The landline phone ringing these days is pretty rare. We only have it installed for broadband. It’s well-known that early morning calls are not usually harbingers of good news. My sons and I communicate by text, whats app, facebook messenger. it’s pretty efficient, in that it gets them my attention quickly, if not so much the other way around.

I wear a fitbit band which vibrates when someone calls my iphone. I wear it at night but somehow this time it didn’t wake me. My husband picks up the landline phone as I blur out of sleep then jolt awake with a rush of adrenaline. it can’t be good news. He wants to speak to you. I am handed the phone.

Hi Mum, don’t freak out but I’m in hospital. He sounds upbeat, chipper, reassuring even. Accident, mugging, these are the first 2 words that form in my brain.  but no:I collapsed in the street and blacked out he says, my friends were so scared they called an ambulance. I took MD and coke, and was also drinking. I’m ok, but they might keep me in to keep an eye on me.

He’s in Chelsea & Westminster Hospital. I am in Wiltshire, where we live, where my son reluctantly spends time.

If I am honest, although this is a shock it is not altogether a huge surprise. More details emerge of this 3.00 am drama. thank goodness for wonderful emergency services. thank goodness for his supportive group of friends. he is a loving boy who ironically up until now has been the one who looks out for others on their teenage adventures. Festivals, clubs, house parties, with their background of casual drug taking, experimentation, near misses. what he has given out he gets back generously. but this cushion of care does not take away from the reality of what has happened because why on earth did it happen in the first place? I don’t have the answer to that one.

Before we can fully decide what best to do, he is allowed out, and takes an uber to his twin brother’s hall of residence across town. spends the rest of the day asleep there. he says he is fine and does not need picking up. He then spends another night there and comes home by train the next day. Back to the boring countryside, where he is like a cat on a hot tin roof, he can barely keep still in the place. My attempts to nurture, provide nourishment, liquid and warm comfort go unwanted. He is out to the pub with a local friend. He cannot stay still.