Chapter 18: Canderwell - The Hospital Stores

Canderwell: The Hospital Stores

Abba

I was lazing back as Sarita collected her medical stores. "Hello, hello, hello," the old police accusation used in slapstick drama was no laughing matter when it was followed up by a uniformed officer's facing me with an automatic weapon.

The policewoman regarded the list of items that Sarita had just stopped piling up on a large work counter but it was me who she interrogated.

I had stepped back into a corner where she had waved the two of us. "That weapon, out of your waistband, please. And, for your information, the Heckler and Koch outside, is there no more."

I was so angry that I had let down my women. Other emotions crowded me; guilt, fear protectiveness but most of all, it was a sense of failing the trust Sarita had given me for her own safety. I vowed to seek amends and sought not to communicate my readiness to act.

"Now, my pair of beauties, what have we here?" She drew our attention towards the disposable and the cotton scrubs, surgical sheets, antiseptics, sterilised dressings, of all different packs, shapes and sizes. I saw her reading the different conglomeration of suture needles, with their peculiarities and specialist items as well as different coloured packs of threads.

"Now, you just tell me, for what purpose you require all this. Anticipating going to war, are we? Speak!" she commanded.

"It's to mend the results of a child rape," Sarita spat accusingly.

"Now, calm down. You came in here to steal. You should have asked."

"And you'd have given them to us?"

The officer, did I say she was female? She sat back and laughed, "Probably, yes."

I interrupted, "I'm sure we would have asked if we had known who to ask. In truth, we should have taken her to a hospital where she should have been treated by professionals but as there weren't any open, we couldn't. I am sorry we've offended you."

"I'm sure you don't need all this stuff just to treat one girl."

I wasn't quite sure whether I wanted to let out that Sarita was a doctor. The last thing I wanted to do was to make her high-profile and attract attention to either her or to us. I implied that she was a nurse. "My girlfriend has been called on a couple of times to help people in the absence of other medical professionals. And she's found it difficult to do without the proper stuff. Only the other day, she was helping somebody who had badly gashed her leg. It had an infection and it needed cleaning out and twelve stitches and the correct dosage of antibiotics."

"So, is this the only stuff you want?"

Sarita turned round." I wish it were. Honestly, we would like some pharmaceuticals, but we couldn't get into the dispensary."

"Why have you got those?" she indicated the speculums, as I thought they were called.

"Ah you recognise them; the specula have to be different sizes. Normally, I'd use the smallest on the girl but here you have very small too. I can use that less obtrusively after the procedure to check on my work. It will be less distressing. Then for the detailed work I might see if I can use up to a 'medium' so I can see and manipulate a suture needle. As she will be unconscious, its presence shouldn't be so uncomfortable. And those," they were looking at others, "they have an integrated illumination that is necessary when using forceps."

"Those?" The officer indicated some metal ones.

She had an answer for everything. "I'm mindful that I can re-use them. They are re-usable with the autoclave which you notice I've got? I'm half trained in Gynaecology and Obstetrics. I reckon I might be called on again for some help. I'd be a fool not to have a basic everyday tool handy, and I need them in all three, sorry, four sizes."

The officer studied the two of us. She indicated the suture needles. "What are they for?"

Sarita indicated another packet, "If I can't have anything else, can I have two of those?"

"What for?"

"Do you really want to know?" she looked at the officer. "Of course you do." There was anger in her voice as she announced, "It's to try to mend a tear high up in a little girl's vagina, caused by two..."

I saw her almost spit out the word 'policemen'. I considered that was very undiplomatic in the circumstances and I managed to stop her just in time, "Two rapists, three or four times her age."

"It's called paedophilic rape!" added Sarita angrily. "The suturing is almost impossible to do because her vagina is still not fully grown, as she hasn't completed puberty yet. The tear is almost as high as the cervix. It's going to cause all sorts of problems if it's not dealt with, within the next day or two."

"OK, OK, I get the idea. So you're qualified to deal with it?"

"No, but is anybody here?"

"We have a physician, Dr Muller."

"Unless he's qualified in gynaecology and surgery..."

"Oh god no, she's a G.P. Before going into general practice she specialised in infectious diseases in her training. One thing she has managed to do is confirm the water here is OK. She's all right at diagnosing most problems and dishing out the right antibiotics. Unfortunately, she's no surgeon, two left thumbs when it comes to anything delicate, I wouldn't trust her with my granny's quilt."

"What has she got in the way of anaesthetics and locals?"

"You'll have to ask her but if you want to know, you'll have to come back at three o'clock. And I'm not letting any drugs out of store unless she gives the go-ahead. You have to return and speak to her if you want anything like that. I suggest you write down what it is you need."

"I can't see a Mims*."

"What?"

"I want to check up the inter-action of one drug with another."

The police woman had no idea about what Sarita was talking about, "You'll have to ask the doc." She added, "Write down what you need. I'm not agreeing to anything, and certainly not until Doc Muller has given the go-ahead. One thing I want to know is, which road did you come into town on?"

I interjected, thinking the conversation on Sarita's part was getting a little confrontational. "We are on my cousin's canal boat." Well, a little white lie might distract this young woman from accusing us of theft.

"The darned canal! That's something nobody thought of." She saw my questioning look. "We thought that we had all roads covered, even the railway and a couple of bridlepaths* but that's one way into town we hadn't considered."

I thought an explanation was called for, "I'm sorry, we came in here to get necessary things, but we didn't know what else to do. The guns are just for our protection. We have been shot at twice. We found these near where we were told some policemen had just died, terrible thing, the virus." That was a little understatement with a suggestion they had succumbed to illness. "We are not offering violence to anybody." I really wanted to deter Sarita from making any suggestion that police were involved in the incident at all. And I wanted no suggestion that we were in any way culpable in the death of the perpetrators. Who could say what the future held for us if the true facts were known?

I had certainly diverted the conversation from the line it had been taking. Now the police officer was again studying the items that had been collected, "I can see you're choosing things selectively and I believe you. My name is Jessica, Jessica Rowland. That automatic outside scared me, and the fact that you are armed as well. I can understand what you mean, but I am not going to let you have that weapon back until you're on your way out of here. We are trying to restore some level of civilisation here."

She was going to let us have it back!

"Anything else you want apart from medical supplies?"

If she made the suggestion, there was no reason not to take her up on the offer, "We are running through a few things."

"If it's food you want, you can get into Marks & Spencer*. They have more than enough perishables that are coming up to their sell-by date*. I can point you in the right direction. We've kept a couple of freezer and chiller cabinets working with diesel generators there. We have more at the large Tesco's on the other side of town. No way will we be able to eat everything before the food is out of date."

I saw Sarita was going around taking more items from various shelves and decided to let her get on with it. Perhaps I could distract Jessica, so she wasn't too worried about how much Sarita was picking up. "Is it okay if we take some clothes for the girl, from M&S* I mean?"

"Clothes?" she clarified.

"At the moment the rape victim's in bed. She's only about twelve years old. She's in bed, and will be for a few days. She has nothing to wear. Her jeans were cut to ribbons by a knife, and there's blood marks on everything else." Lay it on a bit.

"Who did it?"

"I've no idea of his name but another girl killed him with a knife."

"The other girl alright?"

"Yes, she was violently shocked by two attempted rapes, but we think she'll be all right."

"You're being a bit cagey," she accused.

"Look, he got his just deserts*. If it had been me, I would have killed him and that was before I found out what he had done to her insides." I breathed in through my teeth, "To do that to a young girl! I didn't realise everything about injuries until Sarita just told you. It's not the sort of thing women talk to men about, not even your boyfriend."

"The perpetrator, he was killed, you say?"

"It wasn't me, and I'm certainly not prepared to say any more in case something is made of it later, but yes. We have the victim," that was good word to use in the circumstances, "the girl, she's on the boat on sedatives and painkillers and she's going to have to have another operation. Sarita is working above and beyond her level of qualifications. The responsibility's hitting her hard."

Sarita herself called out then, "I think that's about all we can carry on the bike even though we would like some more of the stuff. There won't be room for any food."

The officer indicated a board on the wall holding keys. "You can take the van but bring it back afterwards."

She was being helpful! She believed us! "Thank you. Sarita really does need these things and she has been helping other people. It would be very easy to hide away and just protect herself but she's not like that. I don't think you are either, are you?"

"What are you, a smarmy politician or diplomat?" she laughed. "Take that van out at the back. Sandra will load it up for you, and she can show you where the M&S store is too. She could help you unload as well. It would give her the chance to get some new clothes. She needs them."

Sarita called out, "In that case, is it okay if I take a dozen of these sheets? The others were all bloody and ruined."

I think she was expecting more to be bloodied later.

"Take a couple of dozen." The officer shrugged, "We've all paid for it, exorbitant taxes! And if I were you, I'd look in the room through that door. It's the bulk stuff and basic stuff you might need, like disinfectant. The key's the last one on the board."

We offered our thanks and she repeated that we could return later. It appeared the doctor had been working a night shift, though doing what, was not made clear.

"Ah, this is Sandra." A teenager with spiky hair thrust her head through the door.

Sandra was a grumpy girl of the worst possible age. I know because there were some like her at our school a few years ago. I know you shouldn't typecast people but I had met her sort before, aggressive and thinking that the world owed them a living. They believed that they had rights and that nobody treated them with the respect that they were due. Need I say more? I suppose she could have been pretty without the scowl.

I'd have been happier without her help but did not want to argue.

The policewoman was already instructing her, "I've told you, if you want to be looked after and fed you have to pull your weight. These two visitors want the van loading. If I hear one word of complaint against you; no dinner. When the van's loaded, go with them and show them the back door of M&S and help them with food and clothes. Got it? Get some for yourself. You need something." The officer's face showed what she thought of the teenager's get up.

"Marks and Spencer! Their clothes are so fucking crap! My gran used to get her stuff there. They have nothing any good. They're for old wrinklies. And they cost too much," she spat out.

She looked confused when the three of us started laughing under our breath. The reason for our reaction was her assertion that the clothing was too expensive when it was there for the taking. 'They cost too much' just sounded funny. I understood her other complaint if she thought the height of fashion was torn, ill-fitting, sloppy stuff, no way, whatsoever, would she get another set of clothes in her style at Marks. The youngster was attired like a scruffy half apology of a Goth.

I said nothing. From experience, the least said to people like that, the less likely they were to take offence.

As Grumpy went off, PC Rowland explained, "She's had a hard time; mother and father died, got in with a bad crowd and I'm the only one she knows and she hates me. She thinks I hate her too. In the last year, before all this death stuff, I had to bring her in a few times. It was more for her own safety than anything else. She's not a hardened criminal and she'd be a quite a pretty girl if she let herself.

"We've all been hit hard," I agreed.

Sarita, from concentrating on the collection of items that now filled one side of the room, suddenly spoke up, "Did I hear you say, the water here's safe? Is it really OK to drink it?"

"We've all been drinking it for the last week, had no choice."

I started to lift up a pile of disposable scrubs and plastic aprons. Sandra pushed in. "That's my job."

I hated the way she barged past the policewoman who almost fell to the ground. The officer was clearly out to help her and I was so tensed up, I over-reacted. I took the girl down, onto the floor, in half a second. An innocuous-looking finger found its way over a very sensitive pressure point as I politely whispered, "Please don't push people like that. Say, you're sorry."

A little added pressure reinforced my argument. Relaxing it a little, I allowed her to mutter, "I'm sorry, Miss Rowland."

Not letting her lose face too much, I pulled her upright and suggested she might have fallen on the floor as a result of the accidental collision with the officer.

I apologised for contributing to her 'slip' onto the ground. Strangely, she looked at me with admiration. She was awed at the way I had taken her down so quickly. The girl was also grateful for the fact I had not made it obvious I'd overpowered her and forced her to express regret as if it were her own choice.

As I went outside the officer regarded me carefully and stayed a little further away. "I think I saw something like that at police training school?" she posed it as a question.

"Oh, surely not. Did they have slippery floors there too?"

She laughed, "Tell me ... if I tried to put handcuffs on you... ?"

"Oh, I'm sure you wouldn't do that. Your mind might get confused and you'd probably end up with them on your own wrists," I suggested teasingly.

"I probably would," she giggled. Then she seriously pronounced, "You could have taken me out." It was not a question. And in my heart I know it was true. I had known all the moves for years. Only now I was not only more ready to put them into practice but I knew I would react positively and with as much, if not more, force than was necessary. Even as we had been talking earlier, I had been steeling myself up to act if it ever became necessary. I think that was how I had taken Sandra down so smoothly. I had been wound up, I had been ready.

I shook my head. "I'd only have taken you out after you'd proved you were a danger to either of us." I mused aloud, "If you'd pulled the trigger I might have been dead but before you got Sarita, I might have been able to save her by taking you with me."

She took a deep breath and from that moment looked worried, "I believe you. I'm glad I let you have that stuff. I'm pretty sure that nurse knows what she's doing, better her than me. But Doc Muller still might not buy it. She's a hard bitch and she's been working her bones off."

"My Sarita's a hard bitch too." Were all doctors? "And she'll be fighting for little Victoria. Tell me," I asked, I'm surprised to see people around the hospital. Aren't you scared of infection? The 'flu', plague, virus, whatever it is, there must have been hundreds dying here?"

"The hospital?" she snorted. "The government has done us a good turn for a change, though they didn't know it. We now have a new hospital unaffected by the virus for the most part. The other lot," she meant the centre-left parties, "they planned and built this place for the whole northern part of the county. It was long overdue." This was obviously a sore point locally.

"The moment the right wing coalition got into power, they pulled the plug on it. Once it was built, they just filled Wing Two with geriatrics, offering the minimum of treatment. They appointed one incapable doctor who couldn't speak a word of English, no specialists, and crammed five geriatrics into each of the double rooms. Three each were stuffed into the single rooms. They emptied half the other facilities for the elderly within twenty miles around and claimed the hospital had its full complement of patients."

This was obviously a bone of contention and she hadn't finished, "Our emergencies still had to go thirty miles. A colleague of mine died from a stabbing on the way to A&E at Fornandham, fifty miles from here, because the nearest one at Destcaster was overfull."

We both snorted deprecatingly.

"But you've got all those surgical things here?"

"Yes, all the stores came in within the last twelve weeks. Don't tell me the government didn't know that there was something in the air. I saw a directive on the main administrator's desk telling him to prepare for an epidemic. The confidential circular was dated three months ago. I tell you. That was two months before anyone had a clue! The director refused to comply with it as they hadn't appointed any staff. It was all a bloody shambles!"

"So you've not had any deaths here in the hospital?"

"I didn't say that. Of course we have. Not one of the old folks survived. We're cleaning out and decontaminating Wing Two. We all do a mortuary duty to take the dead to the crematorium. And Dr Muller has supervised our cleansing of the town. We're trying to go through every building wearing bio-hazard suits and taking beds and bed linen and the like out to be incinerated. We are going to get this town running again. I was wondering if you were thinking of staying?" She made it a question.

"No way. I have an objective, my gramps's farm."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive. You know we'll need farmers. There will be no food imports for quite some time. The present stocks will soon run out. You'll be depending upon the land before long." As I said this I appreciated, for the first time, the truth of my assertion.

"I was only asking. One thing I must ask, how did you get in here?"

"I told you, by the canal."

"No, in here, in the stores."

"The door was open when I got here."

"I locked it at six o'clock last night."

"We arrived twenty minutes before you came in, the door was open."

"Oh, I know what time you arrived. What I'm saying is, lock it behind you."

"I can't, we don't have key."

"Well shut it the same way you opened it."

"It will be left on the latch, that's how I found it."

"There's something funny here and I don't know what it is but I'll see you at three o' clock. I bet Doc Muller insists on knowing how you got in."

"OK, three o'clock," I agreed.

"Mister?" The Goth was standing there as the policewomen left.

"Oh, I'll call you Sandra, you call me Abba." I used to hate that name but both of my friends, well, all three now, they all used it. It wasn't so bad. They didn't say it with a sneer in their voices.

"Er, Abba, will you teach me that trick you do?"

For second I was perplexed. I laughed, "What, in one afternoon? It took me ten years to learn to do that."

"But it's just..."

"If you'd been in front of me, on the other side of me, behind me, if you'd held your hands differently. If you'd been running, crouched, kicking at me, aggressive, any one of those things and that 'trick' as you call it would not have worked. I'd have needed a different take-down. As it was, I tried not to hurt you or cause a fuss."

"But will you teach me, Mister?"

"Sandra, I show you respect. You, I address you by name, you'll address me as Abba or Mr. Shaw." Strange, I didn't even mind suggesting she call me Abba.

"OK," she groused.

"And, Sandra, please act pleasantly."

She still groused under her breath.

Leaning on the side of the van, I was making a list of things. What did we need from M&S? Sarita appeared with a couple more items she had sorted out from the recesses of the stores. A couple!

The next load Sandra went in for, I heard a big slap and she started shouting. Rushing in, I saw the stupid girl, a big red mark over her face, was starting to attack Sarita. Very quickly, I assessed the situation and grabbed her.

Sarita quietly said, "I've had it up to there with racism. She called me a 'wog'."

I'd had enough of this girl. I twisted her around quickly, five times, spinning faster each time. Before she knew it, disorientated, she was falling down, her jeans around her ankles.

There was a chair and I plonked myself down on it and had her over my knee, holding her in place with one finger on a pressure point into a space against the bone of her scapula. I let her have it with three enormous smacks onto her knicker-clad bottom.

My hand stung.

"I'll get you for assault, sexual assault on a minor."

A month ago such claim would have had me quaking in my boots, expected to be labelled a sexual deviant with a court appearance, my reputation in tatters and be placed on a sexual offenders' register. I laughed so much my tummy rumbled and when it subsided, I quietly said, "You treat me with respect and that does not mean shouting like that. You deserved that walloping and you'll get another until you grow up."

She looked daggers at me.

After another three, my red hand was stinging, the girl was really crying.

This was the time to tell her what she had done wrong. "What did you call Sarita?"

"It was only 'wog' but she..."

"Smack!" My hand really stung.

I tried to speak in measured tones,"Sandra, the term wog was not a bad term in the past, it simply meant in the records of the Indian railway service that the employee was a manual Worker On Government Service, got it, 'Worker On Government Service. W.O.G.S really had a good job working on the railways but it was later used to refer to as any of the lowest form of unskilled worker. Now, it's a derogatory word for any coloured person not held in high regard." I bet she hadn't a clue what derogatory meant. "You will NOT call my girlfriend that!"

When I was young and had done wrong I was always told why and I told this little bitch why I was hitting her. I continued the explanation, "Later the expression was used by whites as a bad name for any lower class coloured person. To use that term now, is not just saying that a coloured person is beneath you but also that she is the lowest form of Indian.

"Perhaps if we called you a smelly prostitute and always thought of you like that, that would be a similarity. Lots of people think like that when they see Sarita and she lost her job because of the colour of her skin. That and the tension she's under, finally made her snap."

"People are always picking on me," Sandra whinged. "Why did you hit me and not her? She hit me."

Sarita crept back, I think to apologise. I have no idea of her motives but she snapped, "You're lucky you still have your briefs on. It hurts more on your bare bum." She knew but she didn't let on how she knew.

Things were getting a bit out of hand, there were people trying to speak at cross purposes.

Sandra looked up at Sarita, "He hit you! You should have left him there and then. My mum never did and..." Her voice petered away.

Angry at the girl, I was standing up for my girlfriend, "I won't have you upsetting my friend. Apologise, now." I dropped my hand one last time, hard, onto her bottom.

It had the effect of making the Goth recognise how defensive I had been towards Sarita, "I'm sorry, Hmphh!" she sniffed, "No-one stands up for me. You're lucky," she spat at Sarita. And she started crying, not because I had hurt her but for some other reason.

This had the effect of causing me to feel really bad. I was not handling this right at all. I pulled her to her feet and pulled her jeans up to her waist and placed my arms about her and made it obvious I regretted what I'd done. It had been wrong. "Lots of people here think a lot of you. You are amongst people who care for you."

I took a deep breath as I appeared to be getting through to her, "Just for a moment, think of a little girl a couple of years younger than you, has no friends because her mother died."

"My mother died."

"Sandra, listen to me." This girl made me exasperated. "The girl I'm talking about, her mum died, without any one around, she went to the police station. She arrived there to ask for help. There was no one called Jessica Rowland there. Instead, two men locked her in the back of a police car stripped her and raped her and were about to kill her as they said they'd done to others. She heard another victim arrive and she heard a shot and there was more killing."

I was pleased that I had her attention. "Yes you don't know how lucky you are with PC Rowland looking after you. Anyhow, as I was saying, she's so seriously injured; the results could kill her in time or at least leave her with infections within her body for ever. If she's left untreated she will probably never have children or even a sex life. Sarita has spent hours on that girl. The last few days Sarita's hardly been asleep. Here she is, thinking she's scared shit of operating inside a girl's undeveloped body and you give her a load of abuse."

"She shouldn't have hit me."

"I'm trying to tell you, she had other things to think about when you came in and thoughtlessly dropped your racist comments. Oh, did I tell you, she too, was almost raped?"

Slowly, Goth started to look guilty. She was beginning to come to her senses.

"Fuck it, Sandra. Have some sense. I'm surprised that P. C. Rowland even offers you any help if that's how you behave. The only reason I smacked your behind is because you are acting more childishly than the young girl we want to get back to. Now, you go to Sarita and apologise and bloody mean what you say."

Sarita, by this time, had beaten a hasty retreat, sourcing more equipment and had left me to sort out the problem. I hadn't finished with Sandra, "You dare leave here without apologising to my girlfriend and I'll take your knickers down and wallop you on your bare bum."

Sarita appeared at the doorway and was laughing quietly.

I'd made my point and was just getting through to the girl and Sarita was going to nullify all this. No way. I turned my irritation towards her, "And I'll not have you reacting again by smacking people's faces and leaving me to sort it out. That could easily have ended in a fishwives' scrap with hair-pulling, eye-gouging." I let my exasperation show, "If you react in that manner again, it'll be your knickers get pulled down and don't think I'm not capable of it."

Grumpy had forgotten her hurt, apart from rubbing both hands on her bum while not being conscious consciously aware of it. She grinned, "He wouldn't, would he? Really?"

Sarita grinned back, "Only when I deserve it. I've been rubbing my bum, just like you but in my case I never had any undies on to take away the sting." There was no need to say we were just teasing and I never hurt her at all, well, there was that one pinch.

The younger girl became aware of her actions, "It hurts. Did he hurt you?"

Sarita took a deep breath as if exasperated, "My bottom; I still think it's stinging sometimes, it wasn't a love tap like he gave you."

Sarita was not referring to the stupid horseplay when I pinched her and Kari. Then it came to me; in the tent, that bug! I really had walloped her very hard, very!

"Why do you stay with him? You don't have to now, even if you're married."

"Stay with him? There's lots of reasons: he looks after me. I feel safe with him, I love him. And I deserved more than a sore bottom. I tried to tell him what to do, tried to run his life. He'd finally had enough. It brought me to my senses. I'm glad because if I'd have gone on like that, he'd have left me."