Fire

When I was twelve years old, I was buried alive within the grounds of a construction site. Ever since, I’ve been terrified of enclosed spaces and one of the consequences of this is that I always try to avoid elevators. This morning, however, workmen are repairing the staircase between the ground and first floors of the hospital, leaving me with no choice but to make my way up to the burns unit in the lift.

And, to make matters worse, I’m not alone. The boy standing in the corner can’t be more than fourteen and he appears anxious, tapping his right foot on the floor in an insistent rhythm. I try to intuit from his demeanour whether he’s visiting a loved one or is here for a consultation himself and decide on the former. Next to him stands an overweight man with a heavily stubbled double chin who I assume is his father. When he catches my eye, he holds it for a moment before allowing his gaze to fall to my breasts. As we ascend through the spinal column of the building, he continues to stare, before looking up and studying my face, as if he’s deciding whether or not, given the opportunity, he would have sex with me. When he looks away and yawns, I can only assume that I haven’t met his exacting standards. They exit on the fourth floor – Renal – while I continue up to the sixth, exhaling in relief when the doors finally open, a slight prickle of perspiration tickling my back. Ahead of me stands Louise Shaw, the most senior Nurse Practitioner and the closest thing I have to a friend here, along with Aaron Umber, a medical student who’s taken the unusual step of opting for a three-month elective on my team. He’s my responsibility, but for some reason his presence has irritated me since his arrival. He’s never anything but polite and is both diligent in his work and focused on our patients, so I have no reason to feel such antipathy towards him, but nevertheless, I find myself snapping whenever the poor lad opens his mouth.

‘Good morning,’ says Louise, somehow managing to control the dozen or so files that she’s carrying, along with the Styrofoam cup of coffee and Kit-Kat with which she greets me every morning. She’s due to retire soon and I’m worried that whoever replaces her will be not as attentive to my needs. ‘Late night?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘You look tired.’

‘Thank you. It’s always nice to start the day being told that I look wretched.’

‘I didn’t say that you looked wretched,’ she tells me, her Irish accent seeping through. ‘I said you looked tired. There’s a difference.’

‘Well, as it happens, I was in bed by ten,’ I tell her, which is the truth, although I wasn’t alone, so perhaps that accounts for any weariness I’m exhibiting. I turn to Aaron, who’s watching me in that unsettling way of his, as if he suspects I’m not human at all but a visitor from another planet, and not a particularly friendly one at that. It’s crossed my mind that he might have a crush on me. I’m only thirty-six, after all, and from what the media are always telling me, young men his age are consumed these days with lust for older women. Leaving aside the fact that I’m his superior, however, he hasn’t a chance as he’s not even remotely my type. It’s not that he’s unattractive – in fact, he’s quite good- looking, if you like that sort of thing, with dark blond hair cut high on his head and short at the sides and sharp, grey eyes – but he’s thirteen years my junior and I haven’t slept with a twenty-three-year-old since I was twenty-three and have no intention of ever doing so again.