The Buried Circle - Jenni Mills [180]
All the while the sky was splitting, the air-raid siren still howling, thunder in the air and the ground shaking. Ambulance bells drilled into my head, setting off a ringing. Then the water from the tap dried to a trickle and stopped. Bomb must’ve hit a water main. I stood in the bathroom with blood all down my legs and this lifeless thing lying on the cracked porcelain with Twyfords Sanitary Ware writ above him like a religious text, crying because I couldn’t finish the job, he was still not washed clean.
Charlie.
I picked him up out of the basin, held him against me, feeling his slithery wetness on my chest and the cold of him between my fingers. Charlie. I lifted his crumpled face, smaller than my own fist, to my mouth, and tried puffing into his nostrils like I’d seen Mr Peak-Garland’s shepherd do when the sickly lambs didn’t breathe on their own.
Next second the walls shook and tossed us on the floor because the house two doors down had been hit.
CHAPTER 48
Before the ambulance arrives, John says, ‘I shouldn’t have wasted time phoning. I should have driven straight here.’
‘You couldn’t possibly have known,’ I say, then wonder if somehow he did.
The paramedic’s staring at his bit of paper, trying to pretend he’s not listening. He told us he’s almost certain she hasn’t had a stroke, not a proper one anyway, though she might have had one of those little ones, a TIA…
If it wasn’t for the bruising on her face. Red purple, already, eye puffed up and almost closed, a black crusty split in the swollen skin, like a mean mouth.
How long’s she been on the floor?
She’s still there, in the middle of the hallway, her eyes wide and frightened, drifting in and out, the lids drooping now and then. The grip of her hand on mine loosens. Still with us, though, and no intention of going away, I hope, said the paramedic, cheerily, when he first arrived. Her eyes were closed when we found her, and her breathing seemed dreadfully ragged, but what do I know? John was completely calm, called 999 on the landline, then sat cross-legged by her with his hand on her forehead, willing her to hang on. It seemed to take for ever for the paramedic on the motorbike to arrive, though apparently he made it in less than ten minutes. There’s a proper ambulance on its way, too, to take her to the Great Western at Swindon.
Amazing, the gear they carry about with them. The paramedic has already shown us the ECG printout with the extra spike, the blip that says Frannie’s heartbeat’s doing something peculiar, like a drum out of rhythm. Where everybody else’s heart usually goes b’dum, b’dum, b’dum, Frannie’s is going b’dm’dum, b’dm’dum. He said the proper name for it, but I’ve forgotten already. It might be natural, or a side effect of the blood-pressure tablets she takes–or it might be something much worse. She came to while he was sticking the electrodes on her chest and said, What in buggeration you doing, boy? Perfectly all right, just fell, din’ I?
The paramedic smiled, and said, We’ve a feisty one here, then. What’s your name, my love?
Frances Robinson, she said. The end came out like a sigh.
Well, Frances…
I think she might prefer not to be called by her first name, I said, remembering over-friendly Bob from the day centre.
Sorry, Mrs Robinson.
Mi…Hard to hear her.
What was that, my love? He bent forward.
Miss.
Oh.
But you can call me Fran, if you like.
Contrary old bat, I thought. But she’s OK, isn’t she? She’s winning. Took a tumble, they’ll keep her in a couple of days for tests, then…
If it wasn’t for the bruising. Across her chest, as well, when he loosened her blouse to attach the electrodes. He narrowed his eyes, pursed his lips, felt carefully down her side. She closed her eyes and her face went tight and she made a little puffing sound.
That hurt, my love?
Just a