Prologue - The Aftermath
Prologue - The Aftermath
Prologue - The Aftermath
Broadgreen Hospital Accident and Emergency casualty ward, Liverpool in the heatwave summer of 1976.
Arterial blood has sprayed onto the walls; the tannoy is breaking into a staccato and the student nurse, Linda, recalls a childhood wish for invisibility. Her clipboard is shaking. The coppery stink of fresh blood is invasive; rubber shoes squeak past her across the tiled floors as more useful nurses attend to agonised cries. She’s starting the second shift of her career, called in from off–duty.
This is the aftermath of a brutal gangland battle. Doctors and nurses dash between cubicles in a futile attempt to treat too many injuries. Her mentor left her unsupervised after the fifth ambulance arrived. Walking wounded patients assist lesser abled casualties and a wailing ambulance siren signals another arrival.
Linda searches cubicles dreading a familiar face, praying he is not among them. She stops, glances at the corridor to the Emergency Operating Theatre. Filtering the chaos, she senses rather than hears a heart monitor emit a slow, but regular, beat.
She passes young men, blood splattered, burnt, stabbed and clubbed, being dealt with in a triage. As Linda moves closer to the theatre her heartbeat intensifies.
She enters into the bright sterile lights of the operating room, to the source of the echoing rhythm. She sees tired, post-operative doctors washing their hands. One puts an unlit cigarette into her mouth. A gowned porter drains a mop into a blood soaked bucket.
A young man lies on the operating table. Intravenous drips are fed into him. AirWair boots are discarded on the floor nearby, laces cut open. The fresh bandages that cover his head and face only expose his eyes and lips. She turns slowly, heart racing as she glances at the whiteboard: Tommy Dwyer—Comatose.
Tears form, she whispers, “No, Tommy no…”
The doctor with the cigarette tells her, “Do not touch him. Get out.”
As if underwater, her hearing muffled, she walks slowly back to the emergency ward, taking off her name badge. She stops, seeing half a dozen uninjured young men enter and search the casualties.
Linda hears and focuses on one of them—Joey Finn. He’s waving his arms, shouting at a senior Nurse, over and over, “I want to see Tommy Dwyer. I just want to see Tommy Dwyer…”
Porters and nurses try to shoo them from the ward to the ambulance bay outside. Mechanically, Linda intervenes, but steps back as two burly officers enter to manhandle Joey and his group from the overworked staff.
The dreadful wailing sirens can be heard again. Linda watches through the window as Joey is dragged from the ward. She sees Tommy Dwyer’s mother and younger sister getting out of a police car. She puts her name badge back on and moves to meet them as they rush through the emergency ward doors. Tommy’s mother recoils, colour draining as she stares into the first cubicle bay at a one-armed teenager covered in blood.
Linda takes a deep breath and heads towards them. She speaks gently.
“Carol, come with me…”
“Linda… Where is he?” Tommy’s mother sobs. Linda takes Carol’s hand and leads her to a seat, away from the carnage.
“He’s coming out of theatre.”
“Theatre?”
“He’s… he’s in a coma.”
“Coma? I want to see him, I want to see my son!” Carol breaks down. The young girl, Patricia, takes her mother’s hand from Linda.
“You hurt my brother. I didn’t know you were a nurse. You’re supposed to make people better… How bad is he?”
Linda takes out a clean handkerchief and is about to pass it to Tommy’s mother, but changes her mind, and uses it to wipe the tears streaming down her cheeks.
“I’m sorry. He is, bad… I don’t know, I just don’t know.”
Joey runs back into the ward and rushes at Linda. He shouts, “It’s your fault Tommy’s in here—you fucking bitch!”
Back in the theatre operating room, under bright sterile lights, from somewhere in the shadows of his subconscious, the teenager’s thoughts drift to the events of the past two weeks.
His heartbeat booms like a water hammer…
