Manzanilla by Al Campbell

– flash fiction –

Manzanilla

– by Al Campbell

He never normally boarded a plane first, today was an exception. In this case a wheelchair and a full-length leg brace. Not ideal for ‘speedy boarding’. The irony didn’t escape him.

It was the stupidest thing. A slip on the concrete path by the 9th green. A slow twisting fall. His left foot trapped behind his right butt-cheek. A whip-like crack as his quadricep tendon snapped. Then the pain. Excruciating pain. The golf course’s insurance paid for the private hospital and surgery. At least, this being Spain, they did on Monday when they returned to work. Note to self – never break your leg on a Friday again.

The ultrasound specialist said it was a rare injury. The young ‘traumatist’ seemed nervous from the start. He suspected it was her first time performing the operation. As they put him under, she was in the corner of the theatre reading what looked like an Ikea flat-pack instruction leaflet. He floated into unconsciousness hoping she had all the right screws and bolts.

They’d given him an epidural and he came-to panicking, all feeling gone in his legs. He fought with the nurses, so they knocked him out again, to subsequently resurface into a world of agony. Only to be expected when somebody drills holes through your patella, threads steel wires through them and the end of your tendon, pulls it tight and stitches the wound with 19 metal staples.

The nurse had to call back the anaesthetist to organise pain relief.

‘I make you a cocktail,’ he had said, emptying ampoules into a plasma bag they attached to the canula in his arm.

The word ‘cocktail’ rolled around his anaesthetised brain. He imagined his golf buddies on the lash in some dive bar in Fuengirola. With mouth as dry as a summer bullring he faded off dreaming of the tangy bite of a glass of chilled Manzanilla sherry.

He’d ordered Manzanilla the first night. No joy – the restaurant served BOGOF fillet steaks and a free bottle of wine between two, but tourists on the Costa del Sol don’t drink the finest sherry.

However Manzanilla, A.K.A chamomile in Spain, did arrive in the shape of a Thomas Lipton teabag along with the pain relief on his breakfast tray. As he drank it he smiled. He kept the wrapper – both a souvenir and a promise.

Eight nights and two bed baths later he flew home, leg stretched out occupying an entire row. ‘You’ll have to move that leg,’ said a steward. ‘Why?’ ‘You’re blocking these passengers’ seats.’ ‘My seats’, he countered tiredly, showing three boarding cards. ‘Look, a seat for my foot, a seat for my knee and a seat for my arse. You’ve got the wrong row.’

The short ambulance ride home was painless. He limped into the kitchen.

‘Get the Manzanilla out of the fridge,’ he asked his wife. ‘That? I threw it away, it smelled sharp.’ Sharpness. That palate cleansing bite into his tongue he had been longing for to cleanse the taste of ‘hospital’ from his palate. She smiled at him. ‘How about a chamomile tea?’ Suddenly his kneecap started throbbing.

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