Mr Lambert's Dream

THE FIRST DAY

On the day his Christmas began, nothing very unusual occurred. Late afternoon, there was a death, but that wasn’t enough to nudge him out of cruise control. Everything was normal. He looked up from the tiny folds of white flesh above the dead woman’s eyes and stepped back from her body.

‘Are we all agreed?’

Heads nodded in silent assent, so Paul began to remove his light blue surgical scrubs, his voice solemn and calm with a natural authority which never deserted him whenever these moments arose.

‘Time of death: sixteen fifty-four, thank you everyone.’

He’d been at the operating table for almost two hours and now he needed to stretch his arms and swivel his hips to loosen up the muscles in his lower back.

Paul supposed there was never a good time to die but, at least, there was no ambiguity when the final moment arrived. Death was final and indisputable; whereas birth was full of incredible mystery, and he’d been thinking about birth a great deal of late. He wished he could remember his own birth: those seconds when he first drew breath over sixty years ago. That would be something really special.

If he could have remembered his own birth, he would have been able to recall a nurse quickly scooping him up in her arms, washing his tiny body, weighing him, slapping his bottom to make him cry, before placing him into the eager arms of his mother. He would be able to describe that nurse; her kind eyes, her plump little hands. He would be able to recall the shock of the slap and blinding light outside his mother’s womb. But, he would never know what that felt like, it was impossible to travel so far back in one’s memory. His mother once told him, a long time ago, that he didn’t bawl again until he was almost three, when the family moved from their single storey prefab bungalow to a three bedroomed semi. Unused to stairs, he toppled down them but was uninjured.

He could just about remember those old family photograph albums his parents kept in the cupboard under the stairs in the old house. Sometimes, he wished he’d kept them. He’d been a bonny kid and good-looking teenager, to the delight of his parents and the disquiet of the envious. Over the years, his face had never lost that unique expression: a reassuring countenance of curiosity, wisdom and warmth. It was a beguiling combination which served him well on that bleak November Tuesday last year... the first day of his Christmas.

This is his story, and it begins with a death.

Five minutes after his patient died, Paul replaced his surgical scrubs with an immaculate charcoal stripe suit, blue shirt and yellow tie and straightened his pocket handkerchief. He collected his surgical registrar with the briefest of nods and made straight for the cramped little room where the dead woman’s family waited. There, over five minutes and twenty-five seconds, he broke the sad news. There were many tears but few questions. Nothing unusual. Then it was desk time, an opportunity to complete reports and, if necessary, address specific issues with members of his team. Only the voice of his personal assistant was permitted to distract him from his task.

‘Don’t forget to phone your wife.’

‘Yes, thank you Leanne, I haven’t forgotten. Anything else?’

‘Yes. The first Christmas card arrived this afternoon.’

‘What? Bloody ridiculous! We’re not even into December yet.’

‘We will be in a couple of days. Don’t worry, I’ve got the cards all sorted, but you’ll need to find some time to sign them all.’

‘Can’t we send a round robin email or something?’

‘Not the same. People keep your Christmas cards as personal mementos.’

‘Ha bloody ha.’

‘And I’ve booked the Marton Arms for the team do, it’s in your diary. And you owe me for your secret Santa gift.’

‘Leanne, you’re depressing me more with every sentence you utter.’

‘Oh, come on, it’s not so bad… only please try to show up a bit earlier this year, and perhaps you could stay a little longer… just saying.’

‘I’m off in two minutes, see you tomorrow.’

‘Don’t forget to phone your wife.’

Preferring always to walk to the car park via the labyrinth of main corridors, Paul felt a little more anonymous among the porters, visitors and cleaners. It was strangely comforting. So too was the thought that in this busy, rushed area of the hospital, colleagues were less likely to accost him in their desperation to entice him into banal conversations.

These corridors were remarkable: tides of faces, cheerful and sad, anguished and relieved, tired and animated. Paul Lambert stared at them all, very few stared back. The Chapel of the Good Samaritan was quite easy to miss along the final corridor, and he gave it scant regard, until he was almost past the entrance. It wasn’t his way to stop for anyone or anything when so close to the main reception doors, but when a flash of familiar auburn hair invaded his line of vision, he couldn’t help himself. With as much disdain as he could muster, he turned his head to watch the slight figure enter the chapel.

It was quite a challenge to adopt an air of relaxed indifference as he followed the figure into the chapel. The auburn mop belonged to the young registrar doctor who sat alone in the second row of polished seats, staring at the stained-glass motif, his hair catching the glint from the subdued lighting. Paul took the adjacent seat and steadied himself by placing both hands on the back of the seat in front of him.

His tone was effortless and not judgemental.

‘You performed well today, though I imagine you found it difficult. It’s never pleasant to lose a patient, but it’s something we have to get used to and to learn from.’

‘Pleasant?’

‘We did everything possible for the patient but, there were too many underlying conditions.’

‘Doesn’t make it any easier for her family. It broke them, didn’t it? No questions, just despair and sorrow. I saw it in their faces. What a Christmas they’re going to have, eh?’

‘You saw grief and grief is a perfectly natural response among close relatives and friends. Look, by far the best way to approach these situations is to inform them as soon as possible, in as concise a manner as possible, covering the salient points. There is kindness in reason and logic. As a rule of thumb, take it from me, relatives raise very few questions in cases such as this, as long as we have informed them of the risks previous to the procedure.’

‘Text book.’

‘If you like. I have found it works best. You will learn to adapt to these things, to harden yourself, if you wish to have a successful career, which I have every confidence will be the case.’

‘I just wanted to clear my head, that’s all, get some perspective.’

‘You’ll find perspective only comes with time and experience; experience being the key. Experience has taught me that there are no answers in here.’

He lifted a hand and swept it from left to right with a careless flamboyance.

‘Go home, get some sleep and start all over again tomorrow.’

Two minutes after that brief conversation, Paul reached for his car keys in the chilly evening air and turned his attention to home and Jill. He slept soundly that night.

That was yesterday, the first day of Paul Lambert’s Christmas.

THE SECOND DAY

Wednesday. Wednesdays were calmer. In Paul’s world, no two days were alike, but this one started in familiar fashion: a last check of his mobile phone and pager with two cups of black coffee at five in the morning followed by a half hour drive. The day would end when he decided the time was right to go home.

He, and only he, would know when it was the right time.

Paul Lambert was an old school consultant surgeon: trusted at all times, efficient, effective, respected and admired by many, feared by some, despised by no one, loved by few. No longer required to do nights, shift days were long behind him.

The early morning team review meeting lasted an hour; he insisted on precise details from the shift team about the overnight progress of each patient, before allocating duties for the rest of the day.

He summoned Leanne into his office for a brief diary review and only then did he commence his rounds. Wednesdays were clinic days which were a little easier to organise and so he carried reasonable hopes that the day would go, more or less, to plan.

Retirement was out of the question: an unimaginable terror. He and Jill had argued about it. The quarrelling started as soon as their only child, Susan, made her announcement: the first grandchild was on the way. Now, the subject seemed to dominate every hour spent at home. Many years ago, Jill had come to terms with the sacrifices her family had to make because of Paul’s unpredictable working hours. Last year, the two of them managed a fortnight in Tuscany. Trouble was, it always took a week for Paul to wind down, by which time the holiday was half over. Now, things must surely change. Susan and her husband emigrated to Canada five years ago; Paul always considered Peter to be too old for his only daughter but, as always, he supported her choices and decisions on matters of the heart.

He hated the quarrels with Jill, especially when she resorted to the wretched expression: at the end of the day. It seemed to creep its way into every conversation. In the final analysis would always be his preference. All the same, if he and Jill were to succeed in resolving this issue and, more to the point, build a proper relationship with this longed-for grandchild, then something would have to give. In that respect, he had to admit that retirement held all the answers. Family chats using Zoom, Whatsapp, Skype and the rest were no substitute for the real thing.

As Susan’s pregnancy progressed, there was no evidence of any weakening of Paul’s resolve to continue working until someone or something forced him to stop.

That’s really what Paul’s story is all about.

It was a boy: Christopher Paul. Susan and Peter arrived at Heathrow yesterday and were on their way north. The baby was asleep in the special chair they’d fixed in the back seat of the hire car.

Paul had made Jill a promise. All being well, his clinic would be over by four fifteen latest. Leanne had kept his diary clear, no lectures to prepare, so with a fair wind he’d be heading home at tea time. That’s what he’d promised.

Jill took his call. He’d kept his word, he’d swung a rare early finish at the hospital. Everything was ready, she’d washed and ironed fresh bed linen and aired the bedrooms. He was already in the car and would be home in ten minutes if the traffic on the A66 played ball.

A smile of relief and satisfaction covered his face as soon as he finished the call. He’d remembered the promise. Brownie points. Now, his index finger prodded away again at the buttons on his mobile phone until he found the right connection for the dashboard screen which flashed up his music playlist. As the speakers produced the Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana, he sank further into his driver’s seat. Red tail lights strung out as far as he could see.

It was quieter along the back road through the industrial estate; he’d reach the village in a few minutes. That would be about right. Enjoy a bit of chilling out time, maybe a glass of wine before the meal, leaving the rest of the night to score even more brownie points.

Paul turned up the volume as the beautiful Italian libretto played on, he pictured Al Pacino slumped, expired, in the final scene of the Godfather.

In the middle distance, some men were closing the shutters on a warehouse door while another watched on. Paul gave them a quick glance, humming to the music.

The lights came first, then the noise.

No time to react, his eyes darted to the black shape bearing down on him. In that moment, his body froze as a rush of distant screeching became a terrifying roar, piercing his ear drums.

NO, NO!

A flash of white light.

Then a futile, hideous attempt to tense his body against the thud and sickening lurch as his head snapped against the airbag and back again.

The impact was so severe that the front and side of the car completely caved in, squashing Paul’s body further into the vehicle, now half its original size.

The explosive force was irresistible, sudden and terrible. Metal on bone. Glass through flesh.

Paul’s crash happened at five fifteen on that damp November evening. His Mercedes was a write off and, as the ambulance raced to the scene, his life hung in the balance. A single speaker continued to function, broadcasting the next tune from Paul’s playlist into the night air: Vaughan Williams, Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis.

He was two months short of his sixty-second birthday. People made kind comments on social media. The same fingers which saved so many others now hung limp and useless. It wasn’t fair.

That poor man never stood a chance, that’s what the officer said, a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The 4x4 just pulled out of nowhere, hit him full on at high speed, going way too fast until it lost control, skidded on the greasy road surface. It was stolen. The police knew the lad.

Speculation flew as quickly as pheasants rising from a moorland heath: rumours of some drugged-up kid, a low-life with no licence, no insurance, typical yob. So unfair… Paul never stood a chance.

Jill grabbed a few things from the bathroom, some toiletries, his pyjamas, and shoved them in the hold-all they’d taken to Tuscany last year. She drove herself to the hospital and waited while they hooked Paul to drips and tubes. She would call Susan in the morning, there was no point until she had some news.

Paul lay like a neglected marionette. He could sense the warmth of a warm glove wrapping itself around the stiff, cold fingers of his right hand, the same hand he favoured for writing, greeting a patient or gripping a scalpel. In the darkness, he searched for a face, but all around him empty silence and calm prevailed, not even fear, not even anger. It was that absence of fear that surprised him most. Finally, the whisper of a smoky voice broke through with a soft warmth of breath that caressed his ear; but the words, though gentle in tone, were messed up and meaningless. He knew he could hear it, yet he was unable to listen.

Minutes crawled. Now, there was nothing but echoes: the muffled echoes of voices bouncing off the shiny surface of unforgiving walls; that comforting warm glove was gone. A blanket of black dust, or it might have been red, smothered his eyes and nose as his facial muscles contorted until they became a fixed snarl, but still there was no fear. He peered into the black and red void for what seemed like several minutes, until a convoy of tiny white lights passed over his head, one after another in regular rhythm, like meteors against a night sky. Then, the dawn of a warm sun broke through. He rose with it, ever higher until he was hovering now above a patch of desert with two huge sand dunes, camel coloured in the new light. His brow tensed, eyes intent on the space between the dunes, but there was nothing except sand. Again, he tried. This time, something caught his eye: a square shape, shining like gold. In the silence that followed, he examined it at length and, as he focussed in concentration, he saw it was pointing to a long and undeviating line of track, dazzling as bright as the sun.

THE THIRD DAY

I’ve brought a few of his things, may I see him?’

‘Not yet, I’m afraid, but you can leave them with me, they’re still carrying out tests. You can wait over there in that room, there’s a decent drinks machine along the corridor. We’ll keep you informed if there’s any change.’

The phrases came thick and fast, and Jill struggled to rearrange them in their correct order of importance among the hierarchy of problems that screamed for her attention.

Paul suffered a high energy head injury. Susan and Peter were nearly here. There were signs of visible trauma to the face and upper body. She should have left a meal ready for them at home. He was not moving and was unconscious. They were stabilising the neck and spine. Susan might not be able to find the house key from the garbled text she’d rushed off. When they’d stabilised him, they’d carry out CT scans to help determine the severity of the injury.

‘Try not to worry. Your husband is in expert hands and is in no pain.’

Paul was alone. No longer floating above warm sand dunes, he felt the cool of evening air dampen his cheeks as he stared up at the large brick house. The house seemed to cast her wise old eyes over him and approve of what it saw. Even the amber porch lamp and the faulty little VACANCY sign joined forces to throw a soft cloak of light across the steps leading down to the pavement. He was rooted to the spot among the damp evening leaves, a small hold-all at his feet.