Haycoplaynt stepped centre stage. ‘What Tim is saying is quite nuanced and as I don’t expect blanket comprehension I won’t waste the effort, if that is not too taxing in a manner of speaking, but if I’m correct in saying, yes, Tim, a most unfortunate set of circumstances?’ said Haycoplaynt. ‘Georgie, put that down to systemic and patient factors, no need to trade in hind sights is there?’ said Cody Haycoplaynt, glowing with egotistic self-satisfaction, his priceless patrician vowels bouncing off walls built from the spirit of the buccaneering ancestor whose huge portraits hung above the doors. ‘Who’s next?’ After a casual glance at the beige paper over Georgina’s shoulder, Cody turned to Osese. ‘Ah, surpassed yourself this time Professor Sharp,’ he said with menacing contempt. ‘Georgie, tell theatres to give us half an hour. May be longer. Whatever it takes.’ A few hurried off to lectures or to start the clinical day’s work, but most hung on, jaws ajar in anticipation. Osese’s stomach tensed. What had his backstabbing spies, the prize-winning authors of anonymous character assassinating letters fed him this time? She couldn’t miss them, barging into theatre or her office on the slightest pretext to spread confusion, rumours or to ask whether she’d signed up to some new initiative dreamt up by Georgina and her coteries, the latest being to record her difficult name, Osese, for patients to practice before consultations. ‘Heard what Lauren Bacall said to Humphrey Bogart when he said he couldn’t whistle? You just put your lips together and blow? Tell them that or they can call me what they like as long as it is not hey you,’ said Os.
‘Ms Sharp, the other night you came straight from the airport to resuscitate a woman who had expressly stated that she did not want to be saved. Poor woman left hanging between life and death. Unconscionable. Mercy, mercy she called out daily for death to release her.’ Cody raised himself on his toes to shudder his disgust but Os was not impressed. Emotions existed for a reason and reasons exist for expressing them. Cody Haycoplaynt’s performance had more to do with politics than patient welfare. ‘Are we talking about the same patient?’ she said, to wind him up all the more.
‘We?’ he said. ‘I don’t recall any “we’s” during your proliferating press interviews. I innovated that, pioneered solution for preserving grafts, initiated bursaries for the underrepresented and undervalued and researched into surgical outcomes and premature deaths amongst the urbane, no make that urban lot. That last bit I tagged on, strike it from the record, Georgie. Keep up,’ he said. ‘Ms Sharp practises,’ said Cody Haycoplaynt and paused for effect. ‘Sharp practises at playing God in the dead of the night and it is your gloves that emerge bloodied from this calamity.’ He added sotto voce, ‘the lady left swinging in limbo, but we are not inclined to bend over backwards to accommodate you on this occasion,’ he said bathing in the wave of appreciative sniggers. To Os’s surprise just then her son David’s muscular dad, Daremi, Daryl to WEMs, whom she thought returned to Lagos after the unfortunate shooting in Chicago, wheeled in to the room. Wrestling resentment with sour empathy, she folded her arms to take the weight off her aching shoulders.
