Life, Death and Onions

The familiar blend of Victorian and modern architecture shifts my thoughts between past and present. Craning up at the glass tower where my wife lies in pain and uncertainty, I wonder what might come next in this continuing period drama. As I enter, the warm disinfectant air hits my nostrils and I drift back twenty years. My very first day as a hospital Porter …

"Hello there! You must be Simon. From the job agency, Right?"

An overly happy and chunky looking man, steps out from behind the hospital reception desk and offers me his hand. Nervous as usual, I wipe my palm on my chinos, grip him much too firmly, then and totally overdo the shaking!

"I'm Matthew, your new boss. And don't look so terrified buddy, I don't bite!" he laughs. 

"Before you start though, I need to make sure you pass the rookie test!"

'Test?' I start worrying to myself. 'Oh God ,I'm fuckin' useless at tests!'

Matthew sets off down the seemingly endless hospital corridor and beckons me to follow, "Come on, then buddy. Follow me!" 

Soon, we're standing in a room with a grey stone floor. There are rows of steel doors, each with large silver handles. A large white board on the wall has names scribbled in black marker pen, many of which seem rather old fashioned; 'Edith, Muriel, Leonard, Gertrude…' 

"Ready?" Matthew asks.

"Ah…yeah…um…I guess so," I reply. Clueless.

He yanks open a steel door and the temperature drops dramatically. Pulling out a long metal tray which rumbles along rollers, a large and lumpy plastic bag sits, with a long zip down the middle. There is a sharp whizz as he quickly pulls the zip halfway down.

"Well, how are you with that?" He asks.

There is a strange odour I'm not familiar with. It's almost like rotten fruit, but lacking any sweetness. A man is staring up at me, his mouth slightly ajar. Tinges of blue run through the veins of his face, contrasting against his grey straggly hair. He is quite clearly dead. My brain catches up with me as I realise I'm in a mortuary, totally surrounded by corpses!

"Ummm…Fine, I guess!" I can see my own cold breath as I answer him.

"Great stuff!" he replies. "The last one they sent me, ran straight out the door and I never saw him again!"

I continued to stare at the dead man.

"Don't worry, you get used to it," he continues. '"It's just the maggots and wandering souls you need to watch out for!"

I'm trying to work out whether he's joking, as he announces …

"Welcome to the Porters Simon!"

Back in the present and on the way to see my wife, I'm standing in the hospital lift that I often shared with Matthew. Sadly, he died in his mid -thirties from multiple sclerosis. He was a father of two young children. It just wasn't fair! 

Gazing at the floor numbers changing on the lift display reminds me of how quickly the years have passed. My mind slips back in time once more …

Inside the Porters lodge, a thin unshaven man wearing square rimmed glasses is taking a huge slurp of tea. He stands to greet me.

"Hello, you must be Simon, I'm Richard, very pleased to meet you!"

His words are pronounced and well-spoken, but I sense something odd. It is as though his diction doesn't quite match his face. Sure enough, as Matthew leaves the room I find out that "fuck" and "bollocks," are his two favourite words. I definitely like this guy!

A much older man, red faced and veiny with scruffy blonde-white hair, is sitting down and taking a bite of what I first presume is an apple. But then I realise!

"Is that an …?" He interrupts me.

"Yes son, it's a raw onion," he grins at me and continues in a strong Irish accent. "A whole un a day keeps the doc away, did yeh not know that?"

Being Irish myself, I wondered if I was missing out on some cultural homeopathic nutrient. I knew all about potatoes and Guinness, but this particular delicacy must have slipped me by. It turns out he may have been correct. Eamon died in his eighties. Not bad, for a train-smoking whiskey slugger.

"Do yeh smoke roll ups?" he asks, handing me a porters uniform and a large walkie talkie.

"Too many!" I reply.

"Thank fuck fer that!" he continues, "another one fer the club Richard. Get yer uniform on and we'll nip out fer a puff before yeh start."

I miss the days of smoke fuelled banter with Eamon and Richard. There used to be a smoking room in the hospital back then, where doctors, nurses, porters and patients, all sat together in a cloudy haze. We didn't go there unless it was raining though, as patients would often come in and try to cadge a fag. I can still hear Eamon muttering "no, yeh fuckin' can't have one!" under his breath.

Now approaching the entrance to the ward, I can see the nurses bustling around with their duties. Searching for my wife's name on the admission board, a decrepit man with a Zimmer frame shuffles steadily towards me on the polished floor in tartan slippers. I suddenly break into a grin …

"Bravo Simon, there's an emergency on the third floor, do you copy?"

Richards best 'SAS' radio voice, has interrupted my well-deserved fag after a busy morning. I am still chuckling to myself over the nurses eloquent request to remove a deceased patient from the ward: "ONE DEAD, TAKE AWAY!" 

"Roger!" I reply to him, while scraping the lit end of my fag against the hospital wall and saving it for later.

As I approach the third floor, I can hear raised voices echoing through the lift shaft. The doors open to reveal Richard, standing in front of me holding a plastic chair with its legs pointing outwards. He appears to be in battle with a ninety-year-old man yielding two walking sticks.

"WELL, DO SOMETHING FOR CHRIST'S SAKE!" Richard shouts, "IT'S NOT BLOODY FUNNY MATE, HE'S TOTALLY LOST IT!"

 I begin one of those uncontrollable laughs that goes on forever. I lean on the wall to stop myself falling over. Richard's not happy with me. I will never forget this moment …

Reaching my wife's bedside, she wakes up and smiles gently at me. Her familiarity with the hospital is just as ingrained as my own. Angelina was a care worker at the same time I was a porter those many years ago, and we have shared many hospital memories together. But one day, a simple exchange outside the porters lodge changed our lives forever …

"Hey Richard! this is my wife Angelina. She works upstairs on the third floor."

"Very pleased to meet you," he replied in his most polite voice.

"Simon's told me all about you Richard. Why don't you pop round to our place one evening for a drink."

"Top Banana!" Richard smiled back.

Richard was to soon to become our soulmate. He was the smartest, humblest, and most generous person I have ever met. He drank with us, ate with us, laughed and cried with us. When I returned home on the morning my son was born, he was waiting to celebrate with a beer and a Cuban cigar. He picked my wife and baby boy up from the hospital in the car, then cried with joy when I asked him to be Godfather. 

When he took his own life at just thirty years old, we were devastated. He wrote us a letter explaining that he just didn't understand life and didn't belong. He was so terribly wrong, but we are not angry with him. 

His photograph now adorns our living room wall as a large, printed canvas.

 This story is for him.

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Also published at https://medium.com/the-lark/life-death-and-onions-04b9a8dfaf74