Page 25 of Has Anyone Seen My Sex Life?
I pull a fish face. ‘Well, maybe you’re the reason I drink…’
Danny stares at me. Not now, not like this. You know who this is; she’ll just go home and tell her husband over a brew about our marital woes, the man who is supposed to be educating our kids. Don’t be a daft drunken mare.
‘I just need a strong cup of Yorkshire Tea and I’ll be right as fooking rain…’ I say in my best Northern accent, oblivious to the fact I’m probably insulting most of the occupants of the waiting room. Jo shines a torch in my eyes and places her hands up and down my leg. I flinch when she gets to my engorged ankle.
‘How did you fall? Like on to the dresser, or through it? Did it fall on you?’
‘All of the above, really.’
Her eyes shift between myself and Danny. Her gloved hand goes to my ankle and she tries to circle it around the joint.
‘OooooooOOOOOOOwwwwww!’
Danny rolls his eyes at me as I make the noise.
‘I’m sorry, lovely. Have you tried walking on it?’
‘She tried but collapsed on bed. Then again, could be because she’s half-cut.’
Her glance turns to Danny and his complete lack of sympathy.
‘It’s OK. I’m an idiot, I know…’ I say.
Tears start to flow, rolling down my nose without ebb. Stu looks on in the way someone might do in a horror film. Jo realises the entire waiting area is now eavesdropping and starts to push me towards the cubicles. Danny and Stu follow, keeping a suitable distance so they don’t have to associate themselves with me. My head knocks back in the wheelchair and I follow the strip lights to a corner of the emergency ward. I stand up next to a bed then sit down again almost immediately. Danny tries to put an arm around me and I shrug it off.
‘Slowly now… hop on. Now lads, I’m just going to examine her with the curtain closed. If you could step aside…’
They vacate the cubicle and she draws the curtain. I’m still crying. Mostly because my leg hurts like it might fall off but everything is coming to the surface: the emotion, the alcohol, the knowledge that to the occupants of the waiting area, I will be a story they recount to their friends and family. Embarrassment has a new name and she’s at Westmorland General in her husband’s dressing gown.
‘Now, tell me lovely. That’s quite a fall from height. Did you hit any other part of you? Your head?’
‘No.’ I look down and try to arrange myself on the hospital bed.
‘There’s some bruising on your buttocks…’
There are two of her in front of me. I try and re-focus.
‘I got that by falling off the bath while I was trying to shave my muff…’
‘OK.’
We wait for a moment to let that revelation sink in.
‘There was some tension there before though. You two in the waiting room. I mean, I don’t want to assume but this is a safe space. Did Danny hurt you?’
The tears flow and she comes over to hold me in half an embrace. I don’t even know this woman. All I know is that her husband has great teeth.
‘No, no, no, no… not like that…’
The pulse in my leg is now in my head, travelling through my whole body and flicking at my heart.
‘We were having sex. He couldn’t support my weight and the dresser fell on me. I think. It was a bit of a blur of flesh and bits and the floor.’
‘Oh… but you’re…’
‘Crying… because I thought if we had sex like we did when we were younger then he’d remember…’
‘Remember?’
