Chapter 5
Rose
The set of unmade packing boxes in the hallway were perturbing me. They’d been there for at least five days, neatly stacked against the wall, still flat, still in cellophane wrappers, the light from the sconces reflecting off the plastic, making them look almost pretty.
I was trying to find the silver lining.
Harriet moving away was hitting me hard.
I could analyse myself, reflect, apply understanding and theory as to why I felt like I did, why I found attachments so intense if I felt them at all, why big changes to my routine upset my equilibrium.
I had an autism diagnosis, which I’d received as a younger child, and I also had attachment difficulties, growing up without my father around and relying on my mother to keep my world stable and safe.
Friends had taken on some of that role as I got older, and my step-father, Seph, had become an anchor quickly.
His big, overwhelming family had been wrapped around me like an eiderdown, warm and sometimes suffocating, especially if one of my cousins has been pulling it over my head.
I’d met Harriet when I’d been scared. It had been a pre-op appointment, and one of the nurses had shown me and my mum the ward I’d be on, helping me become familiar with it.
I’d read up on the operation I had to have, and I understood the mechanics of it.
Although my strength was in English and reading, I was still exceptional at science and biology particularly, so I got why I needed the operation.
But I was terrified.
I’d never been under anaesthetic before, I’d never stayed in hospital overnight, used to my bedroom or the room at Seph’s parents when we all stopped there, or when we went to their house in Oxfordshire.
I had a thousand different questions in my head, many of which I knew were irrational and silly and I didn’t want to ask even though hearing the answer out loud would calm me.
My mum and the nurse started talking in quiet voices, my mum voicing her own fears which I didn’t want to listen to and I knew she didn’t want me to hear her ask. So I separated myself, hanging back near a bookcase of stories that really needed an influx of more modern texts.
There was another girl, one with dark brown hair that was straighter than a giraffe’s neck and just as long, sitting on her bed with a book open, but she wasn’t reading; she was watching me.
I smiled at her awkwardly, swallowing hard because I was nervous and still not sure how to make new friends.
“Hi. I’m Rose. Are you having an operation?”
The girl smiled at me and nodded. “I’m having a valve replacement, which sounds like something a plumber would do. Are you?” She put the book face down on the bed.
I nodded as well, inching closer, not wanting to get too far into her personal space without her asking. “In a couple of days. What’s your name?”
“Harriet. Have you had an operation before?”
I shook my head and wondered how scared I looked. “Have you?”
“When I was little so I don’t really remember it, but I’ve been to this ward loads. They’re really nice here, so you’ll be okay. I’ll be here too. What are you having done?” She crossed her legs and pulled her hair back.
“I have a hole in the heart. It should only need one operation. Can I sit down?” I pointed to the grey hospital chair.
“Course. I have a condition called Tetralogy of Fallot. I could probably teach lessons on it I know so much about it, but I won’t bore you.”
“Will you need more operations after this?” I wondered how that felt, if it got easier coming into a hospital ward for an operation.
“One more for sure. Then it’ll depend on how lucky I am. How old are you?”
We stopped talking about hearts, although it was a subject we came back to often as we grew up, and not just about our health.
Boys, boyfriends, lovers. There were many ways for a heart to be broken, and not just because of medical reasons.
Harriet was in the year above me at school, just as bookish as I was, and we liked some of the same books.
During my hospital stay, we sat together reading, not needing to chat constantly, swapping books when we were done, rueing endings and sharing book hangovers.
Fallon turned up in our lives the day of my operation, rushed in as an emergency and secreted away in a room by herself, away from the four bed ward that me and Harriet were on.
We saw the faces of the nurses and heard cries from Fallon’s mother, learning Fallon’s name before she was even conscious to discover our existence.
She nearly died. We heard why – Transposition of the Great Arteries – although it sounded more like a Jules Verne novel than a medical condition, and we didn’t look it up because it scared us. But Fallon lived, surprising everyone, although that first stay wasn’t when we met her for real.
We did meet Erin though. She had been another emergency, collapsing at school again, only this time it was more serious.
She had open heart surgery five days after admission, and I came back to visit her after I’d been discharged, because all it took was a few hours the day after she came in to forge a friendship that I suspected would only expire after we all had.
I knew Harriet moving wouldn’t mean I’d lose contact with her.
If anything, I’d see and speak to her more because we’d make time for it, not being able to rely on evenings where we’d binge watch something crap on Netflix and give one word muttering because both of us were too exhausted after dealing with people all day.
Weekends in Stratford-Upon-Avon would be a pleasure, and I knew Harriet would be back to London when the mood took her, or there was a play or show on that she wanted to see. We would be okay. Our friendship could weather the pull of distance.
“I need to make those boxes up.”
I jumped, not realising Harriet had been stood in the doorway to the lounge watching me.
“Give a girl a warning.” I put my hand on my heart, the gesture the four of us would do when we wanted to be dramatic. “That could’ve been another hospital stay.”
She laughed and came closer, leaning against the wall. “You’ve barely said anything about me moving away.”
“I know. I’m sorry – I should’ve been more excited for you.” I felt about that. I knew she was thrilled about the job and the opportunity, and of moving out of London too, wanting a change of scenery.
“You will be. In a few months. It’s weird for me too. Shall I do a pot of tea?”
I followed her into the kitchen, putting on the kettle while she got out a tea pot and strainer, taking out the jar of tea leaves that would taste like Victoria sponge when they’d brewed.
It was Harriet’s favourite blend; she was particular about her tea, not really a coffee drinker, but she was sparing with it.
This meant she wanted to have a serious chat.
“It doesn’t change things overall, me moving,” she said, not looking at me as she got out two mugs and the milk from the fridge. “We’ll probably talk most nights. You’ll have a spare room for your books that Georgia’s been nagging you to bring over.”
My mother had been having a clear out. I expected they were going to downsize now my youngest brother had permanently moved out – or rather, they were downsizing before he could move back in.
“I haven’t really thought about what I’m going to do with the room.”
“Liar.” She poured the boiling water into the teapot, not splashing a single drop.
“Fair. I probably will turn it into a library.”
“Which is exactly what I’ll do with one of my spare rooms. The other I’m keeping as a guest room for when you come and stay.”
“Which I will do.”
“I know.” She studied the tea pot. It was glass and she would examine the colour of the water until it was ready to pour the first cup. “I found a photo of you and Carter when I was packing.”
“Really? Which one?” I was avoiding thinking about Carter far more than I was Harriet moving.
“I’ll go and get it. Will you take the tea strainer out and pour?”
I occupied myself with trying to pour delicately while she dashed off, returning just as I tipped a few drops of milk into each mug.
“Here.”
She passed me the photo.
It was one I’d printed out after it was taken on my phone --a selfie of the two of us, but Carter had actually taken it.
I remembered when it’d been taken, a Sunday afternoon on Clapham Common when I was seventeen and he was back from university for the summer.
We’d spent most of our time together, hanging out, pretending we were tourists in London, and he’d spent a couple of weekends with me at my grandparents in Oxfordshire.
That afternoon we’d taken a picnic and sunbathed, messed about on the outdoor gym on the Common, and then I’d sat between his legs and lounged with my back against his chest.
That was when I now knew I’d fallen in love with Carter Collins.
In the photo I was looking up at him, and he was gazing down at me. We’d been trying to take a decent photo with a man on stilts behind us, but he’d pressed the button by accident, leaving me a memory in full colour.
His hand had dropped and after that, we’d kissed. The second and last time we’d kissed.
“I think it got mixed up in my room by accident. It was behind the chest of drawers.”
Harriet broke my time travel.
“I think I put it there when I moved in here.” It wasn’t a photo I needed to gaze at because I remembered, when I allowed myself, exactly what those few minutes had been like.
“Probably. Rose, was Carter only ever a friend?” She sat down at the table, taking her tea, her mug the one filled with Shakespeare quotes, because why would it not be.
“Yes.” The truth, as it were.
“Do you still want him to just be a friend?”
I didn’t answer straight away, not this time. I took my mug – a Hamilton one – and sat down opposite Harriet.