KOL – The Attack 12.30

Joan didn’t move. She continued to stand holding the sink and holding the letter. She didn’t look up, she didn’t even acknowledge Jess’ presence.
 
“Mum, whatever is it?” Jess asked. “Are you ok?”   Behind Joan she saw photograph or a newborn baby. Fingers up to its mouth, its face was still red and pinched. It couldn’t have been more than a few hours old when the picture was taken.
 
Jess stooped to pick it up, sweeping her hair back behind her ears as she did.  She held it close so that she could see it and then stretched it out to her mother. As she did so, she saw that Joan had suddenly become very fed in the face with her skin blotching down her neck.
 
Joan was leaning over the sink now, fighting back the growing pain in her chest. She was finding it hard to breath, hard to keep her mind clear. She tried to concentrate, breath deeply but she was feeling really dizzy, like the floor was falling away, the kitchen spinning.  Most of all, she was beginning to feel violently sick.
 
“Mum,” Jess cried as she was her mother fall forward across the sink clutching her chest. She supported Joan, afraid that she wouldn’t be able to hold her weight. Her mother was still breathing irregularly, tugging in the air in short gasps, the colour in her face was now purplish.
 
“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” mutter Jess. Propping her mother against her and the sink, she extracted her mobile from her pocket and awkwardly raised the front. Easy, she thought, 999. Thank God the number isn’t complicated.
 
She was starting to suffer under her mother’s weight as she told the voice her address and what she thought was happening. “Heart attack I think. Please hurry! I’m not sure what to do!” she urged.
 
The voice had been reassuring. It had prompted her to get her mother into the recovery position. Jess knew all about that – she’d done it in the guides but hey, it was so much easier practicing it on a friend than having to do it in an emergency with your own mother.  For one thing, how was she going to get her mother on the floor without hurting her?
 
“Mum, mum, you’ve got to help me. Ok?” she said gently. “Mum, we’re going to lay on the floor ok?”
 
Joan was still fighting the pain, fighting to breath. She was vaguely aware that Jess had called an ambulance, vaguely aware that she needed to help herself but the pain was so great. Somewhere inside her, she wondered what Arnie would say. How could she tell him?
 
With huge determination, Jess pulled her mother’s weight towards her, supporting her head and together they slid down the front of the kitchen cupboard. Once they reached the floor, Jess sprinted to the living room and pulled the throw off the sofa. She ran back to the kitchen and threw it down the red flagstones. They were great for a kitchen floor but not an ideal place for a recovery position and Jess muttered as she imagined her mother catching pneumonia from them.
 
With Joan finally wrapped in the blanket, her breathing still forced by calmer, Jess sat quietly to talk to her gently, reassuring her. They stayed that way until the ambulance arrived, flashing blue lights bouncing off the walls, tyres crunching on the gravel drive. Jess had never been so relieved before to see two strong men arrive with a stretcher. She left them in the kitchen with her mother whilst she went to collect her things.
 
“Right Miss, we’re taking her into the general,” the driver said as Jess came back into the kitchen. Joan was already up at chest height, ready to wheel out to the ambulance. “Is there anyone who is going to come with us?”
 
“Yes, I will,” Jess replied. “My dad is out in the fields somewhere. I’ll try to reach him but I’ll come with you now in the ambulance.”
 
As the men wheeled her mother out, Jess snatched a set of keys off the hooks by the door. Turning to close the door behind her, she saw the letter where it had fallen, crumpled Joan’s grip as she had clutched her chest and the cupboard.
 
Without hesitation, Jess grabbed the letter from the floor and thrust it deep into her bag.