I’ve been reflecting a lot on my first listen through of TMA which has uncovered some very interesting memories! Like when I first listened to MAG 89…
It was early morning and I’d just got my coffee, walked out of the underground station, I was speed walking cos I was really into the story (I was probably running late too)and I somehow managed to time it perfectly so the exact second I stopped to cross the road, Jon shook hands Jude Perry, and i locked eyes with a COMPLETE STRANGER. Needless to say I jumped! But in my early morning delirium I just started giggling, and took way too long crossing the road.
Rip to the Queen but I’ve got blogging to do so here’s how I think the characters in tma would react to the Queen dying!
Jon: would do the whole “I wouldn’t wish death on anyone!” speel, but is well aware of the damage and violence she’s supported and is not at all sad.
Martin: he’d probably be sad. Not in a royalist way, but in a familiar ‘the Queen has been a big part of life for a lot of people’ way. After the news was broken he probably said something like 'god. I need a cuppa.’
Tim: would probably be happy! He seems like a devoted anti monarchist type! He probably had 'ding doing the witch is dead’ on full blast (to Martin’s dismay)
Sasha: kinddd of wants to join Tim but also thinks it’s disrespectful and is probably trying to remind everyone that this means prince Charles is king now.
Daisy: probably just said 'Oh.’ and moved on.
Basira: understands the historical significance of the whole thing, is very respectful of the people in mourning and shakes her head solemnly about it.
Melanie: probably partying with Tim!
Elias: he’s ancient, he probably knew Lizzie before she was queen, he’s probably in bits about it.
I like to think that back when they were first working in the archives, Martin when through little interests every couple of weeks. Just subtle things, maybe to do with specific statements or current events.
And Jon, despite his “raging hatred” for the guy, always seems to get really into the same things. He always has the perfect interesting fact, statistic, or contribution to the subject…
He insists it’s because he doesn’t want Martin “spreading false information and damaging the intellectual image of the institute!”
But really he just wants to impress him.
You see, Martin says ‘I grieved for you’ to Jon, but this doesn’t do justice for just what he would have gone through.
As most people know, having a loved one in hospital is horrible, but Jon’s case is an entirely different thing. Assuming Jon was initially taken to a hospital in Great Yarmouth, it would’ve taken Martin a while to get there, even if he left right away. He might have missed Jon’s emergency treatment, but he certainly didn’t miss the worst of it.
Many people assume that CPR is a quick, simple, lifesaving procedure, it is not. Jon was found not breathing, and without a pulse, so he would have had at least 20 minutes straight of CPR, and that messes up a body. On a person as weak as Jon it would badly break ribs, and cause a lot of bruising. Even if Martin didn’t have to watch Jon’s chest be crushed to no avail, that type of damage is often visible.
I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a dead body, but it’s different to an unconscious one in every way. Jon of course, was not dead, but he would absolutely look it. As I’m sure you know, blood being pumped is what keeps the body warm, and breathing accounts for a large part of what we perceive as living, so the absence of both of these, especially in a loved one, is jarring, and likely to send anyone into shock
In lots of TV shows you see doctors calling deaths, but in reality it’s actually quite a difficult thing to diagnose. It’s not a quick check of the pulse and you’re done, there’s a lot of tests; there are many conditions that can look like death. In Jon’s case his mind and nerves were still active, meaning it would have been picked up on fairly quickly, but Jon would have been assumed dead until these tests were completed.
The thing with a case like this, is there’s nothing the doctors can feasibly do; as Elias says, it’s an unknown quantity. The most likely course of action would be to make him as comfortable as possible, and redo the death checks every so often. There would be no hope for his recovery, but legally the hospital would have to do this, and would be able to offer very little comfort.
Although of course you want your loved one to survive, many family members of coma patients confess to hoping that they’d just die. The limbo of waiting is impossible to process, and having them there but having no way to communicate with them can be excruciating. There’s no way to properly grieve for someone if you always have it in the back of your mind that they could wake up.
Giving up on someone like that is terribly and awfully painful. You can tell them you’re sorry all you want, but you’ll always be thinking about how they’d have wanted you to stay. Having to create both sides of an interaction like that when truly you’re in control of neither is simply impossible to recover from.
Every action Martin took after Jon’s death was justified, logical, even. To succumb to the lonely after leaving the man you love, sentencing him to die alone?
It feels right.
