Tomas stayed at the hospital. I went to the pub. There are always plenty of pubs near hospitals. I can understand it. Apart from the staff, who always want booze, visiting people is a stressful experience. I could have done with a spliff but I felt I needed to be around in case anything happened.
The place was a nice, old-fashioned, dirty pub, grimy windows, slashed plastic seats fixed with tape, tables with fag burns on them. Staff who weren't students. I was on my third pint when the news came on the TV. In the second week of the Seven Sisters Siege – alliteration, we couldn't have picked a better place – things reach crisis point when police are fired upon. A warning shot was returned. No injuries. Not much detail, they're not going to admit that their tank fucked up and shot their own armour, are they? They're not going to say anything about firing a fucking cannon at us, are they? I realise that I'm muttering again and shut myself up.
“Bunch of fucking wankers,” the guy next to me says, and I'm not sure exactly who he's talking about. “Shoot the whole fucking lot of the cunts.” It becomes clearer. His mate nods. Suited, I assume they're on a liquid lunch from one of the banks around here. The barman rolls his eyes but says nothing. I catch his eye and order another pint.
“Load of bollocks, I bet, all that 'they got shot at' shite,” I say as he's pouring me my fourth Stella. “I bet they just made that up so they could have an excuse to shoot themselves. It's not like they're letting the media in, is it? Anything could be happening over there, we wouldn't know.”
“Yeah,” he says. “We had a few coppers in here the other day. Decent enough blokes but they were talking about how they were keeping the BBC out and that. What have they got to hide, eh? Five pound eighty.”
“Ta. The whole thing's shite if you ask me.” The pair next to me are clearly listening, but they're not saying anything. I have a sudden feeling that I may be drinking too fast, that's one every fifteen minutes now, but, well, I've been through a lot right? I'm starting to get annoyed at their very presence. Fat useless Mail-reading wankers in suits. Self-righteous cunts. What have they ever done for the fucking community? Gad is worth a fucking million of them. What do they know about what's actually going on? Just happy to watch the TV and suck in whatever's on there. Cunts. Stella always makes me angry. I think they can smell it. They're looking at me, though they're not going to meet my eye.
“Do you want a plaster for that?”
“Sorry mate?”
The barman is looking at my face. “Your cheek there. Do you want a plaster for that? We've got some dressings and stuff back here, we get them from the nurses.” I touch my cheek. It feels rough, crackly, there's something on it. If I touch a certain part... doesn't quite hurt, but it's sensitive.
“Uh... yeah, thanks. Um. My mate was in an accident, I must have cut myself or something, I didn't realise.”
The barman nods. “Don't worry, I've seen it before. You get the adrenaline going, you don't notice things like that. Your mate okay?”
“She's... well, her arm's all fucked up. She was fixing a car, something slipped, it landed on her shoulder. The door. The door was open, it hit her on the shoulder. I don't know what's happened really, they're doing the X-ray now.”
The barman shakes his head and hands me a roll of sticking plaster and some scissors. “Pop into the loo and clean yourself up. I'll mind your pint.”
In the gents I realise that I've got a huge fucking cut about three inches long on my cheek. It looks like I've been slashed with a knife. There's dried blood all over my face. Now I come to think of it, the staff at the hospital did ask if they should take a look at me, but I told them no, I was fine. Christ knows what did that. Must have been all sorts of shrapnel coming off that fridge.
I finish that pint and have another one. At this stage I'm a bit pissed and quite hungry too. One thing about being away from the siege is that I can get proper food now. No more fucking beans. I'm not sure of the last time I had a kebab in the daylight, but I fancy one now.
All I can find in the end is a chip shop. I get two battered sausages and chips, soak the paper through with vinegar, and sit on a bench in one of the micro-parks that dot the city, dog turds like landmines in the long grass. Now I feel a bit ill, to be honest, and I'm still wound up.
I'm looking in my pockets to see if I have any fags left when the sun goes behind the clouds and stays there. The weather is timing itself well to coincide with the afternoon drinking comedown. I suppose I'd better get back to the hospital to see what's happening.
Tomas was still in the waiting room when I found him. I saw him sitting on one of the plastic seats reading the Sun – he was flipping back and forward through the pages, faster and faster. It was a race between him throwing it away and tearing the pages. Eventually he tossed it onto the seat next to him with a slap that made the kid next to him turn away from his Gameboy for an instant. I went to the machine and got two Cokes, went back, sat down next to him, handed him one.
“All right mate?” He nodded. I looked at him; he didn't seem to have been cut, but there was a big dirty rip in his jeans. It seemed like everyone was talking except everyone we could see. There was a low buzz of conversation and movement, but everyone in the room seemed to be reading magazines, or sending text messages, or watching the big TV in the corner of the room playing healthcare infomercials.
“Look at that shit.” I waved at the screen. “Exercise is good for you. Wow. Not very fit? Try getting off your fat arse once a fucking week. Is anyone who doesn't know that going to pay attention now?” Tomas shrugged vaguely and began fiddling with the end of one of his dreads. A small child running down the corridor outside tripped over and his face began to screw up. The other two with him looked around blankly, not knowing what to do. A nurse came by, picked him up and put him back on his feet, shooed the three of them into the waiting room and hurried off. They stood by the door, looking around at people who weren't looking back.
I should have stayed in the pub.
I took a swig of Coke and watched the children walk tentatively around the room like astronauts who'd landed in the middle of an unimaginable alien ritual, one where the participants were far too involved in the vital business of coughing, or the picking of the nose, or the reading of Heat, to be distracted by visitors from another planet.
“How long did they say we'd have to wait?” I asked after a while.
“They took her to X-ray about half an hour ago. They said they were pretty backed up.” I sighed.