by Jenny Colgan
‘Yeah, you know, nosiness isn’t always a good thing.’
‘You’re pointing that out to me? Or is that a piece of therapist wisdom? Either way, it’s far too late.’
Kate sighed. ‘What does my therapist tell me …? Well, basically, I pay her eighty pounds an hour and she tells me that everyone is a bastard except me. Or rather, she agrees with me that everyone is a bastard except me.’
‘You’re joking!’
‘Not at all. That’s pretty much it. I go in and tell her who’s being horrid and she agrees and says it’s not my fault I’m so sensitive. Everyone. In the world. A cunt. Except me.’
‘Wow,’ I said. ‘Actually, I can see why that might be appealing.’
‘It’s not designed to be appealing. It’s the world of big business.’
‘Are you sure you haven’t just been watching too many films from the eighties?’
‘Did you come in for a reason?’
‘Yes. Message from Josh.’
Kate glanced up, momentarily startled.
‘He didn’t mean what he said.’
‘That’s it? That’s the message?’
‘Yup.’
‘Bastard.’
‘He’s not one, though, is he?’
She looked at me sharply.
‘What do you mean?’
‘That’s where your therapist runs into trouble. Josh doesn’t have a bastard bone in his body.’
‘So?’
‘So, well, you know …’
Kate grabbed hold of a wine bottle which seemed to have just materialized.
‘So, he’s gay. OK, so it doesn’t matter. All right?’
‘He’s not gay,’ I said. I checked my watch. ‘Well, not yet.’
Kate poured herself a large glass of wine but neglected to ask me if I wanted one.
‘All this time. All this time, you know? “Everyone’s a bastard, Kate. They’re all bastards except us. The bigger the bastard you can find, the better you’re doing.”’
She contemplated her wine glass and sniffed loudly.
‘Then I meet … then I realize that there is one guy in my life who is not a bastard, and what happens?’
‘He goes out to find out what it’s like to have other men touch him on the bottom?’
‘Well, exactly!!’
I annexed some of the wine.
‘Whatever happened to John then?’
‘Nothing happened. I just realized that he was yet another in a long line of penis heads and that, you know, the person I really liked was … on my own doorstep.’
I squinted at her.
‘And?’
‘OK, so, and, I ran into John – or should I say Arnold – ’
‘I knew it!’
‘– and his poxy wife at a bankers’ conference. But that’s got nothing to do with it.’
‘OK,’ I said, holding my fingers up in the air. ‘Hold on a second. Exhibit one: you have never moved out of this house, despite having more money than Stella McCartney makes in a year during which people want to eat food, listen to music and wear clothes all at the same time. Exhibit two: Josh has started having sex. Exhibit three: you have stopped having sex altogether. Exhibit four: when do you turn thirty, exactly?’
She looked at me crossly. ‘In eleven months and eight days, although I don’t see why that’s got anything to do with it.’
‘Ha! I’m a genius,’ I said. ‘QED. You’ll probably be married in a year.’
Kate sat back in her chair, staring into space. ‘But … even if, I mean … I mean, how do you know he even likes me?’
‘Kate,’ I said, trying not to sound patronizing and failing – I even patted her on the hand – ‘what’s not to like about you?’
Ten
‘It’s not that I want children necessarily …’ Kate and I were sprawled across cushions on the sitting-room floor. It was later the same evening, and there was still no sign of Joshua. We were commiserating with each other. There were rather more empty wine bottles around than I remembered seeing earlier.
‘I mean, I’m independent, have a good living, got everything …’
‘You’re desperate, aren’t you?’ I asked her.
‘Well, I wouldn’t want to say desperate exactly …’
‘Pining? Fretful? Terrified of an empty life with cats and no meaning?’
‘Well, something like that. Why, don’t you want one?’
‘I think I’m too clumsy for children. I’d drop it down the stairs, like I did with that bottle of port Josh was given for his christening.’
Kate nodded. ‘Yeh. Or like that time you left your shoes in the fridge.’
‘I think I’d manage not to leave a baby in the fridge.’
‘Yes, but probably best not to risk it, eh?’
‘Prob’ly.’
Kate looked at her watch.
‘You know all those girls called Sophie?’
‘Those were different girls?’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘Uh huh.’
‘Well, why don’t I ever get a bit of that adoration from Josh?’
‘Because you’re a real person?’
‘I mean, if he liked me, why didn’t he walk around with a piece of toast stuck to his jacket, like he did with them?’
‘Because he might have a chance with you?’
‘Oh, thanks very much.’
‘Hear me out, hear me out. The boy’s terrified. It’s taking him just that little bit longer to get over puberty than everyone else, OK?’
‘But why??’
I settled back on the carpet. ‘How the hell should I know? You’re the one with the MBA. Maybe no one gets through puberty.’
‘Shit,’ said Kate. ‘Still, at least I got to get off with a film star.’
‘Exactly. Now all we have to do is get Josh through his rites of passage – ’
‘So to speak.’
‘Yes, well. And make sure Addison gets to actually hit puberty. Then we’ll all be there. Maturity Central.’
‘It’s a horrible word, puberty.’ Kate was staring at the ceiling. She’d twisted the tin foil from the cork into the shape of a big heart.
‘It is. As a word it practically smells. Too close to pus and pubic. I’ll tell you what’s a nice word, though.’
‘What … Josh Junior?’
‘Euch! Really, no, I was thinking of Penguin. As in Penguin biscuits. As in – there are some in the kitchen, do you feel like going and getting them and calling them dinner?’
‘Just because we’re lying on the floor having a discussion doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten that little incident, you know.’
‘I bet a mature person wouldn’t mind a bit.’
She eyed me crossly. ‘Mature people don’t eat Penguins.’
‘OK.’ I pushed myself up off the floor. ‘You go buy biscuit shares. I’m going to eat them.’
‘Can I have a red one?’ she called after me.
‘I bet Josh is saying that right at this very second,’ I said as I came back in, but I wished I hadn’t when I saw her face.
We tried to stay up till Josh came back but it was impossible. Well, we could probably have managed it, had not Kate degenerated into passive-aggressive mode, alternately ignoring me, then suggesting I get a career in the City. Then we watched some American import Friday-night TV, designed to make anyone who was already miserably at home on a Friday night feel worse about themselves by watching what glamorous young Americans were getting up to.
As I was the only one who had to go to work the next morning, as soon as I started to feel sick from eating too many biscuits I sloped off to bed, and I heard Kate follow shortly afterwards. I tried to listen for the door opening, but I didn’t hear Josh come home.
The next morning I was woken horribly early by the phone. I left it for a bit – Kate was usually conscientious enough about these things to sort it out – but no one was moving, so I opened the door with my hand – easy enough given the size of my room – wrapped
myself up in a sheet and pulled myself into the hall like a caterpillar.
‘Reghh?’
‘Helllaaayyyrr!’
I shook my head to clear it. What was Princess Anne doing phoning at seven o’clock on a Saturday morning?
‘It’s Sophie.’
Oh God! This could be interesting!
‘Oh, hello, Sophie. This is Holly.’
‘Yars, well. Joshua, please.’
‘Ah, that might be a bit of a problem …’
‘Where is he?’
I so longed to tell her the truth, just to set her little Alice band on end, but I didn’t dare.
‘He’s … in the country this weekend.’
‘Oh yars, ahem, so am I, naturally …’
That was odd, as I was sure I’d just heard an ambulance siren going past her flat.
‘Can I take a message?’
‘Maybe you could help.’
I curtsied and put the V’s up at the phone.
‘Maybe …’
‘Well, I hear Joshua’s tenant is ill.’
‘Yes …?’
‘The thing is, my father thinks that it would help considerably with my nomination if I were to be seen to give money to a hospital …’
‘What nomination?’ I asked stupidly. ‘Are you going in for the Eurovision Song Contest?’
‘Oh, Holly, you can’t waste qualifications like mine, you know! Everyone says so! No, for when I enter the hais.’
‘Sophie, it’s very early. What on earth are you talking about?’
She sighed.
‘Look, are you sure Joshua isn’t around?’
‘Yes! Do you want me to tell him you called or not?’
She sighed again.
‘I’m going to be an MP. Eventually. Once this disgusting government has been overthrown. So we need lots of nice pictures of me handing over cheques to those grateful, ghastly NHS types, yah? And we thought we’d do it where that dorky tenant of Josh’s is – keep it all friendly. Yah?’
‘But that’s evil!’
‘Yars, well, there’s a natural class of government, Holly. So, don’t worry yourself about it. Now, which hospital is your little friend in?’
‘I’m not telling you!’
Sophie’s sighs were becoming increasingly less world-weary and more irritated.
‘Well, you can either ensure your friend gets the best treatment modern medicine can buy, or you can just ignore him … let him linger. Up to you, really.’
‘It’s St Hugh’s,’ I said, involuntarily.
‘Well done. I’ll bring the photographer. And tell Joshua I’ll need him to help out – maybe I can let him pose as my boyfriend. Always politic to have an attractive partner. And that should please him, don’t you think?’ She laughed conspiratorially.
‘You’re pure evil!’ I gasped again.
‘Yars, welcome to the real world, darling. OK?’ And she put the phone down.
It was not turning into a good day. At work, a bug bit me, then when I went in to see Addison he was upside down. Literally. Only the underside of the bed was visible. At first I thought they’d cleared him away altogether and not bothered to tell me. I simply stood and stared, my heart in my throat. Then I noticed the straps on the bed and the fact that the beeping machine was still beeping in a vaguely reassuring manner.
Stephen wasn’t anywhere to be seen either – I didn’t even want to think about that – but one of the younger nurses told me they had turned Add upside down to stop him getting bed sores. I hadn’t thought it was for fun, like a fairground ride, but it did make me worry about how long they thought he was going to be here for – like, did they really think he was going to be here long enough to make his skin fall off?
I approached the bed. I’d bought a Scientific American to read out to him, and there weren’t many other visitors around. After saying hello to God, who told me that it was the sixth day and God was having a rest – I said wasn’t that Sunday and he said no, he had just declared it was Saturday and the Jews had always been right about practically everything anyway – I couldn’t quite find a good position where I could be sure Add could hear me, so eventually I simply scooted down under the bed where I could lie on the ground facing up at him.
OK. This was weird. This was definitely weird. Addison’s pale skin flopped loosely around the straps – it struck me that Japanese comics and a certain class of Englishmen tended to find that kind of thing quite sexy. Our respective positions were definitely on the unusual side too, although there was about a foot between us. It reminded me of the old James Bond film where they have sex in space at the end, except the towel covering them goes down instead of up.
The first thing I noticed was that Addison no longer had a tube in his mouth. This could only mean one thing – he was breathing! This was wonderful news. Well, it would have been more wonderful had he been awake – and there was a definite pool of spit and crustiness around his mouth – but still. This had to be a good sign.
‘Hey!’ I said softly, reaching my arm up to tickle him. I don’t think tickling is well known as a coma cure and, unsurprisingly, it didn’t work.
‘You look like Superman. I bet if you were awake, you’d love this. I should take a photograph, so you can see yourself flying.’
Always so thin, he seemed to have got even thinner in the last few days – his ribcage was a series of angles.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘Here we go. Scientific American. The latest scientific news from the country that doesn’t believe in evolution. What do you fancy – “How Broadband Internet Access May Influence Social Metamorphoses”? You know what … that’s probably a bit late for you. Ooh, how about “The Theory Formerly Known as String” by Dr Michael Duff?’
Addison showed no objection, so I launched in. I read a sentence or two before my attention waned.
‘Blah blah blah.’ I yawned. ‘You love this, don’t you? You big weirdo.’
The article talked about a new theory, M-theory, that was challenging string theory as the primary explanation for the physical world.
‘Oh my God!’ I sat upright, and accidentally hit Addison on the nose, but it didn’t make him bleed or anything. ‘I wonder if Finn knows about this? This could really cack his work up!’
I was genuinely worried for him. I mean, he’d spent years on this.
‘What do you think? Should I phone Finn and tell him it’s all a bunch of crap! Oh no! And, he’ll think I’m just doing it to annoy him.’
There was a chuckle and suddenly a pair of brogues appeared beside the bed. A familiar person crouched down beside me, clutching a chessboard.
‘You would really ruin an entire theory of the universe just to annoy me?’
‘Oh no!’ I said. ‘Have you read this? You’re in serious shit!’
He smiled again. ‘Well, sometimes the paradigm changes, and you have to go along with it and add new ideas to your thinking. Let’s just say that my “spaghetti” is now looking more like “ravioli”.’
‘Phew,’ I said. ‘So, you really do make it up as you go along?’
‘Pretty much.’
‘All those years of hard sums were for nothing then?’
‘Well, I can work out twenty-four hour clock times.’
He leaned in to take a look at Addison. ‘How’s he doing?’
‘Do you want to come in and see? His breathing tube’s out! Isn’t that fantastic?’
Finn looked concerned. ‘Not really. Can I come under and see?’
‘Sure!’ I budged up. OK, this was now treble weird. I was in a bizarre sex sandwich between Finn and Addison, who was strapped up and completely unconscious.
‘Weird huh?’ I said, trying to break the ice.
‘Well, not weird exactly,’ said Finn, obviously completely unaware of our physical proximity. I cursed myself for being a sex maniac. ‘It’s just, they were probably hoping that if they took the breathing apparatus away it would stimulate him to breathe for himself …’
&nbs
p; ‘Which it did …’
‘… which in turn would stimulate him to wake up. Which it doesn’t appear to have done.’
‘You mean, this is bad?’
‘It certainly implies that he could conceivably be under for longer than they thought. If his physical problems sort themselves out but he’s still not conscious … that’s not good, Holl.’
‘Jesus,’ I said, blinking back tears. ‘I didn’t realize.’
‘It’s OK,’ said Finn, taking my hand. ‘It’s not over.’ Then we stiffened as an unmistakable pair of scuffed pumps bossily made their way across the ward to Addison’s bed.
‘This way,’ said Dr Hitler bossily. A shuffling bunch of shoes followed her. Without even being able to see them, they sounded like students. The curtains were drawn back abruptly. Finn and I looked at each other and winced. It was too late to move – we were already surrounded. Finn tightened his grip on my hand and we tried to stay stock still. I could hear my heart beating like a hammer.
‘Right. If you’d like to examine the charts, what we’re seeing here is a state of unarousable neurobehavioural unresponsiveness, currently in progress for ninety-six hours.’
How many days did that make it again I wondered? Finn shot me an incredulous look.
‘Four,’ he whispered.
‘We’re going to have to start looking at an intensive physiotherapy programme to forestall the onset of heterotopic ossification, although of course that’s not exactly a primary concern.’
‘When they catch us, they’re going to put us in the cooler!’ I whispered to Finn.
‘Just remember,’ he whispered, ‘whenever they ask you a question, answer in German.’
‘Thank you.’
‘No! That’s what did for Richard Attenborough!’
‘How are we going to escape?’
Above us, the medical students were pontificating on poor old Add, or having a competition to see who could shout the longest words the loudest – I couldn’t tell.
‘Maybe they won’t notice us.’
‘Don’t say that, you’ll immediately have to sneeze or something.’
Our eyes went wide as we both realized how dusty it was underneath the bed and how, indeed, we did both have to sneeze. We’d cursed ourselves completely. We held on to our noses as our eyes watered and blinked. Finn squished his nose up like a rabbit, which meant that if I wasn’t about to sneeze, I was certainly about to laugh.
