Free Throwaways by Jenny Thomson Page B

want to go to hospital. Me andhospitals just don’t get on. Not after I’d spent so much time in one when I was attacked and left for dead.
    Tommy slung an arm around me and helped me into the backseat of the car. The last thing I remember before drifting off is taking some painkillers washed down with
Irn Bru
and arguing with Tommy because he wouldn’t let me wash them down with vodka.
    When I came to, I was lying on Tommy’s couch, wrapped in a duvet and he had his hands clasped behind his head and was saying, ‘’Shit” over and over again. His face was as grey as a Glasgow sky.
    When he saw me, he said, “What was I thinking of letting an untrained civilian go in without backup?”
    I was about to tell him that’s army speak and I hate army speak, when I realised I could no longer articulate the words. My jaw was numb from where the bastard skelped me in the face and I was on so many painkillers (I vaguely remember Tommy waking me to give me more), I could barely keep my eyelids open. It was as though iron weights had been attached to the ends.
    The last thing I heard before I headed off to dreamland, was Tommy prattling away about needing to train me. Drifting off to images of hunky soldiers in combats, I didn’t wake up for another 26 hours and by then another woman had gone missing.
    * * *
    “How are you feeling, Nancy?”
    Below me, I feel the crinkle of starched sheets and the smell of disinfectant snakes its way up my nose.
    Bastard
, despite what I’d said, Tommy had taken me to hospital. How could he do this to me?
    When you’ve been locked up in a loony bin that you thought you’d never get out of, you panic when you wake up in hospital;any hospital.
    My hands scramble around trying to find a call button. When my desperate hand closes in on one, I almost weep with relief. This was a real hospital, one you could sign yourself out of. The one I’d been in before only had call buttons for staff.
    A nurse was standing over my bed holding a clipboard.
    “How are you feeling?” She pauses to consult the clipboard. “Nancy.”
    “A bit woozy. My jaw, was it broken?”
    The words sound dumb in my mouth. Of course it’s not broken. If it was I wouldn’t be able to talk.
    She shakes her head and tells me I’ve broken a few ribs. When he’d kicked me, I’d felt something snap.
    “When can I go home?”
    She checks my file again. “After the doctor’s done his rounds and checked you over one last time. You had quite a fall.”
    So, that was the cover story Tommy used.
    The tightness in my chest eased.
    * * *
    By four o’clock that day I was back at Tommy’s, wrapped up in my dressing gown, sipping some sort of vegetable concoction Tommy had made me in the liquidizer and trying hard not to be sick. He told me I’d need to eat if I wanted to take any more codeine-based painkillers, or they’d, “burn my stomach to hell.”
    “We were bloody stupid, you know,” he said, as he eyed me whilst I forced down some soup. “Leaving you exposed like that. You’re just a civilian. You haven’t had any combat training.”
    Of course I wanted to say. “Duh,” but the movement it would have taken to speak would have hurt my face. Instead, I nodded; I’d rather have been kicked in the face again than listen to what I call Tommy’s Jesus on the cross routine where he thinks he should be the saviour to everyone, including me.
    Tommy kneeled down on the floor so he was level with the couch and put his hand in mine.
    Christ, he was going to propose! A phlegmy chuckle rose in my throat.
    Tommy cleared his throat. “When you’re better Eric’s gonna teach you how to take care of yourself. Until he does, you’re not going anywhere near those streets.”
    Tommy couldn’t understand why I was cackling away like a crazy cat lady.

Chapter 14
    When I woke up the next day, I felt as though a squad of kids had been using my head as a trampoline. For once, I decided to take Tommy’s advice and spend the day