Break-Up Club

by Lorelei Mathias

  And yet, by some bizarre twist of fate, The remarkable Yann has forgiven me AND allowed me to buy him lunch by way of apology. He keeps saying that he’d have done the same if it was him. And that more than anything, he’s just totally relieved I’m not going to turn him in to the Goan police.

  To conclude, as if there was ever any doubt, I am a mentalist of the highest order. Clearly the only remaining option is now to replace all alcohol and drugs with transcendental meditation and yoga, as a matter of urgency.

  P.S. Breaking News - I might be about to be the star of a pilot for a brand-new reality show about backpacking! A cool TV exec called Jeremy (thanks Holly!) wants me to shoot an audition tape in a matter of days. So am madly rehearsing – this is finally a chance to get my music out there! Halle-fucking-lujah!

  33. Resolutions

  The next day, instead of joining the rest of Britain in a synchronised New Year’s Day fry-up followed by an afternoon chasing the hair of dog while surgically attached to the sofa, the remaining two musketeers headed straight back to the hospital.

  ‘Don’t be the one that spreads it,’ they were told at every turn as they passed posters warning of MRSA, en route to the Intensive Care Unit. As they reached the waiting room, they took it in turns to get a squirt of disinfecting fluid from the dispenser on the wall.

  ‘Hey,’ Harry said as he rubbed the fluid into his hands, ‘this is like the stuff you get in Portaloos, isn’t it? It’s like being at a festival.’

  Holly turned to him in slow motion. ‘Yeah Harry. It’s JUST LIKE being at a festival.’

  ‘Shhh,’ he said as they entered the waiting room. Inside, a middle-aged lady was mopping her eyes with a screwed-up tissue that wasn’t fit for purpose, and next to her, a young girl was choosing a new ringtone on her mobile phone. Just as Holly was debating asking her to put it on silent, a short, rotund nurse with a name-badge that read ‘Shauna’ popped her head into the room. ‘Is anyone here the family of Miss Mahoney?’

  ‘We’re basically family,’ Holly said, standing up. ‘How is she?’ she said as Shauna ushered them outside.

  ‘I’m afraid we are not at liberty to divulge confidential information to those who are not next of kin. Are you her next of kin?’

  ‘Well not exactly,’ Holly said, looking defeated.

  ‘Her only official family members are in Aruba at the moment,’ Harry said.

  ‘May I ask what is your relationship to Miss Mahoney?’ Shauna said, a little too snootily for Holly’s liking.

  ‘We’re very close friends. As I said, we’re basically her only family.’

  Harry raised a cautionary hand, lest Holly launch into any more detail about the nurturing bosom of the BUC.

  ‘Well. In that case…’ Shauna said, beginning to thaw a little around the edges.

  ‘Can I ask what do the doctors think it might be?’ Harry asked. ‘Was it a reaction to the drugs?’

  ‘At this stage, everything is pointing towards swine flu.’

  ‘What?’ Harry said.

  ‘Influenza A H1N1. Pig flu,’ Shauna said. ‘The Flu of the Swine,’ her Caribbean accent inflating with every syllable.

  ‘Right, thanks. I think we’ve got it now,’ Harry said.

  ‘Let’s hope you haven’t.’

  ‘Um, don’t take this the wrong way, but… isn’t swine flu a bit, um… five years ago?’ Holly asked.

  ‘Yeah – I thought that whole thing had cleared up by now,’ Harry said, as though if it had been Bird Flu that might have been more on trend, and therefore more Olivia’s style. Holly suppressed an inappropriate giggle at the thought of Olivia having an out of date illness, and how that wouldn’t do at all. Then she felt a wave of guilt for doing so, followed by a sudden burst of motion-sickness.

  Shauna looked to the ceiling. ‘You’d be surprised. The strain returns every winter in small doses. All the more reason for looking after yourself – eating well and keeping warm so you don’t get run-down. Now, do any of you live or work in close proximity to her? As a precaution we will need to give you a dose of Tamiflu.’

  ‘Um, just so we know, how worried should we be?’ Holly asked. ‘On a scale of one to ten?’

  ‘It’s too soon to know,’ Shauna said. ‘In the meantime if you just wait here.’ And then she was gone.

  ‘Shit,’ Holly said quietly as they returned to the waiting room. ‘Swine flu, really? People can die of that. Do you remember when it was all over the bloody papers?’

  ‘Liv’s not going to die, don’t be ridiculous,’ Harry said. ‘Anyway, how did she even get it? She hardly ever takes public transport? This is beyond ironic.’

  ‘It’s not a joke, Harry.’

  ‘I know. It’s dreadful, that’s what this is.’

  Holly’s throat began to feel dry. ‘I can’t breathe,’ she said, winding her curls around her fingers at hyper speed. ‘Oh god. Do you think I can’t breathe because I’m worried, or because I’ve contracted swine flu?’ She stood up. ‘I’m going to go and get dosed up now, just in case,’ she said, running off towards reception.

  As she and Harry sat in silence some two hours later, she couldn’t help noticing the small round stains on the wall above some of the seats. The more time she had to stare at them, the more she wondered how they had got there. Another hour passed while they sat and waited. Her eyes kept landing back on the marks on the wall. Eventually, she figured it out. The marks were there to signify the sheer length of time people had to sit in one spot, their head slumped against the wall with worry. A greasy reminder of the prolonged, agonising wait for news. Just as she realised this, Shauna reappeared.

  ‘OK, I have some news for you, if you’d just like to step outside again.’

  They left the room, and the nurse began to speak softly. ‘Miss Mahoney’s condition has deteriorated I’m afraid. The oxygen level in her blood isn’t what it should be, so a respiratory doctor is coming to see her. Then after that you may be able to see her.’

  ‘Respiratory doct—?’ Holly said, her hand moving to her chest as she tried to concentrate on her own breathing.

  ‘Do they know if it’s swine flu yet?’ Harry asked, his face creasing with concern.

  ‘We won’t know for certain for another twenty-four hours,’ Shauna said, looking at her watch before striding away again, leaving them alone.

  ‘I can’t believe we’ve been here for over three hours and still haven’t seen her,’ Holly said, feeling the room spin and sitting back down. She grabbed hold of the underside of the brown plastic chair to anchor herself.

  Harry sat down and squeezed her hand tightly. ‘Should we try and get in touch with Bella? You know. In case of…’

  ‘Yes. I think we should,’ Holly said, getting her phone out and starting a Skype message. ‘What about Jonny?’

  Neither of them knew what to say to that, so the question was left to hang in the silence. They heard some footsteps approaching, and Holly stood up to see if anyone was coming for them. Nope. Nothing. After a while, she became obsessed with the Footsteps Game – the crescendo of hope as footsteps came near the waiting room, and then the disappointing diminuendo as they got further away and as you realised there were no news-bearing humans attached to them. Although the truth was, she was dreading actually hearing any kind of news. In here, tucked up in the waiting room of ignorance, she was shielded from the worst thing ever. Part of her wanted to stretch out the bubble of not-knowing a little longer, so she could carry on living in a world where everything was still OK. A world where one of her best friends wasn’t stood at the border control of Death, deciding whether to go in or not.

  Just as she was beginning to think the unthinkable, the footsteps began to get louder and clumpier. Shauna peered around the door.

  ‘You can go in now.’

  They stood up and walked towards the door marked ICU.

  ‘Uh-uh! You’ll need these,’ Shauna said, pointing to the dispenser of attractive blue robes, and handing them both a face mas
k. Holly pulled on the ‘robe’, which looked more like a festival poncho made out of up-cycled blue corner-shop plastic bags.

  Harry smiled at the sight of Holly in hers, and opened his mouth to speak.

  ‘Don’t you dare liken this to a festival again,’ Holly said, and Harry closed his mouth.

  ‘Follow me,’ Shauna said, and they walked into the intensive care unit.

  So as not to have to see all the bodies lined up in all the beds, Holly stared directly at the neat bun at the back of Shauna’s head in front of her, focusing only on her thick brown hair while they walked, until eventually they reached the furthest bed in the room. Even then she didn’t dare look at the patient in the bed. Instead she studied Harry’s face first, for any reflection of how bad it was. A shadow crossed over his face, and slowly, she turned to face Olivia. Her eyes like coal, she was pale and gaunt; the illness having robbed her complexion of its former radiance. Tubes ran from her arm to a drip, and an oxygen mask was clamped to her face. Beside the bed, a veritable cockpit of controls beeped away, monitoring her vital statistics. Briefly,

  Olivia’s eyes opened, and she managed a slow smile of recognition, before they closed back up again.

  BellaAllen@LadyGoa:

  Fuck. Bad news from home. Bad.

  *

  The next evening, they were back at Olivia’s bedside again. The doctors had confirmed it was swine flu, and Olivia had acquired a new neighbour in the next bed along. On the other side of a lemon yellow curtain, an elderly lady was attached to various machines. At regular intervals, she emitted an unfortunate loud wailing noise while convulsing in her sleep. Holly and Harry looked at each other.

  ‘She doesn’t know she’s doing it,’ Shauna explained, while checking various dials on Olivia’s monitors. ‘She is very uncomfortable. She has the same thing as your friend, but the doctors don’t think she has very long,’ Shauna added, writing notes onto a clipboard. Then she looked at her wristwatch. ‘Miss Mahoney needs to go for some more tests now, if you want to come back in an hour?’

  Holly stood stunned, unable to speak. Eventually Harry took her hand and led her back to the waiting room. They returned to their old seats, and Holly lay her head on Harry’s shoulder.

  ‘Why are they doing more tests? If they know it’s swine flu, what else are they looking for? Why won’t they tell us more?’ Holly lifted her head up and turned to face Harry. ‘Is she going to end up like her neighbour?’

  He shook his head unconvincingly. ‘I don’t know if I should say this, but I overheard the doctors talking about her breathing problems. They said if they get much worse then there’s a risk of it becoming pneumonia.’

  Holly’s eyes welled up.

  ‘Hey, hey…’ he said, putting his arm around her, ‘I’m sure it’s one of those things that sounds worse than it is. You know, pneumonia was a killer in Dickensian times, but these days, people get over it, provided they’re strong.’

  ‘Liv’s not that strong though, is she? You heard; the registrar took one look at her and said she was underweight, and that could be why she was more susceptible.’

  ‘That makes sense,’ Harry said.

  ‘God, I thought it was all the triathlon training – but looking back, it’s so obvious now – she just wasn’t eating. Why didn’t we all just try harder to force-feed her?’

  ‘I don’t think that’s quite how anorexia works,’ Harry whispered, and they fell silent.

  ‘We’ve fucked up, royally, haven’t we?’ Holly said. ‘Why didn’t we notice?

  ‘She just always seemed so on top of everything. But looking back, I don’t think she ever really processed the break-up with Ross. All she did was bury it and jump straight into things with Jonny.’

  ‘And she did a very good job of seeming OK, of keeping up the veneer.’

  ‘If anything, it’s my fault for encouraging her to train with me! I should have been more strict about the carb-loading.’

  Just then, Holly’s footstep receptors – by now finely tuned from what felt like weeks of waiting for news – picked up on some distant feet in the hall. But there was something different about these ones. They were more like the pitter-patter of tiny flip-flops.

  She peered her head out of the waiting room. Down the hall, in the distance, was a sight to behold. A lady with jet-black dreadlocks, a deep tan and love-beads was hobbling up the corridor. She was weighed down by an enormous rucksack, an ethnic-patterned red guitar case, and various hessian holdalls hanging from her arms.

  ‘Oh. My. Shit! BELLA!’ Holly yelled, before remembering she was in a hospital and apologising profusely to everyone around her. Then she ran down the corridor, trying to suppress the urge to scream.

  ‘HOLLY!’ Bella shouted, running into her arms.

  ‘Sshhhhh! Ick, you smell of Camel!’ Holly said a beat later.

  ‘Thanks, nice to see you too!’ she whispered.

  ‘Here, let me help you with these,’ Holly said, and Bella offloaded her entire rucksack onto Holly’s shoulders.

  ‘Ow. Christ, what have you got in here? An actual camel?’

  ‘Almost. Sorry.’

  ‘Here, we’re just in this room,’ Holly said, leading Bella back up the hall to the waiting room. Bella peered her tanned face around the door.

  ‘What the—?!’ Harry whispered, standing up and rushing over to Bella.

  ‘Say nothing about my dark circles, I came straight from Heathrow and haven’t slept in two days.’

  Holly and Harry threw their arms around her.

  ‘I cannot believe you came back!’ Harry said from within the huddle.

  ‘Liv’s family; of course I had to come back! As soon as I heard how serious it was, I got on the first flight I could. BUC forever, remember?’

  Holly squeezed her tight and started sobbing.

  ‘OK, I have an idea,’ Harry said eventually, ‘don’t laugh, but it’s Sunday… what say we… have a meeting?’

  Holly rolled her eyes. ‘Really? But Liv’s lying there!’

  ‘All the more reason to pull together. She wouldn’t have us miss a meeting, would she?’

  Holly looked him in the eye to see that he was actually being serious. Then, slowly, she began to talk. ‘All right then, if you insist… But let’s keep our voices way down. So, OK kids… welcome to BUC. Could I begin this week’s meeting by saying that I take it ALL back. Whatever it was I said earlier about break-ups being worse than, well, you know… it seems so trite now. Ridiculous, even. Sitting here in this dingy room, faced with the prospect of losing one of our best friends in the world, I can suddenly see what a bunch of self-indulgent arses we are! We’ve had our head up our bums for way too bloody long now.’

  ‘I hear you,’ Harry said, giving her a hug. ‘Maybe it did all get a bit out of hand.’

  Holly gave him an awkward laugh, and felt the need to change the subject. ‘So how was India, B? Until all this happened, I mean…’

  ‘Amazing, thanks! Yeah, until the roof fell in, I was actually doing pretty well. I was basking in the glow of my backpacking epiphany. In fact, I’ve decided I’m going to do something drastic.’

  Holly and Harry looked at her as if to say, ‘Oh?’

  She cleared her throat. ‘At the risk of going a bit Clichés-R-Us: Liv being in here like this, it’s made me realise that life’s too short. I’m going to quit pub singing. There’s something much more worthwhile that I can do with my life. The answer’s been staring me in the face.’

  ‘Good on you, Bella!’ Holly said, slapping her on the back.

  ‘Yeah, that’s a brave decision, well done,’ Harry said. ‘So what are you going to do?’

  ‘Get down the job centre for starters! I’m sick of being piss-poor. No, I’ll take you through the master plan later. It feels wrong discussing the ins and outs of my career while Liv’s lying there…’

  Harry raised his white plastic cup of water. ‘Fair. Well here’s to getting off our arses, and to not being such a bunch of fuck-u
ps. We owe it to Liv.’

  ‘To Liv,’ they said. Then as they all ‘clinked’ their white plastic cups of water, Holly’s phone buzzed with an email. She clicked onto her inbox.

  ‘Shitting fuck,’ she whispered moments later.

  ‘What?’ Harry said.

  ‘I’ve just been dumped. It seems that OfCom – the TV complaints board – have received over 21,000 letters after the whole Stephen Fry thing… and as a result they’ve had to take The Madhouse off the air. So Jez says he’s now only able to keep Pascal on. After all the effort I made to save his manipulative little arse, I’ve got one month left!’

  ‘So you’ve essentially just been fired by Stephen Fry,’ Harry said, helpfully.

  ‘It’s a claim to fame if nothing else. Get this though. There’s a postscript: if I’m willing to let him use BUC, he’ll keep me on. At almost twice my salary! I hate that arse-faced weasel!’

  ‘Have you told him Liv’s in hospital?’

  ‘I suspect that’s what made him up his offer, the sick fuck.’

  ‘Hol, I know you can’t see this now, but it really is a blessing in disguise,’ Harry said.

  ‘Yeah. You can take some time out, work out what it is you want to really do,’ Bella said. ‘Or just come to the job centre with me! Broke-up Club, anyone?’ she said, a massive grin spreading across her face as a doctor walked up to them with the opposite expression.

  ‘Excuse me. Do any of you have the contact details for Miss Mahoney’s next of kin?

  ‘I do,’ Holly said, opening her handbag. ‘Why, has something happened?’

  ‘There has been a change in Miss Mahoney’s condition I’m afraid,’ said the doctor very quietly. ‘Please try not to be alarmed,’ she said, in such a way that the only possible outcome could be gargantuan Belisha beacons of alarm. ‘Miss Mah—’

  ‘You can say Olivia. That’s her name,’ Harry said. They all looked at him in surprise, and Holly ‘shushed’ him with her eyes.