Day 12

Wednesday March 3

Mark:

Rehearsal at Sarah’s today, and with quarantine over, it means Maja can finally go too, which essentially means that, on only her second proper in London, she’s about to have her first session with what will be her first London band. But physics intervenes and we don’t make it.

Pretty much our whole house has been furnished with things found on the street. In London, if people buy new things and don’t need their old things, which are often not even that old, they just put them outside somewhere. If it’s an electrical item, there will often be a note saying, ‘this works.’ Our whole garden was kitted out that way, with a little help from the Palmerston regarding the parasols and deckchairs which Maja has come to love so much. This is how we have come to have an office chair as one of our kitchen chairs. She’s sitting on it now and I’m kind of milling about doing stuff. Until I decide to sit down and have a little close time. So there we are, Maja sitting back in the chair, me sitting on her facing the wrong way. All’s going well and fun until we slightly adjust our balance and the adjustable chair does what it does in these kinds of situations and adjusts. That’s not normally an issue at all. But then, it normally doesn’t have someone sitting backwards on it. And that’s the way I go now. Full on backwards, launched out of the chair. And Maja can’t do anything about it because she’s been thrown totally forwards. So now we’re both going. This might not be quite so bad, except Maja was facing the radiator, which means I’m now unknowingly heading towards it at quite frightening speed. Or to be more accurate, the back of my head is about to hit it at quite frightening speed. And, according to my sources, with a particularly frightening sound. 

Maja:

As the chair disappears from beneath me and we’re thrown at a terrifying speed, I hear one of the worst sounds I’ve ever heard. Not quite a thud, more of a bash which is then followed by silence. Almost like a kickdrum. And just after that my forehead hits the radiator as well. It hurts, shoots right through me, but soon afterwards I feel OK. It’s just a small bruise. But Mark, on the other hand, falls down. Not quite immediately, but I see him losing a bit of power as he half sits, half leans on the radiator. It doesn’t look good. A second or so later it’s like he has regained some kind of control and tries to sit up and repeats “I’m alright, I’m alright” weakly. Oh no mister. You’re certainly not OK. Lie down now, and I accept no resistance. I gently but strongly push him down, holding my hand under his head to soften it. And there I let him lie there for a while, checking that he is OK. I think he’s got a concussion. Almost definitely. 

Mark:

That all happens and I crumple to the floor, my crumpling considerably hastened by Maja projectiling on top of me as she suffers her own fall. In this fashion we very messily complete our undignified drop to the floor and that’s where the similarity of our journeys end. She’s immediately up and I’m not. I’m kind of half sitting, half lying there on my back, head very clumsily and uncomfortably propped up by a hard, white slab of metal. My eyes are closed in pain and a little bit of shock, causing considerable alarm in Maja who’s now looking down on me asking with some deep concern if I’m alright. With that I think I really should open my eyes and let her know I’m at least not dead. This proves a little harder than I was expecting and it’s not too long before my eyes are more or less half closed again. ‘Stay there. Do not move,’ says Maja, her medical experience and knowledge kicking in. I do, and she makes sure no serious damage has been done before she gives me the all clear to stand up, where we do another cursory check to make sure all things are working as they should. They are. More or less and I’m insisting that I’m alright. ‘No you’re not,’ she says. ‘That was a heavy fall. You have a concussion.’ Concussion schmushon. I’m fine. But no. She insists that we go upstairs and I lie down in bed, at least until we can confirm that I am absolutely alright. 

Very quickly after lying down, I start to suspect she might actually have a point. My head is hurting. A lot. It feels thick and heavy and I’m dizzy. So much so that the room isn’t quite spinning, but it is at least moving backwards and forwards a little which it certainly wasn’t doing before so it must be me. Maybe it really was a little bit more than an innocent knock on the head. I do hope the radiator’s OK. Maja says nothing for 10 minutes or so and just lets me recover my senses (a questionable exercise at the best of times to be fair). Once I’ve come round a little more, enough to admit that yes, she’s right, I say we should probably get in touch with Sarah and cancel today. Well, duh. So, instead of going off and having a musical session round there, we stay here and Maja sits by the bed, passing the time in my de facto absence by singing along to a whole bunch of her favourite songs. Which is how I discover that she can actually sing pretty well. For now I’ll file that away for future use as I lie back and continue to be useless for most of the rest of the day.

I’ve really got to confess that not everything in these accounts is quite as I remember it, but I was concussed so what the hell do I know?

Maja:

I’m glad I’m stubborn, because he is certainly not OK, I very much realise this when I help him up the stairs. Then, once upstairs I have him lie down while I check online for what to do if you suspect a concussion. I decide that he is not in any danger and will be fine if he just spends the day in bed until he feels better, so I keep him there. He’s not in danger, but he will certainly not be able to move around much today. Oh, what a bummer. We had all of those grand plans of going to Sarahs for rehearsal, and enjoying the second day out of self isolation and here I am having to stay in this room all over again. I feel a bit bored after a while, not really having anything to do. So I default to doing something I like to do while bored. Singing along to songs I like. Right now I’m into Red Hot Chili Peppers and Gorillaz, so I mainly sing tunes from those.