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‘I’ve felt better!’ She was near to tears,desperateto confide in someone, to pull her friend into the loo and spill the whole sorry tale. Only she couldn’t, so instead Annie took a deep breath and gave a nod. ‘Let’s do handover.’
‘Ivan Kolovsky, fifty-seven years of age...
Annie tried to concentrate as she heard about his long struggle with cancer, the secondaries in his brain, tried to convince herself she should be hearing this when Melanie spoke about the family, yet all the time she felt as if she were peeking through a keyhole, an intruder who really shouldn’t be there. ‘There’s loads of relatives.’ Melanie rolled her eyes. ‘I’ve given up trying to limit numbers. There’s more pacing outside, all chatting on mobile phones—I’ve given up telling them about the phones, too. Basically... ’ Melanie took a deep breath ‘... he’s in a lot of pain, it’s quite horrible to watch.’
‘So why hasn’t he had more morphine?’ Annie frowned, peering at his drug chart. ‘He’s written up for it PRN, there’s no reason for him to be in pain.’
‘He’s waiting for his son to get here from the UK— Levander. He was actually on his way anyway when all this happened, so the poor guy doesn’t know yet just how sick he is. Aleksi, one of the other sons, has gone to meet him from the airport. His plane should get in around eleven, so hopefully Ivan can hold on till then.’
‘He shouldn’t be in pain!’ Annie insisted.
‘He wants to talk to his son... ’ Melanie gave a helpless shrug. ‘He says there’s something he needs to say.’
‘How’s Iosef?’ She tried to say it normally, tried to voice the question as she would have if it were any other colleague this was happening to, but her voice strangled in the middle, though Melanie didn’t seem to notice.
‘Grim. There’s some serious stuff going down with that family for sure. Iosef is hardly talking to his mother—his father either, come to that. In fact, he’s spent more time outside with Aleksi than in here. He’s gone to lie down now in the on-call room. We’re to call him if there’s any change or when Levander’s plane lands.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Loads, probably,’ Melanie sighed. ‘But that should get you through— Oh, there’s a daughter, too—Annika. She’s going to go to bits when it happens, just so you know.
‘I’ll turn him with you before I go.’
‘Thanks.’
‘You’re OK with all this?’
‘Me?’ Annie tried a don’t-be-daft smile. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Really?’
‘Really.’
‘Only I haven’t seen you much these past few weeks and...’ Melanie stood up, gave Annie’s shoulder a bit more than a friendly squeeze. ‘Ring me if you need to.’
‘I will.’ Annie nodded. ‘I’ll try and give you a buzz when I wake up tomorrow.’
‘I meant tonight.’
Ivan’s family wereexceptionallydifficult. They just couldn’t fathom, despite Annie’s and Melanie’s patient explanations, why they had to move him when it was surely going to make his pain worse, why they had to wash and turn him when he was already suffering enough.
‘His skin’s so fragile at the moment, he’ll bemoresore if he’s left in one position. I know it seems cruel, but he honestly needs it—we’ve already stretched the time between turns as much as we can.’
Annie could see their point, though. Hearing him yelp and whimper in pain, no matter how gently they washed and turned him, brought a sting of tears to her eyes, but the pain of movement in this case was better than being left to lie still. Just because a body was ceasing to live, it still functioned.
‘Gede? ’Fading grey eyes held hers as over and over he used a word that was said with such desperation and pleading it didn’t need translating.
‘Soon, Ivan,’ Annie and his family repeated a hundred times over the next few hours. ‘Levander will be here soon.’ Eyes turning and looking at the clock, praying that Aleksi would ring with news that Levander’s plane had landed. And though on a humane note it was all Annie wanted for her patient, on a personal level, when at midnight the news came that Levander and his wife Millie had cleared customs with their new baby, Sashar, Annie closed her eyes as she knocked on the doctors’ on-call room, tried like she never had before to somehow be professional as she stepped in.
‘Your brother’s on his way—they should be here in half an hour or so.’
‘Has my father had any morphine yet?’
‘He’s still refusing—he says he needs to speak to Levander.’
‘I apologize for landing all this on you.’
She could hardly see him in the dark room, which helped, the pain behind his strong voice making her want to hold him. To be able to see that pain in his eyes too would be the last straw.
