Checking In

The day for checking into the hospital finally arrived. We set off in the car, Son M driving, F in the passenger seat in front of me. He was strangely quiet the whole journey. I was happy. The drive took about two hours along a busy but uneventful highway. We found the hotel - in an unexpected suburban setting - and moved in. F's bags, were, of course, packed for hospital. We had lunch, the food my first taste of the local cuisine and not really to my liking but no matter, and then we set off. The big moment had arrived.

The hospital was about seven or eight minutes away from the hotel. I was to get to know that route of corners and circles well. In huge grounds were a series of buildings each three or four storeys high, each one for different medical genres. The cardiac building, once we found it, was undergoing renovations and we had to enter through a series of scaffolding off the huge tarmacked parking area. We queued up for the admittance formalities. The hospital proved to be a large government organised complex - and anything to do with government red tape has a universal flavour of drabness, of somewhat dark brick, well worn sombre flooring and a spartan dreariness coupled with the resigned melancholy of people awaiting their turn to be dealt with. The very air smells of government.

But once the elderly lift had delivered us to the ablation floor the air of measured sobriety changed. All was bustle. Each private ward was quite spacious and had two beds, one for the spouse. The nurses were efficient and not unfriendly but seemed to speak no English. We were bustled in, F was installed in bed. We discovered a room nearby where there were chairs and books, some of them in English. There we met a man, a New Zealander. He was wandering about in a dressing gown, had had his treatment and was recuperating; it was fine, he said. M and I had a conversation with him. Somehow F, in bed, had retreated from us.

I watched him eat his supper that night, a bland kind of macaroni cheese. F always had a hearty appetite. He ate the food uncomplaining, sitting on the side of his bed. In the cupboard were his clothes, a couple of books, his hearing aid, neatly arranged. We were completely sure of what we were doing. He was there to be repaired; it was comfort, at last. Outside it was quite black, and cold; but inside this edifice of medical competence we felt secure and happy. We were leaving this man in good hands and they were, finally, the right ones.