AH, THERE YOU ARE, MRS. HICKSON,” THE YOUNG NURSE SAID. Paula had half run into the reception area of the hospital, followed a little way behind by Lois and Josie once more holding Frankie. He began to laugh as he was joggled up and down by Josie as they made for the entrance, and Josie kissed him and held him tight.
As Paula approached, she suddenly saw a bandaged figure stand up from a chair behind the nurse. “Paula,” he said, and held out his hand.
“Jack! Are you all right? What on earth happened? Where is our Jack and is he all right?” And then she burst into tears, as her wounded husband did his best to put an arm round her.
“Would you come with me, please?” the young nurse said. “Perhaps you would like to wait here?” she said to Lois and Josie. “Whose baby is it?”
“Mine,” said Paula, holding out her arms to Frankie.
“Ours,” Jack answered, and kissed him lightly. “I’m his father. Let’s go, please.”
Frankie began to bellow as this strange man touched him, prohibiting further conversation until they met a senior nurse waiting at the entrance to the children’s ward. “Into my office, please,” she said kindly. “Do sit down,” she added. “We need to have a talk before we go to see young Jack.”
“Oh, my God,” said Paula, in tears again, “is he all right?”
“Of course he’s all right, Mrs. Hickson,” the nurse said, raising her eyebrows. “Very much so, if you don’t mind my saying so. We’re having difficulty keeping him quiet. Now, you must understand that he was quite seriously bruised and concussed in the accident. I can’t think how the organisers got away with racing those dreadful soap boxes. No safety belts, apparently! And then we have to pick up the pieces…”
“Funny way of putting it, nurse,” Jack Sr. said. “Just how much treatment does our son need? And when can he come home?”
The nurse explained that the bruises would go away in time, although the boy would be sore in quite a lot of places, mainly where Rebellion had slammed into his chest as he hit the crowd. He had been thrown back, and hit his head on the raised seat frame behind him.
“Was anyone else hurt?” Paula said. “I wasn’t down at the finish. I couldn’t bear to look in case he came in last. By the time I got down there it had happened. But people said there were three stretchers put in the ambulance?”
The nurse paused and looked at Jack. “Well, obviously your husband was badly cut and bruised. I believe there was a knife.”
“Who had a knife, Jack?” Paula said urgently. “What the hell was somebody doing with a knife?”
Jack shook his head. “Don’t know,” he said. “It all happened so quickly. I didn’t see. Just felt the sharp pain in my arm and hand.” He looked away from her, thinking that it hadn’t taken long for him to break his resolution to tell her only the truth from now on. But now was not the time for long explanations. They needed to see Jack, and get him home as soon as possible.
When young Jack saw his mother and little Frankie, and then his father, being led down the ward by the nurse, he stopped shouting and trying to climb out of the bed with raised sides where he’d been put for his own safety. He stared from one to another, and then back to his father.
Frankie began to struggle when he saw his big brother, and Paula smiled unsteadily. “What you been getting up to now, then?” she said. “And here’s your dad come to see you. You nearly killed him from the look of him.”
“Hi, Dad,” Jack said. “I wasn’t aiming at you, y’ know,” he added in a strangled voice.
“Yeah, I know, lad. An’ I’m not that badly hurt. Women always exaggerate,” he added.
“Too right,” said the boy, and nodded wisely. “I suppose the old battle-axe won?”
“’ Fraid so. But you were not the loser, son, not by a long chalk.”
BY THE TIME PAULA AND JACK SR. EMERGED BACK INTO THE reception area, Lois and Josie were desperate for news. When they heard that Jack would be fine, they relaxed.
“This is his father, Mrs. M,” Paula said.
“We’ve met,” said Lois caustically. “In the rain,” she added, and stopped there. There was little point in going over old dramas. God knows what will happen to him, she thought. But it looks as though there’s been a get-together here, for the moment at least.
“I’m Mum’s daughter,” Josie said, feeling left out. “Shall I take Frankie for you, Paula? I just love giving him a cuddle, and he seems to like me.”
“Could I have a quiet word, Mr. Hickson?” Lois said, as the others went across to the café for drinks.
“You want to know about the other bloke, I suppose,” he said, a spasm of pain crossing his face.
“I know a bit already. If you could just tell me if it was your workmate at Parks and Gardens? The one you had a fight with?”
Jack nodded. “It was him,” he said. “I think he had been following me, and right at the last minute he appeared from nowhere. I knew at once it was him.” He said nothing about his own long and fruitless attempt to find Ross. “He said something,” he continued, “but I couldn’t hear because of the cheering. Then I saw the knife and tried to get away, but I was hemmed in by the crowd. It was then that young Jack’s soap box came straight towards us. The knife caught my arm as the fool went down.”
“And?”
“He was killed instantly,” Jack said slowly. “Hit his head on a stone bollard on the pavement. The knife fell to the ground, and a cop picked it up.”
“What are you two talking so seriously about?” Josie said, as they returned with a tray of coffees. “We should be celebrating that things weren’t any worse!”
Lois said nothing, and nor did Jack Sr. Frankie amused them all with his attempts at drinking apple juice through a straw, and the third stretcher was not mentioned again.