A Special Relationship by Douglas Kennedy Page A

baby’s fine. But you … you are a cause for concern.’
    ‘In what way?’
    ‘Mr Hughes, the consultant, will see you on his rounds this evening.’
    ‘Will I lose the baby?’
    She scanned the chart again, then said, ‘You’re suffering from a high blood pressure disorder. It could be pre-eclampsia – but we won’t know that until we’ve done some blood work and a urine test.’
    ‘Can it jeopardize the pregnancy?’
    ‘It can … but we’ll try to get it under control. And a lot is going to depend on you. You’d better be prepared to live a very quiet life for the next few weeks.’
    Great. Just what I needed to hear. A wave of fatigue suddenly rolled over me. Maybe it was the drugs they’d been giving me. Maybe it was a reaction to my seventeen hours of unconsciousness. Or maybe it was a combination of the two, coupled with my new-found high blood pressure. Whatever it was, I suddenly felt devoid of energy. So drained and de-vitalized that I couldn’t even summon the strength to sit myself up. Because I had an urgent, desperate need to pee. But before I could articulate this need – before I could ask for a bedpan or assistance to the nearest toilet – the lower part of my body was suddenly enveloped in a warm, expansive pool of liquid.
    ‘Oh fuck …,’ I said, my voice loud, desperate.
    ‘It’s okay’ Nurse Howe said. Reaching for her walkie-talkie, she summoned assistance. Within moments, two large male orderlies were by the bed. One of them had a shaved head and sported an earring; the other was a thin wiry Sikh.
    ‘So sorry, so sorry …’ I managed to mutter as the two orderlies helped me sit up.
    ‘Don’t you worry about it, darling,’ the shaved head said. ‘Most natural thing in the world.’
    ‘Never happened to me before,’ I said as they lifted me off the sodden mattress and put me in a wheelchair. My hospital nightgown was stuck against my body.
    ‘First time, really?’ Shaved Head asked. ‘Ain’t you had a charmed life. Take my mate here. He pisses his pants all the time, don’t you?’
    ‘Don’t listen to my colleague,’ the Sikh said. ‘He needs to talk rubbish.’
    ‘Colleague?’ Shaved Head said. ‘Thought I was your mate.’
    ‘Not when you accuse me of pants pissing,’ the Sikh said, starting to wheel me down the ward. Shaved Head walked alongside him, their repartee non-stop.
    ‘That’s the problem with you Sikhs – no sense of humour …’
    ‘Oh I laugh all the time … when something is funny. But not when an Oik …’
    ‘You callin’ me an Oik ?
    ‘No, I am making a generalization about Oiks. So, please, try not to take it so personally …’
    ‘But if you is making a sweeping general …’
    ‘If you are making a sweeping generalization …’ the Sikh said, correcting him.
    ‘Know who my friend … sorry, colleague … thinks he is?’ Shaved Head asked me. ‘Bloody Henry Higgins.’
    ‘And why can’t the English teach their children how to speak?’ the Sikh said.
    ‘Shut it.’
    It was like listening to an old married couple in the midst of the sort of comic bicker which had been going on, non-stop, for twenty years. But I also realized that they were carrying on this banter for my benefit – to divert me from my humiliation, and stop me feeling like the bad little girl who’d wet herself and was now in a helpless state.
    When we reached the bathroom, the two orderlies helped me out of the wheelchair, then positioned me standing up against the sink and waited with me until a nurse arrived. Once she showed up, they took their leave. She was a large cheery woman in her late forties with an accent that hinted at Yorkshire. She gently lifted the drenched nightgown over my head.
    ‘Get you cleaned up in no time,’ she said, while running a shallow warm bath. There was a mirror over the sink. I looked up and froze. The woman staring at me appeared to be a victim of domestic abuse. Her nose – shrouded in surgical plaster strips – had