SUNDAY IN MEMORY LANE (Episode 17)

Hospitals and close shaves

Glandular fever is the most stubborn of illnesses. It took two full months to settle down and for most of that time I was almost comatose. Tony decided that I was not caring for Dylan properly. He was not getting his regular walks. Suddenly Dylan disappeared and I anxiously asked Tony if he had seen him. Tony said that his brother, Peter, who had recently taken over managing the garage where he had worked for several years, had asked to have Dylan to guard his business. I was stunned. Dylan was not a guarding breed! He was a sheep dog and Dan was his best friend. I objected and Tony said it was just temporary until Pete could make other arrangements. Dan cried about it but Tony wasn’t listening to us.

At that time all I saw when I looked at Tony was the devil in disguise.

Tony suffered Elaine's presence in his house with glowering hatred. She was not the kind of woman who would suffer his orders and I remember giggling when he ordered her to turn the television over to another channel and she told him to get off his lazy arse and do it himself.
"Fucking Lord almighty!" she had slung at him as she was leaving for the evening.
"I don't know what you see in him, Fran. For the life of me! He is a total bastard!" She kissed me goodbye and Tony pulled a face at her back as she left the room. I was not able to explain to Elaine the scheme that the boys had me involved in.
I was sworn to secrecy.

Just as I started to recover from glandular fever my jaws started to ache terribly. It felt as if my teeth were being crushed together from the sides and the pain became excruciating. Reluctantly, I went to the dentist and the x-rays he took proved that my four wisdom teeth were all growing along my jaws rather than attempting to occupy the spaces at the back where they should have been.
Within days I was in Colchester Hospital and about to undergo a full anaesthetic in preparation for the operation to remove all four of them at once. Tony was away offshore throughout the dental calamity and I wrote to him about it in my letter that week. Elaine cared for Dan and my house.
The anaesthetist examined my throat and remarked that I had a corrugated larynx. He asked me if I had the sniffles at all. I explained that I thought my larynx may have been damaged during a traumatic injury and he agreed that it was very likely. I did not divulge the details of the rape I had undergone during the summer, I did not feel the necessity. Not talking about it helped me to bury the memory, a bit at least.

When I got home from the hospital after only a twenty four hour stay Dan greeted me as if I had been gone for months! My face was severely swollen and bruised. My mouth was virtually unusable for anything at all. Dan was horrified but was very pleased to see me because he hated Elaine's cooking.
"She cooks things out of packets" he said, pulling an ugly face. Elaine remarked that he was the fussiest eater on the planet and I was surprised to hear this. He had never refused anything that I had ever given him.

Jai visited during a wet afternoon that had rained him off his roofing job. He caused me a great deal of pain. He would not stop making me laugh. He had insisted upon cooking my evening meal that night and I pointed out that it had to be sucked from a wide rubbery straw that the hospital had given me. He made very soft cheesy mashed potatoes and a thick banana milkshake. I must admit to being bowled over by his culinary skills and even Dan, the food fusspot, was impressed.
Jai insisted upon looking after me that night. "The well stuffed gerbil faced woman" he called me and I clutched my face in agony as I roared with laughter at his description of me.

My poor face went through every colour of the rainbow on it's way to recovery. I had been bruised by the clamps from my ears to my lips on both sides. When the swelling and colours finally faded Tony returned from the oil rig, as drunk as usual and twice as grumpy. He didn't even ask about my operation.

Elaine swore that she would never occupy the same space as Tony ever again.
She told him that she was only in his house because I had been so poorly.
"Not that you ever noticed!" she spat out at him.

I was finally on the mend after months of illness.
Going out of the house was becoming my sole ambition.
I dragged out my sewing machine and set about creating a dress design that had been occupying my fantasies. I didn't fantasise about sex like normal people. I fantasised about beautiful dresses, make up ideas and hairstyles. I was fast approaching twenty-five years of age and I wanted to look really glamorous on my first night out that winter. I had looked so awful for so long that I had draped a shawl over the mirror in my bedroom.

I made a white silky dress with two inch wide red ribbons sewn into the waistband and flowing loosely down to the hem which terminated about midway down my calf. The skirt was very full, almost circular and hung in gentle folds. The bodice was cowl necked and machine embroidered around the edges in red silk thread. The design had long sleeves which ended in a point over my hands, also edged in red silk embroidery.
It did not take me more than a couple of days to put together and I was really looking forward to wearing it.

Elaine and I were planning to go to one of our many musician friends' gigs in a local huge pub called The Osborne and it was absolutely packed with people when we arrived.

I met up with Jai at the bar and he introduced me to Phil Friel, a newly arrived friend from Glasgow. Phil was a completely wild and humorous young character who had us rolling with laughter in no time.

An old enemy of the boys, Peter Buglioni, appeared at the gig with a few older strangers that none of us knew. They were well dressed and judging by their demeanour and accents, they were from North London. Jai observed that they were staring at me and took me away from the bar to an alcove out of sight of the men. Elaine and I got up to dance and it turned into a great night out after so long being out of sorts, it was just what I needed.

As we were leaving the Osborne, the old enemy suddenly lunged out of nowhere, accosted Jai from behind, grabbed him by the hair and slashed his face with a cut-throat razor which flashed before my eyes so quickly that I jumped out of the way with fright. Phil, who was much younger than us, bravely dived on the brute and was slashed in the neck for his trouble. A mad crush of people surrounded us and Peter Buglioni disappeared beyond it.

Thanking the heavens above, I spotted a taxi with it's roof light ignited. I ran in front of it, as it turned into the street, hailing it frantically and it pulled over instantly. Phil and I piled Jai into the taxi and yelled at the taxi-driver to get us to the local hospital as fast as he could.
I was holding Jai's face together but it was cut through the entire cheek from the corner of his mouth across to his ear on the right hand side of his face.
Everything was getting soaked with blood, Jai's and Phil's shirts were turning red before my eyes. My new white dress was beginning to match the red ribbons and embroidery. As we arrived at the hospital, Jai fell unconscious but somehow Phil's cut had not been so deep or dangerous and could be stitched immediately.

I was ordered to go home by the staff as they hurried past me with Jai on a stretcher.
I stood stricken with fear. I watched him disappear through some swinging doors. So I raced home, stripped, bathed and put the dress in a bucket of cold water to soak.
I ran all the way back to the hospital and begged to be allowed to sit by Jai in the recovery room. The nurse told me that he had died twice during the operation and was terribly weak. "He may not wake up for a while." She warned me. They had all sorts of monitors and drips set up but I was able to get close enough to reach him and hold his hand. His eyes flicked open within about an hour.
"Fucking hell, Fran!" He managed to mutter, "Go home, you have been here all bloody night!" I laughed with relief that he was fully himself again.
"I have been home!" I told him. "Look I have changed my clothes." He looked very confused and swore that I was a lying toe rag because I had been holding his hand all night. He swore that I had not let go of him throughout. He had been in that operating theatre for at least an hour, maybe more. But he was adamant. I had been in there with him the whole time.

Tony got home from the rig a few days later and sobered up in an instant when I told him what had happened to Jai. He and Alan, Peter and Phil went out, scouring the town, day and night that weekend. They were searching for the old enemy who had slashed Jai and Phil. Tony and Pete eventually found him, at closing time on the Sunday night, coming out of the Palace nightclub.
Tony battered the man to within an inch of his life and when he was knocked out cold on the pavement, Tony found a loose paving slab nearby. He lifted it over his head and was intending to smash the guy's head to pulp with it.
Peter, much smaller than Tony, had the good sense to leap up Tony’s back and grab the paving slab. He told me later that he put his feet on Tony's backside and it took all his strength to lean backwards and keep a firm hold on that slab of concrete.
He had prevented his brother from committing murder.

The staff in the Palace had called the police so Tony and Peter had raced into the dark of the promenade gardens, as soon as they heard the sirens coming close. Jai's slasher was battered and bleeding, unconscious on the pavement when he was taken into custody for his own protection.

Tony came home and his knuckles were swollen and grazed.
He had not slept in days and, after suffering me cleaning his wounds, he crashed out in the bedroom while the boys held yet another post mortem in the kitchen. I fed them, I made lots of coffee and I skinned up. There was little else I could do to help them. They were beyond enraged, all of them. It hurt me to see them like that.

As soon as Jai got out of hospital he shaved his head bald. He blamed his beautiful long curly hair for making him vulnerable to attack. He never grew his hair again. He started drinking too much and maybe he was taking a lot of painkillers, because when he got drunk, he would talk about seeing white horses galloping away from him, he would fall asleep standing up and sway around. He became a complete nightmare to care for - but I did it anyway and for quite some time.