Witness - [12]
She felt a little teary but once she was back doing her visits it passed. One of her mums-to-be showed signs of pre-eclampsia and Fiona organized a hospital admission. Another had worrying levels of sugar in her urine and Fiona recommended she see her GP: it happened to some women and not others, but they needed to consider whether there was any risk of diabetes. She went about her work: changed four nappies on newborns, dressed umbilical stumps, comforted a toddler, gave an anxious mum some help getting the baby to latch on properly and removed stitches from a tear. At each house there were papers and charts to complete. She called at the office at the end of the day. Shelley had checked her schedule and asked for a word.
‘Do you want to swap Carmen Johnson for another second-weeker?’
Carmen Johnson was the woman whose house overlooked the recreation ground. The woman Fiona was with when she saw Danny fall. Carmen was in her second week of motherhood and now only receiving visits every other day. Soon the midwives would stop calling and the health visitor would take over.
‘No, I’ll be fine,’ Fiona said.
‘Just yell,’ Shelley told her.
‘I will.’
Nothing had prepared her for the impact of returning there. As she drove closer she felt her guts cramp and her palms grow hot and sticky. She admonished herself. ‘It’ll be fine. Don’t be daft. Take it easy. It’s just a place.’ Fiona tried to empty her mind, let it fill with grey fuzz.
She turned off the dual carriageway alongside the rec. The tent and the police tape were gone but there was a police Portakabin at the northern side of the rectangle. And a splash of colour by a lamppost. Flowers. She should have bought flowers! Her thoughtlessness cut at her. She parked outside Carmen Johnson’s, gathered her bag and case, got out and locked the car.
She knocked on the door. Her face felt rigid, a mask. She tried to rearrange her features as the door opened. ‘Hello-’ The word caught in her throat, husky. She coughed.
Carmen looked perplexed, she wouldn’t meet Fiona’s eye. ‘We’re fine,’ she said. She wrapped her arms around herself, rubbed at her upper arms with her hands. ‘We don’t need a visit.’
‘It’s every other day now,’ Fiona explained. Not understanding. ‘We’ll be handing over to the health visitors soon, all’s going well.’
‘Look.’ Carmen’s eyes were everywhere, her mouth working. ‘I just don’t want any trouble. That’s how it is.’ She closed the door.
Fiona stood there, her knees weak, feeling humiliated, shamed. Her cheeks aglow, her pulse hammering. Aware at first only of the bald rejection. The door closed on her. There had been times before: women resistant to visits, not wanting interference, women with things to hide or a damaged view of professionals. But this sudden switch…
Then she got it. She was ‘the trouble’. Because of what she’d seen, what she’d done. Much had already been made in the media of the community living in fear, afraid to speak out. Carmen lived here. She might have a good idea who was behind the shooting and how they ensured people’s silence. Carmen was simply protecting herself and her baby.
Fiona was back in the car, still smarting, when the pain hit. A band crushing her chest, impossible to move or breathe properly. A huge weight. She could feel her lungs contracting, the terror of a vacuum developing. Like drowning. No air, no way of moving. Sweat bathed her skin, her tongue felt huge in her mouth, her mouth chalk dry. An overwhelming sense of danger, animal-keen, consumed her, urging her to flee, but she was pinned down by the pain. She was dying. Everything went dark, then red. There was a roaring in her ears and her hands and feet were nettled with pinpricks. Her knees were juddering, heels drumming in the footwell.
She gulped and found a breath, then another. The pain dimmed, her vision cleared. Trembling spread through her body. She felt sick. Her heart hurt, thudding irregularly in her chest. She couldn’t possibly drive. Her eyes filled with tears.
Opening her phone was awkward but she only needed to press one button for Shelley’s number.
‘Please can you come and get me,’ she told her when she answered. ‘Get a cab.’
‘What?’
‘I can’t drive, Shelley.’ She reeled off the address.
‘Why? What’s happened?’
‘I need to get to the hospital. I’m having a heart attack.’
The shaking wouldn’t stop, and the waves of nausea. Every time she closed her eyes, with each blink, she saw a still from Sunday: Danny prone, his leg twisted at an odd angle, blink, the fear in his tawny eyes, blink, the blood in the creases of her knuckles.
When Shelley arrived she was alive with concern. ‘Why on earth didn’t you call an ambulance?’
‘I don’t know.’ Because the ambulance was too much like Sunday? ‘It’s much better now. Perhaps it’s just angina.’
Of course A &E was busy. It always was. She spoke to the triage nurse, filled in the form and took a seat in the shabby waiting area, all lumpy green gloss paint and scuffed linoleum. There were two dozen people on the chairs.
