Morning coffee. A phone call. Grab the bike. He was lying by the bus stop, under a tree, dazed but conscious. People must have told him not to move since he was in a strange position, one leg folded under another. Then I was aware of the driver, shaken, the state of the bus front-window. Bullseyed, he called it. The ambulance intoxicated the morning with its gyrating blue. When the medics see the star on the bus window, they escalate it. I turn the lights off on my bike and lock it on the racks as they brace him, his head, his hips, and we are blue-lighting through rush-hour traffic. He is on that gas they give to women in labour, and his voice is older, scared. We are in a yard with brick walls around us. I follow the gurney out and we go through regular A & E, straight to Trauma: waiting medical staff, a black-bearded doctor. Three of them move him onto the bed, and leaves fall from his clothes. They shear through his school blazer. More leaves fall from him and he is cut out of everything, motionless and white. He is appended to various machines. They try to put a drip in his arm and he starts screaming: hearing this, I realise he will be OK. I stand by his head as medical staff work around him. They tell me the head and chest are of most concern, then hips, these all seem clear, preliminarily, but we need to go to the X-ray room and then an MRI scanner. People keep calling, I try also to assimilate what the staff are telling me, his ankle not broken. Report this back to the others. Meanwhile I am in my hi-viz bike gear. In the paediatric ward, I see I have been carrying his shoes around, also somewhere I picked up a Metro. They say he can sit up. Once I am sure he is calm I go to buy him crisps and a couple of books, come back with a latte, sit and read. By noon it is clear I do not need to be there, so I take the train home. I work for a few hours then go back to collect him. He now has a limp, which will disappear in a few days. Through this process I find a child in me, clinging fast like a peach-stone, right at the centre. Not sure if this is me or him.
Giles Goodland
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