The Real World: 1 August 2018
She awoke slowly… cautiously, taking long careful moments to orientate herself towards the challenges to come, settling her nerves for what would be a performance of a lifetime… of two lifetimes.
She kept her eyes closed, feigning sleep, but still she gathered information using her other senses.
Smell…
The Professor was close by: his cologne was unmistakable, almost overpowering. That was a comforting realisation: it was good to have a friend and ally in the room. But despite the competition of the Professor’s cologne she still detected the brush of Chanel No. 5 on her nose. This presumably signalled that the First Lady – her mother – was in the room; she was touched by her solicitude. And as a background fragrance there was that signature aroma of disinfectant and urine that was inescapably ‘hospital’.
Touch…
She could feel the stiff, clean bedsheets under her fingertips – my, how long her nails were! – could feel the press of the regimented arrangement of the blankets that confined her as she lay on the bed.
Taste…
Ughhh… yes, the taste of the plastic tube they had in her mouth, presumably there to ensure that she kept breathing, that she didn’t swallow her tongue. No one wanted her to die. That would be very embarrassing and the President would be very pissed off.
Hearing…
She could hear them whispering, so concerned, so considerate, so desperate not to disturb her. There was the President’s gruff, mahogany voice as he dealt brusquely with an aide who was reminding him of a ‘prior engagement’. The First Lady was sobbing quietly to her left. And providing a 70 bpm backbeat to the room’s whole bated cacophony was the beep, beep, beep of her heart monitor.
She took a surreptitious breath, preparing herself. She opened her eyes.
‘She’s awake!’
‘Oh, thank you God!’
‘Please, she’ll be very weak.’
‘Please don’t crowd around her. Please don’t overexcite her.’
‘Oh Norma, darling, it’s Mummy.’
She gave a weak smile, thankful that the plastic tube masked any element of theatricality.
‘Weak…’ she gasped in a ragged voice.
The doctor – white coat, stethoscope, worried expression, must be a doctor – pushed closer and lifted her wrist, presumably checking her pulse. ‘Probably a little anaemic, young lady, we’ll organise a blood transfusion if that’s okay by you.’
She couldn’t suppress a big smile: that would be very, very okay!