him or asked him what he was doing. Patients lay on trolleys, some in curtained cubicles. Fox did a circuit of the room. A member of staff was busy at a computer. He asked her where he might find Mitchell Fox.
‘He was brought in an hour ago,’ he explained, ‘from Lauder Lodge nursing home.’
‘Might not be in the system yet.’ She walked over to a marker-board on the wall and studied it. Then asked another member of the team, who nodded and approached Fox.
‘Are you a relative?’
‘I’m his son.’
‘Mr Fox has gone for an X-ray. After that, it’ll be straight to the day ward.’
‘Is he all right?’
‘We’ll know more in a little while. There’s a waiting area just-’
‘Can I see him?’
‘The receptionist will let you know.’
Fox was pointed back in the direction of reception. By the time he got there, there was no queue, so he gave his name and was told to take a seat. He slumped as best he could on the hard plastic chair and stared at the ceiling. No one was watching the TV any more; they were busy peering at the screens of their phones. A woman with a bandaged arm kept walking around. When she got too close to the doors, they opened automatically, allowing in a blast of cold air from the world outside. It was a process she seemed happy to keep repeating. There was a cupboard nearby that kept being unlocked and locked again by members of staff. Fox couldn’t see what they were doing in there exactly. The two toilet cubicles were being kept busy, as were the snack machines. One young man was trying to get the coin slot to accept a particular ten-pence piece. Every time it was rejected, he tried again, having studied the coin for any obvious flaws. Fox eventually went over and replaced it with a ten-pence piece of his own. This one worked, but the young man looked no happier.
‘You’re welcome,’ Fox told him, returning to his seat.
One member of staff seemed to have the job of emptying the waste bin and removing any newspapers that had been left lying around. The bin bag wasn’t even half-full when he replaced it. Ten minutes later he was back, checking to see how full the new bag was, then moving the bin across to the other side of the room. Fox managed to stop himself asking why. On the TV, a man was telling another man how little a small ornament was worth. It then went for auction, and failed to sell. Was it an heirloom? Fox wondered. When first purchased, had the buyer had any inkling that it would one day feature on a daytime programme – and sorely disappoint its current owner?
The waiting area’s resident smoker returned from another cigarette break, her hacking cough heralding her arrival. Then the doors shuddered open again as the woman with the bandaged arm wandered past them. Fox turned in his seat to face her.
‘Will you bloody well stop that!’ he shouted. She looked surprised. So did the receptionist, who followed this with a frowned warning. Fox held up a hand in capitulation and went back to staring at the ceiling. It wasn’t just his dad, he realised – it was everything else, too. The questions that seemed to whirl all around him; the characters whose lives were suddenly connected to his own; the hours of sleep he was lacking; the sense of utter, abject futility
…
And then his phone interrupted with a text. It was from a number he didn’t recognise, and when he opened the message it was an address, postcode and time. The postcode was FK9, the time 7.15 p.m. Fox copied the postcode into his phone’s map. The highlighted area took in Stirling University. Fox guessed that he was being invited to Alison Pears’s home, and that she and her husband lived practically next door to the university. He decided not to bother replying, but he added the phone number to his address book, just for future reference.
And for something to do.
After almost an hour, he asked the receptionist for a progress report, and was told his father was in Combined Assessment.
‘Along there,’ she explained, pointing through another set of doors. Fox nodded his thanks and followed the signs on the wall. Eventually he arrived at a nurses’ station. His father seemed to have arrived only a few minutes before. Staff were still fussing around his bed. A machine was monitoring his heart rate. It gave a regular beep, creating a rhythm with the other machines nearby.
‘How is he?’ Fox asked.
‘A doctor will be along soon.’
‘But he’s all right?’
‘The doctor will have a word…’
A chair was provided for Fox’s use. His father’s eyes were closed, the bottom half of his face covered by a translucent oxygen mask. Fox went to squeeze his hand, but saw that there was a spring-loaded clip on one finger, linking it to the machine. He touched the wrist instead, finding it warm. He looked for any signs that his father might be about to open his eyes. There was a bruise on his forehead and a bit of swelling – probably from the fall.
‘Dad,’ Fox said, just loud enough for his father to hear. ‘It’s Malcolm.’
No response. His fingers sought the pulse in Mitch’s wrist. It beat a slow, steady tattoo in time to the machine.
‘Dad,’ he repeated.
The staff seemed to be discussing something at the nurses’ station. Fox wondered where his father’s clothes were. He was wearing a short-sleeved hospital gown. One of the staff had broken off from the discussion to make a phone call.
‘We can’t take any more admissions,’ he explained. ‘No spaces left.’
So it could always have been worse: Mitch could have been kept waiting on a trolley in a corridor. Fox wondered if there were some sort of hierarchy, and whether that meant things were serious.
Could just be a fall…
‘I don’t believe it.’ The voice came from behind him. He turned his head and saw Jude standing there, arms by her sides. Fox got to his feet.
‘They say he fell,’ he began to explain.
‘I don’t mean Dad,’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘I mean you.’
It took Fox a moment to realise what crime he had committed. ‘Jude, I’m sorry…’
‘Walked into Lauder Lodge as usual. “Oh,” they tell me, “did your brother not say? Your father’s been rushed to hospital…” So thanks for that, Malcolm. Thanks a bunch.’
A member of the nursing team was approaching, gesturing for them to keep the noise down.
‘I plain forgot, Jude. I was up to high doh…’
‘How do you think I’ve been? All the way here in the taxi…’ She had turned her attention from Malcolm to Mitch. ‘Not knowing what I was going to find.’
‘Sit down,’ Fox said, offering her the chair. ‘I’ll get you some water.’
‘I don’t want any of your water!’
