Prince Abdullah al-Sabah’s private jet is to land at Heathrow in twenty minutes and, as I remember from my last conversation with an al-Sabah, they are not fond of tardiness. The Sabahs are thought to hold the largest number of shares in almost all blue-chip companies in the Western world and to have a combined family wealth of US$200 billion. On first meeting the Kuwaitis, my politeness to a veiled female family member was generously rewarded with a crisp fifty pound note pulled from a wad of cash thick as a brick and dispensed by a keffiyeh-wearing aide. Accepting money from patients beyond the agreed payment for services is considered unethical in the medical profession and strictly forbidden for government ambulance workers and hospital staff. But in London’s private health care, tipping seems somehow acceptable and is not uncommon.
‘White car on the left!’ I warn Henry as he comes dangerously close to clipping a sedan that has failed to pull over far enough.
My head is throbbing with the beat of the siren. The Ford Transit parts traffic out of the city like Moses did the Red Sea. It’s slow going, but we’re getting through faster than anyone else.
What is the public thinking, I wonder, those distressed commuters struggling to edge out of our way, imagining the worst? What if they knew that Henry was using his lights and sirens because he thinks it’s fun, because he intentionally ate his fried chicken slow enough for the traffic to build up? And what if they knew I was letting him do it because I’d hate to be late for the Kuwaiti royal family, because I’m hoping for another tip, more than last time – if I’m lucky.
Back in Sydney severe consequences result from the inappropriate use of lights and sirens. Not that we’d bother, anyway. We’re so busy most of the time it’s a relief when the siren is off, allowing us a little peace and quiet. Warning devices are only a novelty for those who don’t use them much.
‘Ow of tha way! Comin’ fru! Move it! Move it! Move it!’ shouts Henry.
‘They can’t hear you,’ I say, wishing he’d shut up.
‘All right, but vey can see me, can’t vey.’
‘See you what?’
‘See me yellin’. Yellin’ and gesticalatin’!’
I don’t know how many private ambulance services there are in London, but ever since routine patient transport was outsourced, every little boy rejected from the LAS could finally drive an ambulance as fast as they like with ‘blues and twos’ – blue flashing lights and a two-tone siren. It was absurd and out of control. By my second day at this company I’d survived three near-death experiences and one flying patient. But when I raised the matter with the boss – a middle-aged, chain-smoking, sarcastic woman with the face of an East London gangster – she looked me square in the eye and croaked, ‘You know by now what the traffic in London is like, son, don’t you?’
And I replied, ‘Yes, but it’s dangerous going fast without a pressing reason.’
And she said, ‘Harley Street patients are special, you understand. They expect the best. They have never waited for anything in their lives. They don’t expect to lie in ambulances while our drivers inch along in traffic, do they now?’
But a day later she inadvertently revealed her true reason for ignoring the fun crews were having with lights and sirens when Henry called up and told her we were unlikely to complete two jobs in the designated time frame.
‘Well,’ she said via the crackly radio, ‘what have you got those pretty lights on your wagon for, Henry?’
Turnover. It is all about turnover and profit. The faster we do a job, the quicker we’re on to the next. We make deliveries like any courier company, but because we deliver human cargo we can make our deliveries in half the time by halting on-coming traffic and momentarily paralysing city intersections.
Henry brakes heavily. ‘Wanka!’ he shouts.‘Got evry fink on, idiot!’
And with everything on we skid into Heathrow making such a racket that for a second airport security must think some hijacking has taken place without their knowledge.
But no, all this Arab wants is a quality heart bypass.
We meet the patient sunk into a deep leather recliner in the lavish corporate jet building, a man in his sixties wearing a stiff white dishdasha and rockstar sunglasses. He’s very pleased when I greet him with the traditional Assalam Aleikum but looks with a little disgust at Henry who struggles to negotiate a leather ottoman with the stretcher.
‘How was your flight?’ I ask the sheik.
‘Bekhair,’ he says, and his aide appears, a different one from last time, and translates.
‘Fine, he says flight is fine, thank you,’ says the aide.
Henry is by my side now. I can smell him.
‘Good to go ven?’ he asks, looking at the aide expectantly. But no wad of cash appears and we stand in awkward silence, a silence like the one after hotel porters take your bags up and you don’t have any change to tip them with. Why Henry expects the sheik will slip him some cash before he’s been driven anywhere is beyond me.
After half a minute, Henry readies the stretcher and we help the sheik climb on.
It’s a rough ride back to Harley Street. I’ve strapped the sheik down well but notice the skin over his knuckles blanche while gripping the stretcher rails. The sheik says something loudly to his aide, raising his voice over Henry’s siren. I fear that any chance of getting a tip now is out of the question. But I’m wrong. Instead of lodging his complaint about the journey, the sheik’s aide leans over and thrusts a fifty pound note into my palm.
‘No, no, I’m not supposed to take this,’ I protest.
But Henry’s siren is so loud I can’t really hear myself and when I try to hand the money back the sheik’s aide takes it and forcefully stuffs it into my top pocket. There is a certain desperation in the way he has given me the tip that makes me think for a moment I’m being bribed to take the wheel and slow things down. When Henry veers sharply to avoid something and leans on the horn for thirty seconds, cursing grotesquely, I consider it. In Kuwait, my partner would be promptly executed for driving like this with an al-Sabah on board. ‘Allah, Allah, Allah!’ cries the sheik.
Really got to quit, I think. The fifty pounds in my top pocket will hardly tide me over until the next job. But I don’t care.
After dropping off the sheik at a cardiologist, Henry curses the Kuwaiti royal family for not helping us out and how the House of Saud is far more generous.
I shrug, choosing not to mention my tip.
‘Henry,’ I say politely as we reach the Baker Street tube station, ‘you don’t mind dropping me off here, do you?’
‘Right ’ere?’ he asks, raising his eyebrows.
‘Yes please. And do me another favour, will you?’
‘What’s tha’?’
‘Tell the boss I’ve resigned.’
ALL QUIET! NEWS BULLETIN!
The Philippines
Lumbering like the giant propellers of an ocean liner, the fan blades turn too slowly and too high above us to cool the night. But the loose chugging and whooshing is sending me to sleep. Behind a heavy wooden desk illuminated by a strip of neon screwed into one of the peppermint-green walls is the chief of the Philippine General Hospital’s Emergency Medical Service, Manolo Pe-Yan, a plump man, unusually serious for a Filipino. Seriousness, however, does not always translate to professional appearance and Manolo is wearing the same singlet he’s been wearing for a week, stained by a dark bib of sweat, his head tipping forward then up again as he sleeps.
It’s 1 am on a Saturday morning. Two white uniform shirts are hanging on the posts of a single