The Whiskey Scent

It was three o’clock on a Saturday morning in the autumn of 2006 when the phone rang.
I had unexpectedly taken over the night shift from a colleague who had “thrown his back out” fixing something on his farmhouse that evening.

We’d gone out for dinner to celebrate something — I can’t recall what exactly. Only that the wine had been excellent, and that I might have had a glass or two more than usual. That happens to me once or twice a year — though only when I’m not on call.

In those days, Dutch newspapers were full of stories about “coma drinking” — young teenagers ending up in hospital with alcohol intoxication. Even in our small town in Friesland, far from the big cities, the trend had reached us.

The nurse on duty called:

“We’ve got a 15-year-old boy brought in from the disco. Found unconscious. His friends say they only had a few drinks — not much at all. Oh, and his mother is on her way. She didn’t sound pleased.”

I got dressed with a headache and very little enthusiasm and drove to the hospital.
The boy was lying in the admissions room on the paediatric ward. His mother had arrived before me — she hadn’t taken time to brush her hair. She looked angry.

I examined the boy. Deeply unconscious. The air around the bed smelled strongly of whisky.
His mother demanded an explanation.

“Dronken? Impossible! He might have had two beers at most. My son doesn’t drink. You must be mistaken, doctor.”

We didn’t have a quick breath test like the police. The blood test for alcohol would take until Monday.
So I pointed out the vomit stains on his clothes, and the unmistakable smell of spirits.

“I don’t smell anything,” she said sharply. “Perhaps you have been drinking.”

I decided not to argue.

We wheeled the boy to the ward to sleep it off. When I returned, his mother had fallen asleep in a chair beside one of the friends.
I asked the friend again — “Just two beers?”
He nodded.

“Yeah, just two. But when we picked him up, he’d already been drinking at home.”

The mother started snoring loudly. I took a step closer to her. The whisky smell was still there — strongest now from her direction.