Low life | 7 January 2016

The new year was two hours young. My boy and I were side by side on a row of three fixed plastic seats in the corridor of the accident and emergency ward. The both of us had come directly from our respective New Year’s Eve festivities, as had most, if not all, of the patients swaying, hobbling and staggering up and down the corridor or being wheeled in on trolleys by porters. Croc-shod nurses and nursing assistants weaved briskly and nimbly around and between these injured drunks, doggedly preserving their calmness, concentration and courtesy.

We faced the wide doorway to the row of curtained cubicles in which the urgent cases were being assessed by a single, exhausted doctor. A medley of deep, soulful groans issued from behind the purdah of wipe-clean curtains. Also female sobbing. A 50-year-old woman whose pasty, gelatinous thighs were restrained by tight elastic stocking tops and suspenders paused before my boy and said, ‘Do you want to see my puppy?’ A battered, unconscious face on a trolley pushed by a porter rolled smoothly by.