Life Blood

LIFE BLOOD

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Pushing the door open, he walked from the bright spring sunshine into the dark lobby of the village hall. As it clattered closed behind him, he crossed to the glazed double doors that entered into the hall. Just inside an elderly, grey haired, twinset over tweed skirt, WRVS lady, sat behind a trestle desk buffing her pastel pink nails.

"Good morning," she said, smiling and looking up at him, as his trainers squeaked their way across the polished dark wooden floor to her.

“You're an early bird, the first today. I'm afraid that none of the staff are ready yet: still unpacking, but we can do the paper work." He sat down on the hard wooden chair and passed her his blood transfusion appointment card and certificate booklet. She noted his details in the register.

"My, you do seem to have given a lot judging by this" as she stuck a certificate into the booklet. "You'll have to get a new one soon. How long have you been doing this?"

"I think that this is my thirtieth time. I started when I was seventeen as a sort of re-payment. Had an accident when I was fifteen. Cut my leg very badly when I was playing a wide game with the Venture Scouts. It was only then that I discovered how rare my blood was. I was extremely lucky to have been in a hospital where one of the porters had the same blood group as me. If he hadn't been there, I would have died and so I try to make sure that I give mine regularly every four or five months."

The hall door banged as someone else entered the room and he turned to see an attractive young woman behind him, obviously not quite sure what to do. He got up, motioned that she should take the seat. He walked over to a row of similar chairs assembled against a bland coloured, fabric covered, folding screen, which were in a bright pool of spring sunlight that was streaming in through the high windows. Sitting down he opened the first section of the Sunday Times, putting the rest of the bulky paper on the chair beside him.

It was his usual practice to give blood on a Sunday morning, ever since the first time when he had gone with his mother. As often as not, he walked or jogged to the hall, having made the mistake very early on of driving, just after having got up after a very heavy night's drinking. They had had tremendous difficulty in trying to persuade the blood out of him.

The young woman was obviously ill at ease, he thought. It must be her first time, as she had no card nor certificate booklet. She looked to be in her mid twenties, a few years younger than himself and also like himself, wearing typical Sunday morning garb of jeans, trainers and sweatshirt. As she was answering the receptionist's questions, she was fiddling with a paper handkerchief, which was unlikely to survive the morning. Her slim unringed, undecorated, but well manicured fingers were rolling and re-rolling the tissue and fragments were falling onto her denim clad legs, standing out against the black of the cloth, like the first flurry of winter snow on a newly ploughed and harrowed field. Suddenly she looked down and realising what she had done, brushed the debris to the floor with impatient flicks of her left hand.

The paperwork finished, she crossed to the row of chairs where he sat and chose one three away from him, assiduously studying posters on the wall beside the entrance doors, avoiding his eyes and smile. She was attractive. Just the sort of girl that appealed to him, with pale honey coloured long hair, only a trace of lipstick on her tanned face and a slim but rounded body covered by the bright red sweatshirt. She sat on the edge of the chair with her legs crossed and facing away from him ignoring his analytical gaze.

The entrance of a fifty-something couple, in matching bright blue shell suits, did nothing to disturb her reading, but he replied to their cheery "Good Mornings".

He returned his attention to the newspaper and soon became engrossed in an article on Lord George-Brown and his time at the Foreign Office.

His concentration was disturbed as he became aware of noises from behind the screen. A young nurse, whom he divined to be West Indian from her accent, came into view, calling his name. He collected up his papers and followed her behind the screen, where an equally young, Asian, white-coated doctor, sat at a desk.

"Good morning Mr.Jarvis, How are you? No colds, coughs or illnesses since your last donation?" he said without any trace of accent to declare his pedigree and handed him the disclaimer form to read and sign.

"I'm fine, thank you Doctor, no problems at all," he said returning the form and pen.

Extending his right hand, he lay it palm up on the desk in front of the doctor, who took a blood sample from his index finger, putting spots on a test pad.

"That seems to be alright Mr.Jarvis, just follow the nurse and she will find you a bed."

He stood up and followed her to the first metal-framed bed in the row of six that were facing another similar row across the hall.

"The doctor will be right with you Mr.Jarvis, just take a seat on the bed and please could you roll your left sleeve up"

"I would prefer to use my right arm, being left handed," he said as he pushed up his sweatshirt sleeve"

"Okay, no problem" she said flashing an enormous smile at him.

He sat on the edge of the bed and opened the paper again.

"Miss Appleby, please?" called the nurse, now from the other side of the screen and the young woman sat down at the doctors desk.

So that was her name. She was still clutching the, now very tattered, paper handkerchief and looked away to the ceiling as the doctor took the blood sample. He could not catch their conversation as the level of chatter coming from recently arrived donors had increased. The nurse led her to the bed opposite his, where she sat down. He looked up from his paper and smiled at her. She nervously smiled back and was about to say something, but changed her mind and dropped the gaze of her pale blue/green eyes to re-examined the paper handkerchief instead.

"Right, Mr.Jarvis, I understand you are going to be difficult and want to use your right arm". A tall, fair haired, white-coated young man was unclipping the bottle carrier from the left side of the bed grinning at him.

"Hallo Dr. Saunders, how are you? Haven't seen you since we thrashed you at Osterly Park, at the end of last season"

"Don't remind me. That was one hell of a drubbing you lot gave us. I thought that you scientists were meant to be an unfit bunch!"

"No, that’s just the appearance we like to give you medics", he said, returning the grin.

"Okay, lets get going with you. On the bed, please and I will plug you in." He wound the blood pressure belt around Jarvis's arm, pumped it up, took a sounding with his stethoscope and then flicked the vain in the crook of the arm, with his finger, to bring it up.

He then dabbed the area with antiseptic, pricked the skin with local anaesthetic, inserted the delivery needle and taped the plastic tube to his arm.

"Right that's now running fine, just keep clenching and unclenching your fist slowly to help it out and I'll be back in a while. And with a bit of luck we will all be done by 2 p.m. as I am meant to be playing a charity game of rugby, this afternoon, at the hospital against a Round Table team. Sing out if you have any problems."

Jarvis lay in the warm sunshine that was pouring through the tall windows and bunched up the pillow behind his head with his left hand, to improve his field of view, whilst squeezing the small, sausage shaped, plastic block in his right. He looked across the room to where Dr. Saunder’s was now talking and attending to the young woman. She was clearly apprehensive, her face paled beneath the tan, gripping tightly between finger and thumb, the small wad of cotton wool covering the blood sample prick. Soon her blood was coursing down the plastic tube into her bottle.

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Julia knew that he was the one, the right one. After so many disappointments she had at last found him. She had been out walking in the early morning sunshine and was amazed to almost literally stumble across him in the last place that she had expected to find him. It had been on impulse to follow him into the blood donor centre, something she would never have thought about doing before. But now she had found him, she did not want to let him out of her sight until she knew where he lived and could find him again. But yes it was him, no mistaking his face from the one in the photograph with her sister. Her poor dead, defiled, desecrated sister who had given so much to this. This - she could not think of adequate words to describe her revulsion for him. But now she had found him she would revenge the death of Allison, no matter what the cost.