He smiled. “Best offer I’ve had in years.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” I chided. “There’s still the blood pressure cuff to survive.”
“Any history of heart conditions?” Ted asked, inserting an IV in the crook of Joe’s arm.
“No,” Joe said. “But I have high blood pressure.” To me, he added, “On doctor’s orders, I keep a very active sex life.”
“Exercise does help with hypertension, I’m told,” I agreed, smiling.
“Do you take any medication for your hypertension?” Ted asked.
“Cilazapril,” Joe advised.
“Yes, an ACE inhibitor,” Ted agreed with a nod, watching the ECG screen. “Anything else?”
“No. Otherwise, I’m as fit as a fiddle,” Joe said on a crackling cough. “Can’t keep me down for long.” He winked at me.
I smiled. My eyes flicking to the disconcerting looking waveform on the defibrillator’s screen as I took his blood pressure.
“Any allergies?” my partner asked. Joe shook his head, his breath hitching. “Ever had atropine before?” Another head shake, his skin paling. “OK, here’s what we’re going to do, Joe.”
I watched as Joe, the geriatric gigolo, stiffened, his face turning ashen, and then he started to convulse.
Intravenous lines and saline flushes. Defib pads and 360 joules. Ampules of drugs and cracked ribs. The indignity and necessity of an intubation tube. His wife sitting in a chair to the side, her hands up to her cheeks; rocking.
“We’re going down South,” she said afterwards. “We were going down South. On the weekend. To see our new great-grandchild.”
“Is there anyone we can call for you?” I asked.
“They all live down in the Waikato. We used to live there too, but Joe loves — loved — the city. Said it kept him young.” A shaky sob.
“Perhaps a neighbour?” Joe’s wife nodded her head.
I met Ted’s eyes, and he nodded, face solemn.
“Number 16,” Mrs Joe said as I left the room.
Droplets of rain made diamond-like sparkles beneath the street lights. A soggy cat peered out from beneath a box hedge, its yellow eyes shining briefly red as the light caught them at just the right angle. The wet smell of Auckland City in the middle of the night met my lungs, and I inhaled deeply.
I could still smell the camphor and tea and desperation and dashed hopes.
I knocked on the glass door of number 16.
Best offer I’ve had in years.
To see our new great-grandchild.
Can’t keep me down for long.
“Hello?” a middle-aged woman said. The door had opened, and I hadn’t even noticed. “Is everything all right?” She glanced at her next door neighbour’s drive, taking in the ambulance. “Is it Norma and Joe? Are they OK?”
“My name’s Kylee,” I said, “Norma needs some support tonight. I’m sorry to tell you that Joe has died.”
It’s strange what you think of when people grieve. How their pain feels for a brief moment as if it is your own. How you wonder if you’d break down and cry, like the woman before me. Or straighten your shoulders and grit your teeth. Offer the bereaved whatever support they need in their hour of sorrow.
I’ve done enough crying for the strangers I’ve met. I’d like to think; I’d like to hope, if the time ever came that I had to grieve, I would have done my fair share already. I knew it was a futile hope. But there’s only so many tears a person can shed in one lifetime.
Or so I’d like to believe.
The ambulance was quiet as we drove back to station. It was early. The birds were singing; I could hear them through the closed window. The sun hadn’t crested the horizon or anything, but the promise of dawn was right there. The streets seemed brighter. The rain had even lessened somewhat. As if it too had shed enough tears for tonight.
“You’ll get the O2 bottle?” Ted asked. I nodded and slipped out of the passenger seat once the vehicle rolled to a stop in its allotted carpark. He wandered off to the office and the safe, to replenish his drugs. I hauled the bottle out of its slot and detached the delivery head, walking it toward the new oxygen bottles at the rear of the garage.
The soft sound of rain pattered down on the tin roof. A car horn blasted out on the street. Someone switched up the volume on a radio somewhere, and Sting started singing Don’t Stand So Close To Me.
Within minutes we had the truck restocked. My partner regaling the e-car team about some course he was about to go on for station managers. I stared at the O2 bottle as it sat innocuously in its cubby hole at the side of the ambulance.
No one asked.
No one offered a slap on the shoulder or even a momentary meeting of eyes.
Sting kept singing. The e-car got a callout.
And Joe would never get to meet his great-grandchild.
12
Get Out Of The House
“It’s been busy,” Sean said over the phone. “Three R4s and two R5s since midday. If this keeps up, I won’t be able to finish that chapter you gave me.”
“There’s time,” I offered.
“I told Derek I’ll stay late for him tomorrow. He’s got a thing he has to go to, and he can’t get a shift swap. You don’t mind, do you?”
“We were going to go look at a new car,” I reminded him.
“There’s time,” Sean said with a chuckle.
The station alarm sounded in the background.
“Shit,” he said, the line became scratchy as he no doubt pulled out his pager and fumbled with his phone. “Another fucking R4. It’s crazy, I tell you. Talk later?”
“OK.” He’d already disconnected.
I stared at nothing for a while and then switched on the PlayStation. Crash Bandicoot started up with familiar tones, soothing whatever had felt roughened inside.
I was walking back in the door with arms laden when Sean drove his Toyota Camry into the drive. I watched as he parked it behind my Honda Civic. He didn’t look up, too busy answering his cell phone. He laughed at something the caller said. Then nodded his head and reached toward the ignition in his car. His eyes shot up over the steering wheel and connected with mine.
The call ended with a few short words, and then he was out of the vehicle and walking toward me.
“Groceries?” he said, nodding at the bags in my arms. “Are there more in the car?”
“Yep,” I said and walked inside.
I was putting the cans of tomatoes away when he placed the last of the groceries on the bench. He walked over and kissed me on the side of my head and then said, “I’m taking a shower. I’m bushed.”
I didn’t see him again until eight that night.
“Good sleep?” I asked as I sipped my wine.
“Yeah. Feeling much better. What did you do today?”
“I test drove a car.”
“Which one.”
“The RAV4.”
“I thought we agreed on the CRV.”
“I like the RAV4.”
“Don’t be silly. It’s nowhere near as good as the CRV; you know that. I’ll go with you tomorrow, and we’ll test drive the CRV.”