The Accident

Several months after my father died I was knocked down by a motor car and almost killed; even now I am particularly careful when crossing a road and in my bleaker moments tell myself that this is the way I must eventually go, purely in the service of symmetry. One afternoon my mother sent me to play at a friend's house; there were no dangerous crossings to negotiate because I could walk there and back without having to leave the pavement; however, on my way home I was ambushed by a gang of small boys with bows and arrows and in my frantic attempt to avoid their onslaught I fled off the pavement into the path of a passing car. I regained consciousness while being wheeled into the operating theatre of the Sick Children's Hospital. Dr MacIntyre, our family doctor, was trying to comfort me when suddenly there was the nauseous smell of anaesthetic and then oblivion.

The Sick Children's was, and still is, a gaunt redstone building overlooking the Meadows on Edinburgh's south side. When I finally woke after the operation I found myself in an huge ward filled with whimpering and crying children. The blankets were bright red and the beds so pushed together that you could almost reach out and touch your neighbour. The nurses hurried this way and that, carrying bedpans and thermometers under the iron supervision of a ward sister. I don't think I exaggerate when I say that there must have been at least sixty children in that room whose ceiling was so high as to be almost out of sight.

The boy in the bed next to mine was obviously seriously ill because his face looked very blue. The nurses gathered round his cot and listened to solemn deliberations spoken by a large bearded man dressed in a tweed suit. I was, despite a deep cut running from my left eye up over my forehead, a concussion case and therefore was expected to live. No consolation was wasted on me when I wet my bed, the nurses were too busy to be sympathetic and so made do with impatience. The next day I was released and found myself back home in my own bed being fed all sorts of delicacies by my aunt and my mother - but it was a false dawn.

What goes on inside a child's mind? We cope well enough with their happiness; adding to it with our own pleasure and relief, but when the tears flow, through pain, frustration or fear then it's a different matter. We console, attempt to divert the stream of suffering but all along there's a certain helplessness and a grim knowledge that this is only the beginning. I watch Siena load tiny fragments of clay onto a growing mound of wet mud; she's so earnest and delicate in her attempts and I marvel at her concentration, her sense of purpose, her eager rising to meet the world. She's happy now but maybe later in the day she'll suffer a sudden frustration, a thwarted expectation; then she will cry out against the unfairness of the universe and so it will be in different measure throughout her life.

The hospital phones; they've made a mistake, I've been released too early and must return immediately. A taxi is called and I am carried screaming to the hospital. What a fuss I make and my aunt is the only person who can calm me down. She will bring my crayons and lots of paper the very next day. Childless, she knows exactly how to calm a child.