Peter Anghelides - Another Life

Toshiko leaned against the island unit in the middle of her kitchen and gazed out through the window. Rain bounced off the sill and splashed back up against the glass. In the downpour outside, next door’s cat — Tinkle? Winkle? one of the Teletubbies anyway — made a run for cover across the street and vanished under the neighbour’s car. Toshiko peered through her window, out into the torrent of rain, and smiled at the prospect of following a languorous breakfast with a warm bath.

She’d eaten only two spoonfuls of muesli before Ianto called her. ‘Yeah, it’s always a problem,’ she told him. ‘I’m on my way. And tell Jack that he is the guy who put the “lie” into “you can have a lie-in tomorrow, Tosh”.’

Jack was stretched out across a chair in the Boardroom when Ianto found him. He had his boots up on the conference table, and his eyes were closed. Ianto knew better than to assume he was sleeping. ‘Owen’s not answering,’ he told Jack.

Jack cracked open one eye. ‘Location?’

‘His mobile must be inactive. No signal.’

The eye closed again. ‘Remind me to bang his head when he gets in.’

A thin-faced man tapped Owen twice on his shoulder, an imperious signal of authority. ‘You can’t use that thing in here.’ He used the same finger to point at a plastic sign on the wall that stated: ‘Please switch off mobile phones while in the Emergency Department. They can interfere with sensitive medical equipment.’

Owen held up his mobile, which was showing no lights. ‘Switched it off as soon as I arrived.’ He slipped it into the pocket of his white doctor’s coat, and smiled ingratiatingly.

The man before him was mid-fifties, greying hair. His face was lightly pock-marked, like ravaged sandstone. Dark eyes peered over tortoiseshell frames, appraising Owen. The good-quality shirt and silk tie, the well-polished patent leather brogues and the easy authority marked him out as the man in charge, rather than another angry patient complaining about the four-hour waiting time. ‘Who are you and what are you doing in my department?’

Megan appeared at Owen’s side. ‘Ah, hello. Haven’t had chance to introduce you both yet.’

‘A friend of yours?’ the man asked her sharply.

Megan nodded. ‘Mr Majunath, I’m sorry, I didn’t have the chance to introduce you earlier. This is Dr Owen Harper. He’s a former… um… colleague of mine. We were students together…’

‘Another from St George’s?’ interrupted Majunath, his expansive tone a complete contrast to his previous suspicion. ‘That makes, what, three in the department at the moment?’ He stuck out his arm, and gave Owen a brief, firm handshake. ‘Amit Majunath, senior consultant. Barts man myself. Worked there for fifteen years, until they lost A amp;E. Wasn’t expecting you here, Dr Harper. All hands to the pumps tonight, though. Literally,’ he added, looking around them at the corridor floor, which seemed to be covered in muddy puddles and footprints. He intercepted a nurse as she tried to bustle past on her way out to reception. Owen noticed that Majunath was doing his staring-over-the-specs business on her, too. ‘Can we have one of the HCAs get this cleaned up. Now?’

‘Sorry, Mr Majunath,’ replied the nurse, completely unfazed. She was obviously used to being seized and stared at in the corridor by senior staff. ‘I’ll have Cerys sort it out. With this awful weather, people have been traipsing mud in all day. The auxiliaries seem to spend all their time with mops and buckets.’ She disengaged her elbow from Majunath’s grasp, and disappeared around the corner.

‘Insurance nightmare,’ muttered Majunath, squinting at the muddy floor. ‘Lucky that we don’t have the management skulking around tonight. Tucked up in bed with their spreadsheets for company, we can but hope. Onwards, eh?’ He bestowed a big smile on Megan, as though it was a personal favour. ‘We have a jumper about to arrive. Only this one chose to throw herself at one of our ambulances, on its way in with a suspected MI. Nearly gave the driver a heart attack, too!’ Having delivered this special news with such relish, he stalked off towards cubicles.

Owen grinned at Megan. ‘He’s worse than you told me!’

Megan shushed him, but giggled too. ‘He has spider-sense. He’ll hear you. I think he’s a bit on edge tonight because we’re still waiting for them to appoint a Clinical Director for the ED. Majunath is the hot favourite, though he thinks they’re going to hold it against him because he can’t speak Welsh. Seven other languages, but not Welsh. The Board was supposed to meet yesterday, all hush-hush. But I’m not sure they all got in because of this rotten weather.’

‘You know how it is,’ Owen told her. ‘The first sign will be when white smoke starts coming out of the hospital incinerator.’ He stepped aside as a health care assistant appeared and started to mop the mess up around them.

Even this far into the hospital building, the storm outside was making its presence felt. The bass notes of thunder rumbled in the distance. Since he’d arrived, at the start of Megan’s night shift, all the patients that Owen had seen had been soaked. The nursing staff had cut the outer clothing off a teenage boy, brought in with a suspected wrenched ligament after a fall at home, and he’d been soaked to the skin, even though he’d been in reception for two hours after triage. The emergency patients, trolleyed straight through to cubicles or resus by paramedics, were all drenched, even dripping as they were prepared for immediate treatment.

Megan stood back to allow the HCA more room, and leaned against the wall next to Owen. ‘You must have switched off your mobile pretty quickly when Majunath caught you using it.’

Owen shook his head. ‘My phone’s been switched off since we left your place. He saw me using something else.’

‘What?’

Owen slipped his hand from his white coat, and held out the Bekaran device for Megan to take from him. ‘I palmed it for my mobile. Wouldn’t do for him to get his hands on this scanner. You, on the other hand…’

Megan turned the device over in her hands, wondering. She checked to see that no one else was looking at them. The HCA was squeezing his mop into a bucket at the far end of the corridor. Megan stammered: ‘I’m not sure that…’

‘Why not?’ Owen ushered her back towards the cubicles. ‘Come on, it’s been a long shift. You’ve seen the crowd out in reception, it’s not getting any smaller. And besides, how do you think I spotted that emphysema case so quickly? The one brought in from the RTA? The one your colleague thought was an obvious pneumothorax?’

‘Owen!’ she hissed at him.

‘Well, it wasn’t by waiting for the portable X-ray,’ said Owen, ‘or getting him in the ever-growing queue for MRI.’ He indicated the device with a movement of his head.

‘You’re not even supposed to be working here,’ persisted Megan. ‘You know the hospital’s not insured for you. And even if it was, well, using this… alien thing…’ She thrust it back at him.

Owen didn’t accept it. He could see from the way her eyes moved that she was worried someone else would see the device. He waited. She tried to stick it in his coat pocket, but he shoved his own hands in them to prevent her. ‘Come on, Megan. Isn’t that why you let me come here? We could have met up afterwards. Or you could have made your own way to Torchwood. We’ll go there later. I want you to see it.’

She relaxed her arm, and Owen moved in to hold her shoulders. ‘Try it.’

‘How can I explain it?’ she protested. ‘To Majunath? To any of them?’