Tales From a Hen Weekend (20 page)

‘Yes, we’ll get to her head injury in a minute,’ he says calmly, without taking his eyes off Jude. ‘First I want to assess the possibility of a paracetamol overdose.’

There are two nurses performing a silent dance around Jude’s trolley. One’s setting up a drip while one’s taking and recording her blood pressure. Then they step back, circle the patient in opposing directions, one takes her temperature and one writes in her notes. Any minute I expect them to curtsy to each other.

‘Judith, can you tell me when you started taking the paracetamol?’

‘Lunchtime. About one o’clock, I think it was, and then I took some more when we got back to the hotel.’

‘And you say you’ve taken a whole packet? Sixteen tablets? Since one o’clock?’ He glances back at me. ‘Do we have the empty packet, here?’

‘No. No, that’s the trouble, you see – we can’t find the packet, and she’s not sure, now, how many she’s taken, because…’

‘How much have you had to drink, Judith?’

Jude looks up at me helplessly.

‘Well, let me see now, ’twould be hard to put a number on it, to be sure, being as it’s me friend’s hen party an’ all, but to be honest with you, doctor…’

‘We’ve had loads,’ I interrupt. ‘Guinness, then wine, then vodka. But I’m giving it up after tonight.’

He ignores this. I suppose, to be fair, he’s not really interested in me. He’s got enough on his plate with Jude, what with her concussion, and her ankle, and her possible overdose. She’s providing him with enough material to pass one of his exams without even moving from the spot.

‘It’s not serious, is it?’ I ask him, unable to take my mind off the stories of people going into kidney failure from taking too many paracetamol.

‘That depends,’ he says, giving me a weary look, ‘on how many she’s actually taken. Unfortunately there’s a very small margin between a safe dose of paracetamol and an overdose.’

‘Jesus, Jude!’ I tell her. ‘What’s the matter with you? Can’t you count the bloody tablets?’

I’m only snappy because I’m so frightened.

‘The problem with paracetamol,’ continues Dr East with a sigh, as if I haven’t spoken, ‘is that the symptoms of an overdose often don’t appear until up to twelve hours later. Judith hasn’t got any symptoms right now, but if she
has
overdosed, we need to start treatment within eight hours. And the blood screening isn’t helpful until after four hours.’

‘So what are you going to do?’ I squawk.

Twelve hours? Eight hours? Four hours? I can’t do the maths.

‘Assume she’s overdosed. There’s something we can give her, if the blood test shows a toxic level of paracetamol; but in the meantime, what we’ll do is give Judith something to make her sick; and possibly give her a gastric lavage – that’s a stomach-washout.’ He looks at Jude’s stricken face. ‘I’ll need to discuss that with my consultant,’ he adds. ‘But first let’s just get your charts written up. Have you had a bowel movement today, Judith?’

‘SHIT, Jude! Are you all right!’

The serendipity of Emily’s greeting as she bursts into our cubicle is lost in the heat of the moment, but even in these dire circumstances, some perverse part of my brain is storing it away for future amusement. I promise I’ll only laugh about it if Jude comes through all this OK.

‘I found these!’ shouts Emily, pulling a paracetamol packet out of her pocket. ‘Under our table in the pub! I made the taxi driver belt over here like a lunatic!’

I have to hand it to this doctor. Without missing a beat, without a single sarcastic comment or look of disdain at any of us, he takes the packet calmly out of Emily’s hand and opens it up. Eight tablets still sitting there, intact in their little plastic bubbles on their little plastic strip. They are the most beautiful sight in the world. We all gaze at them for a moment without speaking.

‘OK,’ says Dr East finally. ‘Looks like we can forget the gastric lavage, then. Now, I just need to assess the damage from the head injury.’

I’m multi-tasking now, so I must be sober. At the same time as I’m firing questions at Emily about how she found the tablets, how she called the taxi, is her face OK now (where I scratched it), can she ever forgive me and are we still friends, I’m answering the questions being fired at
me
by Dr East about Jude’s head injury.

Were you with Judith when she hit her head? How long did she lose consciousness for? Was she confused when she came round?’

These are all the same questions that Patrick asked us before we got in the ambulance. I’m not so worried any more. I think Jude’s going to be OK. Hallelujah. Not only am I giving up the drink, I might also go to church.

‘Where are the others?’ I ask Emily as soon as Dr East has finished interrogating me.

‘Helen came with me. She’s outside in the waiting room. The others have all gone back to the hotel. No-one felt like having any more to drink.’

Quite.

We leave Jude to the tender mercies of the medical profession for a few minutes and pop outside to tell Helen how she’s doing.

‘Thank God you brought the paracetamol packet over here so quickly,’ I tell them both. ‘It was getting really scary in there for a little while.’

‘Poor Katie,’ says Helen. ‘You really shouldn’t have had all this trauma, on your hen weekend.’

She gives me a very direct look. She’s not just talking about Jude’s ambulance dash. I ignore the direct look, though, and what it means, because I’m struck by the fact that in all the worry about Jude, I’d actually forgotten it was my hen weekend anyway.

‘It’s kind of got things into perspective, to be honest,’ I say, sitting down and suddenly realising I’m dead beat. ‘I’d been feeling sorry for myself. All the things that’ve come out this weekend – well, some of them have been pretty upsetting.’

‘Katie, I’m so sorry…’ begins Helen.

‘So am I,’ joins in Emily. ‘I can’t believe I thought it was a good idea to start telling you that stuff.’

‘I think we’ve all grovelled and apologised enough. It’s all down to us drinking too much, isn’t it, at the end of the day. I wonder how many friends end up falling out during hen parties?’

‘Don’t say that!’ groans Emily.

I give her a hug.

‘But not us. Can we pretend we
didn’t
carry on like drunken street-brawlers, d’you think?’

‘Yes, please. I’ll die of embarrassment if Sean ever finds out.’

‘Jude’s going to be OK – that’s all that really matters, isn’t it.’

There’s an annoying little voice whingeing away at the back of my head about all the things I’m going to have to deal with as soon as this weekend is over. But I’m in no mood for listening to annoying little voices in the back of my head. I’m telling it to shut the fuck up for once.

Jude’s being kept in overnight because of possible concussion. When we go back to say goodnight to her she’s got her bad foot propped up really high, and she’s been given some kind of anti-inflammatory drug to help with the pain and swelling. She looks a lot more comfortable.

‘God alone knows how long I’ll be lying here on this trolley – I could be old and grey before they get me into a ward,’ she says with a shrug. ‘I might as well close me eyes right here and get meself some kip – although they’re saying something about waking me up every now and then to ask me name and address. Jesus, if I forget me own name and address they’d better transfer me to the mental institution. I might get a bed there quicker.’

‘Well, we’ll sit with you till they move you to a ward,’ I tell her, looking around in vain for any chairs to sit on.

‘No, you won’t. You’ll get yerselves a taxi now before it gets any later and the streets turn into a zoo. The others will be worried back at the hotel.’

‘Are you sure?’ I feel mean, but on the other hand I can see she’s on the point of falling asleep and to be quite honest, Helen and I are both having trouble staying awake ourselves. ‘We’ll be back first thing in the morning.’

‘Not too early you won’t, if you don’t mind. I’ll need a lie-in if these eejits keep waking me up all night long. And your flight isn’t till the afternoon, is it, so?’

‘Half past six.’ I feel suddenly really, really sad at the thought of going home tomorrow. Despite everything. ‘I don’t want to think about that yet, though.’

I’m nearly asleep in the back of the taxi when Helen touches my arm gently.

‘Katie. I know you don’t want to talk about it; but I just need to tell you one thing.’

My eyes pop open. I’ve heard too many
one things
this weekend.

‘It’s just,’ she goes on, ‘that you’re not leaving Bookshelf.’

‘I am. But you’re right, I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘You’re not leaving, Katie – because
I
am.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. How’s that going to work? You wouldn’t see Greg.’

‘Well, it might be for the best. I’m not happy in this situation. I preferred myself the way I was before.’

‘“The snake drags the lark along with it, breaking its wings – it never flies again,”’ I quote back to her with a smile. ‘You only told me that on the way over here.’

‘I know. I’m full of shit, aren’t I?’

‘No you’re not. It’s
normal
to fall in love. You seem to think it’s a weakness.’

‘I do,’ she agrees. ‘If it made me happy, perhaps I wouldn’t.’

‘Perhaps he’s just not the right man.’

‘Katie, they’re
all
the wrong man!’ she replies, more vehemently. ‘I’ve just been fooling myself. I’m not meant for all this romantic nonsense.’

‘Look, I don’t think either of us should do anything too hasty. When we get back, we’ll talk about it again.’

‘We can talk again as much as you like. But I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to Australia.’

‘
Australia!
’

‘Yes. I’ve told you my brother’s a teacher in Melbourne, haven’t I? I visit him every three or four years. He’s nagged me for a long time to settle out there permanently. So I think I will.’

‘But... come on, Helen – you can’t make a decision like that, just on a whim – going off to the other side of the world, just because of some… some silly feeling, some silly idea…’

She looks at me sadly.

‘Thanks for trivialising my suffering.’

‘Fuck; I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean that.’

‘It’s OK.’

Australia. Bloody hell. That’s certainly putting some distance between the lark and the snake.

There’s a reception committee for us in the hotel foyer. They all jump to their feet as we walk in, running to meet us, anxiety etched into all their faces.

‘How’s Jude?’

‘How is she? Have they kept her in?’

‘Did she have to have her stomach pumped?’

‘Have they done a brain scan?’

‘It’s all right, she’s OK,’ I say, quickly, before it turns into an episode of
Holby City
. ‘Emily and Helen brought the paracetamol packet in before they started any treatment.’

‘They think she might have mild concussion but they don’t seem too worried,’ adds Emily. ‘They’re just keeping an eye on her through the night and then they’ll let her go.’

‘Thank God,’ says Suze.

‘You look done in,’ says Lisa, putting her arm round me. ‘This wasn’t how your hen weekend was supposed to go, was it, love?’

‘I don’t care. It’s not important. Lise, I thought for a minute back there that we’d killed Jude.’

‘Don’t be silly!’

‘I’m not. I’m not exaggerating. Emily and I were completely out of control.’

‘It was my fault,’ says Emily quietly. ‘I was drunk, and I was talking out of the top of my head.’

‘And
I
was drunk too, otherwise I’d never have reacted like that.’

How many times are we going to go over this? Now it’s all over, now everything seems to be OK, I feel like crying. Shit, I
am
crying. Shit. So is Emily.

‘Come on.’ Lisa pulls us both down onto one of the deep leather sofas. ‘No harm done.’

‘But I’m so disgusted at myself… I didn’t know I had that side to me.’

‘Me neither,’ sniffs Emily.

‘It’s the drink,’ Lisa reminds us. ‘You’re
not
really like that.’

‘No. And I’ve given it up, now.’

‘Yeah, right,’ smiles Lisa.

‘I mean it. I
so
have. What’s the point of it? It’s not even pleasurable, is it? It’s just a drug.’

‘So you’re not having any more Guinness? Nothing to drink tomorrow, on the last day of your hen weekend?’

‘No. There’s nothing wrong with orange juice.’

‘Well, I’ll believe it when I see it.’

‘Lisa, I mean it. It’s a slippery slope. Binge drinking…’

‘On your hen weekend, for God’s sake! Everyone does!’

‘But it can get a hold of you. I haven’t said anything to you about this but – I’ve been thinking a bit about how much Mum drinks. Just for instance.’

Not that I’m worried about it.

‘What? She’s had a few drinks too many, on her daughter’s hen weekend! Like all of us! Give her a break.’

‘But…’ I shrug. I haven’t said anything to Lisa yet about what Mum told me, about Dad and their marriage and why she likes the ‘occasional little drink’. I do need to tell her, but not now. I’m much too tired and much too emotional.

‘I just think sometimes people drink to cover up their unhappiness.’