Vivien Brown - Lily Alone - A gripping and emotional drama

Only one thing for it. He’d go tomorrow, surprise her and take her out for lunch somewhere. A nice roast, with all the trimmings. She’d like that. He’d stop off on the way and buy freesias. Lots of freesias, in lovely bright colours. They were always her favourites. And cat food for Smudge. Tuna, or chicken. The expensive chunky stuff in the little foil cartons. Or maybe something tasty from the butchers, if he could find one open on a Sunday.

He hadn’t realised it before, but he’d missed that old cat. Almost as much as he’d missed his old mum. He had to admit it. Susan certainly had a lot to answer for.

*

Laura had been on shift for five hours already and her feet ached. Saturdays were notoriously busy in A & E, even in the mornings, what with the hangovers and drunken falls from the night before, and then came all the football and rugby injuries, half-dressed men trailing the mud from their boots and the drips from hastily applied bloody bandages across the newly mopped floor. And the mums who hadn’t wanted to take their sick children out of school or risk having their pay docked for taking a day off work, and preferred instead to queue up for hours at the weekend to get their five minutes with a doctor, fretting about meningitis or appendicitis, only to be told that the symptoms they were so concerned about pointed to nothing more serious than a bad cold or a touch of tummy ache. No wonder the NHS was in trouble. But at least she didn’t have to deal with those, even though she got to hear all about them from her flatmate Gina who had trained as a paediatric nurse and had been working here in Children’s A & E ever since she’d qualified. No, Laura only dealt with adult patients, not the kids or, thank God, their parents. Good job really, or she’d probably be tempted to say something she shouldn’t.

After six months in the job, she was getting used to it all now. When she’d first transferred down from the men’s surgical ward, she’d found A & E quite terrifying. Everything she’d had to do before just flew right out of the window. There was never any order. No chance to plan or prepare, so little time to stop and think. You never knew what was going to come through the door next. One minute a dad-to-be dashing in with a wife already in labour and just missing giving birth in the car on the way here, the next an old lady with a twisted ankle or some idiot with his penis stuck up a hoover tube and trying to hide it underneath his coat. From the trivial to the life-and-death to the ‘you wouldn’t believe it!’, it all just threw itself at her from the moment she arrived until she found herself exhausted, shell-shocked and waiting outside for the bus home.

The road accidents were the worst. No matter how many seatbelts and speed cameras and anti-drinking campaigns there were in the world, the accidents just kept on happening. She stood now, gazing down at the latest victim as the doctor bent over her, shining a light into her eyes, assessing the extent of the damage. The poor girl didn’t look much older than Laura herself, perhaps even younger, and she was in a bad way, the victim of a hit and run. Her clothes and hair were soaking wet, at least one leg was obviously broken, there was a nasty gash on the back of her head, and although she’d apparently been briefly conscious and trying to talk at the scene, there had been no response beyond a few incoherent mumblings since she’d been brought in, and she still hadn’t opened her eyes.

‘Can we try to get an ID? Did she have a bag with her?’

Laura turned to Bob and Sarah, the paramedics. They both looked tired, and Sarah was stretching and rubbing her back with both hands, through the folds of her fluorescent yellow jacket. Having slid her across from trolley to bed and rattled off a list of readings and what they’d already done to help her, they were getting ready to leave.

‘Sorry, no.’ Sarah shook her head. ‘She hardly spoke before she blacked out. Just muttered her name. Lily. But that’s all we have. No bag found with her at the scene. Or phone. Unless some friendly passer-by had already nicked them, of course. It wouldn’t be the first time. Couldn’t find anything in her pockets either, except a couple of keys. House, not car. There wasn’t even anything on the key ring to give us any clues. No company logo to tell us who she works for. Not even one of those Tesco clubcard fob things. Bit of a mystery girl, I’m afraid.’

‘A pretty unlucky one, too.’ The doctor stood up and wiped a hand over his forehead, a stethoscope strung idly around his thin neck and more than a hint of stubbly shadow on his chin. ‘I don’t like it when patients can’t tell me who they are or where it hurts. We’re getting a few sounds out of her, which is good, and she is responding to pain, but I don’t like head injuries, and I especially don’t like the look of this one. Her airway’s clear now, but she is struggling a bit. Can we get an urgent head CT please, nurse? Her blood pressure is pretty low too, so let’s cross match some blood. Four units. If she’s bleeding into that brain of hers, we’ll need to replace that blood ASAP. I think we’ll need the neurosurgeons to take a look at her.’

He stood back and wiped a bead of sweat from his brow, then carried on assessing his patient’s less worrying injuries. ‘Fractured left tib and fib as well as a couple of ribs, I’d say, and some fairly deep lacerations on the arms and hands, but nothing too terrible. We can deal with those. Abdomen feels okay. No distension. No obvious sign of any internal damage, apart from the head. Shame there’s no way of knowing who she is.’

And no one there waiting for her when she wakes up, Laura thought, as she returned to the nurses’ station and busied herself sorting out the paperwork and making the right calls while her colleagues carried on monitoring and did all they could to keep the girl stable.

Her stomach rumbled ominously, reminding her that she still hadn’t found time to eat. Even in the midst of others’ suffering, life and lunch had to go on. There was a broken custard cream in her uniform pocket. Emergency supplies. She took a sneaky nibble, dropping a scattering of crumbs on the desk, and glanced at her watch. Quarter to one, and she’d been up since 6.00 a.m. The cereal and toast she’d bolted down before leaving for work were nothing but distant memories.

Laura yawned as discreetly as she could and looked across at the mystery girl, surrounded by staff on all sides, unconscious and totally unaware of what was happening to her. And, with no ID, there was no way of knowing who they should call. Not even anyone to sign the consent forms. She’d want her mum at her side if it was her lying there. And her dad, obviously. But mostly her mum. There’s nothing so scary as facing stuff alone. And nothing like a mum to make it right. God, imagine having all that going on inside your own body and not knowing a thing about it. Laura shuddered and pushed the thoughts away. It’s a job, she reminded herself. Just a job. Don’t let yourself get too involved. But, how awful if the girl should die, anonymous and alone.

Death. In the middle of a normal Saturday, with the traffic going about its business outside the window, someone coughing into a bowl behind a curtain, the radio in the nurses’ kitchen spilling out sports news and tinny pop music and the weather, a vase of droopy flowers and a clutch of Thank You cards propped up along the windowsill. Death, coming out of nowhere, when it’s least expected. That was the part of her job she most dreaded, especially when the patient was so young. She knew the next few hours would be critical. Tests, monitors, ventilators, maybe an operation to relieve the pressure on her brain, everyone waiting to see whether the girl woke up or slipped away. Life and death. Such a thin line between the two, and so frighteningly easy to cross.