Oh, Shane, I thought.

‘We’re so very sorry for disturbing your breakfast …’ he added, noticing my shock. ‘What is it you’re having?’ he went on, snorting, poking a pen around on the table, miming the stirring of the porridge pot like Father Bear. ‘Porridge, oh, can’t beat the porridge, can you, Ms Moran?’

guffaw guffaw guffaw guffaw guffaw guffaw guffaw

I had no doubt at all that Ms Jo Moran had made him the odd bowl of porridge. Off he winked himself away at her yellow-canary top, very pleased with his morning’s monologue and upbeat spirits, completely oblivious to his M6 faux pas. But I imagine he lived his life in a certain contented oblivion.

‘You doing the Connemara marathon?’ he asked Moran, as he took leave. ‘Maybe we could pair up?’ She nodded. They would jog together.

Someone, for the love of good God, bring me a grumpy fucker tomorrow.

Oh, Christ. Waterways & Waves & Father & Alex & seahorses. Yesterday.

And Oncology came.

And Respiratory arrived.

And a nice woman from Palliative Care popped her head in. And would pop her head in again.

And then they all went off and sat around a big table.

At a Round Table Meeting. (Via email.)

And decided what was best (for me/without me).

But no one will ever tell me. What. To. Do. Ever.

I didn’t even get an email or seat at the table.

Moran reminded me of Elizabeth Taylor in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and oh, how she swooned at Paul Newman and how he, the most perfectly fuckable man in the world, hobbled around on one crutch guzzling a load of bourbon, and how even the most fuckable man in the world had an ailment, and that allowed him to be a dick. For some reason Newman was all I could think of. And fuck, how I wanted a shit-ton of golden bourbon just then.

‘Jane, wake up for us, good lady, come on now, come now, the consultant is here, Jane. Have you any family with you?’

Jane groaned.

‘NO. No, oh, really, sorry now, good lady, sit up for us now. Will they be in to see you today, the family? You do have a family, don’t you? Are they coming in TODAY?’

Someone shuffled awkwardly through Jane’s large pile of notes and they fell whoosh whoosh down on the floor.

‘No.’

‘OK, well then, now good lady, we’ve looked at the scans and there’s a lot of water around your heart. And what will we all do about it?’

‘Swim in it?’ Jane said.

‘Hmm. Well, Jane, we’ll make you as comfortable as we can and … THEN … we’ll move you out to another ward later. Maybe even later today.’

‘Where?’

‘Today to ANOTHER WARD, Jane,’ he shouted.

‘I don’t want to go, no, no, I’ll stay put here, I’m more than happy here at home, I’m fine and I have my little dog here, and young Patrick beside me.’ Jane waved over at Hegs’s bed. Two student doctors in matching headscarves frantically took to scribbling on their Harry Potter notebooks. Both Hufflepuffs. Predictable. Pet dog – scribble. Presentation. Onset. Symptoms. Scribble. Scribble. ‘Now, Tom will probably only have a sandwich. Just the one. I’ll just fix him one. Of course I’ll put the dinner down this evening, so maybe I don’t need to ready him any food at all, oh, Lord, but I never got to the butcher, ah, sure, time enough, sure besides he never likes to eat too much in the afternoon. He has one of those things. What do you call them? Oh, you must know, you must know what you call them, those things that’d pierce through you when you eat. Especially dry food.’