The doctor didn’t get to him till the next afternoon. She closed the curtains round his bed, giving them some privacy. ‘We’re treating the pneumonia and pleurisy with antibiotics and it’s likely to take a couple more days before your symptoms improve. You’ve also a fractured wrist which appears to have gone untreated.’
Zak shrugged. ‘Can you fix it?’
‘I think so. A plaster cast should sort you out – there doesn’t appear to be any infection there. You’re lucky. How did you break it?’
‘Slipped up.’ Zak thought of the beating he’d had. That cold, sick feeling.
‘You’ve not been treated here before so we don’t have access to your medical records but these older injuries…’
‘Car crash,’ Zak explained, his good fingers working, hard to keep still.
She waited a moment, he could see she had her doubts, but in the end she went along with it. ‘Nasty.’
‘Yeah.’
‘You’re homeless at present?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I can refer you to Manchester Housing, or one of the other agencies for help and advice.’
Zak dismissed the idea. ‘You’re all right.’
‘Sleeping rough isn’t going to do anything for your health.’
Zak squirmed. Waited for the lecture on smoking. Instead she asked if he was a drug user.
‘Nah.’
She didn’t believe him, went on, ‘Because there’s a very good rehab scheme we have links with.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Smoking cessation?’ She was almost smiling.
Zak laughed and it set him off coughing, the blade turning in his back.
She had one more try, ‘You’re twenty-two. Another ten years and it’ll all be that much harder. There is help available.’
‘Yeah,’ he said, meaning no.
She sighed and got up, tilted her head.
‘I’ll tell ’em you tried,’ he said, ‘on the customer satisfaction survey. Got my vote.’
Apart from fretting about Bess, Zak had a rare old time. A decent bed, hot food. He still sweated all night and the pain in his chest was worse, he was coughing up stuff the colour of rust, but even so. He didn’t mind the broken sleep, it was better than the dreams. One time Carlton had the gun, he was pointing it at Zak. And Zak was talking fast, babbling that Carlton had got the wrong person. Pleading with him. Sometimes it was a gun and sometimes it was a big knife going right through him. Then another time he was locked in the dark, struggling to get up, he couldn’t move, not his legs or his hand, nothing. He was buried. The dark was soil clogging his mouth, his nose and his lungs.
On the third night, Zak finished his tea – chicken casserole, potato croquettes and broccoli, lime jelly and sponge fingers with grapes – and went out for a smoke. He was off the oxygen. It took over ten minutes to walk through the maze to the smokers’ corner. Midge had sent him the PDSA number. After he’d lit up, he rang ’em again. Bess was fine. He thanked the woman and apologized for bothering her, promised to let her know soon as. Could be the day after tomorrow.