I am lying in a hospital bed in Corsica. It is a two bed room. The woman in the next bed cannot speak to me or for me because her jaw is wired up before and after an operation. How symbolic of my situation. I feel much the same.
Teeth and Washing
In Corsica your family are supposed to bring you a toothbrush, clean your teeth, and help you wash. I was not with my family. I was on a press trip, writing about honeymoons in Corsica for Brides magazine.
My family did not fly out to Corsica because they were expecting me to be flown back to England. They did not realise I could not walk, stand, nor hold my head up, unaided. Neither did I.
Back to the story of my stay in hospital in Corsica. After realising that I was left with pills and did not understand how often to take them, I asked for a phone.
First I have to wait for a phone to be brought in. Then I have to negotiate how to pay. Where am I phoning? What is the number and code. I need my bag, diary with phone numbers, phone code for UK.
When the phone is lifted and placed by my mouth, the nurse is called away. The operator speaks Italian.
A nurse returns. I am not through to the UK, nor even an Italian call centre. I am through to the hospital switchboard. How am I proposing to pay for a phone call to the UK?
With cash? I have some money. We don't yet know the length and cost of the call.
Eventually I get an English speaking operator at the call centre in Corsica. I put through a call to the office where my husband works. A reverse charge call.
The switchboard in the UK say they cannot accept reverse charge calls.
I tell the Italian operator to tell them that I am in hospital, knocked down by a car, paralysed, and dying, and my husband will certainly pay for the call if they tell him I am on the line.
Fortunately the UK operator can actually hear me speaking to the Italian operator so she puts the call through.
I managed to call London and told my husband I had pills which could kill me if I overdosed accidentally, and was in so much pain that I was liable to take them deliberately, and that if he wanted to see me again, alive, he had better send an interpreter from the embassy or the British Council - or get me back to England or come out to interpret.
Pills
Shortly after that I received a message that my husband was trying to arrange a flight out to Corsica. The flight would arrive the next day. Oh good. Only four lots of two pills to be taken every four hours, or was it one pill every two hours? I shut my eyes and fell asleep. I woke up. Operator says three minutes is up. Do we want to pay for more time? "No - no-no-no. Non. No. Thank you, merci, I mean grazie, and goodbye, adios, I mean arrivaderci."
I am deliriously happy. I don't know it, but the reason is that I am on morphine. I am happy until the injection or pills wear off. Then I am screaming in pain. Tearing off the bandages holding my arm to my sticky body. Until four nurses hold me down and inject me. Then I am out and asleep.
When I am given more pain relief I am happy. I am smiling at the male nurse. He is smiling back at me. I am in love with the darling male nurse. Maybe he will teach me Italian and when I recover I will live with him.
Perhaps not. I cannot move a finger. I cannot speak a coherent sentence in Italian. Besides, my husband is on his way to help me.
Flights
Even when my husband came out, he could not get a flight back from Corsica to London in high season for two or three days because flights were full. We now needed two seats, for him and me. I needed a stretcher, which meant three seat spaces. The insurance company had to agree to paying for five spaces and transport to the airport and from Heathrow to a hospital in the UK, which had to be arranged. He does not speak Italian either.
That was back in 1984. However, I have no reason to think anything has changed. In Corsica.
Tourist Attractions in Corsica
The museum in the capital Ajaccio, featuring Napoleon, is probably still there. Ajaccio, the capital of Corsica was Napoleon's birthplace.
The old houses on the clifftop are probably still there. The beaches and holiday hotels are probably still there.
Safety Precautions Crossing Road
In Corsica they are still driving on the other side of the road to England. When you are a pedestrian getting out of or into the coach to the airport, you still need to look both ways before you step off the pavement. (If you are reading this in the USA or going to the USA the word I mean is sidewalk. Pavement in UK is the paved pedestrian area by the side of the road. In the USA it means the whole of the traffic area, what in England would be called the tarmac or road or roadway or centre of the road.)
AND look again, both ways, when you get to the middle of the road and a car passes. Don't only look left and downhill after the car which has gone. Nor only at your friends still crossing the road ahead. Make sure you look both ways AGAIN! Look back uphill to see if there's another car approaching!
I am now (writing in 2016) learning Italian on Duolingo. But it will be a while before I get beyond the basics. Italian spoken fast, or in a dialect, and technical terms, are the next challenge.
