What My Best Friend Did (28 page)

My instincts kicked in and I rushed over to the phone and started dialing 999. If I got her to the ER straightaway she could probably have her stomach pumped and hopefully have done no more damage. I couldn’t believe she was having a baby.

“No!” She rushed up and yanked it away from me. “Not yet! It’s too soon! It’ll only take half an hour for me to go unconscious.” She poured another three or four pills into her hand and walked back over to the kitchen. “I think that might be enough of them now,” she said, and I thought I detected a heavier slur in her voice, as if it were becoming more of an effort for her to talk.

“Have you already taken some?” I said and she nodded. “When? Before I got here?”

“Um,” she looked confused, “earlier I think, just before Bailey rang and said he wasn’t coming over after all.”

Oh God. Then it might already be too late. What had she done?

I snatched up the phone and she went to grab it again. “Don’t!” I shouted and rounded on her with such a look of ferocity she backed off. I was about to dial when I glanced up at Gretchen and saw her sneak a small white something into her mouth. Another pill. “Stop it!” I shouted desperately.

She paled suddenly. “I’m going to be sick.” She got up and rushed to the bathroom. I heard an almighty crash, dropped the phone and dashed after her. She was hanging over the toilet and heaving, a load of bottles that had been on the edge of the bath had been knocked off. I could see her muscles jerking and her face straining. “No, no!” she said. “If I’m sick it won’t work!”

“Stick your fingers down your throat—now!” I grabbed her face, desperately trying to shove my fingers in her mouth, reminding myself she was ill, very ill, and this was a lunatic plan from a very unbalanced mind—this wasn’t Gretchen. She needed help.

“Get … off … me!” She shoved at me and then wham! Her fist exploded into my face and caught the underside of my chin. I had never been hit before and the hot pain that seared into my cheekbone felt like someone had jabbed me with a branding iron. My hand rushed to my face with shock and I just stared at her and stated, very obviously, “You hit me!”

She fell to her knees and then, pushing back on the bath, pulled herself up, tipped her head back, looked at the ceiling and her eyes rolled. “I’m going back out there.” She staggered out into the living room, swiping the whisky bottle again as I followed her. Before she could even get the lid off she stumbled and crashed to the ground. It smashed everywhere and the sticky, burnt smell of spirits filled the room.

“Shit!” Her eyes filled with tears. “I haven’t got any more!” There was a big puddle of it on the rug and she leaned forward and stuck her tongue out in desperation.

“No!” I yelled. “There’s glass everywhere!” I hauled her backward and pushed her up against the wall. She leaned against it and closed her eyes, scrunching her face up in pain, wrapping her arms around her middle. “I want to be sick,” she whimpered. “It hurts!”

“Just don’t move!” I said, terrified. “We’re stopping this now!”

I got up, grabbed the phone and rushed back to her. But before I could dial she heaved and her head lolled forward. I dropped the phone, collapsed down next to her and grabbed her hair. “Just be sick! It doesn’t matter if it goes everywhere.” My legs were stuck out awkwardly in front of me as I cradled her.

Her movements were becoming sluggish. “Nooooo,” she insisted, trying to push me off. I reached out for the phone again. “I’ll tell you more secrets. Listen, listen. Don’t phone. Shhhh!” She put her fingers to her lips. “I’ll tell you about Bailey.”

I paused.

A small smile flickered over her face. She lifted a floppy hand up and rested it on my arm as she tried to raise her head and look at me. “I told him not to see you anymore. I said I didn’t want him to be your boyfriend so he said OK and he dumped you. I didn’t like you taking him away from me.”

“You’re lying,” I whispered. “You didn’t do that. You were in America. With Tom.”

I picked up the phone. She frowned with annoyance and said with effort, “I did tell Tom about you and Bailey deliberately. Tom was so sad about you, Alice. I had to love him better lots. So many times. In the bedroom, in the kitchen, in your flat.”

“Shut up!” I pushed her away from me with utter revulsion and disgust. Her vile words felt like they’d burned me and set fire to my insides.

Without me propping her up she slumped sideways to the floor. She fell silent and then her eyes shot open again. The phone was lying right in front of her face. I didn’t move toward it this time and she smiled faintly with satisfaction.

“You want help, you phone them,” I said suddenly, my voice shaking and shivering. I stood up.

“Nooo!” she insisted. “Got to be suicide. Don’t leave me!”

She looked at the phone and, with a huge effort, brought an arm up and pushed it toward me. “Now then,” she said, face half mashed into the carpet. “Juss do it now then. You need to tell them Alice. Lots of pills.”

“What did I ever do to you?” I said in a whisper. “You wreck everything—me, Tom, Paolo … I don’t even know your poor mum and yet she’s reading books and trying to help you—and now this. You told Bailey to finish with me? How could you? You just can’t share, can you? It’s all got to be yours. You’re poison. Everything you touch turns bad. I trusted you!” I cried brokenly, heated tears streaming down my face. “I thought you were my best friend! Tom thought I was mad when I told him I was suspicious … and you said you were just being nice to me, letting me live in your flat, but I was right! You just wanted me out of the way! And how can you do this to Tom? This will devastate him, he’s so lovely—he’s such a good man! Why can’t you just leave us all alone—we’d all be so much better off without you! You’re not ill—you’re just sick!”

She had barely blinked and, as I ran out of energy and words, she pushed herself up with what was obviously the last of her strength until she was seated, but slumped. She tried to kick the phone towards me with her foot, but missed. It was a tiny movement. It wouldn’t have moved a feather.

She struggled to lift her head and looked at me through eyes that kept closing against her will.

“Please,” she said, in a breath of a whisper.

“This is just you! You’re evil—you’ll stop at nothing!” I had started to shake. “I hate you. I hate you!”

“Help,” she said.

I didn’t reach for the phone. I collapsed to the carpet and just sat there motionless, tears streaming down my face, hugging my knees to my chest.

We sat there and she looked at me through leaden eyes, unable to speak, but fully aware of what I was not doing.

Eventually, still staring at me, her eyes closed and her head slumped forward slightly.

I began to rock and moaned through my tears with distress and fear. Then I felt vomit rise in my gut and, getting up, I scrambled to the bathroom and was violently sick.

When I came back she hadn’t moved.

I truthfully do not remember how long I sat there after that.

My teeth chattered, my whole body shook. But for how long? I don’t know … I really don’t know …

I remember the taste of vomit in my mouth was unbearable. I think I went back to the bathroom, rinsed, raised my head and caught my reflection in the mirror. Cold water droplets ran down and under my chin. I could still feel where she had hit me. I tilted my head, but there was no visible mark. I stared at myself, slightly openmouthed, frozen. I could have been stood there for hours.

I went back to her though. I didn’t leave her. And I did call. They came and found us.

She was right: everyone thinks it is a desperate suicide attempt by a manic-depressive who has stopped her lithium again—just as she’s done before. Everyone, that is, apart from that nurse who is convinced I helped her to do it, as part of some sort of mercy mission. I haven’t told anybody about the pregnancy. I’ve kept that promise at least.

But if she wakes up, if she survives this “secondary complication,” she will tell them all what really happened. And if everyone thinks I deliberately didn’t call when I had the chance, I will lose absolutely everything.

But then, if she never wakes up, if she dies … it will be all my fault.

Suppose she has died while I’ve been sitting here in this chapel? Then what will I do? Will I tell—or will I have to live with this secret forever? Will Tom collapse on me with grief and will I nurse him through it? Will we become closer and closer as a result and end up back together as if Gretchen had never happened? Or will Bailey, devastated at his loss, cling to me as one of the few that ever understood his sister and decide we should try again?

Or will we all, torn apart by what has happened, be unable to be around each other as it is simply too painful, our grief too raw and too desperately sad to share? And if she dies, won’t Tom find out she was going to have a baby anyway? They’d do a postmortem, wouldn’t they? Oh God—that would kill him, haunt him for the rest of his days. And it would still be all my fault.

Bailey is right, this chapel smells bad. Damp mixed in with dead air and dust, but I would still like to stay hidden away down in this room forever. The night that lies ahead of me is, I know, going to be the longest one of my life. By the morning, according to that doctor, it will be apparent if Gretchen is going to pull through or not.

The only prayers I am sending now are ones of forgiveness for myself. I am very, very frightened.

I don’t know how this can be happening to a normal girl like me who had a boyfriend, and a job, and a life.

A
lthough I can’t see outside because the room has no windows, I know it must be light by now. Tom and Bailey are jubilantly shifting around in their seats with all the forced wide-eyed energy of two men who haven’t slept a wink all night. It’s like they’ve been on an overnight flight and have just arrived at their holiday destination, which has given them a renewed burst of life.

“I saw it again!” Bailey exclaims and points at Gretchen. “Her eyes moved!”

The young nurse smiles and agrees, “She’s doing really well.” Bailey is looking at her like she might just be the most beautiful person he has ever seen and that the world is a truly, truly wonderful place. “And tell me what her oxygen support is again?”

“Forty percent!” The nurse smiles indulgently.

“Ha!” Bailey says delightedly, although this is the third time in an hour he’s asked. Even Tom smiles, although he is more subdued with relief.

I am feeling so sick and panicky that I think if I move too fast I will throw up everywhere. “So when will she be able to write and speak?” I say.

The nurse shakes her head. “She still has sedation on board. Tomorrow at the earliest.”

So I have just the rest of today … Oh dear God. What am I going to do? I’m going to have to leave—to just go. How can I possibly be here when she wakes up? As it is, I’m afraid of even speaking to the nursing staff, for fear that they might have been told to watch me, watch for signs, an involuntary admission of guilt.

“Might it be OK then,” Bailey says, “to go home and grab a shower, a change of clothes or something? Nothing will happen if we do that, will it?”

I cannot be here when she wakes up …

The nurse hesitates. “Look, there are no guarantees but … like I say, she’s doing really well.”

Bailey’s face splits into a smile.

Tom looks more doubtful. “I think I might stay.”

Bailey shakes his head firmly. “Tom, she’s out of danger. Do you really want to look like a stinking hobo when your girlfriend comes around tomorrow? All she’s doing now is just lying here recovering. Tell you what, why don’t we all meet back here after lunch? Go home, grab a bit of shut-eye?”

“OK,” agrees Tom eventually. He looks totally shattered. “I’ll just change though and come straight back. I think I might have to get a cab, I’m not sure I’m safe to drive.”

Bailey stands. “Today is a great day!” He laughs. “See you later, sis!” He blows Gretchen a kiss. “We’ll share a taxi,” he decides. “It can do one big loop. Drop you off, Tom, then Al, then me.”

* * * 

Dr. Miles Benedict gets out of his car. It’s a crisp, bright January morning. It’ll be February before long—which means Valentine’s Day, he contemplates. He must remember to book a table somewhere or she’ll cut his nuts off.

So, what shitstorm is he going to come into today? There’s the motorbike accident boy—stupid kid came off at 50 mph wearing a T-shirt and jeans, the road literally cheese-grated his skin from his body. When they lifted him off the stretcher, his back stayed on it. Miles grimaces. Maybe he’ll skip breakfast. He wonders idly if the overdose girl survived the night—very unlikely; she’d ingested enough shit to fell an elephant. Then he thinks perhaps he’ll just grab a coffee before he goes up and maybe see if anyone’s up for a round after shift. The green will be just perfect today.

Twenty minutes later he barges into ICU, now in a filthy mood, to do the morning handover. No one is free to play golf later, which really pisses him off, and some idiot in the café not only spilled hot coffee all over his hand but, worse still, gave him caffeinated, not decaf. He only realized halfway down his takeout cup, and now he’s already feeling twitchy and getting a headache. How hard is it to get a fucking beverage right when he saves lives?

He sweeps into room five and, to his surprise, finds the overdose girl is still in the land of the living—quite impressive determination and fight really. Mercifully, there are no relatives to have to be polite to. Just the nurses. He looks at the charts in irritable silence and then snaps, “She’s on forty percent—what’s she still doing on sedation?”

The senior nurse accompanying him nudges the junior, who looks at the floor. The senior nurse says, “I haven’t been able to get there yet.”

Must he do everything himself? “Well get the propofol off,”he says. “Wake her up, let’s get her extubated! She’s a young girl, for Christ’s sake. Come on! ASAP!” He looks crossly at the junior, who can’t meet his eye and is momentarily lifted by the fact she’s got great tits. Shame about the face though, looks like she’s been smacked by a shovel. Oh well.