A Classic Pose

By the time she came out, an ambulance crew had arrived. They'd been prepared for the worst, but after a couple of glances at the patient they were satisfied the immediate danger had passed. They seemed to recognize my mum by sight and exchanged a few pleasantries as they prepared to stretcher Kevin out to the ambulance.

Mum still hadn't acknowledged me, and even now as she held on to Kevin's hand and accompanied the stretcher out to a burst of spontaneous applause from the group, she only had eyes for him. She bent down and whispered something into his ear and then had to hold him firmly down as he reacted.

I went to visit him in the hospital after the surgeons had removed the blockage and replaced Mum's temporary fix with clean white dressings. He'd been advised not to try to speak, but he felt he had to tell me something and he beckoned me closer and into my ear, he croaked,

"I didn't know what had happened and suddenly I seemed to be there on that stretcher. Your mum...your mum, she bent over me and she said..."

"What did she say, Kev? What?"

"She said...she said that was the best Deep Throat she'd given anyone in a very long time..."

And with that, he started laughing. This set off all kinds of alarm signals, nurses rushed in and I was subsequently booted out of the ward.

I looked back on that, later. My mum leaning across Kevin, tending to him, was such a Classic pose. I could have painted it and transferred the scene to a Biblical epic, or perhaps a Greek myth, or maybe a mother tending to a wounded soldier, dying in her arms. Nobody would ever know it was just stupid Kevin who'd let his chewing gum manage to go down the wrong hole.