by Laura Tait
‘As I’ve outlined, there are dangers,’ the doctor continues. ‘Stroke, brain swelling, epilepsy, and so on.’
I gasp, but when I look at Rebecca and Danielle they’re still listening intently.
‘But from what we’ve established from the head CT, removing both the clot and the complex arteriovenous malformation that caused it in one go would give Jamie the best chance of being able to move on with his life in a normal fashion.’
‘What do you mean, normal fashion?’ says Rebecca.
Dr Paul Stevens is a consultant neurosurgeon, according to his name badge. His thick dark hair is almost wiggish, and I find the jowls that buffer his face reassuring, for some reason.
‘Let’s just see how it pans out,’ he says, inspecting the watch hanging from his breast pocket.
He tells us the surgery could take several hours, and that we should go home and get some sleep.
‘Go home?’ asks Rebecca.
Dr Stevens smiles understandingly. ‘There are some blankets in the quiet room if you do want to stay. Someone will come and see you when there’s news.’
As he departs my eyes are drawn to the white trainers on his feet. How odd they look, how out of place on a man who is about to cut a hole in my best mate’s skull.
The quiet room is sky blue, which I guess is supposed to be calming, but I can’t keep still. Rebecca and Danielle station themselves in a corner on the plastic chairs while I pace up and down the room.
‘He was one of the last to be called,’ explains Danielle. ‘Everyone was given six minutes to make their cocktail – something original – but before their go they had five minutes to prepare the bar. I was bursting because of the free cocktails, so I whizzed off to the loo while Jamie did his prep work. I looked right at him, to gesture that I’d be back in a sec, but he didn’t see me.’ Danielle pauses as though making an effort to recall the particular moment. ‘I swear he looked totally normal. It was just like watching him behind the bar at Arch 13, but then when I got back everyone was around him and—’
It’s as though there is a hairline fracture in Danielle’s voice and she stops before it breaks completely. Rebecca leans forward to place a hand on her knee, but it’s just for a few seconds, and her retreat is followed by a silence that stretches like an elastic band.
Rebecca and Danielle can’t do small talk at the best of times, but all that leaves right now is big talk, fucking ginormous talk about everything that has happened these past four months, and this isn’t the time or the place.
‘His parents are driving down now,’ says Danielle. ‘They wanted to know how serious it was before setting off.’
‘For fuck’s sake.’ Rebecca folds one arm across her chest, gripping the opposite shoulder. ‘Their only son has collapsed.’
Rebecca might not be one for tears but I can see she is struggling right now, and I want so badly to wrap my arms around her, but I can’t, because being here doesn’t change what’s happened, and it doesn’t unsay all the things we said tonight. This is just an armistice, and no one is quite clear yet what the terms are or where it is leading.
I sit down next to her and close my eyes, trying to clear my head of all the shit, and when that doesn’t work I pass the time by absorbing each and every poster on the wall, the ones featuring germs and hygiene outnumbered only by those offering spiritual guidance. I guess hospitals are a good place for them to reel you in, because everyone here is desperate. I don’t think I knew what that word meant until tonight.
As we sit there time seems to slow. Not even in an abstract way. The tick of a plastic clock mounted on the wall sounds laboured, the night having become a form of purgatory with two possible outcomes.
Every so often someone passes by the blinded window to the corridor, and in each of these moments the norms of time resume, our pulses accelerating, but nobody comes into the room with news.
I think about Jamie, my best mate in the whole world, and maybe it’s the hour, or the alcohol running through my veins, but I feel like I’m in some kind of daydream, and I’m going to wake up any moment with a dead arm.
I don’t know what I’d have done without him through all of this. It’s only when I notice Rebecca holding a tissue for me that I realize my eyes are teary.
‘This is Jamie, remember,’ she tries to comfort. ‘The little boy who got hit by a van and didn’t break a single bone in his body. He’s indestructible.’
I laugh, genuine and snotty, into the tissue, and I’m grateful when Rebecca smiles, apparently satisfied that she’s made me feel better.
I’ve heard him tell the story so many times over the years, about how he’d just been standing there playing when this van came flying out of nowhere. It was a woman, and she never stopped to make sure he was OK. It’s how he got the scar on his forehead.
That’s how Jamie tells the story, but I was there. We were six, and the van was flying, and the woman really didn’t stop to make sure he was OK, but what he doesn’t mention is that it was a toy van, and the woman in question was another six year old, Jessica Parris, also known as Pigtail Parris. She threw it after Jamie refused to kiss her on the lips.
This isn’t the time to break Rebecca’s illusion about Jamie being indestructible, though. I wish I didn’t know the truth myself.
The minutes continue to pass like hours, and it feels like we’ve been waiting for ever for some kind of update. Danielle plays with her cuticles, her head shooting up whenever anyone passes by the corridor outside; Rebecca has become glassy-eyed, as though she’s in Airplane Mode. Eventually she falls asleep, upright in her chair.
I fetch a blanket and place it over her gently, careful not to wake her. When I sit down again I notice Danielle staring at me.
‘When I called you were together,’ she says. ‘Are you . . . ?’
I open my mouth to say no, because that is the answer, but the word doesn’t come. I’m wondering what the answer would have been if Danielle had called five minutes later, and the weird moment Rebecca and I were caught up in had been allowed to play out.
When Rebecca told me there was nothing happening between her and Michael I felt like a complete prat for going round there, but now I’m kind of glad I did, because if there was one person in the world I would have wanted with me when I heard Jamie had collapsed it is Rebecca.
I look at Danielle, but her eyes are now set on the fuzzy grey carpet.
‘The only real friend I have left is Jamie,’ she says. ‘And what if now . . . ?’
A solitary tear emerges from the corner of her eye.
‘I think he was going to do it,’ she says.
‘Do what?’
‘At the competition. I think he was going to get to the national finals. He hadn’t even had his turn yet but there was no one there like Jamie.’
‘Of course he was going to win,’ I say.
I look back to Danielle just in time to see her eyes dart to the corridor window. Seconds later the door opens, causing Rebecca to jolt awake.
Something in Dr Stevens’ expression fills me with dread.
Chapter Thirty-four
REBECCA
Dr Stevens’ expression is serious as he looks from one face to another, before taking a deep breath.
‘The craniotomy wasn’t as straightforward as we would have liked,’ he explains.
Danielle covers her mouth with her hands, and I hear Ben swear under his breath.
‘There were complications,’ continues the doctor. ‘It was touch and go for a while. But . . .’ He looks around the room again, his expression softening. ‘We managed to get through it, and both the complex arteriovenous malformation and the blood clot have been successfully removed.’
I have to bite my tongue to stop myself yelling at him to just tell us whether our friend is going to be OK.
‘He’s in the recovery room now,’ clarifies Dr Stevens. ‘And once his pulse, blood pressure and breathing are stable and he’s alert, he’ll be taken to the Critical Care
Unit and monitored closely from there.’ The corners of his mouth turn up into something approaching a smile. ‘I don’t anticipate any long-term damage.’
‘You should have opened with that,’ I snap as everyone else breathes a sigh of relief.
Dr Stevens looks taken aback and I feel the others’ eyes on me. I don’t want a scene so I try to sound less aggressive as I ask when we can see him.
‘It’s family only for at least twenty-four hours,’ he says, even though there’s no sign of Jamie’s family yet. Where are they? Even with the drive from Manchester they could have been here hours ago. ‘You can come during visiting hours after that.’
Once the doctor has gone the three of us look at each other. We haven’t been in the same room since Ben’s birthday in the cable car, and in any other situation this would be all kinds of awkward, but this isn’t any other situation, and simultaneously we break into smiles. No one needs to say anything because the words we’re all thinking wrap themselves around us and pull us together like a force.
Thank God.
The door opens and though I recognize the couple that walk in, it’s not until Ben speaks that I place them.
‘Hi, Mr and Mrs Hawley,’ says Ben.
‘Ben,’ says Jamie’s dad with a nod, while his wife offers a small smile. They don’t tell Ben to call them by their first names, even though they’ve known him for ever. Nor do they acknowledge Danielle and me, though I’m sure they know exactly who we are.
Danielle looks my way and rolls her eyes and I shake my head in return. Have she and I really not spoken for months?
Ben starts to tell the Hawleys what Dr Stevens said but Jamie’s mum cuts him short, telling him they’ve already spoken to the doctor. She seems affronted at the suggestion they’re not up to speed.
I’m suddenly swept up by an anger on a scale I’ve never experienced before.
Where were you when he was on the operating table? I want to shout. And when Jamie opened his bar? And at the reception after graduation? Did you really need to jump on the first train up to Manchester after the ceremony?
I need to get out of here before I give in to my instincts, because the last thing Jamie needs to hear when he wakes up is that I roundhoused his mum in the face.
‘Just going to grab a coffee,’ I tell the room.
I punch the buttons on the dispenser, wishing I’d paid more attention to Michael’s calming technique earlier. It must have looked rude that I didn’t offer to get anyone else a drink, but I’ve no intention of going back in yet. With my cup in my hand, I walk in the opposite direction to the waiting room.
On the wall at the end of the corridor there’s a huge sign with arrows signalling the various wards, and on impulse I follow maternity. It feels like my best chance of finding a happy place.
Five minutes later I find myself standing in front of a glass wall, where six babies in tiny cots are spread out in two neat rows. Amazingly, five are sound asleep, but the one closest to the window must have missed the memo that it’s the middle of the night, and lies on its back, blinking at the ceiling with the uncertainty of someone who’s just learning how to use their eyelids.
I strain my eyes to read the name on the white tag on the bar of the cot. Mimi. It’s a girl.
I’m suddenly overcome with a desire to go into the room and lift her up, but even if that was allowed, I know I’d be terrified. I’ve never held a newborn before. She looks so fragile. Her fingers twitch; she’s just learning how to use them too. Look how tiny her hands are!
I can’t believe I was ever that small. Actually, I don’t think I was – Dad says I was born with long fingers and big feet.
An image of Dad sitting in a hospital waiting room pops into my mind and I can’t breathe – it’s like the wind has been sucked out of me.
The pain I felt waiting to hear if Jamie was going to be OK was unbearable. It doesn’t feel like there could be a worse feeling. But for Dad, that was his wife. It was the mother of his young son, and his newborn daughter. And the worst happened. She didn’t make it.
A salty tear reaches my lips. How did Dad ever get through something like that? And still manage to be a loving and devoted father to the person who took away the person he thought he would spend the rest of his life with?
I’ve never spoken to Dad about this. I’ve never asked how he felt, or how he got through it. I don’t know if he’s come to terms with it, or if he falls asleep every night feeling the emptiness of the space beside him.
Emotionally stunted, Ben called me. Does he truly believe that? Or was he trying to hurt me in the heat of the argument? I was trying to hurt him with the things I said about his lack of ambition, but I meant them too. It did always get to me.
Maybe it is odd that I waited so long to tell him about my mum. Maybe I should have let him in more – even if it made me feel exposed. Maybe that’s what love is – giving your whole self, even if it sometimes hurts.
I press my forehead against the glass and gaze at Mimi, her eyes closed now. What do babies dream about? I wonder.
‘Sweet dreams, Mimi,’ I whisper. Have a good life.
I hope you have a dad like my dad.
And a friend like Jamie.
Chapter Thirty-five
BEN
Monday, 2 March
I feel nervous as I walk into the hospital, like there’s a shit load of winged insects buzzing around my stomach, but they’re more like moths than butterflies, because there’s nothing pretty about your mate having brain surgery.
Dr Stevens said the surgery was successful, but I haven’t got a clue what I’m walking into. I don’t even know if he’ll be awake, or able to talk. I guess I’m expecting the worst, but when I spot him in the fifth bed on the left, I almost have to double-take. He looks . . .
. . . fine.
There is a small bandage to the side of his crown, and the top of his bed is raised to elevate his head, but apart from that . . .
‘They haven’t even shaved all your hair off?’ I say, with fake annoyance.
Jamie cranes his left arm towards the bandage. ‘A little bit around where they cut,’ he says, as if that was the thing he found most distressing about the whole ordeal.
I realize I’ve pretty much been holding my breath for the last two days, and now that I can finally let go, I can’t seem to summon the words to describe the relief, and so I stand there, not saying much at all.
‘You really fucking scared us there, Hawley,’ I finally manage, looking him in the eye for the first time.
He holds eye contact. ‘It’s really good to see you, Nicholls.’
It is only when I hear the slightest quiver in his voice that I see how shaken up he is.
He shuffles across ever so slightly so I can sit on the edge of his bed, and we both sit there, looking around the ward, because somehow that seems easier than confronting what almost just happened.
‘Obviously I had to keep it together for the sake of Rebecca and Danielle,’ I finally say.
This amuses him greatly.
‘My mum and dad send their love,’ I say. ‘And Frank.’
‘Mate, I’d kill for one of his fry-ups right now. The food in here is worse than the bar before you came along.’
‘First day you’re out of here, that’s where we’re going.’
He smiles weakly. I’m about to tell him I called the bank and explained everything, and how they said we could rearrange our appointment when Jamie is up to it, but we’re interrupted by the girls. They take turns to lean down for a kiss, then pull out the stacked chairs that I hadn’t seen.
‘I knew I’d get us all back in the room together one day,’ Jamie says. ‘I mean, I didn’t think I’d have to go to these lengths, but . . .’
I look at Rebecca, and she looks at Danielle, and none of us quite knows what to say until Jamie starts laughing, and it’s like the first clap in a round of applause, it sets everyone off.
Our shared laughter is full of relief, and afte
rwards Rebecca is suddenly able to look me in the eye and Danielle no longer folds her arms like she’s forgotten her coat in winter.
‘I didn’t know how bad you were going to look,’ says Danielle. ‘I’ve been practising my Ugly Baby Face all morning in case you were a horror show.’
Jamie looks confused.
‘It’s the face you do when someone’s baby is ugly and you have to pretend it’s the most beautiful and precious thing you ever saw in your whole life,’ says Danielle.
‘Show us your Ugly Baby Face,’ says Rebecca.
Danielle widens her eyes and sets her mouth into a gormless smile.
‘You actually look like an ugly baby,’ says Jamie, taking a grape from the carton next to his leg, tossing it in the air and missing his mouth completely.
‘Shame you’re not going to have a visible scar when your hair grows back,’ says Danielle. ‘That would have got you loads of sympathy sex.’
I remember what Rebecca said while Jamie was having surgery, about him being indestructible because he was hit by a van as a kid. I didn’t want to break her illusion at the time, but maybe he is indestructible after all.
‘He’s always got the scar from when he was six,’ I say. ‘What kind of van was it again, mate?’
Rebecca clocks my smirk.
‘What?’ she says to both of us.
I shrug in Jamie’s direction, so that everyone looks to him for the answer.
‘It was a toy van, OK?’
Jamie explains about Pigtail Parris, and stresses that it was still a traumatic experience, but I’m not sure the girls hear him through their laughter.
We’re distracted by a brunette nurse in a cobalt-blue uniform who smiles at Jamie as she walks past with a trolley full of drip bags.
‘Oh, please,’ says Rebecca under her breath, before turning to Jamie. ‘You’ve only been out of Critical Care two minutes and you’ve already got the nurses wrapped around your little finger.’
