Chapter 17 #2
One particular bad phone call came in Year Twelve, sometime after formal but before graduation.
Maybe I was done with exams, or perhaps I was still in the middle of them.
The girls I had called friends for all those years were no longer keeping up pretences; I had said one too many drunk, wrong things, kissed one too many unclaimed crushes.
They could see the light at the end of the tunnel, a life where they did not have to include me anymore, and so they skipped ahead.
Their futures held different things to mine, and it felt fair; I was not particularly surprised by it.
I went to class, spent lunchtimes in the library, and on weekends I hung out with my new boyfriend, a wet sponge of a guy called Ben who seemed to like me so much for someone who knew next to nothing at all about me.
Perhaps that was the basis of the attraction.
We had met working at the newsagents his parents owned and it quickly grew to feel as though I would lose my job if I broke up with their son.
Did they imply this? It sure felt like they did, but maybe not.
Maybe it was one of those times where I felt a way about something that was totally separate to how anyone else perceived it.
Or maybe I perceived it accurately, only no one else was willing to admit it.
Anyway, Ben and I were at the lookout on the road out of town, the one with the wooden tables and chairs that every boring, basic couple carved their name into as though it was the mountain’s own Pont des Arts.
The romantic pinnacle of suburban mountain life.
Ben had brought his pocketknife especially for this occasion, and I had brought binoculars so I could leave, at least in my own mind. I lingered there.
I sat in our tree, telling Fran about my day. We laughed about the lookout, and Ben, and he asked me why I was even dating him, though not in a mean way. I could not think of an answer, and that made us laugh even more. He told me we should be together, instead. What a perfect idea.
Rudely interrupting, my phone lit up on the table, and when I saw it was Mum, I hit the button to reject the call.
It was already on silent; it was always on silent.
She rang again, and when I did not answer she sent a text: ‘Please call ASAP, it’s about Fran’.
I have never hit call so fast in my life.
‘What happened?’ I did not give Mum time to say a word.
‘There’s been an accident. I’m not sure exactly, but there was an ambulance at the Baileys’ and Dad said he saw them wheel Fran out on a stretcher.’
‘Well can you go over and see what happened? Which hospital is he at?’ My voice sounded hysterical in my own ears.
‘I wouldn’t want to intrude, honey. I just thought you would want to know.’
I hung up like we were in a movie and did not have to say goodbye. Ben had finished his initials and was starting on the ‘N’.
‘I need to go home.’
‘I’m nearly finished here. What happened?’
‘There’s been an accident. Fran.’
‘Who’s Fran again? Your grandma?’
I had forgotten in that moment that I had not told Ben a single thing about Fran, which felt absurd because how could I not have mentioned the most important person in my life, but therein lay the answer.
It was not his fault, but I could not help but blame him all the same, as though he had sent Fran to the hospital personally, with his uninspired carvings and boring opinions about a world he never questioned.
‘We need to go, now.’ My panic had morphed into rage, as it was wont to do.
‘Give me a sec, I’m nearly done.’
‘I swear to God, Ben. You don’t need to finish my initials because I don’t want to be your girlfriend anymore, I just want you to take me home.’
That did the trick. Ben folded away his knife and did not speak another word to me for the entire drive home, or ever again.
Months later he sent me a hate-filled email about all the ways he despised me, and in fact, all women, and Fran – although he did not have much to work with there because he knew even less about Fran than he did about me/all women.
It was weird – he was not a good writer, and maybe he had even copy–pasted sections from some other angry man’s screed because the font and formatting changed at different points, and I could never muster much of a feeling about it one way or the other.
And I did lose my job at the newsagents, after that.
Of course, they did not say it was because of the break-up, costs needed to be cut you see, and when they hired someone new a week later, I was not particularly surprised.
I told myself I needed to trust my instincts more, about a lot of things. If only I had listened back then.
I did not even step inside my house when Ben dropped me home, I vaulted the side fence and knocked with all my might on the back screen door, which made an awful racket.
‘Woah, chill out,’ Martin said as he came to the door.
‘What happened to Fran?’
By that time my whole body was shaking – I suppose, looking back, it must have been shock.
‘He collapsed, he vomited everywhere and his whole body was . . .’ Martin enacted convulsions in an overblown and almost farcical way. I hated him. ‘Mum reckons he had a seizure,’ he said.
‘Which hospital has he gone to?’
‘I don’t know. Mum went with him. I’m sure he’ll be fine.’
‘Call her and find out where he is.’
Martin refused, and refused again, until I grabbed him by the front of his rugby jersey and demanded he do exactly what I said, with a voice that made me sound possessed.
‘Jesus, alright, psycho,’ he said, walking away from the door.
It was silent for a while, too long, and I was about to start banging on the door again when he came back with his phone to his ear.
‘Cool, thanks Mum. I’ll let her know.’
He hung up and put his phone in his pocket.
‘So?’
‘He’s being transferred to Nambour for more tests. They’re on their way now; Mum reckons you can visit in a couple of hours. So maybe chill out for a bit, yeah?’
I would not be waiting a couple of hours; I would be getting to Nambour Hospital as soon as possible and then waiting to rush to his side the very second I was allowed to see him.
‘You’re welcome!’ Martin called out as I climbed back over the fence, and I gave him the finger for being such a massive prick.
Mum drove me to the hospital without hesitation. She packed me water and snacks and a change of clothes.
‘You must feel so worried. I know how much you two care about each other,’ she said, as we started our slow, winding descent.
‘Martin said he’s fine, he’s going to be fine.’
‘I know, sweetie, but sometimes your feelings still need to have their say.’
Mum pulled into a loading zone and dropped me off before going to park the car.
It was like she knew I would not have handled the extra few minutes in the car, despite the fact I would be unlikely to see him for hours.
She validated the urgency; she let my feelings have their say.
We sat for what could have been minutes or hours or days in the waiting room, until Mrs Bailey came out to greet us.
She and Mum held a gentle truce and she hugged me in an uncomfortable kind of way.
I was unsure if Martin had told her about my feral behaviour, but she was kind to me regardless.
‘He’s down having an MRI now, but he should be back up soon and then you can come through and say hello,’ she said.
After more waiting, we were finally led through white hallways to room number 123, a calming number if ever I saw one.
When I saw Fran’s face, I immediately burst into tears, as was my style.
He was wearing a blue gown, with an IV connected to his left arm.
Mum and Mrs Bailey took my reaction as a sign to give us a bit of privacy, both of them stepping back into the hall, and I proceeded to sob for many more minutes, eventually curling up at the foot of his hospital bed in the foetal position, because I guess I was an attention-seeking drama queen who had to make this moment about myself.
Fran, by this point, looked almost amused.
‘I’m sorry I’m crying so much, I’m not trying to make this about me,’ I sniffed, sitting up and trying to pull myself together.
‘It’s okay, you can cry. My mum did too,’ he replied.
I splashed some cold water on my face at the sink by his bed, and when I sat back down, I was slightly more composed. I felt glad for the empty beds in the rest of the room and the privacy that allowed us.
‘So, what do they think happened?’ I asked, trying to be calm.
‘I had a seizure. Because it’s the first time, they’re trying to figure out what caused it, and if it’s a one-off, or if it could be epilepsy,’ he replied.
‘What does that mean? Can you die from epilepsy?’
‘There’s a risk, I think, but a lot of people have it and live whole normal lives.’
‘Oh.’
‘I’m planning to live for a long time, don’t worry,’ he said.
I cried some more, thinking of Fran and his right to live a whole normal life. He patted the bed beside him, and I crawled up into the space under his arm, where I fitted so well.