Oh Dear Silvia Read Online Free PDF Page B

she wonders, do hospitals always represent such a threat to her? This should be where she is at her keenest, completely en pointe. When she was a medical student, this is exactly what she imagined for herself. The cut and thrust of the hospital front line. The white-coated, hugely respected, stethoscope-round-neck, godlike authority of the hospital doctor. It is a much more special role than hers, she knows this, but it is only during visits to hospitals that she is reminded.
    Somewhere along the line, and she now can’t remember exactly when, she made the less glamorous choice to be a GP. Perhaps the choice made her. Maybe she didn’t have the medical X-factor ingredient to make the hospital doctor mark. She mentally kicks herself for thinking that, and for assuming even for one moment that she is somehow insufficient. She is quite the opposite. She is ‘The Mighty Cat’, as Silvia often calls her.
    Right now, she must be the strongest she can possibly be for Silvia. This is when she is needed most, yet ironically, her professional, doctoring skills are redundant in this very specialized situation. She isn’t a coma doctor. Until three days ago, she knew very little about this area of medicine. She has internetted and blogged and googled and called informed colleagues non-stop since Silvia’s accident, and now she knows a lot more, but of course her voice is a very tiny one in this hospital.
    Inaudible.
    Not that ‘they’ are doing anything overtly wrong, it’s just that Cat doesn’t want to be spoken to as if she’s a mere friend of the patient. That is what she is, essentially. A friend of the patient. The patient’s best friend, actually. Best best ever friend. Which, in real terms, makes you the most important person in their life. Chosen by them. Not their bloody family, who they don’t really speak to, even, who hardly know Silvia any more. Only Cat knows Silvia, the real Silvia. She wishes she could shoo them all out of this room with their ruddy visitors’ rota, all these useless hangers-on like Ed and Jo.
    Poor Silvia, having to lie there in their dreadful company, unable to resist. They all think they are exactly what she needs to wake her up! How egotistical. Cat is what Silvia needs. Didn’t she and Silvia have a special connection from the very first moment Silvia walked into her consulting room twelve years ago to get help with bouts of serious sadness? Cat is the most connected person to Silvia in the entire world – what place do these other fools think they have?
    Cat is Blu-tacking to the wall a large printed photograph of the stunning rugged Connemara landscape. This is where she was born and raised, and where she and Silvia have had several remarkable holidays. Wouldn’t it be fantastic if this was the first image Silvia saw on waking? Something so evocative and so reminiscent of utter joy?
    ‘Remember Kylemore Abbey, Silly? Sure, I’ve never seenyou openly weep like that just because of the sheer beauty of a place. And what beauty. Bloody colossus of a mountain with the perky gothic Abbey nestling in its lap. Got a lovely picture of you at the front door. Hat on. And the nuns. Benedictine bats, you said. They frightened you, Silly, I know, God love you, but you haven’t grown up with them. I love a bit of a nun, forever flitting about on the periphery of your life vision, providing the moral measure. Personally, I never did come across an evil one, although I always expected to. You hear so many stories, doncha? But no one could verify them. Evil nuns and ghosts – do they truly exist?’
    The picture is up. Cat turns from her task and looks at Silvia.
    Why is half of Silvia’s face covered in Vaseline? she wonders. She unzips a small cosmetic bag she has brought from Silvia’s flat. She has keys, and she knows Silvia would use these products if she could choose. She applies plenty of the Clinique toner to a cotton pad and slowly, tenderly wipes all the grease from Silvia’s face,