MIRACLE ON KAIMOTU ISLAND/ALWAYS THE HERO (10 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN

B
EN
 
TOOK
 
ON
 
Brian; Ginny took on Squid. Squid was brought in on a stretcher, but he was sitting bolt upright, his skinny legs dangling down on either side.

‘I can walk, you fellas,’ he was protesting. ‘One hit on the head and you think you can treat me like a namby-pamby weakling.’

‘Indulge us,’ Ginny said, as the hefty paramedics transferred him smoothly to her examination couch. ‘Come on, Mr Davies, lie down and let me see that bump on your head.’

‘Since when have I been Mr Davies?’ Squid demanded. ‘I’m Squid. And you’re the Koestrel girl. Bloody uppity parents. Folks say you turned out all right, though.’

‘I think she’s all right,’ Ben said from the other side of the theatre. ‘What about you guys?’ he asked the paramedics. ‘Do you think she’s all right?’

There were grunts of agreement from the two burly paramedics, from Brian and from Squid himself, and Ginny thought, wow, she’d been in an earthquake, she’d spent half a day digging people out from under rubble, she’d been working as an emergency doctor for hours...and they thought...

‘She’s cute,’ Squid decreed.

‘Nah,’ one of the paramedics said, eying her red hair with appreciation. ‘It’s politically incorrect to say cute. How about handsome? Handsome and flaming?’

‘You’ve got rocks in your head, all of you,’ Ginny said, as Ben chuckled. It was four in the morning. She felt punch-drunk. They all must be punch-drunk. ‘Speaking of heads, lie down, Squid, while I check yours.’

‘Won’t,’ said Squid.

‘Lie down or I take over,’ Ben growled, ‘and we’ll do the examination the hard way.’

‘You and whose army?’

‘Do you know how many soldiers we have outside? Lie down or we’ll find a fat one to sit on you. Now.’

And there was enough seriousness in his tone to make Squid lie down.

Someone—Margy?—had been organised enough to find the islanders’ health files and set them at hand. Ginny could see at a glance if there were any pre-conditions that could cause problems. She flicked through Squid’s file fast while Ben started work on Brian. Ben knew each patient inside out; he didn’t need their histories, but Ginny was wise enough to take care.

She flipped through Squid’s history and did a double-take at his age. Ninety-seven.

Prostate cancer. Treatment refused. Check-ups every six months or so, mostly
or so
, because
regular
didn’t seem to be in Squid’s dictionary.

A major coronary event ten years ago.

Stents and bypass refused.

‘There’s nothing wrong with me but a bump on the head,’ Squid said sourly. ‘There I was, minding me own business, when,
whump
, every cray pot in the shed was on top of me. I warned ’em. Don’t you stack ’em up there, I said, ’cos the big one’s coming. Didn’t I say the big one was coming, Doc?’

‘You did,’ Ben said wryly. ‘I would have thought, though, with your premonition, you would have cleared out of the way of the cray pots.’

‘I’m good but I’m not that good,’ Squid retorted. He’d submitted as Ginny had injected local anaesthetic around the oozing gash across his forehead but he obviously wasn’t worrying about his head. ‘I was right, though. Wasn’t I right, Doc? That German doc was right, too, heading for home. But you stayed here. And you, too, miss,’ he said to Ginny. ‘Did you listen? No.’

‘Yeah, but I didn’t get hit on the head with cray pots,’ Ginny retorted. ‘So I must have done something sensible. Squid, you have fish scales in this wound!’

‘I was wearing me hat. There’s always fish scales in that hat. Dunno where it is now; expect I’ll have to go digging for it. Get ’em out for me, there’s a lass, and make it neat. I don’t want to lose me handsome exterior. Not but what I’m getting past it for the need for handsome,’ he added, swivelling on the table to look thoughtfully at Ben. ‘Not like you two. Not past it at all, not you two. At it like rabbits you were when you were kids. Going to take it up again now?’

‘We were not,’ Ginny retorted, ‘at it like rabbits.’ This night was spinning out of control. She was close to exhaustion, but also close to laughter.
At it like rabbits?

‘You woulda been if that gimlet-eyed mother of yours would have let you,’ Squid retorted. ‘But now you can. Got a littlie, now, though. Does that make a difference, Doc?’ he demanded of Ben.

‘That is not,’ Ben said levelly, ‘any of your business.’

‘Island business is my business,’ Squid said happily. The local anaesthetic was taking hold and any pain that might have interfered with his glorious I-told-you-so attitude was fading fast. ‘That’s why I warned you. The big ’un’s coming. Did you listen? Not you. People are dead, Doc, ’cos they didn’t listen.’ He lay back, crossed his arms and his smile spread beatifically across his ancient face. ‘Told you so. Told you so, told you so, told you so.’

‘Ginny, could you give me a hand with Brian’s X-ray?’ Ben said, grinning across at Squid’s obvious bliss. ‘It’ll take a couple of moments for that anaesthetic to work, and I’d rather not call any of the nurses back. Squid, I want you to lie still and keep quiet. We have patients resting just through the canvas.’ Then, as Squid opened his mouth to protest, he put up a hand in a peremptory signal for him to stop.

‘Squid,’ he said sternly. ‘Rest on your laurels. You said the big one was coming and it did. The whole island’s in awe. Enough. Lie there and think about it, but while you’re thinking, stay still. We’re taking Brian next door for an X-ray and when we get back I don’t want you to have moved an inch. Right?’

‘R-right,’ Squid said in a voice that told Ginny he wasn’t quite as brave as he was pretending to be. He really was a very old man. He would have been scared.

She put a hand on his shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. ‘This’ll take no more than five minutes,’ she told him. She’d checked his vital signs. She’d checked his pupils, his reactions. His bump on the head seemed to be just that, a bump on the head. ‘You won’t move, will you?’

‘Not if you promise to keep looking after me,’ Squid said, recovering, and Ginny smiled.

‘I promise.’

‘Then off you go, Brian, and let the lady photograph you,’ Squid decreed. ‘She’s some lady, isn’t she, Doc?

‘I... Yes,’ Ben said.

‘Good call,’ Squid said. ‘I think I’m about to make another prediction. You want to hear it?’

‘No,’ Ginny and Ben said together, too fast, and they wheeled Brian out of the door towards X-Ray before Squid could say another word.

* * *

The X-ray took effort on both their parts. They were both needed to do the roll transfer that was part of their training. From there the X-ray went smoothly, confirming a greenstick fracture.

‘I’ll put a simple splint on it tonight,’ Ben told Brian. ‘We’ll check it again tomorrow—it’ll need a full cast but we’ll wait until the swelling goes down.’

‘Good luck,’ Ginny said. Because she was feeling more and more like an islander, she gave the burly farmer a hug, then headed back to attend to Squid.

He was curled on his side, his back to the door.

‘Sorry I’ve been so long,’ she said cheerfully, and crossed the six steps to the examination couch.

But by the third step she knew something was amiss. Dreadfully amiss.

The stillness was wrong. She’d seen this.

Breathing was sometimes imperceptible but when it wasn’t present, you knew.

She knew.

‘Ben,’ she called, in the tone she’d been taught long ago as a medical student. It was a tone that said, I don’t intend to frighten any other patient but I want you here fast. Now.

She put a hand on Squid’s leathery neck as she called, her fingers desperately searching for a pulse.

There wasn’t one.

* * *

Ben was with her almost instantaneously, the door closed firmly between them and Brian.

They were alone in the room. Ben and Ginny and Squid.

Or Ben and Ginny.

‘Oh, God, I shouldn’t have left him.’ Ginny was hauling the equipment trolley from the side of the room, fumbling for patches. No pulse... She didn’t even have monitors set up. No IV lines. She hauled Squid’s shirt open, ripping buttons.

She was barely aware that Ben was with her. Where was the laryngosope? She needed an endotracheal tube.

Panic was receding as technical need took over, and the knowledge that everything she needed was in reach. She put the patches on with lightning speed...

And Ben grabbed her hands.

‘No,’ he said.

What the...? She hauled back, confused. They had so little time before brain damage was irreversible. Did he want monitors? Proof? ‘Ben, there’s nothing—’

‘Exactly,’ he said, and his hands held hers in a grip that brooked no opposition. ‘And that’s the way he’d want it.’

‘What do you mean? He’s healthy. He was sitting up. It’s only a bump on the head. Let me go!’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Leave it.’ And he held her for longer, while Squid’s body settled more firmly into that awful stillness, while the time for recovery, for miracles, passed them by.

‘Let me go.’ She could hardly make herself coherent. ‘Are you mad?’

‘I’m not mad. Squid’s ninety-seven, Ginny,’ Ben said, and his voice was implacable. ‘He’s left clear instructions. You think he’d thank us for trying to resuscitate him?’

‘He’s well. It’s just the shock.’ She was still struggling but it was already too late. There’d been such a tiny window of opportunity. That Ben could stand there and stop her... That Ben could do nothing...

‘He’s your friend,’ she hurled at him, and it was an accusation.

It was also true.

True for her as well?

When they’d been kids Squid had taught them to fish for flounder, to jag for the squid he’d taken his name from. He’d also shared the eternal supply of aniseed balls he’d always carried in his back pocket.

He was almost a part of the island itself. For Ginny... The thought that this was the end...

She gave one last despairing wrench and finally Ben set her free. But even as he did so, she knew it was too late. She knew it. She felt cold fury wash through her that she hadn’t been allowed to fight. She wanted to hit out, hit something. Hit Ben?

‘You know about medical DNRs,’ Ben said, watching her, calmly questioning. Do Not Resuscitate. ‘Squid signed one years ago.’

‘But they’re for people who have no chance,’ she managed, thinking of a counsellor handing a form to James, ‘Do Not Resuscitate’, and James screwing it into a ball and hurling it back.

‘That’s for people whose life is worthless. I don’t need it, dammit.’

Her father had acted the same way. He’d had three coronary occlusions, a cardiac arrest, pacemaker fitted, defibrillator, there was nothing more to be done, yet he’d never have dreamed of signing a form that said ‘Do Not Resuscitate’.

‘Do not go gently into that good night.’
Dylan Thomas’s words had been her father and James’s mantra, drilled into her with fury.

That anger was with her now. Not to be permitted to fight...

This was why she’d walked away from medicine, because she couldn’t win. Because she wasn’t good enough to win. To make a conscious decision not to win seemed appalling.

‘Ginny, Squid is ninety-seven years old,’ Ben said again, placing strong hands on her rigid shoulders. He must feel her anger but he was overriding it. ‘He might look as if he’s weathered to age for ever, but he’s been failing for a long time. He has arthritis in almost every joint. He can’t do the fishing he loves, and he’s been getting closer and closer to needing nursing-home care. Add to that, from the moment the earth shook his face has been one vast smile. He was right, we were wrong. You don’t think that’s a good note to go out on?’

But how could death be a good note? ‘We could have...’

‘We could have for what, Ginny?’ Ben said, still in that gentle yet forceful voice that said he saw things behind her distress and her anger. Things she didn’t necessarily want him to see.

‘You have to fight.’ She could hardly speak. So many emotions were crowding in. James’s words, flooding back...

You stupid cow, get the medication right, you know I need more. Damn what the oncologist says, give me more now!

‘No,’ Ben was saying. ‘If we pulled Squid back now, what then? You know cardiac arrest knocks blood flow to the brain. You know the really old struggle to re-establish neural pathways. Ginny, he’s left us at the moment of his greatest triumph and I for one wouldn’t ask for anything better for such a grand old man.’

Anger was through and through her, but behind it was a fatigue that was almost overwhelming. It was like all the emotions that had built within her from the moment of James’s death were here in this room, the armour she’d tried to place around herself shattering into a thousand pieces.

‘I fight the battles I want to win,’ Ben said. ‘I wouldn’t want to win this one.’

‘You didn’t want him to live?’

‘I want everyone to live,’ he said evenly, refusing to rise to the emotion she was hurling at him. ‘But at ninety-seven I know where to stop. Ginny...’

‘Don’t Ginny me,’ she whispered, and he touched her face, to give pause to the hysteria she was so close to. She flinched and he stopped dead.

‘Is that what happened?’ he said. ‘Did James hit you because you couldn’t save his life?’

There was a moment’s deathly silence. Okay, more than a moment, Ginny conceded. There was a whole string of moments, packed together, one after the other, leading to a place where she was terrified to go.

‘No,’ she said finally in a dead, cold voice, a voice she scarcely recognised as her own. She glanced at Squid, at the peace on the old man’s face, and she knew Ben was right. She knew it. She had no reason to be angry with him.

There was a time to die and that Squid had died at his moment of greatest triumph...
A consummation devoutly to be wished?

Maybe, but that was the problem, she thought. James and her father had seen death as defeat. It was why, afterwards, she’d walked away from medicine. To see death, time and time again...