Whirligig by Magnus Macintyre

which he had got so drunk that he needed putting to bed and monitoring periodically throughout the night for continued signs of life. They had been, she thought glumly, friendly, but not yet friends. Her goal in going to see him had been to persuade him to be the spokesman for the wind farm. He wasn’t perhaps the ideal candidate, being something in children’s television, but she had asked every other person of her and her uncle Peregrine’s acquaintance who might be in the least bit suitable, and every one of them had turned her down. In any case, she told herself, if you were successful in one sort of business,presumably you could be successful in another. But now that Claypole was dead she would have to do the job herself, and she doubted her own abilities. None of this entitled her to any grief, she realised, only dread for her own prospects. And yet, she had liked Gordon Claypole. He was an odd fish, but he had a worldliness that she utterly lacked. He was a drunk, yes. But she was hardly on strong ground to censure an addict. And now she would never meet him again. She looked up sadly. The receptionist was gawping at her.
    â€˜Yeah, Mr Cartwright is in the mortuary. Ground floor.’
    â€˜Clay-pole,’ said Coky slowly, transmitting relief and irritation in carefully equal measure. This was lost on her audience.
    â€˜Gordon S. Claypole?’ asked the receptionist. Coky nodded slowly.
    As she made her way to the ward in which Claypole was recovering, she found herself wondering what Claypole’s middle initial might stand for. Had his parents continued with the Scottish theme? Thus, maybe Stuart or Sandy? But perhaps they had gone cute (Summer?), or whacky (Sasquatch?).

    Since being admitted to St Paul’s two days previously, Claypole’s mood had veered between petulant and weepy, with little in between. Breezy or sympathetic nurses, bothersome wandering crazies and his doctor, the humourless Dr De Witt, had been his only human contact. It was no surprise for him to remain unvisited. But he was surprised to find Coky’s face on his mind whenever he was not feeling sorry for himself. Perhaps,he thought, this was because she had been present when he had so nearly departed from the world. But it was possible that he was just grateful to her, and not just because she had paid the bill for breakfast. Dr De Witt had explained – several times – how vastly Coky’s quick thinking had increased Claypole’s chances of a complete recovery. Coky had identified that he was having some sort of stroke, obtained some aspirin from the first-aid box in the kitchen of the restaurant, crunched it up in a glass with some water and swilled it into his bubbling, panicking mouth. The vaso-dilatory effect thus ensured that his weak and punished heart could pump more oxygen to his brain, limiting the damage.
    The Transient Ischemic Attack Claypole had suffered was dramatic, and unusual for a man of his years, but De Witt was cautiously pleased with progress. He told Claypole that if he could just improve the quality and reduce the quantity of his diet, get some exercise, drink plenty of water and much less alcohol, cut out stressful work and take his pills, his heart might not require surgery for another thirty years. (If I could manage to live like that, Claypole had thought ruefully, I wouldn’t have had a stroke in the first place, you patronising Dutch hermaphrodite.)
    In any case, it was not directly from the stroke that Claypole looked so dramatically bad. The problem was that he had, when he was on his way to the ambulance, regained consciousness and suffered a panic attack. In what were, as far as he was concerned at the time, his dying moments, he had thrashed and kicked, resisting all help from the paramedics, requiring them to restrain and finally to sedate him. As a result, Claypole had barked his shin, split his nostril, bitten his tongue,given himself a black eye, cracked