Learning to Dance Again (32 page)

‘I didn’t. I quite liked learning to dance. I knew it would come in handy one day.’

The music stopped and they stood for a moment, still holding hands as they wait
ed for the band to play a different tune. Julia looked over to where she had been sitting and saw that Tony had sat down again. He looked out of breath and she grinned at him when he looked up, although she realised he hadn’t seen her. He seemed lost in thought.

The music started and they began dancing again.

‘How’
s your day been?’ Cameron asked; his voice heavy with meaning.

‘Oh, so so. I’
m glad Tony has been here. He’s kept me so busy I haven’t really had time to mope around. There was a moment earlier in the day when the pipe band was playing the same tune that was played at the funeral…’

They circuited the room one more time, almost like bumper cars, trying to avoid other couples. Ther
e was a sudden pile up of people in the centre of the room, and Julia heard a shriek of fear above the noisy chatter and music. The dancing stopped and people stood watching something that was going on at the side of the dance-floor. The music stopped in the middle of the tune, and a panicked call for help made Julia’s heart skip a beat. She couldn’t see what was happening so she pushed through the crowd expecting to see someone had fallen over.

She found Tony lying on the floor, with one of the Italian women kneeling down beside him, tapping the side of his face, trying to wake him.

‘Let me see. I’m a nurse,’ Julia said, indicating for the woman to give her some space.

Julia fell to her knees beside Tony, quickly feeling for his pulse in his neck, and not finding one.

‘Call an ambulance. He’s not breathing!’ Julia yelled, as she bent down to see if she could feel any breath. She opened Tony’s mouth to check for obstruction and then started chest compressions.

She heard someone c
alling for an ambulance and was vaguely conscious that members of the Jarl Squad were guiding people downstairs to give them some space. Julia had snapped into her professional nurse mode and was trying to block out everything else. A young man came over and knelt down on the other side of Tony.

‘I’m a first aider
. Can I help?’

Julia nodded
breathlessly and let the man take over, seamlessly carrying on the rhythm of compressions and breaths.

‘Come on Tony. Don’t do this to me. Stay with us, please,’ she implored. She looked up and saw that the
two Italian women were still sat in their seats, holding hands and praying. Julia smiled in sympathy.

‘The ambulance is on its way.’

Julia felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up and saw Cameron standing beside her. She held his hand briefly and then took over the CPR from the other first aider.

A c
ouple of minutes later the paramedics entered the room and as they took over she explained what had happened. She sat down on a chair and let one of the Italian women hug her wordlessly. They watched the paramedics using a defibrillator on Tony and on the second attempt, they got a pulse.

‘Will you be alright?’ Cameron said. ‘Do you want me to come to the hospital with you?’

‘No, I’ll be fine. You carry on. I know this has ruined your night. But please, carry on. I have my phone on me. I’ll text you.’

Julia
stood up and hugged Cameron, then grabbed her handbag and followed the paramedics out to the waiting ambulance.

At the hospital, Tony was rushed straight into the resuscitation room and Julia was left in the waiting room feeling shell shocked. She knew so little about Tony she was unable to answer most of the questions the triage nurse asked. She had no idea how to contact Tony’s son or daughter. The nurse managed to retrieve a mobile phone that Tony had in his pocket. To Julia’s relief she found that it was not protected by a passcode and she scrolled through the numbers and found his son. She checked her watch, realising it was well after midnight in Italy. As she dialled the number she realised that she wasn’t entirely sure whether Enzo would even speak English.

‘Ciao Papa.’

‘Hello, is that Enzo?’ Julia said, hesitantly.

‘Si, yes. Who is this?’

‘My name is Julia Robertson. I’m a friend of your father’s. He’s in Shetland with me.’

‘Ah yes, he told me. Is something wrong?’

‘Yes, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but your father is in hospital. We think he may have had a heart attack.’

‘Another one? Oh shit.’

‘He’s already had one before? Can I pass you onto the nurse so that you can tell her about your father? We don’t know anything about any medication he might be on.’

Julia handed the phone over to the nurse and slumped down in the chair again, feeling even less confident about Tony’s situation.
The nurse took the phone away so she could relay the information to the doctors. Julia sat with her head in her hands and only looked up when she heard her name. Marianne hurried over and sat down next to her and grabbed hold of her hand.

‘What’s happening? I heard
some tourist had been taken ill. I didn’t know it was Tony until Cameron came to find me.’

‘It’s probably a heart attack. The paramedics managed to get a pulse, but it was weak
. We managed to get hold of his son; apparently this isn’t his first.’

‘Oh
Lord; poor thing.’

They sat in silence for a moment, before Marianne got up and fetched two cups of coffee from a vending machine. She passed a cup to Julia who took it
gratefully.

‘I can’t believe this,’ Julia whispered.

‘Me neither. Let’s hope they can save him.’

Julia leaned forward and set her coffee down on a table. She covered her face in her hands and rocked silently in the chair. Marianne put her arm around her shoulders, but didn’t speak.

Nearly an hour later a doctor came to find them in the waiting room. He didn’t smile but there was something about his body language that made them think he wasn’t bearing bad news.

‘We’ve managed to stabilise him, but he’s not conscious yet. We’re keeping him sedated as we need to fly him down to Aberdeen for surgery. I understand you’re not related to him, but will you want to accompany him to the hospital? I spoke to his son Enzo. He’s going to fly over from Rome, but that could take a while.

‘Of course I’ll go with him. We’re friends; he was over here on holiday and staying at my house.’

‘That’s good. We’re just waiting to hear back from the air ambulance but we should be good to go in a few minutes if that’s alright? Have you got any photo ID on you, for getting back home again?’

Julia opened her handbag and checked inside her purse and found
her driving licence. She nodded with relief.

The doctor hurried off and Julia sat back in her chair and sighed.

‘Oh thank God.’

Marianne stood up suddenly and walked over to the waste bin and threw
her coffee cup in it, with a touch of exasperation.

‘It’s not fair though. How did they manage to save him, but not Duncan?’

‘Don’t go there, please.’

‘I’m sorry. It’s just…’

‘I’m glad I was there to help him,’ Julia said firmly.

‘Oh so am I, but
...’

‘I need to use the loo. Make sure they don’t go without me.’

Julia hurried off to the relative privacy of the ladies toilet. She could not admit to feeling the same feelings of frustration that Tony seemed to have survived something that her husband couldn’t. She knew that comparisons should not be made as Duncan’s heart attack was not something that anyone could have survived; but even so, it hurt.

She walked back to the waiting room to find that they were waiting for her.
She hurried out to the ambulance after hugging Marianne goodbye and promising to ring her with any news.

It did not take long to make the transfer into the waiting helicopter and within minutes they were airborne and on their way to Aberdeen. Julia sat buckled into her seat, feeling ridiculous in her sequinned top. She hadn’t even stopped to get her coat and now she was shivering with cold. One of the crew members noticed her discomfort and handed her a blanket. It was too noisy in the cabin to speak so she simply mouthed her thanks. She looked back at Tony who was lying on a stretcher, with a paramedic sitting beside him, monitoring his vital signs. The paramedic nodded comfortingly at her and gave her the thumbs up.

At Aberdeen Royal Infirmary Tony was whisked away to the operating theatre, and once Julia had answered the bare minimum of questions about what she knew about his health, she was left to wait while he underwent surgery. It was still the middle of the night and Tony’s family would not arrive for hours.

Ju
lia took a taxi to a 24-hour supermarket in the hope that she might be able to buy something more suitable to wear. She was freezing and she knew Tony’s surgery would take a few hours.

He
was still in surgery an hour later when she returned wearing a new, rather hideous but warm, quilted jacket, carrying a bag of emergency toiletries and clean underwear.

She was exhausted
and looked around the waiting room for somewhere to lie down. There was a battered looking cushioned bench in the corner so she settled down to rest; although sleep was out of the question.

Two hours later a nurse came to find her.

‘Mr Hugo has come out of surgery now. He’s in the recovery room.’

‘Oh, can I go and see him?’

‘Ah no; he’s not conscious yet. We’ll let you know when you can see him.’

‘Oh
please, could I not just see him for a minute? I’m a nurse. I used to work here.’

The young woman looked blankly at Julia, clearly unimpressed with this news.

‘No, I’m sorry. We’ll let you know when you can see him.’

Julia sighed, feeling even more shatter
ed now. It was nearly five thirty and she was thirsty. She got up and went in search of the vending machines. The hospital had expanded beyond her recognition now. She doubted there was a single person still working here that would remember her from nearly thirty years ago when she had worked in the operating theatres. She bought a cup of coffee and a bar of chocolate and went back to her seat.

She picked up a magazine from a coff
ee table and then put it back in disgust when she realised she didn’t have her reading glasses with her, and couldn’t see clearly enough to read.

Julia
sat and stared at the dull green walls of the waiting room and watched people coming in and out, all oblivious to her presence.

Just as she was about to drift off to sleep, an alarm sounded down the corridor, and a pager went off on the waistband of a passing doctor. Julia watched him glance at the pager and set off quickly towards the sound of the alarm.  She sat up straight. She knew from experience that somewhere
, just a few feet away from her, somebody’s life was hanging in the balance.

She stood up and walked over to the window. It was still dark outside, but street lights burned over the car-park. She watched a heav
ily pregnant woman creep slowly towards the reception holding the arm of a man who carried a small suitcase. They stopped at the edge of the car-park and waited for an ambulance to pass before they crossed over the road, and as they were half way across, the woman paused, bending over in pain.

The nurse tha
t Julia had spoken to earlier walked back to the waiting room and looked at Julia without smiling.

‘Your friend is asking for you.’

With that she turned, clearly expecting Julia to follow her. Julia picked up her carrier bag and hurried along after the nurse who opened the door of a side room and waited, somewhat impatiently for Julia to catch up.

‘Long shift?’ Julia said, trying to empathise with the nurse.

‘It always is.’

The nurse hurried away and left Julia to go inside, where she found Tony lying on
a trolley with the guard rails up. His eyes were shut, and his hands were lying motionless at his sides.

Julia walked over to him and dumped her bag on the floor beside the trolley. She took Tony’s hand in hers, noticing that he seemed cool to the touch. She pulled the blanket up around him. His eyes
flickered open, blinking at the glare from the overhead light.

‘Hey there,’ Julia said, leaning closer to him, knowing that the after effects of a general anaesthet
ic would mean he would have trouble focussing.

‘Julia?’

‘Yes, I’m here. How are you feeling now?’

‘What happened? Where are we?’

‘We’re in Aberdeen hospital. You had a heart attack, and you’ve just come out of surgery.’

‘Surgery?’

Before Julia could reply she sensed that Tony had drifted off in a morphine induced sleep. Julia let go of his hand and picked up his notes from the foot of the bed, reading them quickly before realising she probably shouldn’t be so nosy. She replaced the clipboard and pulled a chair over to sit beside him. He looked pale under the fluorescent lights, and there were dark shadows under his eyes that she had never noticed before.