by Lucy Dawson
He pales and opens his mouth to speak, but the nurse gets there first.
‘Can we take this outside?’ she says firmly. ‘We don’t want to upset Gretchen.’ And that freaks me out even more; Gretchen just lying there, listening to everything we’ve just said. I very willingly move quickly into the corridor and the nurse pushes the door to behind us.
Tom waits and I try to explain again. ‘There were pills lying on the floor and—’
‘What sort of pills?’ he asks, like he’s already afraid of the answer.
I swallow and then clear my throat. ‘I don’t know. There was a bottle of whisky, mostly gone. I’ve no idea how many she took, she was unconscious.’
‘Oh shit!’ he says, stepping back and raking his fingers up through his hair. He takes another pointless step right and then back again. ‘Oh shit, Gretchen!’
‘I called an ambulance,’ I say quickly. ‘They arrived and said she was breathing. We went to A&E first and then they moved her here. She’s in a coma!’
Tom shakes his head lightly, as if he can’t quite absorb what I’m saying, as if it doesn’t make any sense at all.
‘They won’t tell me any more until Bailey arrives.’
At the very sound of his name, a flash of intense dislike and anger flashes across Tom’s face.
‘Do they know where he is?’ he asks tightly. ‘Have they tried to call him?’
I nod. ‘Madrid – I’m pretty sure he’s on his way back though. He must be by now.’
‘How did they know he was there?’ Tom frowns.
‘I told them,’ I confess. ‘He called me earlier this evening. He was supposed to be going over to see Gretchen but he missed his flight or something. Or it got delayed, I don’t know. He called her to say he wasn’t going to make it and she was drunk, really drunk. He asked me if I’d go over and check on her after work. So I did . . .’ I peter out. I’m feeling really hot again, I can feel sweat collecting and pooling on my spine and my top starting to stick to my back.
‘And . . .?’ he says, waiting.
I take a deep breath. ‘She was unconscious in the living room. It was pretty obvious what she’d done.’
‘Shit!’ Tom looks at me. ‘And they won’t tell us anything until he gets here?’
I shake my head. ‘Only stuff like “she’s stable”, that kind of thing. No detail.’
Tom looks furious. ‘But that’s absurd! Have you said that to them? What did they say?’
I feel sick. ‘I didn’t know what to say, Tom, I just came with her and . . .’ I falter under his demanding gaze and raise a shaking hand up to my head. ‘I can’t think straight. It’s all happened very quickly and—’
‘OK, OK – Alice, I’m sorry,’ he cuts across me, stepping forward, taking my hand. ‘I didn’t mean to sound so fierce.’ He takes a deep breath. ‘I’m just very fucking angry with him.’
He waits and I try to steady my breathing.
‘Still,’ he sighs eventually. ‘At least she is stable.’ Then he falls silent for a moment while he obviously toys with the unimaginable, horrific alternative, because seconds later he says, ‘We should be in there, with her,’ and makes for the door.
‘Just a minute,’ I call, utterly desperate not to go back into that room now I’m out of it. ‘I need a moment to get myself together.’ I lean on the wall – well, it props me up actually – and Tom waits heavily next to me, looking suddenly devastated and very confused.
‘I can’t believe she did this,’ he says. ‘I mean there were no signs, nothing at all. In fact she seemed,’ he glances at me and picks his words carefully, ‘pretty happy. I’m sorry – is this too hard for you?’
Yes it is, it’s practically impossible. The most horrendous situation I’ve ever found myself in in my entire life.
I shake my head again. ‘I’m OK,’ I say, but the words are more of a whisper. I find that my head is starting to hang, my eyes fill again and I am weeping, tears splashing on the squeaky hospital floor. He moves to hug me, but a nurse turning into the corridor and approaching us distracts him. ‘Come on, Al,’ he says as the nurse opens the door to Gretchen’s room and goes in. He leads and reluctantly I follow.
We are just starting slowly to pull up chairs, Tom staring at Gretchen, when the nurse who came in ahead of us, who is obviously quite senior and busily checking charts, remarks to her more junior colleague, ‘She keeps getting ectopics. Is she normally having that many?’
I lift my head and start to pay attention.
‘I saw a few earlier but they’re becoming more frequent,’ the junior says.
‘Hmm. Keep an eye on that. What’s her potassium?’
‘3.1.’
Is that good or bad?
The senior nurse’s eyebrows flicker. ‘We need to top it up immediately. It’s on the chart, isn’t it?’
The junior nods and says, ‘I’ll go and get it.’
As she leaves the room, Tom shoots me a curious look and I shrug.
‘Excuse me,’ Tom begins to ask out loud, but he is cut short by an alarm starting to sound shrilly.
The senior nurse ignores him and moves quickly round to Gretchen, pushing past Tom, making him yank his chair back. She reaches for Gretchen’s neck and I realise she is checking her pulse. My own responds by increasing rapidly.
I look up urgently and see a green line going manic on a monitor, it’s spiking about crazily – but about three screens down, a red line is going flat. Oh my God.
‘Can I have some help in here?’ the nurse suddenly shouts very loudly and then things start to happen very quickly.
Tom stands up and looks wildly at me, my mouth has fallen open in horror and I find I’m rooted to the spot with fear. Another nurse appears immediately in the doorway.
‘Can you put the arrest call out? She’s in VT,’ someone shouts.
There’s a slamming noise that makes both Tom and me jump violently as the head of the bed cracks down and Gretchen is suddenly totally flat.
‘Oh shit, she’s in VF now!’ the first nurse calls.
‘What’s VF?’ Tom says desperately. ‘What’s happening?’
A third nurse dashes in and I hear someone, I’m not sure who, say firmly, ‘Can you get the friends out?’
Then there is a hand on my arm and Tom is yelling, ‘No! We need to stay. What’s going on? What’s happening to her?’ I’m being pulled insistently to my feet as I look at Gretchen – they are yanking blankets down, reaching for her gown and . . .
We are suddenly back out in the corridor, being ushered quickly down it, away from the noise of the alarm, still going. A doctor bursts through a set of double doors and hurtles past us. I look back over my shoulder to see that a stream of medical staff are now pouring like ants into the small room.
‘They just need some space to work in,’ the nurse with us says insistently. ‘That’s all. Come on, we’ll wait down here in the relatives’ area.’ It’s a command, not an option. She tries to hurry me away, but I can’t take my eyes off what’s happening behind us. Another doctor has appeared from the other end of the passage and is running. All these people fighting for Gretchen, her life – her actual, real life in their hands. A picture of her slumped up against the wall back in her flat slams into my head. A nurse runs past me, almost banging into me in her haste and disappears into the room. Again I see Gretchen, pills at her feet . . . Oh my God. Everything seems to start moving in slow motion and I’m barely aware of my own voice suddenly shrieking, ‘No!’ And then I’m collapsing to the floor, Tom is bending and trying to scoop me up, pulling me to him and I’m crying, crying, crying . . . as if it’s my heart that is breaking.
Chapter Four
‘Her name is Gretchen Bartholomew, for God’s sake,’ I sighed, sitting on the small suitcase and trying to ignore the resulting ominous crunch that was probably every bottle in my toiletries bag breaking. ‘I’ve never even met the girl, but I can tell you that with a name that pretentious she can’t be anything but a mas
sive twat. Why, why, why did I say yes to this?’
‘It’s an all expenses paid trip to LA and if you do a good job, this magazine might use you for travel features,’ Tom said sensibly, slipping his shoes on. ‘And she can’t help her name. She might be really nice.’
‘The whole thing just sounds really tacky!’ A pair of my knickers that seemed determined to ping free were caught in the teeth of the suitcase zip. I shoved them back in and started to tug it closed. ‘And she’s a kids TV presenter, which means she’ll be thick as two short planks. Oh come on, you . . .’ My fingers were going white with the effort of trying to do the bloody thing up.
‘Why are they shooting her?’ Tom asked absently.
‘She’s moving to Hollywood to make it big over there or something,’ I said, puffing slightly, ‘like anyone cares. This case is going to literally explode when I open it at the other end.’ I looked at the straining seams worriedly. Maybe four pairs of shoes was a bit excessive. I very gingerly got off it and waited. Thankfully, it held – but bulged like a swollen water balloon ready to burst.
‘On the subject of coming and going,’ Tom picked up the ends of his tie, which was looped around his neck, ‘while you’re away, shall I ring that Spanish bloke and let him know he can have Vic’s old room?’
My face fell. Tom smiled sympathetically as he tightened the tie and came over to give me a hug. ‘I know you miss her, Al, but we can’t keep her room empty for ever, we can’t afford to.’
‘Paris,’ I growled, muffled by his shirt, ‘is a really stupid place for her to live. I hate that gitbag French doctor with all his smooth, “Come and live in my chateau, cherie.”’
‘No you don’t,’ Tom laughed, ‘we like Luc. You were the one who spent hours on the phone reassuring her she’d done the right thing! And now, she’s very happy.’
‘Fine, we’ll phone the Spanish bloke then,’ I said rather crossly, thinking about Vic, who I missed badly. ‘He did seem the least clinically insane of all of the applicants.’
‘But on the other hand,’ Tom pulled back, a considered expression spreading across his face, ‘are we sure we don’t want to live somewhere just us, rather than with some over-pumped-up Spanish beefcake we got out of the back of the paper?’
‘We can’t afford to, we’ve been over this,’ I said through a mouthful of toast that I’d grabbed from my plate, before looking around for my handbag. I couldn’t remember where I’d last seen it.
‘Unless, of course, we start looking for something smaller, maybe to buy. Together.’
I immediately stopped looking for my bag and turned to him instead. That was the first time either of us had openly and formally suggested anything of the kind. I waited for my heart to leap joyfully. To my surprise it didn’t, but then my taxi was due to arrive in minutes. How typically male of Tom to pick absolutely the worst time in the world to debate a major life changing issue and randomly chuck a statement like that into the pot.
‘Renting long term is just dead money,’ Tom continued, taking a quick sip of his tea. ‘It’s great when you’re younger and you need flexibility, but we could save so much by paying into a mortgage now . . . and the market conditions are great for people like us.’
‘People like us?’ I said, confused.
‘Settled people, couples . . . most of our friends have bought somewhere,’ he said pointedly. ‘I’ve saved a really reasonable deposit and—’
‘But shouldn’t we do it because we want to, rather than as a practical solution to Vic moving out?’ I asked.
Tom looked at me blankly and said, ‘Well we do want to – don’t we?’
I paused.
‘Ahh!’ he continued, looking at me carefully. ‘I’m so stupid! You mean this isn’t a very romantic way of doing things. Shit Al – I’m sorry. I take your point. You’re right. Although getting a mortgage is just as much a commitment as getting married . . .’
My eyes widened. What?
‘. . . Or at least legally it is, should anything go wrong – which it won’t.’ He held my gaze significantly and then smiled at me.
Wow. I just stood there, feeling slightly stunned, realising that my boyfriend of two years had just calmly told me he fully intended to marry me.
I waited to feel thrilled, like I was ‘coming home’, as if all the pieces in the jigsaw were slotting into place . . . but it was a bit of an anticlimax. I didn’t feel anything really, but given that I’d been eating, sleeping and drinking Frances’ wedding preparations until very recently, that was hardly surprising. I pretty much wouldn’t have cared if I’d never seen another seating plan, or order of service, for the rest of my life. And Tom had, after all, told me this over breakfast like he was announcing he’d paid the electricity bill. At the age of twelve or so, when I had dreamily imagined I would be married with several children by the age of twenty-three, I’d never pictured the moment someone would drop down on one knee and say, ‘Alice, will you get a mortgage with me?’ He hadn’t even really asked me to do that.
‘Actually,’ Tom rolled his eyes, appearing not to notice I’d apparently gone mute, ‘what we should do is get this flatmate in now and start looking to buy in a couple of months – best of both worlds! That would give us,’ he glanced up at the ceiling briefly, ‘just under an extra three grand, which should cover the legal fees and some of the stamp duty on whatever we find.’ He smiled happily at me. ‘You’re right, that’s by far the best plan.’
I hadn’t actually said anything, had I?
‘I’ll ring him later today and get him to move in asap. Time is money!’ He rubbed his hands gleefully. ‘Mortgage-wise, what do you think realistically you could say was your annual income now? Net, not gross?’
‘Tom,’ I said slowly, finally recovering the power of speech, ‘I’m about to get on a plane to the other side of the world, I don’t even know where my handbag is and my taxi will be here any minute. Do we have to do this now? Can’t we just wait until I get back?’
‘OK.’ He seemed rather disappointed that I didn’t appear to have a relevant spreadsheet of figures in my back pocket. ‘I’ll just tell the Spanish bloke he can move in then.’
‘Good idea,’ I said through slightly gritted teeth as we came full circle. ‘You do that.’ Now, where the arse was my handbag?
A car horn honked outside. I dashed to the window and looked out. A silver Ford, its driver pretending he was itching and not picking his nose, sat just below the window, presumably waiting for me. ‘Shit!’ I said in dismay, ‘He’s here!’ I rapped on the window and the driver glanced up to see me frantically holding up one hand, fingers spread, silently mouthing ‘five minutes’.
I whirled round quickly to see my handbag swinging lightly in Tom’s outstretched hand. ‘Your passport is already in there,’ he said. ‘I checked. Just calm down, you’ve got plenty of time.’
The taxi honked again.
‘All right!’ Tom said, frowning at the noise. ‘He’s keen. I’ll get the case.’ He walked over and picked it up. ‘Jesus, Al! You are only going for two nights, right?’ He puffed as he lifted it up and walked quickly to the top of the stairs. ‘You’re not secretly leaving me?’
I laughed, rather more loudly than I meant to, which seem to disconcert me more than it did him.
‘So what’s the theme behind this shoot?’ he asked as we went down.
Men were weird. How could they one minute be talking about something so serious and then the next switch to complete trivia like nothing had happened? ‘Hooray for Hollywood,’ I said in answer to his question. ‘So much for my plan to start doing more creative, less commercial stuff . . . I’m just a big fat superficial sell-out.’
Tom laughed as I pushed past him and opened the front door. ‘It’s not that bad! OK, it’s not exactly National Geographic and it does sound a bit daft, but it’s all cash in the bank.’ He waited as the taxi driver got out. ‘Just think of the greater good,’ he added as the driver took the case, shoved it in the boot and got b
ack in the car. ‘I know it’s not what you really want to be doing, Al, but it’s only two nights. You’ll be back before you know it. Hey, don’t forget on Saturday it’s Bunkers’ and George’s engagement/Christmas do.’
‘It’s a bit early for a Christmas party, isn’t it? It’s barely the end of November!’
Tom shrugged. ‘That’s George for you. Super organised. And you know Bunkers – he’d never miss a chance like this to get as many women as possible under the mistletoe before the wedding ring gets slipped on his finger.’
My heart sank even further. Edward Bunksby, known as Bunkers (a ‘witty’ play on his name and the fact that he was an enormous solid rugby prop), was a raging lech from Tom’s office who liked to squeeze women’s bottoms in lieu of a handshake. His aggressive fiancée Georgina had the sharp eyes of a shrew, spike heels and an engaging line of chat which usually went along the lines of, ‘Hi, I’m George. I’m the youngest female partner in my firm. So how much do you earn?’ Rumour had it she kept Bunkers’ balls in her briefcase and only let him have them back on special occasions.
‘I know he’s a bit of a prat and George is pretty full on, but I ought to show my face really. It’s at their house – he’s invited everyone from work. I’ll get them a present though, so you don’t need to worry about that.’
I sighed.
‘Sorry, did you want us to see some of your friends this weekend?’ he said.
‘Like who? I’ve not seen anyone for weeks, I’ve been working so hard – I’m practically a social recluse.’
‘Which is why you should try and have fun while you’re away,’ Tom said soothingly and pulled me into a hug, planting a kiss on my mouth.
‘I’ll try,’ I promised, suddenly feeling completely overwhelmed. Engagement parties, mortgages, weddings. It wasn’t even eight a.m. yet. ‘Do I look all right?’ I asked anxiously, glancing down at my nude-coloured coat over my black tunic dress and thick black tights. ‘I thought I could take the tights off when I get there, if it’s hot. I’ve got flip flops in my bag. That’ll be OK, won’t it?’