One Day in December

by Josie Silver

  “I know. This is different. It’s for the new job.”

  It’s Saturday night, we’re full of Chinese takeout and halfway down a bottle of champagne, and come Monday, I’ll be gainfully employed by Skylark, the publishing house who put out GlitterGirl magazine.

  “Open it then,” he says, nudging the box. “You can change it if it’s not right.”

  I look from his excited eyes to the box, and slowly tug the lime-green ribbons open. He’s already made a big fuss over me on my birthday, so this feels like real extravagance. I shake the lid of the smart gift box free and fold back the striped tissue paper to admire the black Kate Spade tote inside.

  “Oh, Oscar! It’s perfect.” I smile, tracing my finger over the discreet gold logo. I sense Sarah’s involvement, seeing as I admired a very similar one on her arm at the restaurant where we celebrated my birthday. “But you know you shouldn’t have. It’s too much.”

  “Making you happy makes me happy,” he shrugs, as if it’s a no-brainer. “Look in the inside pocket, there’s something else.”

  I reach into the bag, curious, and unzip the pocket. “What is it?” I laugh, pushing my fingers in until they touch cool metal. And then I know, and extract the set of keys dangling from a silver Tiffany padlock.

  “How will you come and go as you please if you don’t have your own set?” he asks, going out of his way to make light of the fact he’s giving me the keys to his home. Or to our home, as it’s going to be for the short term, at least. It was pretty much the first thing he said after “Congratulations” when I told him about my new job: “You’ll stay with me for a while, won’t you?” I have to admit I’d kind of hoped he’d offer, seeing as I’m starting on not much more than a pauper’s wage. We’ve agreed it’s an interim measure while I work something out. But as I look at the shiny set of keys, I see the huge set of expectations that come with it and I falter, wondering if I’m doing the wrong thing. We’ve only been together for eight months, after all, and I’ve always been determined to do this my own way.

  “I don’t want you to think I’m taking advantage of your generosity, Oscar. And you know me—Miss Independent,” I say.

  His dark eyes brim with amusement. “Trust me, I plan on taking advantage of you too.” He takes the keys from my fingers, raising his eyebrows at me. “Besides, how else will you be able to let yourself in to have dinner ready and waiting for me?”

  I punch him on the arm.

  “I hope you like baked beans.”

  He drops the keys inside my fancy new bag as he sets it down on the floor, then presses me back into the deep leather sofa and kisses me. “Let’s not talk about dull stuff anymore. I can think of better things we can do.”

  AUGUST 4

  Jack

  I’d rather punch myself in the face than go to a dinner party at Laurie and Oscar’s tonight, especially since they’ve invited his brother as well. Another banker jerk. What are the odds? Sarah’s all but tattooed the time I need to be there on my head. Bring flowers, she said. I’ll take wine, she said. I think she’s been googling dinner-party etiquette.

  She’s just sent me a text—Think of some good questions to ask Oscar’s brother tonight. I’m tempted to send something pissy back, but I just switched my phone off. I’m at work, I don’t have time for this shit.

  I’m grateful to have playlists to draw up for the next seven days, and a meeting with the producer tabled for this afternoon to discuss a new quiz we’re thinking of introducing. Reaching for a pen, I make a note on my hand of the latest possible time I can leave and still scrape in on time. God knows I don’t want to be early.

  Laurie

  “Are you sure it looks okay?”

  I stand back with my hands on my hips and cast a critical eye over the dining table. Oscar slings his arm over my shoulders.

  “Looks fine to me,” he says.

  I was hoping for more fulsome praise than that; this is my first-ever grown-up three-course dinner party, a far cry from pizza on our knees at Delancey Street. I wish I’d had the chance to just invite Sarah and Jack, a trial run before extending the invite out further. Not that I did, actually; it was only meant to be the four of us, but then Oscar invited his brother, Gerry, and his wife, Fliss, last weekend when we ran into them at Borough Market while buying artisan chocolate for the mousse. I know. Could I sound any more like a middle-class twat if I tried? This is my first dinner party and I’ve watched back-to-back episodes of Nigella snapping artisan chocolate into a pan while batting her eyelashes at the camera for weeks in preparation.

  I’ve only met Oscar’s brother once before. All I can recall is that Gerry doesn’t seem to be much like his easygoing younger brother, and his poker-thin wife, Felicity, looks as if she exists on fresh air and Chanel No. 5. She reminds me of someone famous, I just can’t put my finger on who it is. Anyway, that’s how my cozy party of four became a scary party of six, and I’ve spent the whole day in the kitchen painstakingly following a complicated recipe for coq au vin. It’s no ordinary coq, either. This lucky bird was corn-fed and pampered and folded into waxy brown paper by a butcher, and I hope to God this is reflected in the taste, because it was triple the cost of its shrink-wrapped supermarket brethren. I’ve whipped air into the chocolate mousse, tossed the salad, and now I’m gagging for a glass of wine.

  “Would it annoy you if I kissed your lipstick off?”

  “Yes.”

  One of the perks of working on a teen magazine is the plethora of beauty samples that flood the office; teenage girls today clearly spend a hell of a lot more on cosmetics than I did a decade ago. Tonight I’m testing out a trendy new brand of lipstick; the case looked more like a space-age dildo than a lipstick, and while it doesn’t quite give the promised bee-stung look, the product is creamy and rich and makes me feel that tiny bit more confident.

  Oscar looks momentarily crestfallen, but the sound of the buzzer cuts the conversation dead.

  “Someone’s here,” I whisper, staring at him.

  “That is the general idea of a dinner party,” he says. “Shall I get it or do you want to?”

  I creep toward the door and peer through the peephole, hoping Sarah and Jack are first. I’m out of luck.

  “It’s your brother,” I mouth, tiptoeing back to Oscar.

  “I take it that means I’m answering it?” he asks.

  “I’ll go in the kitchen and you call me when they’re inside as if I didn’t know,” I say, heading for the kitchen.

  “Can I ask why?” he asks mildly.

  I pause in the doorway. “So I don’t look overeager?” What I’m really thinking is that I want to neck a glass of wine for Dutch courage; my shy streak is suddenly alive and kicking again.

  I reach for my phone as I pull the wine from the fridge and fire off a quick text to Sarah.

  Hurry! G&F already here. Backup required!

  I check the coq au vin, and I’m pleased to report it looks quite a lot like the picture in the recipe book. Hey there, Jamie Oliver, my coq’s better than your coq. I’m laughing to myself as my phone vibrates, and I grab it quickly as I hear Oscar calling my name.

  On my way, 5 mins max. Jack’s running late, be there when he can. Sorry. Don’t drink all the wine without me!

  Five minutes. I can do that. Bloody Jack, Sarah was practically in tears right here in our kitchen last week after he’d missed another of their dates because he had to work late. And it’s going to get worse when he starts the new presenting job in a couple of weeks. Pretty soon the only way we’ll be able to keep up with Jack is to tune in to his radio show. I shake off my annoyance and plunge the open wine bottle into the ice bucket as I plaster a smile on my nearly bee-stung lips and head through to the lounge.

  * * *

  “I don’t think I can hold off much longer without it dryin
g up,” I say. Sarah and I gaze down at the already slightly less impressive coq, then she looks at the clock and shakes her head.

  “I’m really sorry. He knows how important this is for you.”

  Jack is more than an hour and a half late, and aside from a text to say he’d be here soon, just after Sarah arrived, it’s been radio silence.

  “Shall I text him too? He might be too scared to open your messages,” I say, filling up her glass.

  She shakes her head. “Don’t bother. Come on, let’s take this through and eat. It’s his loss.”

  It might be better all around if Jack decides to swerve coming tonight; he’s already late enough to look horribly rude, and there’s every chance Sarah will knock his head off his shoulders.

  * * *

  It’s after ten, the coq was a triumph, and Gerry isn’t so bad after a couple of drinks. Fliss is hideous—teetotal and a fucking vegetarian (not that I would have minded, but she never bloody said until I put a great big chicken limb in front of her! And it’s come to me who she reminds me of—Wallis Simpson, proper waspish). And Jack still isn’t here. Not only that, he hasn’t even called. Sarah’s so pissed off that she’s started to refer to him only as shitface while swigging more than her normal helping of wine, and poor Oscar is doing his best to defend him, even though Jack’s done nothing to earn such loyalty.

  “Chocolate mousse, anyone?” I say loudly, to change the subject.

  “God, yes.” Gerry groans as if I’ve offered him a blow job, at the same time as Fliss makes a hissing sound similar to the cry of the Wicked Witch of the West when Dorothy douses her in water. I look from one to the other, unsure what to do, when Sarah’s phone starts to trill and we all stare at it expectantly. Over the course of the dinner Sarah’s gone from having it tucked under her ass for a sneaky check every now and then to having it in full view on Jack’s empty dinner plate. I think she might be making a point.

  “There we go,” Oscar breathes, relieved. “Tell him it’s fine, Sarah, there’s food left if he hasn’t eaten.”

  Her phone rattles and bounces on Jack’s white china plate.

  “Personally, I wouldn’t dream of answering that.” Fliss looks down her nose, full of haughty disdain. “Bloody cheek.”

  Sarah looks at me, wavering and uncertain. “What shall I do?”

  “Get it,” I say, mostly to piss Fliss off, and after a second Sarah grabs it and stabs at the button.

  “Balls. Missed it,” she says, disappointment in her eyes even as she adds, “Serves him right, shitty shitface,” and lays the phone back on Jack’s plate. “Let’s have dessert.”

  As I push my chair back, Sarah’s phone rattles again to alert her to the fact that Jack has left her a message.

  “Odds-on he’s in a pub somewhere,” Fliss says, even though she has no right to an opinion, having never even met Jack.

  “He’ll be stuck at work.” Gerry bats for Team Jack, God knows why—perhaps he dislikes his wife as much as I do.

  Sarah picks up her phone. “Let’s see, shall we.”

  A hush falls around the table and we can all hear the tinny voice informing Sarah that she has one new message in her inbox. She huffs and clicks again, and I cross my fingers under the table that Gerry’s on the money.

  “Hello, this is a message for Sarah,” someone says, fast and loud, traces of an Australian accent. Sarah raises her eyes to mine, frowning at the unknown male voice. “I’m calling because this phone has fallen out of the pocket of a guy who’s just been involved in a serious road accident on Vauxhall Bridge Road. Your number comes up as the one he dials most often—we’re just waiting with him for the ambulance crew now. I thought you’d want to know as soon as possible. My name’s Luke, by the way. Let me know what to do with his phone when you can.”

  Sarah’s already crying hot, panicked tears before the end of the message, and I drop to my knees beside her chair and take the phone from her shaking hands before she drops it.

  “What do I do, Laurie?” She’s breathing too fast, clutching my hand. All of the color has drained from her face; she can’t keep a limb still.

  “We go to him,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady. “I’m calling a cab now, we’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  “What if he’s…” She’s shaking so violently that her teeth chatter.

  “Don’t,” I interrupt her, my eyes nailed to hers because I need her to listen to me. “Don’t say it. Don’t even think it. It’s going to be okay. Let’s just get there first, you and me together, one step at a time.”

  She nods, still dithering, trying to get ahold of herself. “You and me. One step at a time.”

  I hug her, fast and fierce, and Oscar’s bleak eyes meet mine over her shoulder. I look away.

  AUGUST 5

  Laurie

  He’s alive. Thank God, thank God, thank God.

  We’re huddled on nailed-down metal chairs, drinking something lukewarm Oscar got from the vending machine. I can’t tell if it’s tea or coffee. The doctor came to see us a couple of hours back; we can’t see Jack yet. He’s in surgery, she said, in a quiet, reassuring voice that actually frightened the hell out of me. Head injury. Broken ribs. Fractured left shoulder. I can handle broken bones, because I know bones can mend. It’s the head injury that terrifies me; they’re going to get him scanned, or whatever it is they do, then they should know more. I couldn’t digest everything she said because my red-alert panic button was screaming inside my brain. Head injury. People die from head injuries. Don’t die, Jack. Don’t you dare die on us. On me.

  * * *

  We sit on either side of his bed, Sarah and I. We tried to get hold of his mum in the confusing minutes after we located him at St. Pancras Hospital, but then Sarah remembered that she’s in Spain with Albie, Jack’s brother. I left the message rather than Sarah, so we didn’t frighten the life out of her.

  And so we watch over him together, and we wait, because we’ve been told that’s all we can do for now. He’s out of surgery, out of immediate danger, but they won’t know the extent of his head injury until he’s conscious. He’s shirtless and pale and absolutely still aside from the rise and fall of his chest. A mess of bandages and tubes cover him, hooked up to all kinds of machines and drips. I’ve never been this frightened. He looks too fragile, and I find myself worrying about what happens in here if there’s a power outage. They have backup, right? Because I don’t think Jack’s keeping himself alive right now, he’s beholden to the national grid. How ridiculous. Across London people are boiling their kettles and nonchalantly charging their phones, using up precious energy when it should all be saved up and sent here to keep Jack alive. Please stay alive, my lovely Jack. Don’t leave us. Don’t leave me.

  Intensive Care is a strange place of quiet industry laced with panic; the constant soft footfall of the nurses, the clatter of patient notes against the metal bed-ends, a background symphony of bleeps and alarms.

  I watch Sarah re-secure the plastic fingertip peg monitoring his oxygen levels as a nurse writes Jack’s name on a whiteboard over his bedside cabinet, bright blue capitals. I close my eyes and, though I’ve never been remotely religious, I pray.

  AUGUST 10

  Laurie

  “Don’t try to move, I’ll call the nurse.”

  I look over my shoulder for help as Jack struggles to pull himself up in bed, even though he’s been told in no uncertain terms by the ward sister to press his buzzer if he needs help.

  “For fuck’s sake, Lu, stop fussing. I can do it.”

  He wouldn’t pull this kind of stunt if Sarah were here; she’d kick his sorry ass. He’s only trying his luck today because it’s Friday and I got off work early to come and visit on my own. He regained consciousness a couple of days ago and the doctors were, thank God, able to confirm no lasting brai
n injury, although they’re still running tests because he’s struggling with his hearing on one side. Since then it’s become apparent that he’s the patient from hell. His streak of independence is generally one of his better qualities, but his refusal to ask for help is borderline dangerous in his condition. He’s catheterized, and he has a cannula in his hand administering pain relief; every time he acts up and tries to do stuff for himself he sets off a furious series of alarms and high-pitched wails that bring nurses running.

  I sit down as the staff nurse stalks down the ward and hoists him into position against his pillows.

  “Your pretty face is starting to get on my nerves, O’Mara,” she says, in that no-nonsense way experienced medical staff have.

  He grins, apologetic. “Thank you, Eva. Sorry. Can I offer you a grape?” He nods toward the fruit basket on the side, a gift from his colleagues.

  “Can you imagine how many grapes I get offered in here?” She looks at him over her glasses. “If you want to do something for me, just press the buzzer next time you need help.”

  She doesn’t hang around, leaving us alone again. I’m sitting in one of those fake leather, wipe-clean armchairs next to Jack’s bed in the corner of a ward of six beds, mostly older men. It’s afternoon visiting time, although you wouldn’t know it from the fact that most of them are snoozing in their pajamas on top of their rumpled white sheets, no relatives to be seen. The window behind me is pushed up as far as it’ll go, and fans whir on some of the bedside cabinets, yet still there’s hardly a breath of air.

  “Hot out there today,” I say. I’ve taken care to sit on the side that he can still hear from.

  He sighs. “Is that what our friendship has come to? We’re reduced to talking about the weather?”