‘Any idea when the doctor’s coming to see me?’ she asked, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. ‘I’ve been here for ages.’
‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ the nurse replied unhelpfully. ‘We’ve had several emergencies come in since you got here, and they take priority, so you’ll have to be patient.’
‘Is that supposed to be a joke?’
Tutting loudly when the nurse walked out without answering, Suzie flopped back against the pillow. They were taking the piss. She’d been brought in by ambulance with a police escort, yet she wasn’t considered an emergency? And they wondered why people complained about the NHS.
An alarm suddenly went off on the other side of the curtain, and Suzie guessed that someone’s heart must have stopped when a call went up for the crash team. Wishing it had been whoever was in the cubicle to her left, because their moans were getting louder and more irritating by the second, her patience snapped and she climbed off the trolley and stuffed her feet into her slippers.
Heading outside after stopping off at the desk to tell them she was leaving, she cadged a cigarette off a man who was pacing up and down with his phone glued to his ear. She quickly smoked it before making her way over the road to where two private-hire taxis were parked up, their drivers standing between them having a fag and a chat while they waited for customers.
‘Are you supposed to be out here, love?’ one of the men asked, looking her up and down when she reached them.
‘Don’t worry, I’m not a psych case,’ Suzie said, aware that she must look a sight in her dressing gown and slippers. ‘Which one’s front of the queue?’
The man who’d spoken nodded to one of the cars and Suzie clambered into the back of it. Remembering that she wasn’t wearing knickers when he got behind the wheel and peered at her in the rear-view mirror, she tugged the hem of her dressing gown down over her thighs, and said, ‘Lansdowne Road, please. But you’ll have to wait outside for a minute when we get there. I came in by ambulance and they forgot to bring my bag.’
The driver had started to move off, but he slammed his foot on the brake at that and, twisting round in his seat, jerked his thumb at the door. ‘Out.’
‘Oh, come on,’ Suzie moaned. ‘I’ve got the money at home. I just need to go round the back to get my spare key.’
‘And leave me sitting out front like a lemon waiting for you to come back?’ The driver pulled a dubious face. ‘Oldest trick in the book, that, love.’
‘I’m not going to do a runner dressed like this, am I?’ Suzie reasoned. ‘And I’ll give you a good tip.’
‘No money, no ride,’ the driver replied flatly. ‘Company policy.’
Suzie tried to appeal to his better nature, but he wouldn’t budge, so she gave up and opened the door, muttering, ‘Thanks for nothing, you miserable arsehole!’
The walk home was a nightmare, and Suzie couldn’t wait to get inside, take a hot bath and fall into bed. It was bad enough that everyone she’d passed along the way had gawped at her, but then a rowdy group of lads on the top deck of a passing bus had chucked a milkshake over her, so she was wet, cold, and thoroughly pissed off by the time she reached the alleyway that led to the estate.
Low-hanging branches from the trees behind the fences on either side of the path formed a creepy canopy over her head, and she shivered when the light from the streetlamps on the main road faded a few steps in. Shivering in the darkness, she was hurrying towards the faint sliver of light at the other end when something shifted in the shadows, and the hairs on the back of her neck bristled when she heard the sound of feet shuffling on the concrete.
Afraid that Rob might have followed her to hospital and then rushed back here to lie in wait when he saw her getting kicked out of the cab, she stopped walking and peered into the gloom. A cigarette lighter suddenly flared, and her fear turned to relief when she saw three pairs of eyes glinting back at her from behind the flame. Guessing that it was a group of kids making their way home from the youth club on the other side of the estate, she released the breath she’d been holding and started walking again.
Expecting the group to move aside when she reached them, she frowned when they spread out in front of her, making it impossible for her to move forward.
‘Yo!’ one of them said, stepping up to her. ‘What you got?’
She could hear that it was a boy, but he had his hood pulled low over his forehead and a scarf wrapped around his lower face, so all she could see were his eyes. Quickly sizing him and his friends up, and guessing from their heights and slight builds that they couldn’t be much older than fourteen or fifteen, she drew herself up to her own full height.
‘Move!’ she barked, hoping they were still young enough to have some sort of respect for, or fear of, adults.
A flicker of uncertainty flashed through the boy’s eyes, but he immediately blinked it away, and hissed, ‘Who the fuck d’ya think you’re talkin’ to? I axed what you got, and you best hand that shit over.’
‘Axed?’ Suzie snorted, amused by his tough-guy act.
Missing the sarcasm, he said, ‘Yeah, that’s right. And I ain’t gonna axe again, so what you waitin’ for?’
Unable to stop the laugh that was bubbling up in her throat from breaking out, Suzie said, ‘Fuck off, you little prick! I can see that you’re white, so why are you trying to act black? You t’ink you is in da ’hoods, blud?’ She adopted a terrible Jamaican accent and threw some
