26
The hospital had cleaned my clothes, but the bloodstains still clung faintly to the shirt. I looked bedraggled. To ease my limp, they’d given me a walking stick. I’d refused but had to relent. Leaning on it, I thanked the nurse, got a supply of painkillers and took the elevator to the ground floor. A fortune had been spent on the hospital foyer and spent recklessly. It looks like the departure lounge of an airport, with a flash coffee bar, massive potted plants and an air of opulence. Nobody can find Admissions, and people wander round in dazed confusion.
I phoned a taxi and the girl said,
“It will be about twenty minutes. How will the driver know you?”
“I’ll be in the coffee bar, I have a cane … ”
And before I could continue, she roared,
“Five nine, pick up at the hospital, an ol
