The door was locked to her. how could any door be locked at times like these? This was the door Sonia had told her about.
Sonia organised a cartload of stretchered people and in the commotion had authoritatively managed to gain access to some files, sending pictures to Evey, they showed a ward with no patient names but diet charts, indicating an inhabitant this could be the place Tom had been on about.
Sonia couldn’t do anymore; she’d risked her volunteering so much already. That’s where Evey came in as she worked elsewhere, she had nothing to lose. She’d walked into the hospital wearing a jacket and heels, scraped back hair and a hospital lanyard culled from a desk.
Once when it seemed as though she might be questioned. She snatched up a clipboard from the foot of a bed, nonchalantly leafing through blood sugar levels. Her position as consultant seemed cemented, all she had to do was avoid a question.
She found that window, no files, no way in. Checking her watch, it was almost lunchtime so she lurked close by on a hard blue plastic chair, everyone had to eat and as only she could, slipped by unnoticed as the tea trolly went through and from there hid out in the old nurses’ station till the lunch run passed.
They didn’t linger long, only one patient to feed.
Then the floor with a muffled thud was abandoned.
It was clean but musty, she crept to the window of the inhabited ward. in a room bathed with light, a small woman with unkempt pale brown hair sat on the windowsill in her knees hugged to her chest. she wore the most utterly heart breaking, dazed expression Evey had ever seen. She seemed to be staring beyond everything.
Checking the photo, she’d been sent. The woman seemed to be a match. she tried the door, another lock. There Evey had never felt more angry in her life, there was a woman trapped all alone in a place that should help her.
As she couldn’t reach her Evey contented herself with finding the patient’s charts. The nurses station had a working copier, something downstairs desperately needed, yet an empty floor had one. Once this whole mess was sorted, she’d tell Sonia about the photocopier.
Evey photocopied all the charts and took pictures with her phone, it wouldn’t hurt to have backups. Oh, she’d forgotten something. Running back down the corridor she took a photo of the patient.
Needs must.
Clara Lucea
Missed the last instalment of We Six? Find it here:https://theiristribune.co.uk/the-notion-of-power/
