"I love daisies..."
The woman on the bed began to list to one side as she spoke, Robyn catching her against her chest causing her to awaken abruptly from her daydream.
"Sorry...sorry..."
She looked to Zoe who was frowning at the digital thermometer reading.
"I love daisies..."
She murmured again, reaching out a hand, placing it on top of Zoe's as she made to jot down the reading in her notes.
"You told me!"
Zoe attempted a smile, plying her hand from underneath the other woman's and adjusting the positioning of the Biro she held.
"They're just so friendly!"
She exclaimed, watching as Max entered the cubicle, backing in through the drawn curtain with a wheelchair.
"X-ray?"
He asked, looking from the woman on the bed to Zoe who looked up from her notes.
"Don't you think daisies are the friendliest flower?"
The woman asked before Zoe had a chance to respond.
"I prefer dandelions myself."
He answered, pushing the brakes on the wheelchair with his foot, catching the whisper of a smile at Zoe's lips, and the amused purse and raised eyebrows of Robyn.
"Ah...dandelions try to hard..."
The woman murmured beginning to look distant again.
"Mrs Hunt, Max is going to take you up to X-ray to check that ribcage of yours..."
Zoe raised her voice to cut in through the dreamlike veil that the woman had succumbed to.
"Oh! Nonsense..."
She wafted her hands about in the air and screwed up her face.
"I'm fine, I'm just a bit pissed...You think all of these machines and what-nots are your friends, but they're not. I can tell you I'm fine without you wasting thousands of pounds..."
"Mrs Hunt..."
Zoe attempted to cut in but again she wafted her hands.
"Name one thing that we've gained from technology..."
She laughed.
"Electricity...?"
Zoe breathed, arcing an eyebrow, looking to Robyn as Mrs Hunt began to giggle away to herself quietly.
"Mrs Hunt..."
"Oh would you call me Kathleen, please! Mrs Hunt sounds too much like C..."
"Kathleen! Ok."
Zoe sucked in a breath, raising a hand to run her fingers across her frown.
"We just need to check you over. You were found unconscious outside your home wearing only your underwear. It looks as though you have quite substantial bruising to your abdomen and we would like to make sure that nothing is damaged that we can't see from the outside."
She exhaled, speaking quickly to make sure that she wasn't interrupted again. Mrs Hunt just looked at her for a moment before smiling a smile that began to crack into another amused laugh.
She looked to Max.
"Oh God...was I a slut?!"
She laughed. Max smiled slowly.
"Probably."
He answered, leaning his weight on the handles of the wheelchair so that the front wheels tipped up slightly.
"Oh God..."
She laughed again and Zoe widened her eyes in warning to him.
"No it's fine, it's absolutely fine."
He bit his lip, smiling still and watching the woman on the bed lean towards him as if she were allowing her into her confidence.
"How can that be?"
She whispered, touching her lips. She smelled rancid...
"Because you were a pissed slut."
Max shrugged and she laughed raucously.
"Max?!"
Zoe hissed, eyes so wide they were beginning to dry, she blinked and looked to Robyn who merely shook her head and shrugged her shoulders.
"Oh don't tell him off, I like him!"
Mrs Hunt cocked her head to one side, looking Max up and down, her eyes slowly taking him in from feet to head, pausing deliberately in the middle.
"Can I keep him?"
She asked, nudging Zoe playfully with a bony elbow. Zoe took a step backward, rolling her eyes.
"I'm afraid he's taken."
She said flatly, holding out the notes to him which he took with a flamboyant wave of an arm, tucking them into the back of the wheelchair.
Mrs Hunt smiled ruefully, looking from Max to Zoe and back again.
"Ah. Well...for now just humour me and take me?"
She asked with a smokers wheeze and a witches cackle.
"Um.."
Max faltered for a moment.
"In the wheelchair young man...To X-ray was it?"
She looked to Zoe, still smiling. Zoe nodded briefly as Robyn helped her off the bed, lowering her down into the seat of the wheelchair.
"And Robyn did you contact the husband?"
Zoe asked glancing at the wall clock that she could see visible between the folds of the blue curtains of the cubicle.
"Yep, he was called when she came in, said he'd be on his way."
Robyn answered.
"What?"
Mrs Hunt broke in. Her smile was gone, something else had taken it's place, a whitewash of non-colour, the quiver of a lip, the wide eyed stair of a deer down the barrel of a loaded shot gun.
"Your husband?"
Zoe repeated, looking momentarily confused.
"I can't see him...I can't see him..."
She began to try to stand but Max put a hand gently on her shoulder, leaning down to her.
"Don't worry..."
He whispered as Zoe reached out for her.
"Kathleen?"
She spoke loudly, Kathleen seemed to have fallen into the dream state again, her hands wrung tightly in her lap, her lips tense, repeating over and over, 'I can't see him...'.
"You don't have to see him?"
Zoe tried again, reaching out to touch her hand but Kathleen snatched them away, holding them against her mouth.
The cubicle curtains opened and Rita popped her head in.
"Everything ok?"
She asked, glancing at Zoe who winked in reassurance.
"I've got her husband here..."
She pulled back the curtain before Zoe could speak. Kathleen seemed to freeze in her wheelchair, her back to the curtain, crouching, hands held tightly against her chest, eyes squeezed shut as if shutting out a nightmare.
"What are you doing here?!"
Kathleen's husband asked. He was a gaunt faced man with sunken cheeks and a shock of dark hair, his clothes seemed ill-fitting and his shoes had a hole at the toe of one.
"I'm sorry, your wife is..."
"Not her!"
The man framed by the two blue curtains hushed Zoe abruptly, bright blue eyes glaring at her.
He looked to Max, and for the first time since the man had entered Zoe realised that Kathleen wasn't the only one seemingly frozen in position. Max was stood still, half turned away, staring at nothing, lips parted, dry and white, eyes averted, the skin of his cheeks a dull grey colour.
"Him!"
More soon :) xxx