Life can throw anything your way
We had a paediatric cardiologist working at our local childrens clinicEdward Thompson. Like the rest of us, every summer hed go off for a month or two as the camp doctor at a holiday camp for kids: keeping an eye on the kitchen, weighing children, checking bedsides, dabbing cuts with antiseptic assuming nothing more serious happened, touch wood.
He mustve been about thirty-eight or forty then: fit, with salt and pepper hair just starting to curl, a strikingly sharp nose, deep-set eyes and bold eyebrows the type women couldnt help but notice.
One evening he recounted this:
It was 1985, right in the thick of the crackdown on excessive drinking. If you were caught, there were real consequences nownot just a slap on the wrist or a delayed council flat. People got sacked for so much as sniffing at a pint in the wrong place.
It was all deadly serious.
Augustthe final camp session, last night. Typical chaos: the kids determined not to sleep, darting between dorms, daubing toothpaste and calamine lotion on the unsuspecting. The camp leaders only half-chased them, occasionally sipping some wineor a nip of ginnot that anyone was actually out to get sloshed, but tradition was tradition.
I wasnt one to let the side down. Just because I was a doctor didnt mean I couldnt join in. The night flew by, dawn crept up, we fed the kids and bundled them onto the coaches. About an hour later, we rolled into Oxford, right at the Playhouse. Out piled the children, handed safe and sound back to their parentsnone left behind. All accounted for!
One last cheeky drink and I began the slow walk home, anticipating the spread waiting for me. The camp shift was over, and in just a few hours, my wife Grace and I were off to my mothers in Bath for holidaySeptember sunshine, the last days of summer a dream.
And then, it hit me. The wine. The sleepless night. More wine. The jolting coach. More wine. The heat pressing down I collapsed under a bush at the edge of the square and simply blacked out.
Everyone else from camp had long scattered for home, except Anna the nurse, who spotted me, tried to rouse mefutile, I was out cold, having the sweetest nap in ages.
She knew what was at stakea scandal like this and Id have been marched out the door so fast my coat would spin. Yet she didnt leave me lying there; Anna was decent through and through.
Thankfully, she lived just round the corner in a flat at 84 High Street. Someone helped half-drag, half-carry me; she pretty much lugged me herself, my legs just about working. She made it as far as her room in the four-bed flat.
Two hours later, I woke upnot because Id slept off my headache, but because all that dry wine was desperate to escape.
I tried to get up, muttering, but Anna hushed me quick, clapping her hand over my mouth and whispering frantically that I mustnt make a sound.
Blearily, with my bladder fit to burst, I tried to stand but she held me down, explaining in whispers
Turns out, her neighbours werent just nosy, theyd ruin lives for sport. Anna was an upright young woman, living alone, and if the old biddies next door so much as glimpsed a man in her roomshed never hear the end of it. Theyd peck her to pieces.
I genuinely sympathised, but that didnt cure my need to pee. My organs were at full alert, as I told her outright. Good thing Anna was a nurseshe produced some random bucket, slipped out, returned, carted the bucket away.
Bliss.
Then, it finally dawned on meI was supposed to be home hours ago, packing up; my wife, in-laws, cousins, all waiting at the table, probably ringing my colleagues by now, soon to start calling A&E! Hell on earth.
In hushed tones and wild gestures, I tried to explain to Anna that I truly understood her predicament, even felt a kindred spirit, but if I didnt get home this instant, her neighbours would seem like angels compared to what my own family would do.
We bickered a bit. Then Anna confessed: one neighbour was out since morning; shed send another for bread, distract the third in the kitchen with stories from camp. I just had to slip out quietly into the corridor, unlock the door, and escape like a shadowwithout making a sound.
The neighbour toddled off to the shops
The second was clattering about in the kitchen
Anna created a ruckus with the kettle for cover
With shoes clenched in my right hand, tiptoeing in my socks, I crept down the corridor towards the battered old front door.
Left handsliding back the bolt
A sudden screech as the door swings wideonly, its not the front. It’s from the hall, where the supposedly absent neighbour was meant to have been out all day and an unmistakable, exuberantly nasal, all-too-familiar voice cried out: Edward Thompson! Well, I never!
My shoes crashed to the floor. I stumbled, jamming my feet in, flung open the door with a bang, and, not daring to turn around, muttered, Good afternoon, Mrs Bellamy
Why would I bother looking back? The best friend of my mother-in-lawI could picture her face, right down to the last wrinkle. I could already imagine the vivid detail and embellishments shed pour into each retelling and after the whole shoes-in-hand, tiptoe debacle, who would believe my innocence?
Half an hour later, I made it home. Mrs Bellamy hadnt called yet. Everyone was fussing: Eddie! We were so worried! Hurry up, taxis arrived, time for the airport! The usual whirl of greeting and farewells in a big, still-friendly family.
We landed at my mums. Every ring of the phone made me jumpI waited for the axe to fall, for my wife to get that call from her mother. I dashed across the flat at every jangle, barely left for the beach, for fear of missing it. No sleep, no appetite.
A few days in, mum cornered me in the kitchen and grilled me. I cracked, telling her everything, start to finish.
Oh, son, she sighed. Of course I believe you, as the song goes, but who else would? Theres nothing I can do, but Ill answer all calls myself. No one else will get near the receiver. Back home well, it will be what it will be. Try to get some sleep.
A month passed in Bath. Returning home, I was a wreckimagining every possible scenario: confrontations, yelling, tears, and a thousand forms of welcome for me.
We landed. Everyone else hurried off, I stalled until the stewards gave me hard looks and Grace chivvied me forward. Legs numb with dread, I could barely hobble to the steps with Grace almost dragging me.
Back then, you had to walk from the plane to the terminal. By the time we got into arrivals, all other families had cleared out. Only my in-laws stood, hands waving, massive grins on their faces.
Well, where on earth were you! We were getting worried! Everyones left. Grace, you look so tanned and fresh! Eddie, why do you look so pale and thin? Been ill? What happened?
Watching their false concern, stretched wide into practised smiles, I couldn’t fathom how Id loved and respected these two-faced people for so long.
Back home, the table was laid, with toasts and chatter, questions flying. But not a word about Mrs Bellamy. FineI thought, have your fun. I can wait, too.
Another month passed. Id lost a stone in weight, insomnia now standard, palpitations daily, a ghost at work. Drink did nothing, might as well have been waterone shot left me ill.
Then came Bonfire Night, with all the relatives squeezed around the table, noise and toasts, my mother-in-law sitting across from me.
And I snapped.
Leaning forward across the crowded table, practically shouting, So, Mother, hows your friend Mrs Bellamy doing these days?
Her reply set me off: a wild, cackling laugh, arms flung wide, upending plates and glasses, toppling back with the chair, roaring with hysterical relief as the family shrank in alarm.
Someone splashed me with water, I pulled myself together, topped up my glass, and knocked it back with relish.
No one ever understood why Id exploded with such manic glee at my mother-in-laws quiet, mournful reply, Oh Eddie, the very day you left for holiday, poor Bellamy had a minor strokethey say she quite lost her speechThe laughter wouldnt stop, bubbling out of me in wavespart agony, part joyas the whole rowdy circle fell silent, just staring. Grace leant beside me, squeezed my hand, and for the first time that endless autumn her eyes glinted with mischief. Then she started to giggle, light at first but snowballing alongside mine, until the tense faces around the table started to soften, and even my stone-faced in-laws broke into uncertain smiles.
My mother-in-law wagged a finger at me, suppressing her own laughter. You old fool, she said. Bellamys moved to Devon, you know. She wrote me from Torquay last week. Asked after you. I told her you were probably off somewhere, hiding from all us dreadful women.
The tension melted away all at once. Every ounce of dread and suspicion faded like the last embers after fireworksleaving only warmth, amusement, and a faint hint of wine on my tongue. The family burst into new laughteruproarious and honest this time, with no secrets stashed beneath the tablecloth.
Afterwards, Grace slipped outside with me, arm in arm, into the chilly night to watch the sparklers sputter and fade. You know, she murmured, resting her head against my shoulder, next summerno camp, no drama. Promise?
A laugh escaped megenuine, easy. Who knows what life will throw our way next year?
She smiled. Whatever it is, I think well survive it together.
Above us, the night was black and soft, peppered with the last bursts of color, and for the first time in months, I didnt flinch at the sound of a ringing phone. I simply took Graces hand, held it tight, and watched the sparks fly, letting the world spin onjust as it always did, wild, ridiculous, and, somehow, exactly enough.
