The Glasgow Coma Scale Read Online Free PDF Page A

regularly sized lozenges of colour that had bled faintly into one another – semi-abstract, though the colours suggested a deciduous forestscape somewhere ascetic and Mitteleuropean. He squinted at the lower right corner: LM pencilled in. He recalled her work now, all a little faltering and delicate. He was amused by the slight conceitedness of her hanging something of her own, though this was no less deserving of wall space than the picture-postcard stuff and stock photos in cheap frames he’d seen in other rooms.
    At the eighth ring, an antiquated answer machine clunked into life. ‘You’ve reached Lynne’s number,’ he heard the recording say, harried-sounding. ‘Leave me a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.’ Another thing this lovingly curated flat was not: a place whose owner’s hectic social schedule meant she was seldom home. He listened on, amused, and after the bleep Lynne’s less assertive live voice came through. ‘Oh, hi, Angus, it’s me – just phoning to make sure everything’s okay, you’re finding everything all right . . .’
    Angus stood in the hallway listening to her blether to nobody. Next time. He’d answer the next time she called – he gave it half an hour. You had to save some things to treat yourself. And he didn’t want her to worry – did not, above all, want her to come home and fuss over him.
    Someone threw you a lifeline, you’d have to be stupid or a saint not to grab it. What worried Angus was what might be expected of him in return. More of the same as last time she’d wanted to snare him: a game of footsie beneath the kitchen table, a buss on the cheek before bedtime? He feared not. He feared Lynne had
designs
.
    Well, he’d simply have to take his lead from the not inconsiderable number of women from whom he had, in his time, heard variations on the artful brush-off. ‘Let’s see how we feel when I get back from my holiday.’ ‘I’d never go out with anyone I didn’t consider a friend, so why don’t we try being friends first?’ By careful manipulation you might postpone a difficult showdown indefinitely, never quite crushing the other person: unbearable cruelty dressed up as humaneness. In the interests of self-preservation, Angus was not averse to being cruel.

FOUR
    ‘The first thing to say – and this is crucial, Lynne, absolutely crucial – is that despite whut embdy else might say, any ay ma former employers or ma students, ah wis absolutely not guilty ay harassing
any
one.’
    ‘Oh, Angus.’
    Affronted, he set his cutlery down on his dinner plate. ‘Now that’s telling. See whut ye jist did? That conclusion ye leapt tae? You heard a word ah nivver said. Soon’s folk hear the word “harassment”, they think the “sexual” is a formality, silent there at the front ay it. Don’t feel bad,’ he fired at her. ‘Ye’re no the first person tae make that mistake and doubtless ye willnae be the last.’
    ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, dropping her gaze.
    He waited a good while, apparently expecting her to elaborate, before telling her not to apologize. He collected poached salmon on his knife and drew the blade between his teeth, making Lynne wince. ‘It’s a bit hurtful for me tae hear, is all, if ye can understand that.’
    ‘Of course I do.’ She strained to show empathy. ‘I didn’t mean . . . But, look, if it wasn’t . . . that, then what did happen?’
    ‘Year upon year,’ he said, commencing a lecture, ‘ye see the same thing. These kids do not appreciate how insanely difficult it’s gonnae be for them tae get anywhere wi their art. Almost everywan walks in that door in September’s gonnae be disappointit come May. Ah know it and you know it’ – an ironic sidelong glance at Lynne’s drab office clothes already hung out on the bedroom door for Monday morning – ‘but did ye know it back then?’
    Yes, Lynne thought: due in no small part to Angus’s critiques, she’d known it almost from the start. ‘Do