Someone's Someone

Someone's Someone - Chapter One

Henna....

Well that's just bloody great, could my day possibly get any worse? After having to handle emergency calls regarding three drunks, four road traffic accidents, two heart attacks, one stabbing and a choking little girl, I just want to get home and relax a little before going out with Fi to the cinema tonight. We're planning on watching a late night showing of The Endless. I love a good and creepy horror, but Fi will more than likely be hiding behind her popcorn at just the opening credits. I just hope that this rain and wind eases up before we do go out, otherwise it's no point me trying to do anything at all with my damp and insane hair. All this moisture wreaks total follicle havoc with my naturally curly hair. Only a few raindrops, and I look like an electrocuted seventies throwback. And this isn't just rain, this is a blustery shitter of a storm on a biting cold November evening. As I fight with my umbrella, trying to get it up against the strong gale winds, I start cursing under an harassed breath with the last call I took at work still lingering in my cold and aching ears. The fear and panic in the little girls' mother's voice, is something I just don't think I'll ever get used to hearing in my job as an emergency call handler with the Ambulance Service.
Some calls, sometimes stay with me. They just lay heavily on my heart for a little while, until another distressing call eventually replaces it. As the battle with my brolly continues, I try to push the call from my mind as I push against the relentless wind and rain, trying to just get to the bus stop in one safe and dry-ish piece.

My bad day had started at 8:00 a.m this morning; my stupid bloody car refused to start. So I had to catch the bus to get to work this morning. Travelling to Stoke Gifford from my home in The Old Market area of Bristol wasn't too traumatic, just more of a last minute and manic inconvenience. I'm not a big fan of buses. They are noisy, uncomfortable and unclean. Unfortunately, I now have to make that same inconvenient journey back. Apparently there is a god, though, because me and my now mangled umbrella don't have long to wait for the bus. By the time it does arrive, I am damp and ridiculously windswept. A couple of young girls who are already sat on the bus, actually snigger as me and my frizzy hair trudge on past them. I just ignore the immature little gum-chewing chavs, settling into my well-worn seat and still trying to forget about that mother's frantic emergency call. Instead, I try to focus only on what I can see through the steamed up bus window—Bristol by night.

Just staring out of it with a weary stare, I just feel grateful to be inside somewhere dry and warm, rather than out in that bone-chilling storm. Realising that I won't have much time to call dad later about my poorly old car, I decide to call him now. With the tips of my fingers still so very cold, they feel numb when I use my mobile.

"Hello, sweetheart." Dad cheerily answers his phone. "I've sorted out your car. It was just in need of a new battery."

"Thank yooooooou, Dad...you're a star." I smile, so pleased to know that I won't have to take the bus again tomorrow. "Have you given the keys to Keith?"

"Yeah, he said just nip into the bar and grab them from him."

"Great, thanks again, Dad."

He softly chortles. "That's what dads are for." There's such fatherly pride in his deep voice, and rightly so. Dad has singlehandedly brought me up since I was four years old. My womb donor (my mother) left us both because she said that motherhood and being in a serious relationship wasn't in the stars for her. You see, mum was a forever hippie. So, she left us and went off on her lifetime of many hippie travels. The last thing that dad ever heard about her was when I was five years old—she was apparently somewhere in America. So yeah, dad has every right to be proud about how much he still takes care of me. "Are you on your way back home?" He asks, sounding much more serious now.