Porterhouse Pete

Chapter One

Emergency

In the three months she had lived in the quiet seaside resort of Sandmouth Bay, Dr Rebecca Simons had completed a dozen shifts in the Accident & Emergency Department at the local General Hospital. This particular shift was different though, and likely to be busier than a normal Saturday night in this off-season period. For a start it was Christmas Eve and well after the pubs had finally ejected their merry patrons out onto the darkened streets. Dr Simons glanced at the clock, having finished stitching the wound a youth who'd had a broken glass pushed into his face in an argument, he'd said, with his recently new girlfriend's ex-boyfriend.

To her surprise it was already ten past one, it had been Christmas Day for seventy minutes and she hadn't been aware of it! Just four more hours, she thought, and she could go home to her new house, hardly worthy of the name "home", it was almost empty of furniture and she would be alone at Christmas for the second year running.

She left her patient in the capable hands of nurse Beth Sharp and exited the cubicle to check out the main waiting room, to see who was next in line. Surprisingly, the waiting room was empty. Nurse Jennifer Carter on the welcome desk shrugged her shoulders and smiled.

"Merry Christmas!" Jen said cheerily, standing up behind the counter and putting out her arms for a hug.

Dr Simons repeated the greeting with a warm smile and bent over to embrace her short, blond, amply-built colleague.

Dr 'John' Mohammed, the grizzled hospital registrar, emerged from the back office and gave the young doctor a welcome squeeze, too. His name wasn't really 'John', but when he started working at the hospital twenty-odd years earlier that was the best pronunciation the West Country locals could come up. The name stuck, even down to his official photo-nameplate pinned to his green PPE tunic.

"I'm gonna take the opportunity to freshen up and then take the weight off my feet for a few minutes." Dr Simons said.

"Don't be long, Rebecca," John said, "The Starlight Club kicks them out at one-thirty and this might have been Christmas Eve to us, but to some of the locals it is just another everyday common or garden Saturday night!"

The doctors' restroom in the Accident and Emergency Department had a bathroom attached and Dr Simons examined her reflection in the mirror almost as thoroughly as she had the broken skin of her most recent patient. The initial assessment was that of a brunette, of slightly above average height, athletic build, slim waisted (with long legs, she added with a slight smile, though the mirror only showed her head and shoulders), and she was quite broad-shouldered. She leaned into the mirror, her hazel eyes looked tired with dark rings below them. It was only to be expected, she had done full morning and afternoon surgeries at her practice during the day, making several house calls between and after, and had been busy in the casualty department since six. That's seventeen hours straight and she had four more to go.

"Becks, you look a mess," she told herself out loud as she tried to tuck a rogue hank of hair behind her ear, which fell back to where it was again almost immediately. She ignored it. Her face was pasty, it wasn't just the exhaustion or the winter season of the year. Her life was full of work, yet empty at the same time. If only Justin hadn't been such a disappointing husband, she might still have been happily married.

"I am looking forward to a long sleep before having a go at those living room curtains!" she promised herself. With so little time to herself, what with work and home visits to see her mother and sister, she had determined to use the holiday to get her house at least looking as though it was lived in, after almost three months in a hotel room and only four, now five very busy days in her first very own house.

It would be a strange, lonely but purposeful Christmas Day. And she could do with any positives in her life right now.

She ran water into the sink until it was almost too hot for her hands and washed her face, dried it by gentle patting with the rough paper towels and looked at herself from as many angles she could move her eyes and head to view. Not bad, she thought, the hot water having restored some healthy colour to her skin. Not bad for someone just the wrong side of 30, having recently been divorced from the only man she had ever allowed into her life, until he decided to betray her trust and got found out. Bastard!

At least there were no children, and there was still plenty of time for her in that direction, just about though, starting from scratch. Her face was a strong one, more like her father's than her mother, unfortunately.

Not that she remembered her father much, not having seen him for 25 years, but she had all the photos. It was a long face with strong brown eyebrows and long dark brown lashes shielding rich brown eyes. Her nose was long and straight, giving her a serious expression, which came in handy when as a doctor she needed it. She had high, well defined cheekbones but her cheeks were very much thinner than they used to be.

The shock of the end of her relationship had destroyed her appetite, the anger had increased her killer exercise routine and made her lose an excessive amount of weight in quite a short time. Her lips were thinner than she would like and she felt they made her look even gloomier. Her face ended with a wide jaw, which she needed to accommodate her amazing set of teeth. She smiled at that thought and her lips parted, her mouth widened and upturned at the ends to reveal her neat rows of pearly whites. Her eyes crinkled, emphasising the dark bags under them, but what the hell, she insisted, it's Christmas and she deserved to smile, however old and more world-weary she thought it made her look.

"What have you got planned for today, Doctor?" Nurse Karen asked, with barely a hesitation from her constant mobile phone texting, when Rebecca got back to the waiting room.

"A long soak in the bath, a hot sweet cocoa and a warm bed, then eight straight hours with my eyes closed, in that order!" Rebecca replied, remembering that without curtains she still had to wear a mask over her eyes for daylight sleeping. "And you?"

"Oh, the family, and I mean ALL the family, are coming round my Mum's, it's gonna be a nightmare! Two hours' sleep max, but after lunch we'll all doze, I'll get in another four and still sleep all night!"

Rebecca laughed, tossing her head in the direction of the waiting room behind her, "Does it still look quiet?"

"O-ooh!" Karen announced to the other two nurses and doctor within earshot, "She just said the ... 'Q' word! Tin helmets on everyone!"

"Sorry, folks, wasn't thinking," Rebecca apologised, just as the airwave radio speaker squawked.

"Sierra-Golf-Zero-One from Sierra-Romeo-Zero-Niner, message, over!" the loudspeaker rasped.

Nurse Carter was on it like a flash. "Go ahead, Zero-Niner, over."

The reply was immediate. "Returning to base ETA four; two casualties, stand by Zero-One ... three casualties, one neck injury, with head trauma, unconscious, breathing difficulties; one suspected fractured arm, conscious, one cut face. ETA now two-point-five, over."

"All received, Zero-Niner, out!" Carter ended.

Karen Adler put away her phone and straightened her uniform. Everyone looked expectantly towards the door. They heard the siren before they saw the lights and everyone bar Carter moved towards the door, two trolleys with them.

Dr John spoke first, "I'll take the head trauma with Beth. Rebecca, you deal with the arm and Karen the face cut."

"Hold on, John," Rebecca was determined to hold her own. "This is my shift, you're just staying on beyond your normal time to help out. I'll take the trauma, you set the arm!"

John replied with a salute and a smile.

The ambulance pulled up smartly at the entrance to Casualty and paramedic George jumped out of the driver's door. He did have a surname, but the pronunciation of his Polish family name was pretty well as indecipherable as his radio transmissions, which was why he drove more often than shared duties normally dictated. The back doors swung open and it took the combined efforts of George and John from the outside and paramedic Barry on the inside to get the first wheeled trolley out of the ambulance down to the ground.

"Hell," Beth exclaimed when she saw the occupant, "It's Porterhouse Pete! Swaps with your face case, Karen?"

"No way!" Karen's reply was emphatic. "I mean to enjoy my Christmas, the last person I want to work on tonight is that arsehole!"

"Damn! Thought you'd say that!" Beth moaned.

"What's the problem, guys? He's a big bugger, admittedly, but looks completely out of it." Rebecca was puzzled by the nurses' attitude.

John looked straight at her. "Still time for us to swap, Rebecca, if you want to, Pete can be a real handful when he's awake!"

"Not on your life, let me get him to a cubicle!"

"Don't say I didn't offer," smiled John shaking his grey-haired head, marvelling at the naïveté of youth over experience; 'at least I offered', he thought.

George and Barry wheeled the laden wheeled stretcher into Casualty while John and Karen dealt with the walking wounded. In cubicle number one, Rebecca helped the paramedics transfer the unconscious bulky form to the bed by holding the braced head as still as possible. Beth switched over the oxygen mask attached to the bottle on the trolley to the one in the cubicle.

"Gud luk," said George, cheerily, in his heavy accent and a huge smile on his face, and Barry held up his hand in farewell as the pair wheeled their stretcher back to their ambulance. Rebecca turned back to the bed, to catch Beth finishing off putting the patient restraints on Pete's arms, legs and chest.

"Are you sh—"

"Oh, yes," came the reply, "You've not come across Porterhouse Pete before, have you?"

"Don't think so —"

"You'd know if you had! When he comes out of it he'll be swinging and he won't have a clue what at. I don't think he would hit a woman deliberately, but an accidental punch on the kisser still hurts just the same!"

Rebecca did her preliminary checks. Without sight of his medical file, she thought he was in his forties. The patient's head and face was covered in disfiguring scars, from either several fights or a single traumatic beating. She thought he might have been handsome once, but only a mother would love him now. She removed the face mask to check his breathing. He was clearly able to breathe by himself, so Beth switched off the air and put the mask away, removing and discarding the filter and replacing it with a new one automatically.

Rebecca next removed the gauze covering the wound on Pete's head. It was above and behind the left ear, so it looked like he had been slugged from behind. The hair was cut very short anyway and the cut looked like a clean split to the skin. A scan was needed to ascertain any bone damage, certainly there were no bone fragments on the surface, which was promising. She felt there was another bump on the back of his head, too, which was swelling up. The neck brace was left on, again a scan was needed before that could be removed. She called the Xray/Scanning department and they said they would send up a porter.

While she was in the middle of her phone calling, Beth was cleaning the wound and Pete's breathing note changed, his eyes moved about rapidly under closed eyelids.

Beth warned, "He's comin' round, Doctor!"

Suddenly the giant's eyes were open and he started thrashing around on the trolley-bed and shouting pretty incoherently at the staff to let him go. Rebecca tried to calm him by talking to him in a soothing voice and stroking his clenched fist. John burst through the curtains from the next cubicle but by then Pete was calm and looking, blinking in the bright examining lights, at Rebecca eye-to-eye.

He held her gaze and said "W'am I?"

"In A and E, Pete, you've been struck on the head; we are going to examine you to make sure you are all right, then hopefully we can let you go home."

"Who'you?" he slurred.

"I'm your doctor, Rebecca Simons, Pete. We'll have you up and about very soon, we just need to scan your head and neck to check you're all right. Can you feel any pain?"

"Head hurts."

"Once we've checked you over, we'll give you something for the pain, is that all right, Pete?" her soft calm voice delivered just inches from Pete's face.

"OK, Doc."

She smiled down at this restrained giant. He smiled back briefly before slowly relapsing into sleep.

"Well," said John. "That's a first! What's that quote about music calming the savage beast?"

"Congreve, 'Musick hath charms that calms the savage breast', it is often misquoted as 'beast'," said Rebecca, calmly and quietly. A tear dropped from the end of her nose onto Pete's breast.

John saw this and immediately gathered up his young charge and frogmarched her to the doctors' rest room. Once there, Rebecca cried momentarily and composed herself.

"I'm all right," she said, "Just tired and it got to me just for a moment. It must be because it's Christmas and my first one on my own, well, my second but only my Mum was sort of with me last year."

John had been married to the same woman for 35 years, it had been arranged by both sets of parents and the very first time he saw his bride was on their wedding day. Complete strangers they were, and forced to make the best of it and learn to tolerate and eventually love one another, raise their children, both of whom were now practicing medicine. He couldn't imagine not being married to his wife, now with the children gone, she was his life. Sadly, he reflected, almost all the staff over thirty in the hospital had been divorced, some several times over. Perhaps a free choice of partner wasn't the best method of pairing up couples at all. He didn't know Rebecca's history, she was quiet about what brought her to Sandmouth Bay. He only knew she had joined the smaller of the two local medical practices and was still building up her patients list, hence she was taking the turns at the hospital for the other two doctors she partnered as well as her own shifts. For John, this hospital had been the first placement the Medical Council had found for him when he originally came into the country, and he had learned to love it here. For most other non-natives it was often a place of quiet refuge running away from somewhere or someone.

Rebecca was full of her own thoughts after John left the locker room. She dried her eyes and followed him out a moment later.

Nurse Carter called over to her. "Danny has wheeled Porterhouse Pete to Xray, should get the results in thirty minutes."

"Thanks," smiled Rebecca.

A fresh-faced policeman with butterfly stitches in a cut over his swollen and almost closed left eye, stood at the desk in front of Nurse Carter. He looked like he was only about 15 to Rebecca, who thought she must be getting old as policemen seemed to look younger every year. She stopped next to him, he turned and grinned at Rebecca. God! she thought, he looks as though he's only 12 when he smiles!

"Looks like you've got the beginnings of a classic shiner there," she said, looking closer at the wound, her professional interest kicking in. "The cut should heal up nicely, though. Looks like Pete has got a good right hook on him!" she teased.

The young copper looked embarrassed for a moment and blushed at her words. Then he smiled again anyway.

"I'm not gonna hear the last of this down at the station, Doctor," he grinned ruefully, "It wasn't Pete that clocked me, it was Matey-boy's girlfriend with her handbag!" He indicated with his thumb to Cubicle 2, which still had the curtains drawn. "I dunno what she keeps in there but I feel like I've been hit with a brick. Pete was one of the bouncers down the Starlight and was being baited by Matey and half a dozen of his mates at chucking out time. Pete was p- sorry, drunk as usual and went to grab one of the loudest taunters. I was about twenty feet away and moved towards the altercation. Just as Pete got hold of this other kid, Matey-boy there came up from behind and coshed him with a bottle. Pete went down like a sack of spuds and hit the back of his head on the pavement. I grabbed Matey's arm, twisted it behind his back and that's when the handbag hit, I saw stars and we both fell over, landin' on Matey's arm and breaking it."

He tentatively felt his wound with his fingers. "Now I gotta stay here until Dr John's finished with him and I'll have to call in for a lift for both of us."

It wasn't long before the rather miserable youth with the broken arm came out of the cubicle and sat disconsolately in the empty waiting room while the young constable took his statement in his little notebook.

In the meantime, Pete was wheeled back into cubicle one and Rebecca studied the scanner images on one of Nurse Carter's screens, alongside Pete's medical records which showed minor injuries and examinations in recent years, but serious complications some 25 years ago when Peter Porter was only 18.

John looked over her shoulder at the scans and both agreed Pete had been very fortunate to get away without any internal problems. By the time Rebecca got inside the cubicle, Beth was just tying off the ninth neat stitch behind Pete's ear.

"Very nice work, Nurse Sharp," came Rebecca's compliment as she examined the clean wound. Addressing the patient, who was now fully awake again, "We will put a dressing on your head tonight, Mr Porter, to keep the wound clean, and if you come back tomorrow afternoon we can put on a fresh dressing and see how the wound is progressing. Can you sit up all right?"

"No, Doc, I can't." He tried to raise his arms but was still restrained by the bands across his chest, arms and thighs. At least, thought Rebecca, he was smiling, he didn't look at all menacing, his smile disarming rather than dangerous.

"Sorry!" chimed in Beth, "I forgot!"

Beth started to loosen the band across his chest and Rebecca undid the one across his thighs. They both removed the arm tapes together.

The grinning bouncer, still dressed in a dinner jacket, blood-spotted white shirt and loosened bow tie, got up on one elbow, then lay back down again.

"Bit dizzy and head's thumpin', other than that, I'm fine," he said.

"Just lay still while Nurse Sharp binds your head and then we can have another go at sitting you up before we let you home, Mr Porter."

Rebecca turned and pulled the curtain, finding the young officer immediately in front of her, talking into his mobile phone.

"They've finished with me, Sarge ... Yeah, fine ... no ... Yes. ... They've set the guy's arm, got 'is statement, just tryin' to find out if Pete will be kept in overnight, though they said earlier when I asked that there are no spare beds ... It's Christmas, Sarge and the hospital's on skeleton staff, so not all the wards is open ... OK ... Sure ... Yeah ... OK Sarge, call you in a mo."

"What's the score with Pete, Doctor?" the young copper addressed Rebecca who by now had walked to the Reception desk.

"He'll be able to go home in ten or fifteen minutes."

"Ahh, that's the problem, he hasn't got a home to go to," the copper said.

"Where does he live?"

"Recently he's been sleeping in a basement storage room at the nightclub, but after tonight's altercation outside the club, they upped and fired him and have locked up the club until after the holidays. I gotta wait until you've finished with Pete and the Sarge'll send a squad car round to pick us up so we can put 'im up for the night in the cells over at Fordbridge."

"Why has Pete got to go to the cells, if he didn't actually hit anyone? You said he didn't cause the affray." Rebecca asked, concerned about her patient.