Rottingdean - Part 2 of 3

“I could go at any moment…boof…out like a light.”

From the desk I had found in the library at Rottingdean in Sussex I was able to look out on to a small mature garden that I knew from reading the small signs on the way in had been laid out as it was today over one hundred years ago. This was on a late spring day when the sun was shining illuminating all of the fresh blooming flowers who were frequent hosts to bees flitting from one pollen source to another like junk food addicts visiting fast food outlets.

Looking at that view was my reward for having reached a milestone in my research into the “Abbasids” of medieval Baghdad seven and eight hundred years ago. You may well ask “Why?” but that backstory can wait until another day.

I had got as far in my research as reading about a book published in Baghdad circa 830AD, long before Gutenberg and Caxton developed their own printing presses in Europe in 1436 and 1476 respectively. The book was called “Hissab Al-Jabr W-Al Muqabalah” or “The Compendious Book on Calculation by Comparison and Balancing” by Al-Kwharizmi. In other words, “algebra” which is derived from “Al-Jabr” in the Arabic title.

Algebra was my bette noir at school and was the cause of many late nights at the family kitchen table trying to calculate how long it would take for a bath to fill if the taps poured in water at so many pints a minute, this was pre metrification, while the drain allowed so many pints out every minute. None of it made sense to me until later in life I worked in a trading environment where I had to write formulas into spreadsheets to calculate losses and gains based on pricing and exchange rates. I could understand all of that but deliberately running taps into a bath where there was no plug to work out how long it would take to fill I could not.

A break from the book in front of me and I had a look into the garden. I thought about Al-Kwharizmi and if while he was working on his book in the House of Wisdom all those years ago in Baghdad if he was able to see a similar scene. Even if he did see similar things to me I am sure he did not experience the same interruption as I did that came from the reception desk behind me.

“Hello, we haven’t seen you for ages. How are you?”

“Thank you for asking” replied a ladies voice.

“Eight weeks, back and forth to A&E, few days in ICU, then the cardiac unit wired up to God knows what” the lady’s voice continued. They do like invoking him here in Rottingdean.

“Back and forth. Even my son came back from Australia it got so bad.”

“Oh dear, I am sorry. Did they find out what was wrong with you?”

“Sort of…after all of those tests they found out I’ve got a dodgy ticker…keeps beating too fast…I can feel it now…do you want to feel it? Arterial, aerial, articular. No, atrial. That’s it, atrial febullation.”

“Can they do anything for it?”

“Nope, apparently its all too far gone now and the old heart is surrounded by too much fluid which doesn’t help. Oh, they’ve given me loads of medicines to take and I have to go in for a checkup once every month…but…well, I could go at any moment, boof, out like a light.”

“Oh God” having caught the local plague of invoking a higher authority.

Please don’t go boof now. My parking ticket runs out in ten minutes. Not that I would be any use in this or any other medical emergency but no doubt I would have to hang around while the librarian waited for the ambulance to arrive. If you are going to go “boof” please please wait. I have to clear my table, put everything back in my backpack, go past the table where the day’s papers are spread around, through adult fiction, past the reception desk where the potential snuff it is standing and freedom.

I did make it to freedom and strode along the main street past Whipping Post Lane, Steyning Road and to the car park. There I was able to renew my ticket and say “Hello” with a very clear conscience to the parking warden who had just started checking the tickets in the cars near me.