Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, around 12pm, 6th January 1987...

"God, Paula. You shouldn't have sold the bloody camper van..."

Paula McIntyre barged through the automatic sliding doors of the hospital's accident and emergency department, short of breath from having sprinted all the way there from Imperial Wharf, the nearest Underground station to A&E being a mere 20 minutes away...

Other people sitting in the reception area stared at the woman as she crouched in the middle of the floor and put her hands on her knees, catching her breath as she let out a triumphant pant of relief.

"Excuse me miss, are you alright?" One of the receptionists sounded from the reception counter.

"Hello, my name is Paula McIntyre," she let out breathily, answering with difficulty, "I'm looking for my friend and her two weans, they've been in an accident"

The receptionist looked down at her files, "Do you have an appointment?"

"Listen, the police officer at the scene phoned my number and said that they were in an accident only an hour ago and that they were being taken here!" Paula approached the counter, perplexed.

The receptionist lowered the pen in her hand, and asked, "What are their names?"

"Monica Brannigan, and Johnny and Roshni Bulsara," Paula answered before hesitantly elaborating, "The kid's surnames are different to their ma's because their parents aren't married... yet."

"Take a seat, please" the receptionist ordered, pointing to the waiting area with one hand and lifting her office phone receiver with the other.

Paula reluctantly turned around, her heartbeat steadying as her body slowly came down from the adrenaline rush that got her from the station to the hospital.

It was an all too familiar feeling that she experienced only weeks before back in Dublin, one that kept her awake all night and wondering if Monica was going to be okay after her intoxicated brush with death in a Hilton hotel swimming pool.

"I still don't understand why they'd call me," Paula thought yet again, sitting down, "Why wouldn't they call Freddie?"

Of course, Ms McIntyre was completely unaware of what had transpired back at the Garden Lodge household only an hour or two before as she watched as the receptionist make a telephone exchange that lasted only several seconds before setting the receiver back down.

"What's the score?" Paula urgently asked, anxiously clutching onto the strap of her white tote bag, "Do you know if she or the little ones are badly hurt?"

"The head nurse will tell you if you just wait here for them, miss" the receptionist insisted, her tone of voice a little more ill-mannered than the last.

"You know what? I'll just go and bloody-well find them myself" Paula muttered, getting back onto her feet and ushering towards the double doors beside the desk.

"Miss? Miss, please!" the receptionist called after her in protest, "The medical team might still be taking care of them, this is a large hospital and you might lose your way!"

Fortunately Paula still had adrenaline rushing through her, giving her the drive and determination to search for a woman with dark brown hair, a little boy with brown eyes and a girl with curly black hair in one of the busiest hospitals in a major capital city. Shouldn't have been too difficult, right?

"Monica!! Mo??"

Ms McIntyre cried out for her friend as she rushed through the ward, weaving her way past the havoc that were the hospital beds, the machines on wheels that were constantly beeping, and the nurses and doctors in blue scrubs rushing up and down the corridors.

"Monica! Has anyone here seen Monica Brannigan?!"

"Try the reception desk, we're busy here!" a member of staff passing by curtly shouted back.

But having given up on reception desks already, Paula's eyes began to well up with tears of defeat.

The poor woman backed into a wall and out of the way to allow emergency staff to wheel medical trolleys ad beds back and forth, pulling up the sleeve of her jumper and using it to discreetly dab her kohl-lined eyes dry.

Paula never cried in public, except for things where her feelings were mutual such as funerals or sad films at the cinema. Other than that, for someone so outgoing and outspoken she felt naked whenever she expressed the deepest of her emotions in the presence of others.

"I'm sorry Mo," she whispered against the wall through hitched breaths, "I-I'm sorry I let you down"

As her sobs turned rhythmic, Paula was able to acutely hear the sources of the more stationary noises in the ward. From the chatters of the staff to phones ringing from the walls and the office desks, and even the sobs of one or two children in the background.

"Children..."

Perhaps all was not lost.

Paula quickly gathered herself together, passing by each bed and station again as she keenly listened out.

Her ears finally caught the sound of the child's sobs again, and she didn't stop following the sound until it got closer and louder.

At last she reached one of many sets of screens on wheels that were cloaked with pastel patterned curtains and sectioning off rectangular-shaped spaces where the beds were, and by now she could hear both a child crying and the hushed voice of a woman inside one of one of them.

"Don't worry," the woman's said gently, "You will be asleep the whole time and when you wake up, it won't hurt anymore"

Paula nervously peered in the gap between the fabric and the pole of the screen.

As she had hoped, a familiar black-haired little girl was sullenly sitting on edge of the hospital bed with her right arm in a sling, her left arm clutching it close as the nurse sitting beside her consoled her.

"Roshni!" She cried out her name in elated relief.

The girl snapped her head up, "Auntie Paula?!"

The two wept even more as they both collided with one another, gratefully sobbing in each other's embrace.

"Thank goodness! Are you this little girl's real Aunt?" The nurse asked Paula.

"No, I'm her mum's friend," Ms McIntyre quickly answered, and bent down to Roshni's level as she inspected her right forearm, "Are you okay?"

Roshni shook her head tearfully, "I want my mum"

"I know, and I'll find her, pet. Don't worry" Paula promised.

"Do you know where she is?" Roshni wiped her wet cheek with her left hand, "They took us all away in different ambulances"

"Fucking brilliant..." Paula sarcastically muttered, then answered the girl remorsefully, "I haven't found them yet, just you," she then drew back and asked the nurse, "Do you know where this wee girl's mother and brother are?"

The nurse didn't answer, but rather ascertained, "I'm sure the other doctors and nurses are doing all that they can for them"

"Some help" Paula contemptuously thought, then asked Roshni, "Is your arm badly hurt?"

"Just my wrist. The paramedics think it's broken," the little girl snivelled, "a-and that I might need to be put to sleep with gas so that they can push one of the cracked bones back in place so that it heals"

"Well, that's good isn't it?" Paula smiled at her assuringly, "You won't feel a thing if you're asleep"

"But w-what if I die being given the gas?" Roshni fearfully objected, "Like the Jews did in World War Two?"

Paula was too astounded to answer the child, let alone even ask her where she had learned about the Holocaust.

But the nurse interjected, "The Nazis gassed the Jews with carbon monoxide... But we use nitrious oxide, a good type of gas that we call laughing gas because it makes you feel very giddy before you get-"

"You lot really are starting to do my head in, none of this is helping!" Paula retorted irritably.

"Madam, I'm just doing my job!" The nurse defended, voice wavering as she too lost patience.

"Wind your neck in!" Paula answered back, "Have none of you considered the fact that maybe the one thing this wee girl needs right now is-"

"WHY DO GROWN-UPS ALWAYS HAVE TO SHOUT AND FIGHT EACHOTHER?!" Roshni tearfully exclaimed across the both of them.

There was a silence, except for the bustling pandemonium of the emergency department sounding from the other side of the curtained screen.

Paula searched the little girl in puzzlement for a reason for her outburst, but Roshni silently stared ahead and refused to look either of the adults in the eye, clutching her broken arm tighter to herself.

"What are the rest of her family's names?" The nurse asked flatly, breaking the silence.

"Monica Brannigan and Johnny Bulsara" Paula answered sheepishly.

The nurse stood up, "Is that an informal nickname for Jonathan, or John?"

Paula shrugged, and replied, "Just Johnny"

The nurse nodded, "Wait here and I'll see if anyone else here knows of their whereabouts"

She proceeded to make her way to the screen, leaving Paula and Roshni alone together.

Now that there was a free space on the hospital bed, Paula went down to sit bedside her, and put an arm around her shoulders.

She awkwardly began, moving a stray black curl from the girl's face, "I bet that car accident gave you a very nasty fright, eh?"

Roshni quietly snivelled, and didn't lift her head from her lap.

Paula cleared her throat gently, and continued:

"I broke my arm once when I was your age. Had to get a cast on it, and whenever the cast dried my friends and family drew lots of really cool and fun things on it. Some of them even drew and wrote rude things that shocked my grandparents and teachers! Won't that be exciting?!" 

"Mhmm" the girl noised, her voice still gravelly from crying.

Paula could see that her attempt at making Roshni laugh and smile had failed.

"Speaking of friends and family," She said next, "I guess I should be the one let your dad and your granny and grand da know what happened and where you are."

At that, Roshni stiffened with a sense of panic in her teary blue eyes.

"What's the matter, pet?!" Paula whispered to her in concern.

The little girl inaudibly quivered words that Paula wouldn't forget in a hurry:

"...H-He hit mum."

In disbelief, Paula asked her, "Who?"

"Dad!" Roshni let reluctantly out.

Paula's jaw dropped in shock as she processed the little girl's words.

Roshni tearfully stammered as she went on to recount what she had witnessed:

"M-Mum and dad were fighting in the hallway, about Johnny and me, we think. And then they argued about dad not coming to Dublin before Christmas and not speaking to any of us... then he called mum a b-b a bitch, and she called him selfish... and h-he just hit her across the face!!"

Paula huffed, disappointedly murmuring, "Goddammit, Fred. I don't know why I bother..."

The woman knew instantly that Freddie hadn't told Monica the truth, otherwise there probably wouldn't have been an unforeseeable outcome such as this one. And what's more is that Paula felt as though her Christmas Eve listening to Freddie weep about his troubles and giving him advice and consolation in return was a pointless waste of time.

"I'm scared, Auntie Paula" Roshni trembled out of nowhere.

"It's only a little operation," Paula took a tissue from a nearby dispenser on the wall, and caught the little girl's tears as they fell, "you'll fall sleep, and when you wake up again your arm will be on the mend."

"No, I'm scared about what's going to happen after the operation!" Roshni fearfully elaborated, "What if Johnny and me have to go live in different houses, like Uncle Bri's children?"

"Uncle Bri?"

"What if we can't go back to Headfort? What if we never get to see Luke and Leia Skywalker again? ...Or Oscar, or Tiff, or Golly!"

"Who are all these people?!" Paula uttered.

"They're not people, they're our cats!"

Paula knew well that a child's priorities are very different to that of an adult's, and being more of a dog person herself she especially wasn't sure of how to answer the latter part of Roshni's question.

"Don't worry about any of that yet," she told Roshni, holding her closer to her side as she continued dabbing her cheeks dry, "You're alive and safe, and that's what matters."

"But what if dad finds out we're here at this hospital and tries to take us away from mum?!"

Paula didn't believe for a second that Freddie was even emotionally capable of chasing after his own children after striking their own mother in front of them both, let alone holding back from telling Monica the truth. If anything, she couldn't help but see him as pathetic and cowardly for the things he had said and done.

But now there was a little girl sitting beside her, utterly alone and scared, and in need of somebody to care for her...

So Paula climbed off of the hospital mattress, and crouched down to Roshni's level.

Her wet sniffles stopped when Paula took her free hand, and gently turned her chin towards her.

The woman looked Roshni dead in the eye as she told her, "I'm not going to let anything bad happen to you, alright?"

"Mmhmm" Roshni nodded, wiping her wet eyes with the back of her left hand.

"And if you do have to have your operation, I'll be there to make sure you'll be okay and that the doctors and nurses are looking after you" She assured her further.

Just then, they both heard the squeak of wheels from one of the metal screens.

The nurse had returned, "Good news, I found them"

"Thank goodness for that, thank you!!" Paula leapt back onto her feet, "Where are they?"

"They're still together in a triage, only a few beds away," She answered her, and solemnly added quietly enough so that Roshni couldn't hear, "Out of the three of them, the little girl is lucky to have just sustained a broken wrist"

"What do you mean?" Paula furrowed her brows in concern.

"Just prepare yourself for what you'll see," the nurse advised, " Now nothing is conclusive yet, but neither mother or son appear to be in good shape at the minute"

Paula's stomach dropped in dread, but she knew what she had to face.

Besides, after what happened to Monica only a few weeks before in December, it couldn't have been that hard at this point.

She turned to her friend's daughter, "Roshni, I need to leave you for a bit."

"Don't leave me alone here, Auntie Paula!" Roshni fearfully pleaded.

"I have to, pet! Your mother and brother need me too. I'll be back for you as soon as I can, okay?" Paula explained gently, on the verge of panic.

She turned to leave, but Roshni grabbed onto the back of her grey tailored trousers:

"You promised not to let anything bad happen to me!" The girl wailed in despair.

Paula could've snapped at the little girl right then and there, but instead started to dig through her tote bag as a last resort, her heart racing as she hastily pulled out her spiral notebook and pen.

"What are you doing?" Roshni asked the woman in confusion, watching as she frantically scribbled something down.

"I'm writing down my mobile number"

"You have a mobile phone too, like mum?"

"Yes, for my new job," Paula answered, before ripping it out and handing it to the child, "Keep it with you at all times"

Roshni looked at it, "What for?"

Paula then firmly instructed, "If or when you get moved to another department or ward, ask a nurse where you are and how to get there from the main hospital entrance, then get them or the doctor to call me on this number right away so that I know of your whereabouts. Understand?"

Roshni sullenly nodded, hugging Auntie Paula's waist one more time before reluctantly allowing her to slip away.

"...Be brave for me"

Those were Paula's parting words before she exited the other side of the screen.

She let herself be escorted through the chaos of the emergency department, and within seconds she was standing in front of yet another tacky pastel curtain that she had in fact already passed by two times before, but had missed.

"As I mentioned already this is triage, so don't expect them to be in here for long if their injuries are severe" the nurse explained.

Paula nodded as she watched the nurse enter the closed-off section, before she herself followed after with a feeling of trepidation.

She was met with the sight of two hospital beds, one which had several staff in scrubs with apparatus in their hands swarming around it and barking orders at each other.

"Switch on the ventilator, now!!" One of them shouted.

"Grab me more bandage tape!" Said another.

Paula knew that it must've been Johnny, for she could hear a child crying amidst the noise. Fortunately, having been trained in art therapy, her mind was somehow good at filtering out emotionally distressing words and sounds.

She looked at the second bed which was on its own, and occupied by a grown adult wearing a pea green coat that she could recognise anywhere.

"...Mo?" Paula barely heard herself sound her best friend's name as she gravitated closer.

Immediately she identified the heart-shaped face wedged in between two bright red foam blocks of some kind of head immobiliser.

Monica's body feebly jerked on the bed in response, for she couldn't move her head to look around and see where it came from.

"P-Paula? Is that you there?" she croaked, her eyeballs glancing as far over as they were allowed to see.

Paula stood at the bedside for a minute, struggling to think of the right thing to say to somebody who had just gotten in a car accident and hit by her partner all in one morning.

Instead she took Monica's hand as she felt tears filling her eyes, tears that weren't as bittersweet as the last.

At last, she joked, "You really need to start keeping out of hospitals, you numpty!"

"I know I should" Monica rasped.

In spite of the unreadable expression on her face, a small smirk formed as she lightly squeezed Paula's hand in response.

Paula smiled back at her gently, and it wasn't long before she noticed the pink finger marks imprinted on Monica's left cheek under the bright light,  and then she was reminded of what Roshni had told her only a couple of minutes before.

"What the hell happened to you, Mo?!" She thought aloud.

"I'm okay, the doctors think it's just a neck sprain or whiplash" Monica obliviously answered, referring to the visible apparatus that her head was locked in.

Paula decided not to press further, and leaned in to rejoicingly and affectionately press her forehead against Monica's.

Understandably, Monica didn't reciprocate, for she had too much going on in her mind:

"I still don't know where they took my little girl. The nurses won't tell me anything..."

"I know they won't," Paula gave a little eye roll, but then rubbed her hand up and down Monica's arm assuringly, "But it's okay, I've found Roshni"

"You did?!" Monica almost leapt up.

"Yes! She possibly broke her arm, that is all. She'll be alright"

"...You're a gem" Monica's face fell into a relieved smile, the first smile Paula had seen since she'd arrived.

Another gap of silence followed, and now the two women could still hear Johnny crying from the next bed as nurses tended to him to the point where it was too hard to ignore, let alone imagine what injuries the poor boy had sustained in the accident.

"How can Mo just lie still and listen to her child suffering?" Paula thought morosely, "No mother should ever have to listen to that"

"I should've made sure Johnny had his seatbelt on" Monica's weak voice interrupted her friend's thoughts.

"He wasn't wearing his seatbelt?!" Paula quietly exclaimed.

"The passenger airbag didn't go off either," She guiltily recollected, "He just slammed against the dashboard like a rag doll right beside me. Glass everywhere..."

At that, Paula saw one of the nurses at Johnny's bedside pass over what appeared to be bloodied rags to another nurse, a sight that only sparked her ever-growing curiosity. But she daren't look down at the site on the bed of the horrific sounds of a child's agonised wailing were anything to go by.

"Just go over there and tell me, tell me what they're doing to him" Monica begged.

Paula glanced back down to her friend, "Are you sure you want to know?"

Monica's head lightly wiggled up and down in between the two red foam blocks as she tried to nod.

"Okay then" Paula reluctantly swallowed, comfortingly tapping her friend's shoulder before she drew away.

There was a gap in between two of the nurses that allowed her catch a glimpse of what was happening on the hospital bed.

The first thing Paula saw was the blood dripping down the side of Johnny's head and the bruising on his bare torso, exposed by his bloodstained clothes that had been cut away so that the doctors and nurses could assess him further.

"Keep the boy still, he needs air!" Of the nurses ordered.

Paula helplessly watched the nurses trying to force what appeared to be an oxygen mask onto Johnny's mouth, only for the boy to dodge it as he loudly wailed and writhed in what must've been excruciating torture for any boy his age to endure.

With tears in her eyes, and the sight and sound of Johnny's agony burned into her mind, Paula remorsefully thought:

"I should've told Monica the truth about Freddie's HIV test, then maybe none of this would've happened."

To Be Continued...

Sorry for the length of this chapter (and the lengthy wait). To make up for it, thought I'd share with you a painting I did  last month of more hopeful times to come in ETYMAM...

Slightly xx