Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 ï>¿Say what you like about hospitals but the one thing they always are is
deeply boring.  Well, aside from A&E, perhaps, but I bet even the people
who work there find it tedious from time to time ...  and I wasn't in A&E,
I was in a sort of cubicle off a surgical ward, just ill enough - or at
least <i>immobile</i> enough - to need to stay a while longer ...  but not
actually at death's door.  They'd also stopped giving me significant
amounts of opiates, so there wasn't even that buzz to take the edge off
things.

   Also, of course, I was aware that things were progressing quite rapidly
in the world outside and.  as the powers that be around here didn't allow
mobiles and seemed to think that wi-fi was some sort of exotic bacterium, I
was pretty much incommunicado.  Or, as Debbie put it on one of her frequent
flying visits, hoist by my own petard - I had, as she pointed out, always
insisted that people who were off sick were <i>off</i> and thus shouldn't
be hassled with corporate affairs.  I did try pointing out that it was more
or less <i>my</i> corporation but the woman can be intransigent at times
and this, clearly, was one of them.

   To be fair, too, she appeared to be quite confident that things were in
hand - as far as anyone could tell, I mean - and anyway I knew that current
difficulties were much closer to her skills and experience than mine but
... it was still frustrating.  And, of course, very, very, boring.

   People came in when they could - Debbie quite frequently, always looking
uncomfortable around the medical technology, avoiding eye contact with the
staff, Naz dropped in before he and Seffi left for Bremen (to what end, I
wondered?) - and May, sensibly, arrived with a big bag of books.  Well, I
wasn't exactly comfortable, as yet, but I had regained the ability to keep
my eyes in focus so I could prop myself up and thereby avoid the final
ignominy of just lying there watching daytime bloody television.

   Thus, I was occupied in rereading <i>Tristram Shandy</i> - May's idea of
a good 'hospital book', apparently - when a nurse bustled into the cube. 
This was in itself unusual - as I was neither in imminent danger nor
suffering from advanced dementia I was pretty much ignored, most of the
time - but rather more surprising was the burden said nurse was, well,
burdened with.  Flowers.

   Quite a lot of flowers.  So many, in fact, that I immediately presumed
that she'd just brought them to the wrong place.  But, no, she addressed me
by name, fussed around for a while finding a vase, water - I thought nurses
didn't do that sort of stuff anymore?  - and finally got them arranged to
her satisfaction.  After which, she smiled - angelically, you'd have to say
- handed me the card that had come with the flowers and left without a
further word.

   Well, maybe there were people dying out there or maybe it was just the
end of her shift ...  Whatever, as I reached out to take the card from her
I realised that this small act of politeness had strained, if not the
wound, then at least my multifarious stitches and, in a brief burst of
agony ...  I dropped the bloody thing.

   So I waited a while, laying back on the bed while the stars gradually
faded from my eyes and then gradually, not too comfortably, manoeuvred
myself round to lean over the side of the bed and finally get hold of it.
Then I hoisted myself back more or less horizontal, caught my breath,
winced for a bit and finally got to pull open the envelope, check the
envelope.

   Bloody hell, I thought ...  bloody fucking hell.

   It - they - the flowers - were from Carla ....

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   Next morning a junior nerdy looking bloke came round - white coat and
everything, still looked like he was bunking off school - and told me I was
free to go.  Which I thought was an interesting turn of phrase - I hadn't
technically been detained, for one thing, wasn't actually all that free to
<i>move</i> even now, for another.

   Still, it was an opportunity to get back into the real world - and
rediscover my mobile and laptop, more to the point - so I gathered what
little stuff I had with me, got - painfully - dressed and finally found
myself on the Euston Road, sitting on the hospital steps and wondering what
to do next.  So I had a fag, of course, then I phoned ...  well, not Debbie
- I thought she'd be too busy, perhaps - but rather May.  Which is to say,
I thought about just calling a cab, then realised that getting up the
stairs to my flat on my own would be difficult.  So I called May, explained
the situation and agreed to allow her to come and pick me up.  While I was
waiting, fending off the local drunks and junkies, I checked up on my
accumulated messages and e-mail.

   It was interesting stuff.

   <center>* ** *** **** ***** **** *** ** *</center>

   Back in the flat, things were simply embarrassing.  I mean, I don't do
being supported up the stairs all that often; more to the point I don't
live my life in expectation of unexpected visitors if you can deal with the
oxymoron ...  or whatever it is.

   As it was, the place was reasonably clean, for a change - I mean, it was
dusty, a few dishes waiting in the sink, discarded copies of the Guardian
all over the place.  But it wasn't the pigsty I normally lived in ... 
probably because I'd imagined scenarios when I'd have come back here with
...  well, with Debbie.

   <i>However,</i> here I now was, with May, and frankly she was now, I
felt, a bit redundant: The stairs would have been a definite problem on my
own but now that I was at the top of them - home, in fact - I didn't really
need her anymore.  What I most wanted to do was lie down on the bed and
relax for a while, then get back on top of things by replying to a few
messages, making a few calls, confident that I had enough food around the
place not to be in danger of starving, that I was mobile enough to keep
things together biological function wise.  But rather than that, I found
myself acting as host, doing the polite stuff that comes with the role as
well as I could while lying prone across a sofa.

   And, of course, May was a charity chief exec who'd risen through the
ranks from her days as a hands on carer and, given that she'd taken the
afternoon off work, she was determined to <i>care</i> for someone
regardless of whether they - I - needed her to or not.  It was like an
exercise in nostalgia or something for her but, in any case, she didn't
seem any too keen to go home, or back to the office or whatever - rather
making herself 'useful' by cooking (which I could have done myself,
eventually) and even tidying the place up a bit, all while I was reduced to
just passively watching.

   In fact, she stayed late enough to help me to bed - which I didn't need
her to - and then settled herself down to sleep on the sofa.  I didn't
actually need nursing ...  and I <i>really</i> didn't need the company ...

   Whatever the pain I'd been experiencing, though, it was nice to be back
in my own bed, confident that I'd wake feeling a bit better, would
gradually get back in control.  I guess the meds they'd given me when I'd
left the ward must have helped but by the time I finally fell asleep I'd
forgotten all about May ...  and about the e-mails and the things I had to
do.

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   Next morning I accepted breakfast as graciously as possible but then
asserted myself enough to get some time alone on the web.  I tried phoning
Debbie, too, got her voice mail - left a message for her to call me, maybe
come round if she had the time - then contemplated phoning Seff or Naz, see
how they were getting on with the Germans.  I thought better of it, though,
and instead settled myself down to try and work out what all of Debbie's
various machinations might actually <i>mean</i>.  She'd certainly been in
contact with a lot of people, asking some unusual questions, moving,
generally, in mysterious ways.  And then there was the stuff that was
completely plain - simple news - but nonetheless inexplicable in context:
One, that Naz - or, more probably, Seff - appeared to be hot on the trail
of a couple of big new contracts ...  our first, really, which made it
slightly ironic that I'd only agreed to the trip to, well, yes, discuss the
code and potential for collaboration around that, but <i>mainly</i> to give
them both a break and maybe a nice holiday before the whole thing went tits
up.

   Which memory made the second bit of concrete information even harder to
reconcile with what I still thought of as reality: Our newest recruit,
Gareth The Legal Bloke as everyone seemed to call him, had resigned his
current employment and would be working full time for us from the Monday
morning - the morning of the Big Meeting, or at least the start of it.  I
wondered what the hell Debbie was playing at, knowing that she must have
been consulted before he'd do such a thing - and done it in style, given
the copy of his resignation note that I was reading: It was the sort of
resignation that was pretty much guaranteed to obviate any technicalities
like remaining notice period - I was fairly sure it would have earned him a
bin liner for his stuff and maybe five minutes to leave the building - but
it was also pretty much calculated to ensure that he never worked in
corporate legal services ever again.

   I hoped I wouldn't end up feeling guilty about that, tried to reassure
myself that Debbie wasn't the sort of person to play fast and loose with
someone else's future.  Which I was pretty sure she wasn't, normally, but
this whole pattern of intrigue and double and treble bluff which seemed to
characterise her actions since I'd been ill - maybe before?  - showed a
whole new side of the woman that I'd never previously suspected.  Then
again, I reminded myself, she <i>had</i> been quite a high flier in this
world and ...  well, it was her field, not mine, and all I could do was
trust her and hope.  Well, that and pull a few little surprises of my own.

   <center>* ** *** **** ***** **** *** ** *</center>

   Not that I had a lot of time to think about that sort of thing for the
moment, May having returned from her brief trip out with a bag of groceries
I didn't need and some 'cheerful' flowers that I didn't want.  Not that I
remonstrated directly - she was a friend, after all, and I'm not a complete
ingrate - and I did realise that she was trying to be helpful. 
Unfortunately, I'm a pretty private person and I have a pretty distinct
understanding of personal space and such like.  Also, I wasn't actually
feeling too bad - I mean, I wasn't about to go in for advanced gymnastics
any time soon but, providing I was careful, I could move around, get things
done, without more than the occasional moment of agony.  So I wasn't really
in the mood to be looked after, nor to have someone fluttering round the
flat.

   Well, perhaps I wasn't so good at appearing grateful, after all, as
about eleven she seemed to get the hint, I thought, and bustled off to do
whatever she normally did over a weekend.  At which point I felt I could
stop acting the invalid, so I got up off the sofa that May had pretty much
forced me into and started to get my own life in order.  Which,
specifically, involved shoving the clothes May had left behind into the
washing machine, making myself some properly strong coffee and finally
firing up the network to get down to some work.  Oh, and rummaging around
for a while to find the stuff that my esteemed guest had tidied away and
restore it to it former apparent disorganisation.  Like a lot of
chronically messy people I <i>do</i> have a filing system - its just not an
obvious one.

   While I was thus gainfully employed I noticed two things: First, it was
bloody hot - which meant that May must have risked turning on the heating -
and that someone was ringing the doorbell.  Neither observation made me
completely ecstatic - the heating's so fucked that it can take hours to
reset and ...  well, I really <i>did</i> have stuff to do.  However,
English politeness and all that: I cooled myself down by the simple
expedient of ditching the sweatshirt I'd been wearing, then buzzed in my
visitor.  The intercom system had failed years ago and I wasn't up to
hauling myself down the stairs to find out who it was but - hey - for once
I didn't owe anyone large amounts of money and, trust me, I can always deal
with religious nutters and their ilk.

   What I got was neither god nor a bailiff.  It was Niusha.  Beaming a
really <i>beamy</i> smile and carrying another big bunch of flowers.

   "Hi,", she said cheerfully, "May said you could do with some company so
I thought I'd drop by." She paused as I kept my expression carefully blank,
then continued, "Its pretty warm in here, you know ...  are you feeling
OK?"

   I asserted that I was, taking the flora from her and half heartedly
looking around for something to put them in - May's contribution had
already filled my single actual vase - while she made herself at home.  Or,
at least, made herself some coffee, which amounted to pretty much the same
thing.  She also started pulling groceries from her shoulder bag, adding
them to the pile that May had produced earlier.  I wondered vaguely if
people thought I normally lived on takeaways or something, expected me to
starve if left on my own for a day or two.  I also - anything to please -
remembered a big glass flask I used to use for etching largish PCBs,
thought it would make an OK flowerpot and wandered through to retrieve it
from its storage space atop the shelving in the bedroom.

   This turned out to be a mistake - the shelves being more of a shelf than
I'd thought and the flask a lot heavier than I'd remembered.  Whatever,
somewhere in the process of getting the thing down something, well,
<i>went</i> - which is to say, everything went sort of bright and really
vivid for a moment and then I found myself on the floor - flask,
ridiculously, still in hand - doubled up and in a <i>lot</i> of pain.  I
think I might have moaned, a bit, maybe even, perhaps, given vent to some
of my more colourful vocabulary.  In any event, it got Niusha's attention
and she was soon through from the kitchen looking scared and beginning to
fuss over me.

   I did eventually convince her that an ambulance was not required but
consented to her helping me over to the bed and getting me into it, sans
shoes, jeans etc.  And there I lay in some discomfort while Niusha too got
into the caring thing - definite smells of spices emerging from the
kitchen, general sounds of cooking, frequent appearances with various
offers of assistance / sustenance / succor and such like.  Time passed. 
Cooking got done.  I began to feel quite a lot better - pain down to a dull
throb, really, no blood visible on the sheets - and wasn't too displeased
when N returned with a very pleasant meal.

   In fact, I was thoroughly enjoying the food, explaining the
idiosyncrasies - OK, the terminal failings - of the heating system to a now
more than partially disrobed Niusha, sitting beside me on the bed as we
ate, the flowers she'd brought now carefully arranged on the bedside table,
when the doorbell didn't ring.

   Instead, a key turned in the lock and yet another visitor came into the
flat, this one making her way round May's clothes drying in the main room,
finally finding her way through to the bedroom, taking in the sight of
Niusha and I on the bed, both half naked and ...

   It was Debbie.  And she did <i>not</i> look pleased ...

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