The Interview by Gill Perdue

Author:Gill Perdue [Perdue, Gill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781844885121
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2022-01-18T00:00:00+00:00

29. Jenny

They’re both already there in the room, when brown-haired nurse brings me back. I wanted to stay with Smiley Nurse but she had to go somewhere else. She’s young, like maybe twenties, and she brought me down to the café and they gave me hot chocolate. She even paid. Because I’d no money.

‘When am I going home?’ I kept asking her. ‘You can tell them I’m fine, can’t you?’ But Ellie – that’s her name – she just kept smiling and saying stuff like ‘It won’t be long now. I’m pretty sure you’ll be home soon.’ I thought I liked her, but that’s more lies, Ellie. But she got me hot chocolate, so I didn’t say anything bad.

And now Laura and Niamh – Niamh who is cowgirl Niamh today – they look like stormtroopers or something. They’ve been outside and you can smell that outdoors, crisp, smoky smell off them. It’s like crackling little sparks on their clothes. They know something. That’s what it is. They’re looking at each other like they’re the team, but it’s meant to be me and Laura, our team to find the truth. Dumb dumb of course, here you go, dumb bitch, liking Laura with your dumb girl crush and thinking she’s going to fix everything.

I see now, they’re buddies, pardners, like the cop shows. Of course they are. And I’m just the day job. Bitches.

‘Is there a band in this hospital?’ I say to Laura, and I play a little rat-a-tat on the chair before I sit down. She jumps. She’s still jumpy. It’s funny because I think she’d like to say, ‘What a dumb question,’ but she can’t.

‘I don’t think so,’ she says – true professional. ‘Interesting idea, though.’

‘When Ringo was thirteen, he had TB and he was in hospital for ages, like a year or something, and that’s where he learned to play the drums – in the hospital band. He used the cardboard tubes from the inside of bandage containers as his drumsticks. And he’d thwack them on the lockers and stuff.’

‘Is that one of your dad’s Beatles facts?’ And there, just like that, she ruins it. Luke found it on the internet, but I’m not telling her. Haha. That’s right.

But then maybe she is pissed off, like really pissed off, because I can’t believe what she does and Niamh just lets her. She says I can trust her and I am sick saying it, no no, don’t trust her. She gets the clock and snap snaps the batteries in, then she hangs it back up on the wall.

‘I know you don’t like it, but the clock is ticking, Jenny.’

Hahstupidhah, she probably thinks that’s funny and I thought she was nice but now it’s like, bring it on, bitch.

‘Sunday. Stuart’s been gone since Sunday, Jen. But you saw him on Sunday, didn’t you? There was an office party?’

His smartest outfit for the party. And I nearly puke then; it surges up when I remember the blue shirt. But it’s okay, I don’t puke.

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