What My Best Friend Did

by Lucy Dawson

  She had barely blinked and, as I ran out of energy and words, she pushed herself up with what was obviously the last of her strength until she was seated, but slumped. She tried to kick the phone towards me with her foot, but missed. It was a tiny movement. It wouldn’t have moved a feather.

  She struggled to lift her head and looked at me through eyes that kept closing against her will.

  ‘Please,’ she said, in a breath of a whisper.

  ‘This is just you! You’re evil – you’ll stop at nothing!’ I had started to shake. ‘I hate you. I hate you!’

  ‘Help,’ she said.

  I didn’t reach for the phone. I collapsed to the carpet and just sat there motionless, tears streaming down my face, hugging my knees to my chest.

  We sat there and she looked at me through leaden eyes, unable to speak, but fully aware of what I was not doing.

  Eventually, still staring at me, her eyes closed and her head slumped forward slightly.

  I began to rock and moaned through my tears with distress and fear. Then I felt vomit rise in my gut and, getting up, I scrambled to the bathroom and was violently sick.

  When I came back she hadn’t moved.

  I truthfully do not remember how long I sat there after that.

  My teeth chattered, my whole body shook. But for how long? I don’t know . . . I really don’t know . . .

  I remember the taste of vomit in my mouth was unbearable. I think I went back to the bathroom, rinsed, raised my head and caught my reflection in the mirror. Cold water droplets ran down and under my chin. I could still feel where she had hit me. I tilted my head, but there was no visible mark. I stared at myself, slightly open-mouthed, frozen. I could have been stood there for hours.

  I went back to her though. I didn’t leave her. And I did call. They came and found us.

  She was right: everyone thinks it is a desperate suicide attempt by a manic depressive who has stopped her lithium again – just as she’s done before. Everyone, that is, apart from that nurse who is convinced I helped her to do it, as part of some sort of mercy mission. I haven’t told anybody about the pregnancy. I’ve kept that promise at least.

  But if she wakes up, if she survives this ‘secondary complication’, she will tell them all what really happened. And if everyone thinks I deliberately didn’t call when I had the chance, I will lose absolutely everything.

  But then, if she never wakes up, if she dies . . . it will be all my fault.

  Suppose she has died while I’ve been sitting here in this chapel? Then what will I do? Will I tell – or will I have to live with this secret for ever? Will Tom collapse on me with grief and will I nurse him through it? Will we become closer and closer as a result and end up back together as if Gretchen had never happened? Or will Bailey, devastated at his loss, cling to me as one of the few that ever understood his sister and decide we should try again?

  Or will we all, torn apart by what has happened, be unable to be around each other as it is simply too painful, our grief too raw and too desperately sad to share? And if she dies, won’t Tom find out she was going to have a baby anyway? They’d do a post-mortem, wouldn’t they? Oh God – that would kill him, haunt him for the rest of his days. And it would still be all my fault.

  Bailey is right, this chapel smells bad. Damp mixed in with dead air and dust, but I would still like to stay hidden away down in this room for ever. The night that lies ahead of me is, I know, going to be the longest one of my life. By the morning, according to that doctor, it will be apparent if Gretchen is going to pull through or not.

  The only prayers I am sending now are ones of forgiveness for myself. I am very, very frightened.

  I don’t know how this can be happening to a normal girl like me who had a boyfriend, and a job, and a life.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Although I can’t see outside because the room has no windows, I know it must be light by now. Tom and Bailey are jubilantly shifting around in their seats with all the forced wide-eyed energy of two men who haven’t slept a wink all night. It’s like they’ve been on an overnight flight and have just arrived at their holiday destination, which has given them a renewed burst of life.

  ‘I saw it again!’ Bailey exclaims and points at Gretchen. ‘Her eyes moved!’

  The young nurse smiles and agrees, ‘She’s doing really well.’ Bailey is looking at her like she might just be the most beautiful person he has ever seen and that the world is a truly, truly wonderful place. ‘And tell me what her oxygen support is again?’

  ‘Forty per cent!’ the smiles nurse indulgently.

  ‘Ha!’ Bailey says delightedly, although this is the third time in an hour he’s asked. Even Tom smiles, although he is more subdued with relief.

  I am feeling so sick and panicky that I think if I move too fast I will throw up everywhere. ‘So when will she be able to write and speak?’ I say.

  The nurse shakes her head. ‘She still has sedation on board. Tomorrow at the earliest.’

  So I have just the rest of today . . . Oh dear God. What am I going to do? I’m going to have to leave – to just go. How can I possibly be here when she wakes up? As it is I’m afraid of even speaking to the nursing staff, for fear that they might have been told to watch me, watch for signs, an involuntary admission of guilt.

  ‘Might it be OK then,’ Bailey says, ‘to go home and grab a shower, a change of clothes or something? Nothing will happen if we do that, will it?’

  I cannot be here when she wakes up . . .

  The nurse hesitates. ‘Look, there are no guarantees but . . . like I say, she’s doing really well.’

  Bailey’s face splits into a smile.

  Tom looks more doubtful. ‘I think I might stay.’

  Bailey shakes his head firmly. ‘Tom, she’s out of danger. Do you really want to look like a stinking hobo when your girlfriend comes round tomorrow? All she’s doing now is just lying here recovering. Tell you what, why don’t we all meet back here after lunch. Go home, grab a bit of kip?’

  ‘OK,’ agrees Tom eventually. He looks totally shattered. ‘I’ll just change though and come straight back. I think I might have to get a cab, I’m not sure I’m safe to drive.’

  Bailey stands. ‘Today is a great day!’ he laughs. ‘See you later, sis!’ He blows Gretchen a kiss. ‘We’ll share a taxi,’ he decides. ‘It can do one big loop. Drop you off, Tom, then Al, then me.’

  Dr Miles Benedict gets out of his car. It’s a crisp, bright January morning. It’ll be February before long – which means Valentine’s Day, he contemplates. He must remember to book a table somewhere or she’ll cut his nuts off.

  So, what shitstorm is he going to come into today? There’s the motorbike accident boy – stupid kid came off at 50 mph wearing a T-shirt and jeans, the road literally cheese-grated his skin from his body. When they lifted him off the stretcher, his back stayed on it. Miles grimaces. Maybe he’ll skip breakfast. He wonders idly if the overdose girl survived the night – very unlikely, she’d ingested enough shit to fell an elephant. Then he thinks perhaps he’ll just grab a coffee before he goes up and maybe see if anyone’s up for a round after shift. The green will be just perfect today.

  Twenty minutes later he barges into ICU, now in a filthy mood, to do the morning handover. No one is free to play golf later, which really pisses him off, and some idiot in the café not only spilt hot coffee all over his hand but, worse still, gave him caffeinated not decaf. He only realised halfway down his takeout cup, and now he’s already feeling twitchy and getting a headache. How hard is it to get a fucking beverage right when he saves lives?

  He sweeps into room five and, to his surprise, finds the overdose girl is still in the land of the living; quite impressive determination and fight really. Mercifully there are no relatives to have to be polite to. Just the nurses. He looks at the charts in irritable silence and then snaps, ‘She’s on forty per cent – what’s she still doing on sedation?’

  The senior nurse accompanying
him nudges the junior, who looks at the floor. The senior nurse says, ‘I haven’t been able to get there yet.’

  Must he do everything himself? ‘Well get the propofol off,’ he says. ‘Wake her up, let’s get her extubated! She’s a young girl, for Christ’s sake. Come on! ASAP!’ He looks crossly at the junior who can’t meet his eye and is momentarily lifted by the fact she’s got great tits. Shame about the face though, looks like she’s been smacked by a shovel. Oh well.

  ‘Right,’ he says briskly. ‘Lead on, Nurse. Next victim please.’

  Down in the hospital car park all three of us wait for a taxi. We are not going to share one because despite the very odd bond we developed in that small hospital room, out here, back in the real world and waiting in the cold, it feels way too weird.

  Hospital car parks are strange places. On the one hand there are new babies being placed in cars by proud, protective fathers, watched adoringly by the tired mothers. On the other hand there are confused, disorientated people pacing around making urgent calls on mobile phones relaying hideous news that will make someone, somewhere drop what they are doing and scramble to find their car keys and shoes.

  Tom, who seems anxious to leave – probably wants to get there and back again as soon as he can – asks if he can take the first taxi, and as it pulls up plonks an absent kiss somewhere in the region of my left temple and says, ‘See you later then,’ before getting into it and disappearing up the road.

  That leaves me and Bailey. Bailey watches Tom’s taxi turn left and vanish out of view. ‘He’s such a funny bloke.’ He shakes his head. ‘So straight up and down. What you see is what you get.’

  Another taxi arrives. ‘Your turn,’ he says and smiles happily, so clearly on top of a wave of overtiredness and relief it looks like he’s king of the castle. ‘You go, honestly. I’ll see you back here in a bit.’

  ‘What are you going to do now then?’ I say, hand on the car door.

  He yawns. ‘Collapse, shower, sleep – that sort of thing.’

  ‘Come back with me to mine,’ I say suddenly, recklessly.

  He looks confused at first and then smiles. ‘Sweet of you, Al, but I’ll be OK. Now she’s back on the road to recovery I’ll be all right on my own, promise. See you in a bit.’ He blows me a kiss.

  I force a smile and get into the taxi. It’s got a gross, wrinkled, brown faux suede cover over the back seat and smells strongly of stale fags and the spinning Christmas tree air freshener dangling from the mirror. I blink back tears. That wasn’t what I meant, Bailey.

  ‘Where to, then?’ the taxi driver asks, although I don’t see his lips move, just his reflected eyes looking at me enquiringly. I give him the address and he silently turns the wheel, pulling us away from the hospital. I don’t look back at Bailey, although out of the corner of my eye I see him wave.

  I have just today left with him and Tom, that’s all. Tomorrow she will be awake, able to write, maybe able to speak, certainly able to tell everyone that I deliberately didn’t help her. Tom and Bailey will believe I wanted her to die. Today is all I have left.

  All last night, as we sat there waiting and it became apparent that the worst was over, when they lowered her oxygen levels and everyone cheered when her eyes flickered, all I was thinking was: I’ve got no choice – I’ll have to just leave. Just pack up and go. Tomorrow will arrive and she will wake up. I am sick with relief that she isn’t going to die, but now I’m frightened for myself.

  I feel stripped away, terrified that I can have done something so dreadful to someone whose hand I held – while assuring her there was nothing she could do that would stop me being her friend. I have to go.

  What is there to stay for anyway? I have a rented flat, a studio I hire on a job by job basis, no boyfriend, no ties. Fran now has her own little family, Mum and Dad are desperate to clear Phil out of the nest so the rest of their lives can begin, and it won’t be long before Phil, bored with nothing to do, will decide that he wants to start building a more exciting life for himself anyway. I love them all very much, and I know they love me, but I’m not sure they really know me any more than I seem to know myself. Everyone has such hectic lives. We are the typical geographically fragmented and frantically busy, modern day family. Would it really make that much difference to them if I took some time out for me? I have been forced to face some very uncomfortable truths – maybe that’s no bad thing. I could just take my camera and go. Make choices, stop letting things happen to me. I never wanted to hurt anyone, least of all people I love. I could start again? Build a new life . . . somewhere far away from Gretchen.

  ‘Can we stop at a bank on the way?’ I say to the taxi driver. ‘I need to get some cash out.’

  I’ll leave a month’s rent for Paulo. He can just throw away what stuff of mine I don’t take. That’s the least he can do. Maybe I’ll do what I should have done in the first place and go to Vic’s for a week and see what happens from there. She’s been so amazing: listening, advising, comforting. But how can I tell her about this? For the first time ever, there is something she must never know. I can’t tell anyone. I am now utterly alone.

  What will I tell Tom and Bailey? That I’m going on holiday? That I’ve been offered a too-good-to-turn-down shoot? I think they’d buy it if I said I had to go to Pluto right now, especially now she’s out of danger. All they are thinking about is her.

  And as for her, if she wakes up and discovers that I’m not there, maybe she won’t say anything at first – maybe she’ll bide her time, waiting for me to return so her account of what really happened will carry maximum currency. But I just won’t come back. The moment will pass and we will all just get on with our lives, as best we can.

  The taxi goes over a speed bump and the suspension creaks. Then we turn right on to a busier main road and pull up to a set of traffic lights. To my left is a bus stop. A woman is standing there, hands in pockets, a carrier bag slung round her wrist. She’s staring into space with a look of dead resignation that shows me she has waited by this bus stop every day for as long as she can remember. Behind her is a CREDIT PROBLEMS? WE CASH CHEQUES! shop front, next to a closed kebab shop called Big Joe’s, which in turn is beside a launderette that announces DUVETS WASHED HERE! Where will I be when they are cashing their cheques, carving their greasy meat and cleaning their clothes next week and next month, even next year?

  We drive past a closed flower shop, the window is already full of hearts in preparation for Valentine’s Day. DON’T FORGET FEBRUARY THE 14TH! reads a banner that is being held up by a cut-out dove on either side.

  Forget? How could I possibly do that?

  Bailey’s not so much the one that got away, because I can see now that he was never mine in the first place, much as I love him. But he is certainly the one that I could waste years of my life hoping and waiting for. He’s the one that makes me behave recklessly – if he’d understood what I meant this morning, perhaps we’d be in this taxi now together heading back to my bed, and where would that have left me when he left? Because he would have done.

  I’m not sure it’s ever possible to get over someone like him. Perhaps you don’t, perhaps you just have to not be around them, until your mind kindly allows you to forget how addictive they are and it hurts a little less and then a little less still. It’s not been good for me, seeing him again at such close quarters when he is still so unobtainable, at least to me anyway. I know I lied when Tom asked me who I would choose – him or Bailey. It would be Bailey every time. I hope one day I’ll experience a kiss again like the one we had in Leicester Square, but with someone that loves me too.

  And as for Tom . . . There are men and then there is Tom. I hold him alone in my mind as an example of how good a human being ought to be. God loves a trier and, like me, I’m sure God loves Tom. He stands up to be counted, he squares his shoulders and always turns his face to the sun, but he is gentle, kind and true.

  If my world was ending, I would want Tom there . . . and I do, so very much. I don’t
know in what way – I can see he will never be my happy ever after – but I think I would settle for anything; even him being with her, as long as I could somehow keep him in my life.

  But of course she will not allow that and now it’s almost time to say goodbye to them both.

  I won’t miss Gretchen. Just what I thought she was.

  Chapter Thirty

  Bailey has been on the phone to his mother for over an hour and a half, trying to persuade her to come to the hospital. She is by turns hysterical with relief and calm with anger. She can’t come tonight, she insists, she’s exhausted from appearing as the lead in ‘Whoops There Go My Bloomers!’ and anyway, Gretchen won’t be awake until tomorrow.

  Which is entirely the point, thinks Bailey wearily. Come and see her – do your crying and shouting while she can’t hear you. But she stubbornly refuses and Bailey gives up the fight. When he gets off the phone, he checks his watch. Two p.m. He should go back to the hospital. He feels better for having slept, but to get rid of the last bit of stress and tension lurking in his shoulders, he decides to have a quick spliff and, on finding his gear in the tin on his chest of drawers, he decides to also call Annalisa, from whose bed he reluctantly dragged himself yesterday morning. Shit, was it only yesterday he woke up in Spain? Mental – absolutely mental. Thank you God, he thinks. I fucking owe you one.