What My Best Friend Did: A Novel by Dawson Lucy

Author:Dawson, Lucy [Dawson, Lucy]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins e-books
Published: 2010-11-30T05:00:00+00:00

SEVENTEEN

The high-pitched mechanical bleep bounces off the hospital walls, my eyes are wide with fear as the alarm relentlessly sounds and I’m starting to shake. Not again—oh God, not again. Tom’s face is ashen as he looks first at the nurse fiddling with the tubes above Gretchen’s head and then at Gretchen herself, the only person untroubled by the noise.

Bailey looks absolutely petrified, he’s not even been in the room long enough to sit down yet and now this. “Don’t panic!” the nurse says loudly, moving smartly around to the other side of the room and pushing a button. The noise dies immediately. “It’s not her heart. A tube needed reconnecting,” she explains. “The alarm has to go off so we know about it, that’s all.”

Seconds later, as we are recovering ourselves, a doctor arrives to give Bailey a rundown of what has happened and an update on Gretchen’s current condition, so Tom and I are again removed to the relatives’ room. Tom is now extremely agitated. He isn’t the only one.

“He won’t remember everything they’re telling him, this is ludicrous!” He paces the room. “He’s just arrived, you don’t have to be Brain of Britain to see he’s not going to take it all in. One of us should be with him—if not me, you,” he says, which must cost him.

“Be patient, Tom, he’ll be back in a minute.”

“Patient?” He looks at me incredulously. “If that were your …” But he bites his lip and manages not to finish the end of his sentence.

The nurse pops her head around the door. “Tom? Would you like to go back through now?”

Without waiting for me, Tom practically shoves her aside so he can get past her through the door. I stand up to follow as the nurse comes all the way in and says casually, but with an assured, no-nonsense tone to her voice, “Let’s just give them a minute.”

I sit back down, but instinctively know something is up.

The nurse sits down too. “So, how long have you and Gretchen been friends?” she asks chattily, absently twisting her wedding ring.

I look at her, frightened and wary. “Over a year now. Why?”

“Not long really then.” She puts her head on one side, clean light hair gleaming, and waits.

“We’re very close though,” I say to plug the gap. “You know how you just click with some people?”

She smiles. “Absolutely, kindred spirits and all that. I’ve known my best friend since school. Love her to pieces but she drives me crazy sometimes. I expect Gretchen does you, too?”

I don’t say anything. I just glance out of the window. “Sometimes, yes, she does,” I say eventually. “She can be very difficult … but then she’s a manic-depressive.” I look back at the nurse. “Although I’m sure you already know that. So she can’t help some of the things she does.”

“I understand,” says the nurse. “It must be quite hard for you sometimes though.”

She has no fucking idea. “Harder for her, I think.”

“Of course, but equally

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