‘I don’t know how long I’ll be,’ I said tentatively.
‘Take as long as you like.’ Jeremy squeezed my arm. ‘You know where the car’s parked, and I’m not going anywhere.’
It soon became clear that Jeremy might be waiting a very long time. Dad had been whisked off for more scans, and Mum and I sat tensely waiting in the relatives’ room, drinking disgusting-tasting coffee from paper cups and alternating talking about what had happened with bouts of anxious silence. Eventually a doctor came to see us; his serious expression and the tone of his voice as he introduced himself did not bode well.
Apparently they had discovered Dad had something called a subdural haematoma – a clot between the brain and skull – and they were going to perform an emergency operation to relieve the pressure.
‘There’s no point you staying, Sally,’ Mum said, doing her best to sound calm and in control. ‘You can’t keep Jeremy waiting half the night, and in any case you’ve got to get home to look after things on the farm in the morning.’
She was right on both counts, of course, but I really didn’t want to leave her here alone, and I wanted to stay at least until Dad came out of surgery. I was wishing fervently now that I’d driven myself to the hospital – at least that way I’d have had freedom and flexibility. As things were, the best option, as I could see it, was to tell Jeremy to go home, and I’d get a taxi when I knew that Dad had come through his operation safely.
Leaving Mum in the relatives’ room, I made my way out to the car park. Jeremy was sitting in the BMW just as he’d said he would be, and I could hear Classic FM playing softly on the radio. He’d reclined the seat and his eyes were closed; I thought at first that he might be asleep. But when I tapped tentatively on the window, he sat up immediately and opened the door.
‘What’s happening? How is he?’
I explained about the operation, and that it would be a couple of hours at the very least before I was able to leave the hospital, and suggested it would be best if he didn’t wait for me any longer, but Jeremy would have none of it.
‘I’ll wait, Sally. The last thing you’re going to want to be doing is trying to get a taxi in the middle of the night.’
‘It should be easy enough here,’ I argued. ‘We’re not out in the sticks now.’ But Jeremy, bless him, was insistent.
‘I’m not going to abandon you, Sally, so you might as well give up trying to make me. I will stretch my legs, though, and I could use a cup of coffee.’
‘It’s pretty rubbish,’ I said, ‘but it’s better than nothing.’
‘Tell you what,’ Jeremy suggested. ‘I’ll go for a drive around and find a Pizza Hut or a McDonalds. I can get a takeaway and bring it back here. I don’t suppose you or your mum have had anything to eat since lunchtime.’
‘We haven’t, but I’m not at all sure I could eat anything . . .’
‘You can at least try,’ Jeremy said. ‘You go back to your mum, and I’ll come and find you when I’ve done my late-night shop.’
And so it was back to the relatives’ room, back to the endless anxious waiting, albeit this time with Jeremy and the pizza he brought back with him, which Mum didn’t touch and I could only nibble at.
It was the wee small hours before the doctor came to tell us that Dad was out of theatre. The operation to remove the clot had gone according to plan, but the doctor was still cautious about giving us a positive prognosis. Dad was still in a critical condition and it was too early to know if any lasting damage had been done. We were allowed to go and see him, but it was dreadfully upsetting to see him lying there, unresponsive and on a ventilator, and the thought that he might remain in this state for days, weeks, months, even perhaps forever, made me feel sick. My lovely dad, my rock, reduced to this! I wanted to kill the motorcyclist who had been the cause of it with my bare hands.
Mum was insistent I should go home now.
‘There’s nothing you can do, Sally. There’s nothing any of us can do but wait. I’ll stay here, of course, but you need to be around on the farm to keep an eye on things. It’s what your dad would want. You can always come back tomorrow when you’ve got everything sorted out.’
I didn’t tell her I was very worried about getting the help we would need in the weeks ahead; tomorrow morning was covered, and that would have to suffice for now. But I did say as much to Jeremy when we were driving home through the pitch black of a wet February night, and I could hardly believe it when he offered his help in that direction too.