What My Best Friend Did (18 page)

“She’s also a smoker, I believe?” Dr. Benedict says. “When a patient is in a coma and ventilated they are unable to do things like clear mucus buildups from an infection, as we would do normally by moving and throat clearing. Her blood gases were also quite poor and we’ve had to increase her oxygen support to sixty percent.”

“But she was waking up!” Tom says quickly. “We saw her move!”

Benedict’s gaze alights on him. “As I said, she has now developed a secondary complication. While it seems Gretchen was recovering from the effects of her overdose and her earlier heart problems, we are now actually going to have to sedate her because we don’t want her to fight the intubation as she regains consciousness; that’s the tube in her mouth so she can breathe,”he adds when Bailey looks blankly at him. “We now have a new set of priorities.”

“Could she die?” Bailey pales. “Could these complications kill her?”

Benedict does not falter, and he looks Bailey in the eye. “She is very seriously ill, yes,” he says. There is a painful silence. “But we’ll know more in the morning.” He doesn’t hold eye contact while saying that, however.

“How long will she be sedated?” I can’t not ask.

“As long as she requires significant oxygen support,” Benedict replies. “Then, all being well, we could lower her oxygen support and gradually stop her sedation. Then we would remove her ventilation. But let’s see where we are tomorrow.” He gives what I imagine he thinks is a concerned yet reassuring smile. Do they practice them in the mirror at home, I wonder? I am not fooled.

Tom and Bailey stand up, so automatically, I do too. “Thank you,” Bailey says dully and one by one we file out of the relatives’ room.

I am halfway up the corridor when I realize I’ve left my bag under the seat, so I double back alone. My footfall is soft and tired. The owners of the two voices I hear drifting back out to me clearly haven’t heard me approaching. I pause. It’s Benedict and the nurse.

“I was talking with the best friend …”

The nurse doesn’t sound soothing anymore. She sounds urgent. My heart stops.

“I think she might have had something to do with the suicide attempt. She started to tell me about a ‘plan’ they had, but then her boyfriend walked in, only he’s not her boyfriend and—”

“Nurse,” Benedict interrupts boredly, “what exactly are you saying?”

“The friend, she’s called Alice, said she didn’t want Gretchen to suffer anymore.” The nurse doesn’t sound in the least bit thrown by Benedict’s brusque tone; instead she is determined, convinced. “She said that she didn’t want her to wake up. And I don’t think Gretchen was unconscious when Alice found her—she said the front door was open, but that doesn’t ring true … And she became agitated when I suggested she might have been involved.”

I hear Benedict snort. “Hardly surprising. Relatives tend to get a little touchy about unfounded allegations of a very serious nature.”

“Dr. Benedict, I didn’t accuse her of anything. I think she was on the verge of confessing that she helped her do it. That’s assisted killing—murder!”

Benedict laughs a light, patronizing laugh. “Don’t you think you might have been watching too many TV dramas?”

“But I’m supposed to tell someone if I think something illegal is going on, or think there is something or someone that could be harmful to the patient,” the nurse persists. “Well, I’m telling you!”

Benedict sighs. “OK. Run me through what she said …”

Oh no. Oh no no no!

“She started to say they had a plan! What if she meant a plan to help Gretchen die? She said Gretchen asked her for help.”

No, I didn’t! Did I?

“Help her to do it? Or help to stop her doing it?” Judging by the tone of Benedict’s voice, I imagine he is shrugging and looking at the nurse like she is a half-wit. “What did this girl actually say? Did she say, ‘I helped her commit suicide’?”

“No, but—”

“Well, what did she say?”

“Nothing exactly, but …”

“Nothing exactly,” Benedict repeats in disbelief.

I start to exhale … he doesn’t believe her.

“I asked if she’d helped her and she said no, then she was about to—”

“So actually she denied it?”

“But don’t you think—”

“No,” Benedict says crossly. “I try not to unless absolutely necessary.”

I start to back away in relief but then I hear her say very firmly and insistently, “Dr. Benedict, I know something is wrong.” There is a pause and I imagine he has stopped and turned to look at her.

He sighs and I hear him say, “OK, OK. Just keep an eye on everything if it makes you feel better. Monitor her.”

“I would, but I’m going off shift, that’s why I wanted to tell you.”

“All right, I’ll monitor things, and when I go, I’ll tell someone else to. Leave it with me.”

I hurry away at that—I’ll come back for my bag. I walk quickly back up the corridor. Thank God that interfering nurse is leaving, but is that doctor going to be watching me? Will he actually tell someone else when he leaves? He sounded like he was just saying it to shut her up, but still, still …

Tom and Bailey are sitting and staring at Gretchen, who actually now looks very calm and peaceful, not at all like she is fighting to stay alive. I sit down.

The only sound is the
bleep, bleep
of the machines and people walking up and down outside. I try to focus on that, rather than worrying about the nursing staff. The sound of everyday life going on beyond these thin, nondescript walls makes me flinch. I count up to seven bleeps, but then Bailey suddenly blurts out miserably, “I knew I was going to miss the plane. We had an end-of-shoot party last night—I overslept and I knew I wouldn’t make it on time, so I called and went on standby.”

Tom looks at him in disbelief. “This happened because you went to a party?”

“If I could go back in time, I’d get that plane and spare all of us this, I promise.” He shoots Tom a haunted look. “You can’t blame me any more than I blame myself, for what it’s worth.”

Tears rise to my eyes as I look at him sitting there, holding himself responsible when I know it is not his fault at all. Oh, what have we done, Gretchen?

“You went to a bloody party!” Tom repeats, unable to believe his ears.

“Yes, but—” begins Bailey.

“Stop it, please!” I cry, finally reaching my absolute limit and jumping up.

I shove my chair back and run from the room as fast as I can.

I
‘m just so, so sorry,” Gretchen whispered so quietly I could barely hear her. She was lying on the sofa bed in Bailey’s flat. I was seated opposite her. “I didn’t realize. I didn’t mean to mess everything up …”

It was the first time I’d seen her since she’d appeared at the flat and wrought havoc. She was a little thinner after two weeks in a psychiatric unit, and seemed somehow a smaller version of herself altogether—fragile and subdued—but then I’d also never seen her completely without makeup, in a simple T-shirt and what looked like pajama bottoms. She looked exhausted and stripped bare.

“I know you didn’t mean to,” I said, trying to settle back in the seat and make it look like I was more relaxed than I actually was. “It’s just you’d said you two were a casual thing, I didn’t think …” She trailed off, looking devastated. “But I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m so sorry.”

Simultaneously I remembered Bailey saying to me, “Gretchen explained you were in a serious relationship.”

But then, if there was any confusion and ambiguity, I had only myself to blame. This was exactly the kind of pointless hurt and mess that resulted when you weren’t straight with people. If I hadn’t behaved like a child and had just been honest with Gretchen—and maybe myself—from the word go about Tom and me, it wouldn’t have all ended so bitterly. She’d been very ill when she’d randomly turned up and put her foot in it, not in her right mind. What was my excuse? I still couldn’t even think about Tom standing there in our kitchen and staring at me without wanting to cry.

I cleared my throat and adopted a bright, chatty tone. “So how are you feeling? Bailey”—it felt odd using his name like that with her—“told me they’ve played around with your medication a bit. Has it helped?”

“A little, maybe … So are you and Tom still speaking?”

I shook my head and said with difficulty, “He’s gone. I bought you a couple of DVDs.” I reached for my bag. “I thought we could watch them together. I haven’t seen—”

She hauled herself up on the bed. “What do you mean he’s gone? Gone where?”

“America.”

“America?” She froze, like I’d said “the moon,” and then looked absolutely desolate.

I nodded. In spite of my best efforts, my voice had become a little unsteady. I needed to get a grip, I was supposed to be here to cheer her up, for God’s sake, and she already felt bad enough about what she’d done. I looked away so she couldn’t see my face and made a show of rummaging around in the bag.

“When was this?” she said.

“He left me a letter.” I got the DVDs out and began to unwrap the cellophane.

The envelope addressed to me had been waiting on the table at home, the day after he walked out:

“I’m so sorry, Alice,” Gretchen said again. “If I could go back in time and not say it … I never meant to, to—”

“Gretch, I know,” I interrupted, finding it too hard to talk about it anymore. “You didn’t do it on purpose.” I stood up to put the DVD on. “And at least it was a clean break. In some ways it’s probably very helpful that he had the opportunity to just up and leave.”

She was silent for a moment. “It’s certainly made things much easier for you and Bailey.”

I sat back down. I hadn’t meant that. I meant it was surely better for Tom to be able to just walk away from the situation, although I couldn’t deny his leaving had meant Bailey and I had a certain freedom we might not otherwise have had.

Vic had pleaded with me not to rush into anything. “Al, it’s so important to have a break in between relationships. You need to confront the end of you and Tom—mourn it, get over it—do whatever you have to do to be free and move on. And don’t you think it would be a good thing to have some time to yourself? Pick up with some of the girls? I saw that group e-mail about a picnic in Richmond Park. You haven’t replied—you can’t be working on a Saturday?”

“I’m not,” I said. “And it’s got nothing to do with Bailey either. It’s Dad’s birthday, they wanted us all to come home, but Phil can’t make it and neither can Fran, so I have to go.”

“Well, I’m pleased you’re not working—but just don’t keep turning down invitations,” warned Vic, “or people will think you’re not interested and stop asking you. This is the perfect opportunity for you to get back in the social mix, Al, decide where you want things to go, not just where you get swept to. If Bailey really likes you, he’ll wait until you’re ready.”

But he didn’t want to wait and I was so flattered and delighted that he wanted to see me again so badly, I found I didn’t want to wait either.

We went for dinner at a tiny little tapas place that I had never even heard of and talked for hours about the places he had been and countries I wanted to see. He’d reached over the table and held my hand, gently caressing the inside of my wrist with languid fingers. Then, in the back of the taxi—I was very aware of the slight space between us—he had rested his hand on my leg. We jolted as the cab went over a speed bump and he grinned as I was thrown towards him. “That’s much better,” he said and then he kissed me again.

The journey was the fastest I’ve ever known—all I was aware of was his hand on my thigh, my breath quickening and his kiss becoming deeper as we twisted around on the backseat so we could face each other.

“Are you coming in?” he said to me as the taxi pulled up outside his front door and he kissed me softly on the tip of my nose. “No pressure.”

I hesitated, and then shook my head. He nodded understandingly and said, “I had the best evening. Text me when you get home—let me know you got back safe.”

So I did, and got a text back saying, “I’m lying on my bed thinking of you x.” I clutched my phone to myself with delight and longing. He was so unbelievably sexy. Several heady days at work followed, where I found it hard to concentrate and even forgot a booking completely. I temporarily sobered up when I dreamily drifted in to open up the studio and found a very cross client waiting for me. By Friday, I was so completely overexcited about meeting him again, I took some of the worst shots of my professional career; just about acceptable, but dull, dull, dull. It bothered me a bit, but not enough to redo them. Instead I rushed home early so I could take my time getting ready before slipping into my brand-new matching underwear, specially purchased for the evening ahead. Just in case.

It didn’t stay on for long. After another meal and two bottles of red wine, my resolve, and any guilt I might have felt about Tom, fell away completely. “I don’t want you to think I do this sort of thing with just anyone,” I said afterward, lying in his bed and his arms.

“Of course not,” he said, “but you do it very well nonetheless.” He kissed my neck.