Little Disasters

by Sarah Vaughan

  ‘We would have removed Mrs Curtis pretty swiftly, just as we would with any other parent,’ I say, trying not to imagine this worst-case scenario in which an anaesthetist would have put Betsey into a coma that would then be managed.

  ‘My point is: we shouldn’t have to deal with this.’ He batters the keyboard some more, two fingers hammering his point home. ‘She needs to comply with what she agreed with the police and that namby-pamby social worker, what’s her name?’

  ‘Lucy Stone,’ I supply. It’s a waste of time trying to counter his assessment: he dismisses social workers as indecisive; believes only doctors have the gumption to make decisions.

  ‘The drippy girl, yes. Christ! I’ll have to call her now, won’t I? Or the police.’

  ‘I think your calling security will have scared Mrs Curtis enough,’ I say, hoping to dampen down his reaction. His anger’s so strong he seems to have forgotten I’m not meant to be discussing this. ‘She’ll have got the message pretty clearly. And she’ll have hated being man-handled.’

  ‘She didn’t seem very happy.’

  ‘I’m not surprised.’ One of the guards, fat-necked and with a snake tattoo curling around his forearm, is particularly intimidating. Jess will have felt revolted, and humiliated. ‘Did they escort her off the premises?’

  ‘I think they directed her to the concourse.’

  ‘She’ll have got the message and gone home,’ I seek to reassure him, though I wonder if that’s the case. Jess will have been unlikely to leave, having seen her baby in the throes of a seizure.

  ‘Just grabbing some lunch,’ I say.

  *

  She is sitting at a table at the coffee shop, hands cupped around a mug of black tea, shoulders hunched as if trying to become invisible: a study in despair. The queue’s long and it takes a while before I’m given my double-shot Americano. All the time I watch her, sensing her sorrow, wondering how I’ll be received.

  She doesn’t look up. Around her, the tables are filling up as elevenses slips into lunchtime and customers begin to fuel up on paninis. A heavily pregnant woman slumps at the next table, stuffing a plastic folder of hospital notes into her bag. Her hapless partner arrives with two coffees and she berates him: ‘Oh, Chris. I can’t drink that. It’s caffeinated. Of course it matters.’ But Jess only gives them a cursory glance before drawing a paper napkin from her lap and beginning to play with it.

  Watching her, I wonder quite why I’ve always perceived Jess as such an exemplary mother, never seeing her flaws as I did with Charlotte or Mel. Perhaps it was because she made motherhood look so easy. But then Kit was such a good baby, who would fall asleep at prescribed times and spent months sitting placidly on his bottom, unlike Rosa who refused to sleep, was toddling at ten months, and soon pushing all the boundaries as I tried to fathom her out.

  Riven with anxiety, I tried copying Jess’s parenting techniques for getting Kit to sleep and even her recipes – which Kit wolfed down greedily, while Rosa squirmed in her high chair, her mouth a tiny moue of disdain. Sleep deprivation refracts your thoughts, and in those early months, I saw Jess as some kind of baby whisperer: capable of lulling her child to sleep, and keeping him docile while mine thrashed around and woke me repeatedly. It was only when I returned to work and regained some sense of who I was that I remembered that babies aren’t machines that can be programmed to behave in a certain way and that all sorts of things – viruses, teeth coming through, growth spurts – can unsettle and disrupt them. And yet, my early admiration continued despite this epiphany.

  Jess isn’t looking serene now but agitated as she fiddles with her napkin. Disgust skims her face as she screws it into a ball and shoves it deep into her bag.

  ‘Jess . . .’ Coffee in hand, I gesture to the chair opposite. ‘May I?’ My voice comes out wrong: business-like and perhaps a little aloof because I’m anticipating that she’ll be angry. I haven’t seen her since we alerted social services, and she will know, from Ed, that I was partly responsible for this.

  She nods and I sit, conscious that this cuts against all professional mores but justifying it because it might help her, and it should certainly help Betsey.

  ‘How are you doing?’ I ask.

  She rolls her eyes; a hint of the old Jess who would do this behind Charlotte’s back whenever she said something particularly socially awkward. But her attempt to be sardonic is undercut by the fact she is close to tears.

  ‘I’ve just been on the ward,’ I begin, ‘and they said you’ve been up there . . .’

  She shrugs.

  ‘You do know you can’t just turn up, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course.’ Her eyes are hard, now; her voice determined. ‘But I had to see her. I had to check she was OK.’

  ‘Lucy and the police will be able to stop you seeing Betsey altogether if you do this again.’ Beside us, the pregnant woman looks over, intrigued. I lower my voice and wish we were somewhere more private. ‘No one wants that to happen. It’s in neither of your interests for you to be banned from here.’

  ‘I had to check on her. I had to see that she was OK,’ she repeats, somewhat sullenly.

  ‘Oh, Jess. We do know how to look after your baby.’

  ‘But you didn’t, did you?’ she hisses, suddenly irate. ‘She’s never had a seizure before.’

  ‘It’s happened because she has a skull fracture. And it’s far better that it happened here where we have the medication to manage it,’ I say.

  The colour drains from her cheeks. Perhaps I’ve been too harsh but it’s frustrating, and arrogant, this failure to accept we can treat her baby girl. For a moment, I’m reminded of my mother’s open hostility towards the doctors who treated Mattie: the blithe assumption that they didn’t know what they were doing. That seminal moment when I realised my mother wasn’t always right.

  ‘Is she OK? Is Betsey OK?’ Jess is suddenly meek, and my irritation putters like a damp firework. Jess isn’t my mother. She’s my friend who’s desperate for information about her sick baby.

  ‘She had another seizure but she’s been given a different drug and she’s stabilised. We’ll ring you if things deteriorate but there’s no reason why they would do so. The best thing that you can do is go home and try to get some rest, or spend some time with the boys.’ I look at her closely: there are dark shadows under her eyes, and her hair’s unruly. ‘How are they?’

  ‘Oh, you know.’ Her voice cracks. ‘I didn’t think you’d care.’

  ‘Of course I care. I’m just not meant to discuss it.’ I want to take her hand, but I’ve already stretched the boundaries of my professionalism too far. Besides, I doubt she would take it, anyway.

  I sit there for a moment, searching for something constructive to say.

  ‘You do know that if you wanted to tell me anything, you could, don’t you?’ I try eventually.

  She looks at me with utter derision and it’s as if she’s punched me in my stomach. This defensive, shifty Jess isn’t her. I remember weeping in her arms when I returned to work and Rosa wouldn’t sleep, terrified I was incapable of functioning with that level of exhaustion. She had held me close, shushing me like a baby, and it was a revelation, for someone who couldn’t remember experiencing warmth and intimacy from my mother, to be soothed and comforted like this.

  My phone buzzes with a text message from Fousia: ‘Jacob Brooks wants to say goodbye. U around?’

  It’s hardly an emergency but I’m relieved at having a legitimate reason to leave.

  ‘I’ve got to go.’ I stand, but then I prevaricate, reluctant when there’s clearly so much we need to discuss; when I haven’t managed to smooth things down. ‘You will head home, won’t you?’

  Jess gives a tiny nod.

  ‘Please. I promise I’ll ring if there’s any change.’

  She crosses her arms and won’t look at me. Closed and defensive, she views me with suspicion, just as, if I’m completely honest, I view her.

  I head back to the ward, relieved that I can
focus on another child, and desperate to shake off this sense of mutual ill feeling. Jacob’s recovery is the tonic I need. Three days ago he came in unconscious, suffering from life-threatening diabetic ketoacidosis. Now his blood sugar levels have stabilised sufficiently for him to be discharged.

  His mother, Sonya, is exhausted but effusive.

  ‘We just wanted to say thank you so much.’ She looks as if she wants to hug me.

  ‘My pleasure. It’s what we’re here for.’

  Jacob gives me a shy smile and steps closer. ‘Thank you, Dr Liz.’

  ‘You’re very welcome, Jacob.’ I hold my hands up for him to high-five. He’s delighted.

  ‘Up above,’ he chants, as we go through the various movements. ‘Down below, in the middle, you’re too slow.’

  ‘I was, wasn’t I?’ I say, pretending to be confused and letting him win.

  They leave, Sonya clutching Jacob’s hand as if she will never let him go. I turn back to the nurses’ station. Thankyou cards fan across the wall and I read a new one from the Fitzpatricks, whose three-year-old, Chloe, was admitted with a kidney infection last week. She was hallucinating before we administered IV antibiotics, and her mother Rachel was frantic. Now, she writes: ‘We can’t thank you enough for all you’ve done,’ scattering kisses in a fat, cursive script.

  The Fitzpatricks have sent a huge box of Heroes. (‘Heroes for our heroes,’ Rachel’s card says.) There’s always a steady supply of chocolates from grateful parents. I usually resist but my willpower deserts me when I’m tired or stressed. The caramel stickiness coats my tongue, and I’m irritated with myself for giving into such emotional eating – prompted by my sadness that Jess, who once chose me to confide in, can no longer do so.

  I’m only gorging chocolate because I feel so sad for, and troubled by, Jess.

  LIZ

  Friday 7 October, 2016

  Eighteen

  ‘You needn’t have gone to such an effort, Jess.’ Charlotte leans over the plate of blinis Jess has put out and pops one straight in her mouth. ‘These are divine but honestly we’d have been just as happy with a bowl of crisps.’

  We’ve gathered at Jess’s for one of our erratic book club meetings – more of an excuse to get together than an attempt to discuss literature since Mel usually fails to open the novel, to Charlotte’s irritation – and Jess has gone typically over the top. There are blinis with smoked salmon and crème fraîche; homemade cheese straws; green and black olives; white and red wines; and elderflower cordial or water for Mel who has given up alcohol in an unnecessary bid to shift some weight.

  ‘This is so kind of you though,’ I add. ‘Thank you so much for spoiling us.’

  Charlotte catches my eye as she picks up another blini. No need to go overboard as well, her glance says. But I feel the need to counter the acid in her remark: the implication that Jess has tried too hard and that Charlotte, with her important job – she’s now a partner in her law firm, who’s come straight from work – wouldn’t have the headspace or the time to do more than open a tub of Pringles. Charlotte rarely hosts, but the last time she did there were trays of canapés bought from Waitrose or M&S.

  Jess doesn’t seem to have picked up on Charlotte’s implication because she’s too preoccupied with making everything perfect: flitting in and out for napkins, putting another log on the log burner, lighting an extra candle so that the beautifully dressed room glows with pools of light.

  Now she’s fumbling with the prosecco cork, not quite managing to twist off the wire.

  ‘Could you do this, Liz?’

  ‘Of course.’ I ease the cork out like the proverbial midwife delivering a baby. The drink froths and spills into the glass. ‘There you go, Charlotte,’ I say as I hand it to her. ‘Mel, you’re not drinking, are you?’ Mel shakes her head. ‘Well, Jess, you have this one.’ I nod towards the delicate flute.

  ‘No, you have it,’ she says, refusing to take it.

  ‘Don’t you want one? It seems a shame to open it just for Charlotte and me.’

  ‘I’ll just have some sparkling water.’

  ‘OK.’ I’m slightly surprised. Jess tends to drink at social events: she recently told me she needed a bit of Dutch courage when having to contend with Charlotte, ‘ just to give me a bit of sparkle.’ (‘You always sparkle,’ I’d said. ‘Not with her. I never feel very sharp when she’s around.’)

  ‘It’s just you and me then, Charlotte,’ I say now, raising the glass and giving her a broad smile to try to smooth over any low-level friction. ‘Cheers, everyone!’

  ‘Cheers!’ Mel clinks her tumbler of water against mine but Charlotte’s distracted: though she mouths the toast, she is watching Jess intently.

  ‘Are you sure you’re feeling OK?’ she asks. ‘It’s just you look a bit peaky.’

  ‘Don’t hold back, will you?’ Mel snorts into her water. ‘Sorry.’ Charlotte is frosty. ‘I’m just concerned.’

  But now that I look more closely at Jess, she does look a little off-colour: pale beneath the remains of the tan she acquired during a Corsican holiday in late August.

  ‘I’m fine, really,’ she says, looking round at us all. ‘I’d have cancelled if I thought I was coming down with something. I’m just feeling a bit tired: it always happens about this time of year.’

  I’m not convinced but she clearly doesn’t want us to make a fuss so I take my book out of my bag and start the pretence that we’re going to try to discuss it.

  ‘So, Jane Eyre, which I last read as a teenager. What did we all make of it?’

  ‘I didn’t finish it.’ Mel, as always, gets her excuse in early.

  ‘Did you read any of it?’ Charlotte is in a particularly formidable mood. She has taken up half the sofa, and whether it’s because she’s so much taller than petite Mel, because her posture’s so upright, or because she has such a deep voice – an authoritative voice, I always think; one used to being listened to – we immediately pay attention to her.

  ‘I did.’ Mel is a little defensive. ‘I read quite a lot of it – and I’ve seen the film. But I gave up when Bertha started setting fire to things. I know we’re meant to feel sympathy for her, and that Rochester’s a shit – and he is a shit, isn’t he?’ We all agree, knowing there’s a certain amount of projection going on. ‘But I just don’t have the energy at the moment to deal with female madness.’

  ‘Oh, Mel!’ I laugh at her lack of sisterly solidarity.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I think the madwoman in the attic’s the best bit. Bertha Rochester’s my favourite character.’

  ‘I agree actually,’ Charlotte says. ‘Well, I’m not sure about “favourite” but I found her sympathetic. Can you imagine what it must have been like to be locked away like that – and to know that your husband’s chosen a younger, more biddable model? Her jealousy’s understandable.’

  ‘Well, I get that,’ Mel says, somewhat bitterly. ‘Christ. I don’t need to empathise with that.’ Rob has recently admitted to a one-night stand with a colleague that, according to him, ‘meant nothing’. ‘Oh, fuck it. I need a drink.’

  I pour her a glass of the prosecco, and check that Jess is sure she doesn’t want any.

  She shakes her head and stands up abruptly. ‘Actually I’ve forgotten I made a pudding. I’ll just get it. It’s in the fridge.’

  ‘A pudding?’ Charlotte says in her most Lady Bracknell of tones.

  ‘Just a chocolate torte and some raspberries. It was really simple.’

  ‘Oh, Jess, we do love you,’ says Mel, visibly relaxing now that she’s drinking. ‘There’s nothing simple about making a chocolate torte.’

  ‘I’ll come and help you carry the plates,’ I say. ‘Would you?’ She gives me a grateful look.

  ‘Just keeping the warmth in,’ I explain to the others as I reach for the snug door. Find out what’s wrong with her, Charlotte mouths – theatrically and somewhat unnecessarily – as I close it behind me, but I pretend not to understand.

 
; Something is definitely up, though. Jess is twisting her rings, a tell-tale sign that she’s nervous, and darting around her pristine kitchen.

  ‘Is the torte in the fridge?’ I ask, opening the vast stainless steel doors. ‘And are these the raspberries you want us to use?’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ Her head is buried in a cupboard. ‘There’s some double cream, too – I’ll get a jug, and some cake forks.’ She dances lightly and I want to grasp her by the shoulders and tell her to calm down.

  Instead, I wait for her to stop flitting around. I’ve learned with Jess that you have to be patient. Unless it’s a rare occasion when she’s properly drunk, it takes time for her to tell you anything personal and you can’t hurry her along. So often in life, I feel I’ve too little time to talk: children, work, Nick pulling me in different directions. But for once there are no other distractions – just two friends, alone in a quiet kitchen, one of whom has something to divulge.

  ‘Charlotte seems a bit sniffy,’ Jess says eventually, as she counts out cake forks. This is a typical Jess manoeuvre: discussing something tangential before she gets to the heart of what’s bothering her.

  ‘Charlotte’s Charlotte.’ I am dismissive. Sometimes I wonder why we still include her. She would never have been a natural friend had we not met while we were all going through the same, life-changing experience, but that shared history, and her kindness to me at the time, means we can’t just drop her. Besides, I sense she’d be devastated. She doesn’t have many close girlfriends, and has indicated she needs us. ‘Her sharpness isn’t a reflection on you, you know, but on her.’

  ‘I know. But have you noticed she’s only like this when it’s just the four of us? When Ed and Andrew are around, she’s sweetness and light: she seems to rein in her archness, or at least dilute it.’ Jess lets out a heavy sigh. ‘She’s guessed as well. She’s so clever, so sharp. Did you see her watching me, assessing? And she’s the one I’ve been dreading telling all along.’