the stairs with a sudden song in her heart and thoughts of her imminent publication.
Her buoyant mood carried her through an otherwise humdrum day at the Helping Hand Job Agency in Sutton Coldfield town centre. It was the usual round of HGV drivers and office temps in search of the next contract. She despaired at how they all conformed to the stereotypes of their trade. Fat with sagging waistline: HGV driver. Cheap ugly shoes and poorly co-ordinated make-up: office temp. It would have been so simple to sort each of them out, a belt and a low-carb diet for one lot, a ten-minute tutorial in fashion and make-up for the others. She had in fact produced a leaflet with those very guidelines, but the regional manager hadn’t approved.
Her colleague Dave, technically on the same rung of company ladder but in so many ways her underling was out on a training course that day so she had to get her own coffee. At least that meant she wasn’t plied with so many cuppas that she spent the whole afternoon busting for a pee. It also meant she didn’t have anyone to brag to about her future publishing success. The rest of the people in the office were either gormless idiots or strangely uninterested in her personal news and views, frequently both.
She left the office at four, collected her dinky car from the shopping centre multi-storey fighting Christmas shoppers at every turn, and set off for home. As she pulled out of the car park exit, something flashed downward through her vision and landed with a thump. Even before the man had rolled off the dumpster and onto the pavement, Nerys was unclicking her seatbelt and getting out of the car.
She didn’t stop to think about what she had seen in that second before she had leapt from her car but if someone had asked her what she had thought she had seen, she would have said she had seen a man fall from the roof of the multi-storey car park and smash into one of the dumpsters outside the service doors. But, of course, that couldn’t be what had happened because no one who had fallen six storeys onto unyielding steel would be rolling around, clutching their elbow and swearing viciously to themselves.
As she ran towards him, remembered diagrams of how to make a tourniquet from a belt, of the recovery position, of how to perform an emergency tracheotomy with a disposable biro, flashed through her mind in vibrant Technicolor. Heroic first aid related glory was within her reach.
And then something terrible happened. Out of nowhere, a woman had appeared and was crouching over the man, professional care oozing from her outstretched hands. Nerys put in a final spurt and cried out, “Don’t touch him!”
The woman looked up.
“I’ll deal with this!” Nerys shouted. “Stand back!”
“Are you a paramedic?” asked the woman.
“Pretty much,” said Nerys.
She knelt down next to the man. He wore a shirt and trousers and a sleek goatee beard. His face was screwed up in pain, adding extra lines to his already deeply lined face. He had the leathery skin of an ageing rock-star and, Nerys noted, had quite probably been a sexy-looking feller in his youth although time had not necessarily been kind.
“My name’s Nerys,” she said. “I’m here to help.”
The man blinked tears and looked up at her.
“Am I dead?”
“No,” said Nerys with a comforting smile.
“Shit,” said the man. “Shit shit shittity shit!”
That was an unexpected response.
“What do you mean, pretty much a paramedic?” asked the woman standing above them.
“I’m first aid trained,” said Nerys. “Can you feel your legs, sir?”
“I’m first aid trained too,” said the woman.
Nerys stood.
“Listen, sweet-cheeks. I don’t mean I’ve just watched a few episodes of Casualty. I am first aid trained. I’ve helped out during several medical emergencies.” She pulled out her phone, flipped to her photo library and passed it to the woman. “Look. Here’s me helping a boy who was choking on a mint