Dark Roots by Cate Kennedy

Author:Cate Kennedy
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: FIC000000, FIC029000, FIC019000
Publisher: Scribe Publications
Published: 2012-09-25T16:00:00+00:00

Seizure

If it hadn’t been Helen’s turn to collect the coffees she wouldn’t have seen it. She was carrying the tray back to work when a man in front of her — an ordinary-looking man in a grey suit, a little overweight, hurrying — suddenly sprawled to the ground. His keys and briefcase and a mobile phone went skidding from his outstretched hand and across the concrete.

About ten people stopped. Helen, heart thudding with uselessness, put the tray of coffees on the ground and picked up the man’s belongings, thinking, he’s not getting up, and feeling the day lurch out of ordinariness. She stood up self-consciously, wondering if her hesitation was losing him vital moments and the oxygen was ebbing from his brain because she didn’t know how to do CPR. When she turned back, though, another man had detached himself from the milling crowd and was turning the injured man’s grazed head to the side, loosening his collar. He glanced up at Helen.

‘He’s fitting,’ he said. ‘Epilepsy.’ Then he turned back to the unconscious man on the pavement. ‘You’re okay. Take it easy now.’

She watched the way he took a pen from a pocket and worked it carefully and patiently between the prone man’s teeth. One of the passers-by had something to say to their companion about that, as if they were watching a documentary.

‘So he doesn’t swallow his tongue,’ they said. ‘Choke on it.’

‘Epileptic fit,’ Helen heard muttered from the onlookers. She crouched and tucked the keys and mobile phone back into the unconscious man’s suit pocket, stood his briefcase next to him. She studied his face, red and sweaty with a swelling lump where he’d smacked the pavement, resting close to the other man’s knees. She imagined him five minutes before, finishing a cigarette and talking on his mobile, alert and purposeful, striding back to work with dignity intact. Now this.

‘You’re all right,’ said the crouching man soothingly, and Helen watched, surrendering any responsibility with relief, as he reached over and smoothed the man’s hair out of his eyes. Suddenly the unconscious man’s mouth laboured and he vomited. The onlookers moved on at that, with distaste. But Helen was still drawn to those hands, lifting his head, shifting the pen, grabbing a handkerchief and wiping, never hesitating.

‘You’re right. Everything’s okay.’

Helen felt her face flush with someone else’s humiliation, and something else. That another stranger, passing randomly on the street, could be the agent of such unconditional compassion. She tore her eyes away from those ministering hands, and said: ‘Is he going to be OK, or shall I call an ambulance?’

‘I think we’ll be right — I’ll take care of it. It’s just a kind of seizure. He’ll be fine in a few minutes.’ He glanced up at her as he spoke, smiled and added, ‘Thanks for stopping, though.’

He was not a man who commanded attention. Later Helen could hardly remember what his face looked like; mild, freckled, unremarkable — like someone who fixed your phone, someone who sold

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