Chapter One #2
As the train trundles out of the tunnel, a missed-call notification pops up on her phone, disrupting the image of the DJ.
It’s from the GP’s office. Did the blood-test results from the sexual-health clinic come back already?
For a split second she worries she might be pregnant or something but then she remembers her period, which came on over the weekend, explaining the ongoing stomach aches she’s been experiencing lately.
Anika ignores the message for now and a few minutes later the train pulls into its final stop.
She puts her unread book away again and joins the throng crowding off the train – after waiting back for those entitled people who feel the need to push, of course.
She’s nowhere near as eager to start another working week.
This job was meant to be a gateway, but climbing up the ranks of radio-advertising sales is hardly what Anika envisioned for herself when she was first hired.
Her plan was to get any role at the umbrella broadcasting company, Format Radio, to get her foot in the door – which she did.
Then she imagined a nimble move to Production Assistant before swiftly becoming a producer at SpinRadio, the foremost ‘urban’ music station in the UK.
She thought that in no time she’d be producing late-night specialist shows, then maybe even working her way up to overseeing one of the highest-rated breakfast shows alongside a certain someone …
The reality? She’s still stuck in this isolated, dead-end ad-sales job pretending to care about rate cards and targets, and not even for the good stations.
She primarily covers nostalgia channels and talk radio.
She’s so close yet so far away from the golden jewel of her dream job.
At least it’s comfortable. Predictable.
Anika brightens up when her 5G revives so that as she’s finishing the five-minute walk to her office building, she’s able to catch the final part of the animated but subtle dragging that Cam Asiedu is giving this morning’s guest.
‘I get you, man, I get you – reusing a sample we’re all overly familiar with does at least give that recognition factor, for sure. What do we reckon, listeners? Let us know. I mean, imitation’s the sincerest form of flattery and all that …’
Anika smiles to herself at the husky laugh Cam emits into the mic.
Heading up the escalators in the huge, echoing foyer of her building and on to the crowded lift, Anika decides to stop off in the canteen on the tenth floor and pick up a coffee.
She pulls out her earbuds, realising that Spin is being piped in there today, rather than one of the dry Format radio stations.
As she laughs at another one of Cam’s jokes while she waits in the queue for hot drinks, Anika hears someone join her from behind and recognises the breathy trill. Her neck stiffens.
‘The way Cam’s trying to draw this idiot out.
I don’t know why he’s even bothering to get into it with the guy,’ the voice says, and Anika turns around grudgingly to be met with the shiny smile of Nia Ojo-Westcombe – a woman who has been working her way up the production side, having just been promoted to AP.
Her perfectly defined 3b dark-auburn curls dance above her shoulders and she’s wearing a form-fitting, sleeveless denim jumpsuit that Anika doubts she’d get away with at all, let alone consider wearing to work. She forces out a smile in return.
‘Mm. He’s definitely holding his feet to the flames.’
‘Makes fucking good radio, though, doesn’t it?’ Nia’s grin stretches.
Anika’s short laugh sounds fake in her own ears, not that the woman is wrong. She was thinking the same thing, obviously.
‘Yeah,’ she says, then turns and is grateful to see the expectant face of the perennially smiley Italian barista at the coffee concession stand. She orders her usual – black, no sugar – and pays quickly.
‘See you at ten,’ Nia calls after her and Anika flickers her lips up and down around the edge of her coffee cup in Nia’s general direction.
Oh, joy, the production meeting first thing.
She heads towards the stairs so as not to get caught in more small talk for a couple more glorious minutes before she reaches her open-plan desk.
But just as she reaches the top of the stairs, an aggressive blast of Outkast’s ‘Bombs Over Baghdad’ punctuates through the sleek RnB that Cam is playing as she returns to her earbuds. Looking at her phone screen, she sees it’s the GP.
‘They’re ringing again?’ she murmurs.
Anika turns and starts to walk back down the stairs, letting the call go to voicemail until she’s made her way to the ground level.
Stepping back outside into the baking sunshine, still holding her coffee, Anika scoots away from a trio of colleagues having a final pre-work cigarette near the entrance to the office building and dials into her voicemail.
A slightly dismissive-sounding message greets her. ‘Er, hi, Miss … Lapo. This is Dr Ogden calling from Glendon Hill GP. We’ve had your blood test back from Trent Gardens sexual-health clinic? There were some abnormalities, so if you could give us a call back …’
What? Her stomach lurches. Anika hits redial and glances over her shoulder through the large glass facade of the building and the people bustling through the security gates and up the escalators.
The hold music kicks in and she’s told she’s third in the …
‘Glendon Hill GP surgery.’
‘Uh, yes, sorry, hi,’ she says, caught unawares by how quickly position three in the queue became one. ‘My name is Anika Lapo – someone left me a message about a blood—’
‘Can I take your date of birth, please?’ the receptionist says in a manner that suggests she is used to cutting people off from giving her a full medical breakdown.
‘Sorry, yes.’ Anika glances around again. ‘July the fourth, 1992.’ She’s been allowing her workmates to labour under the impression she’s still in her thriving mid-twenties, not days away from the big 3-0.
‘Ah, yes, OK. Bear with me just a moment.’ An instrumental of one of Anika’s most hated songs by the Lighthouse Family starts up, so she’s already in a bad mood when the GP picks up a couple of minutes later.
‘Miss Lapo?’
Fighting the urge to ‘Ms’ at him, Anika says, ‘Yes, hi?’
‘Hi there. This is Dr Ogden. Um, yes … So, you went to the Trent Gardens clinic over the weekend, is that right?’
‘Yes.’ Get on with it! Her heart is starting to quicken. Jesus, what’s Len given me?
‘Good, right, yes.’ All three words sound like redundant habit. ‘So, the blood test shows some unusually low white blood cells and some other markers here are a bit of a concern …’
Anika’s throat blasts into scorched dryness. ‘What does … ?’ She coughs, not necessarily wanting to ask what that actually might mean. ‘Right,’ she opts for saying instead, leaving the door open for him to say something else redundant and routine. Desperate for it.
Instead, she hears the doctor draw a hesitant breath. ‘Yes. It’s quite urgent. I think you ought to get yourself down to an A&E, because they’ll be able to—’
‘A&E?’ she interrupts loudly. The smokers turn to look at her as they stub out their cigarettes. She lowers her voice. ‘Like, now? You’re saying I should go to the hospital right now?’
The doctor clears his throat. ‘Yes, I think it’s best if they run some more bloods and give you a check over, because these results from the weekend are definitely out of the normal ranges …
’ It’s only now she notices a soft Yorkshire lilt to the doctor’s voice and a note of genuine concern.
Panic tries to surge but is dragged back by an ever-present pull of restraint and resignation.
The sensations mingle awkwardly in Anika’s chest. She doesn’t say anything and he continues.
‘It’s just best if you go to A&E because they can process things much quicker and they’d be better placed to check you out there. ’
Anika starts to calculate what level of awkward it might be to tell her line manager that she needs to head off to A&E instead of heading to her desk.
Emergency. It sounds surreal, even inside her head.
Another nervous swoop loops around her stomach, followed by the tight clench she’s been feeling for a couple of weeks now.
‘Right,’ she says into her handset at last. ‘I’ll, um … Yeah, OK.’
‘OK, Miss Lapo?’ he asks, with an uptick that suggests he’s largely washing his hands of this now – not unkindly but out of necessity.
‘Yep. Thanks.’ Gratitude isn’t contained in the word. She ends the call in a haze.
‘Everything all right?’ It’s Tara, one of the PR ‘girls’ from her floor, as she breezes past Anika.
I don’t think so. ‘Um, yeah.’ Anika feels sweat prickling on her forehead as the truth of her isolation takes hold.
‘Coming up?’
‘I …’ Don’t have to tell you anything. ‘Sorry, um … I have a bit of a thing.’ She hears the abstract, meaningless nature of her words.
‘I have to go.’ Internally, she berates herself for apologising.
What have they been talking about at the ‘What Working Women Want’ meet-ups?
Stop saying sorry, girls! A small smile of sarcastic amusement tickles Anika’s lips.
Tara’s expression turns puzzled as she pauses by the rotating doors into the building. ‘Do you need me to let someone know you’re—?’
‘Nah, it’s all good,’ Anika says, then quickly adjusts her speech. ‘I mean, no. It’s fine. I’ll call in. Thanks.’ She takes a few steps away and opens the map app on her phone.
Where the fuck is the nearest A&E?