Chapter 4
“You do realise,” Tom said, about two seconds after arriving in the waiting room of St. Thomas’s Hospital, “that I work with people who know how to make bodies disappear.”
Bridge had, in fact, told him that it was all her idea, but he didn’t seem to think that made a difference. And, to be fair, he was right. “I’m really sorry,” I said. “Really, really sorry. Really, really, really sorry.”
He rubbed his eyes with the weariness of a man who had been dragged out of bed at four-something-horrible in the morning because his wife had gone into labour on the Millennium Bridge because her arsehole best friend had been having a panic attack about a puppy.
It was a remarkably specific kind of weariness.
“I know you are. But I was kind of hoping you’d got past the stage of thinking that doing a shitty thing and feeling bad about it is the same as not doing a shitty thing in the first place. ”
“I have.” I tried to be all dignified and taking responsibility and everything, but I felt about three inches tall and fourteen years old. “I just… I had a relapse.”
“Do you not understand how wrong this could have gone? You could have seriously hurt Bridge.”
Everyone in the waiting room, friends and strangers alike, was studiously looking away. Which I guess was better than filming it so they could post it to TikTok, called something like Wow as a Complete Stranger I Don’t Know What’s Going on Here but It’s Clearly Luc’s Fault.
“She insisted,” I protested. “What was I supposed to say? No?”
“Yes. You were supposed to say no.”
“I tried.”
“You should have tried harder. What the hell is wrong with you?”
“I mean, do you want the list—”
“No, I don’t want the list. Look, I”—apparently rubbing his eyes wasn’t sufficient to cope with me, so Tom had progressed to rubbing his whole head—“it’s not for me to decide who Bridge is friends with or what those friendships look like.
But, fuck me, Luc. Being slightly less of a liability than you used to be still makes you a liability. ”
I had literally no answer for that. Because it was sort of true and sort of not true at the same time, and it didn’t seem productive to get into a debate about my personal growth with an ex-boyfriend who was married to my best friend, who we were both extremely worried about.
“Look,” he said again, still rubbing, but making a visible effort to not despise me. “I’m…sorry. I’m upset and I’m tired and I need to be with Bridge.”
“I never meant to get in the way of that.”
“I know. But, somehow, you always do.”
I literally had no answer for that either, but I didn’t need one because Tom had left.
“Wow,” said Andi. “That was the sort of life experience I’m glad I got to see from the outside.”
Somewhere out in the ether there was a comeback I could have given that was arch yet humble in a way that would make me seem cool, despite having just received the third-worst dressing-down I’d ever had in my life.
Unfortunately, somewhere was nowhere near me, so I just said, “Thanks. I feel incredibly comforted.”
I was aiming for playful, but I must have overshot and landed in pissy, because Priya gave me an exasperated look and said, “You know, I was going to say something nice about how Tom didn’t really mean it and he’s married to Bridge so he must know what she’s like, but since you’re continuing to handle this whole situation like a dickhead, you’re on your own. ”
“Hang on, why does Tom get a crisis pass but I don’t?”
“Because you caused the crisis.”
“I just want to say,” I said ill-advisedly, “as a feminist,” I added, even more ill-advisedly, “that putting all this on me is stripping Bridge of, like, agency and shit. She was instrumental in this crisis.”
Andi shifted uncomfortably on her blue plastic chair. “I’m beginning to think we should play fuck, marry, kill again.”
A woman with one shoe and a swollen ankle, whose partner had gone off to hit up the vending machine, looked over at our little group. “From what I’ve seen,” she said, “I’d fuck her”—she indicated Andi—“marry her”—that was Priya—“and—”
“I know.” I flung my hands in the air. “I know.”
* * *
So, having a baby, it turned out, took a while.
And since we’d brought Bridge to hospital, it would have looked some kind of way to drop her and bog off like we were delivering a HelloFresh box.
On the other hand, it also felt a bit weird to be bunging up the hospital waiting room for literal hours for an event that didn’t typically have spectators.
I mean, unless you counted partners and medical professionals.
Or, assuming the history I’d learned from TV was accurate, an entire medieval court.
To make matters worse, not only had I fucked up by starting a sequence of events that had inevitably led to my heavily pregnant friend going into labour on the Millennium Bridge at three in the morning, but I’d fucked further up by trapping myself in a waiting room with two-thirds of a throuple I wasn’t part of.
So while I was stewing internally about six different things at once, Priya was resting with her head on her girlfriend’s shoulder looking tired and comfortable and—I tried not to take this personally—contented.
Normally I could at least have distracted myself with my phone, but about an hour ago I’d texted Oliver—my very amazing partner who I lived with and was getting a dog with some time in what was now very definitely this afternoon—the words Bridge in labour and At st thomases, with no further explanation.
So now I was terrified to even look at the damned thing.
So I went to the vending machine and bought nothing.
Then having barely got back to my seat, I went to the vending machine again in the vain hope that the selection had magically changed.
Then I walked over to the window. Then another window.
Then I began to realise quite how surrounded by cheerful NHS posters I was.
Just ask: Could it be sepsis?
I went back to the vending machine. I was pretty sure it wasn’t sepsis, and I thought asking now would probably be a bad call.
1 in 8 men will get prostate cancer: Early diagnosis saves lives.
Maybe it was what Oliver would call a cognitive bias, but I felt like I was seeing prostate cancer stuff a lot lately. And that wasn’t the context in which I usually liked to think about my prostate.
I glanced across the room and saw a group of serious-looking sportsmen who I hoped might offer me some advice about, say, general fitness.
Prostate cancer: It’s not a game.
Okay, not that one then.
Lads, get in early…for prostate cancer testing.
I knew I had a lot of personality flaws.
Like, a lot of personality flaws. But I’d never, really never, thought hypochondria was one of them.
Except I was pretty sure there was a hard limit to the number of times you could be told about prostate cancer without coming to at least suspect that you have prostate cancer.
I went to the loo. While I was there, I tried very, very hard not to read too much into the flow of my urine. I did try to ask if it could be sepsis, but I wasn’t really sure what the it was. And at least if it was sepsis, it wasn’t prostate cancer.
Fuck, was I turning into my dad? My dad who definitely did not have prostate cancer. Who had in fact probably left me with a genetic predisposition towards not getting prostate cancer. Although also with one towards thinking I had it.
While I was washing my hands, a picture of an uncomfortable-looking baby urged me to Keep your child safe from rickets, which was a whole different can of worms because I didn’t have a child but I was planning to get a dog, and while I didn’t think dogs could get rickets, I wasn’t really sure.
What if my future dog got rickets? What if it was my fault my future dog got rickets?
Don’t face dementia alone, I was warned on the way back to my seat. And I hadn’t been planning to. Although to be fair, I’d also not been planning to Boost your immunity this winter, and I maybe should have been because, like, herd immunity was still really important and stuff.
OUCH! Could it be chlamydia?
It could, I thought. It could also be sepsis.
I sat down at last, picked up the rapidly cooling cup of coffee I’d bought on vending machine trip number two, and found myself staring right down the barrel of:
A man dies every hour of prostate cancer in the UK.
In desperation, I picked up my phone, because at this stage Oliver’s inevitable string of decreasingly confused and increasingly disappointed messages was going to mess with my head a lot worse than the NHS trying to convince me that I had a small but highly specific range of medical conditions.
Lucien where are you?
Having reread your message I assume you are at St. Thomas’s Hospital with Bridget.
Why are you at St. Thomas’s Hospital with Bridget?
Having thought about it I assume it’s because you were with her when she went into labour.
Why were you with Bridget when she went into labour which seems to have happened some time before 4:30 this morning?
Why aren’t you replying to my messages?
Lucien has something happened?
Lucien?
Lucien I tried to call you but it went to voicemail.
Is Bridget all right? Have there been complications?
Are you all right?
Are you and Bridget all right?
Are you still with Bridget?
You forgot your keys.
Lucien I would really like to know what is happening.
I am coming to St. Thomas’s now. Please text me if that is not where you are.
Or if it is where you are.
I am coming to St. Thomas’s. I will be driving and not able to look at my phone.