Visitors, Both Ways

An early start, and one that had been arranged for me the night before. Syahril rang to say Imran was being admitted with dengue — the sort of call that doesn't ruin an evening exactly, but does quietly rearrange the following morning before you've had a chance to plan it yourself. He's stable, which was the first thing I asked and the only thing that mattered. Dengue has a way of making everyone anxious out of proportion to how a particular case is actually going, and stable is a word worth holding on to.

Clinic, in the meantime, was busy. Properly busy, in the way that turns a morning into a single continuous stretch with no obvious seams in it. You look up eventually and discover that several hours have passed without your permission.

The afternoon brought its own traffic. Anita and Idlan turned up — Idlan wanting a blood test, which he had apparently decided upon himself and pursued with the calm determination of someone who has not yet developed any strong feelings about needles. Admirable, really. I've met adults who negotiate harder.

Then up to see Imran. Syahril and Yatt were both there, and it was good to see them, even in a setting nobody chooses. There's a particular etiquette to a hospital visit among friends — you keep it light, you don't hover, you ask the right number of questions and not one more, and you leave before the room starts to feel crowded. He's in good hands and doing as well as can be expected, which is the sentence everyone wants to hear and which, on this occasion, happens to be true.

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoFrom there to Mid Valley, because Idlan had clearly decided the day's medical cooperation entitled him to hot pot, and it's difficult to argue with that logic. Hot pot is a good family meal precisely because it takes a while — nobody can rush it, everyone has an opinion about what goes in next, and there's a companionable disorder to the whole thing that other meals don't manage. A fair exchange for a blood test, all told.

Home after that, and an early night — or the intention of one. Anita had cleaning to do, because Mak arrives tomorrow, and there's a particular species of housework that only ever happens in the twenty-four hours before a mother's visit. It bears no relation to how clean the house actually is. It's ritual more than maintenance, and pointing this out has never once improved anyone's evening, so I didn't.

So: a friend's son in a hospital bed but doing fine, a son of my own volunteering for a needle, a shared pot of something bubbling at a table at Mid Valley, and a house being readied for inspection. A day of people coming and going, which is how the good ones tend to arrange themselves.

Mak tomorrow. The cushions are already lined up like they're expecting her.