James took the corner so fast we jumped the gutter and landed on Lothian Street with a massive skid. It was just like a movie, and that was how I came to make up the first real joke I ever made by myself without Jax, about James and the Giant Screech. And it’s a pretty good one, too.

47

Sadie

APPARENTLY, SOME PEOPLE do die from a small-bowel obstruction, but it turned out I wasn’t quite that interesting. I was the type of person who carried the remnants of a dodgy surgery around for thirty-two years without even considering that all that recent pushing and shoving behind my scar might have been something I should sit up and take notice of. The type that puts a steadily worsening pain down to stress, constipation or the past trying to make a break for it. And hoping, as per usual, that if I ignored it, it would disappear. Which, just by the by, sometimes really does work.

There are probably three things worth mentioning about my trip to Wishaw Hospital in the back of Dicky’s taxi. The first is that I got there in the same number of pieces as I started, because while Dicky’s sense of urgency was admirable under the circumstances, collapsed out-of-towner and all that, I do recall thinking the possibility of him killing me before I had a chance to die of my own accord seemed fairly reasonable at the time.

The second thing is that the reason we were even on our way to Wishaw Hospital was because plan A had gone to porridge due to the fact that the emergency department of the local hospital, which was less than five minutes away, was closed. Don’t ask. All I can say is that if you’re planning on visiting that part of the world, don’t have a medical emergency on the same day as the annual cider-and-scone hospital fundraiser. Unless, of course, you want to run the risk of having to make use of Dicky’s services to get you to the next-closest hospital. That’s not meant to sound tempting. Refer back to the first point, if you’re feeling tempted.

The third thing (which if you believe in fate is exactly what was meant to happen in the giant preordained plan of the universe) is that the fastest route to Wishaw Hospital just happened to be along the same road a dapper old gentleman in a teal Austin had been on when said vehicle had given up the ghost.

Now, even though it’s all a bit of a blur, I wasn’t quite so out of it that I don’t remember that the overwhelming feeling that enveloped me when I tipped over on that bench and lay there drifting in and out of consciousness while Mrs. Dicky and the Goth girl fussed around me was relief. Relief that, finally, here was something that really and truly was out of my hands. There was nothing I could do, so I could do nothing. And just for that magnificent blurry crease line in time, I could let all my problems become somebody else’s. For as long as it lasted, anyhow.